Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-gtxcr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T15:56:20.574Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Equivocal Challenges: Tactical Ambiguity and Deferral of Claim-Making in the 1948 Bogotazo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2023

Matthieu de Castelbajac Open the ORCID record for Matthieu de Castelbajac [Opens in a new window]
Matthieu de Castelbajac*
Affiliation:
School of Social Sciences, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia
*
Email: mh.decastelbajac@uniandes.edu.co
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article rethinks the dynamics of collective contention by emphasizing the role of tactical ambiguity. In the face of high political uncertainty, contentious mobilizations work best when they avoid explicit claim-making and engage instead in what I call equivocal challenges—i.e. provocative actions whose meaning will be defined by the response they elicit from specific targets. I provide detailed illustrative support for this argument through a study of the 1948 Bogotazo, by analyzing network data and repertoires of action extracted from archival sources. I conclude that rushed claim-making in contexts of political uncertainty may very well be a losing tactic and that conversely collective equivocation has significant political payoffs.

Keywords

tactical ambiguitycollective violencecontentious politicssocial networksneighborhoods
Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , Spring 2023 , pp. 67 - 94
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Social Science History Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alape, Arturo (1983) El Bogotazo: Memorias del Olvido. Bogotá: Fundación Universidad Central.Google Scholar
Albertson, Bethany L. (2015) “Dog-whistle politics: Multivocal communication and religious appeals.” Political Behavior 37 (1): 3–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aprile-Gniset, Jacques (1983) El Impacto del 9 de Abril sobre el Centro de Bogotá. Bogotá: Centro Cultural Jorge Eliécer Gaitán.Google Scholar
Archila Neira, Mauricio (1995) “Protestas sociales en Colombia 1946–1958.” Historia crítica 11: 63–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arias Trujillo, Ricardo Arias (1998) 9 de Abril de 1948. Bogotá: Panamericana Editorial.Google Scholar
Bayat, Asef (2013) Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre (1988) Homo Academicus. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Braun, Herbert (1985) The Assassination of Gaitán: Public Life and Urban Violence in Colombia. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Gibson, David R. (2011) “Avoiding catastrophe: The interactional production of possibility during the Cuban Missile Crisis.” American Journal of Sociology 117 (2): 361–419.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gould, Roger V. (1995) Insurgent Identities: Class, Community, and Protest in Paris from 1848 to the Commune. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Granovetter, Mark S. (1973) “The strength of weak ties.” American Journal of Sociology 78 (6): 1360–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, John W. (2003) Gaitanismo, Left Liberalism, and Popular Mobilization in Colombia. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.Google Scholar
Gutiérrez Sanín, Francisco (2014) El Orangután Con Sacoleva: Cien Años de Democracia y Represión En Colombia (1910–2010) Primera edición. Biblioteca IEPRI 25 Años. Bogotá: IEPRI: Debate.Google Scholar
Gutiérrez Sanín, Francisco (2017) La destrucción de una República. Bogotá: Penguin Random House Group Editorial Colombia.Google Scholar
Henderson, James D. (2001) Modernization in Colombia: The Laureano Gómez Years, 1889–1965. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.Google Scholar
Leifer, Eric M. (1988) “Interaction preludes to role setting: Exploratory local action.” American Sociological Review 53 (6): 865–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Markoff, John D. (2010) Abolition of Feudalism: Peasants, Lords, and Legislators in the French Revolution. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Martz, John D. (2012) Colombia: A Contemporary Political Survey. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
McAdam, Doug (1986) “Recruitment to high-risk activism: The case of freedom summer.” American Journal of Sociology 92 (1): 64–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McAdam, Doug, Tarrow, Sidney, and Tilly, Charles (2001) Dynamics of Contention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McPhail, Clark (2017) The Myth of the Madding Crowd. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Medina, Medófilo (1984) La Protesta Urbana en Colombia en el Siglo XX. Bogotá: Ediciones Aurora.Google Scholar
Mische, Ann (2003) “Cross-talk in movements: Reconceiving the culture-network link,” in Diani, Mario, and McAdam, Doug (eds.) Social Movements and Networks: Relational Approaches to Collective Action. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 258–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mische, Ann (2008) Partisan Publics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Mische, Ann, and White, Harrison (1998) “Between conversation and situation: Public switching dynamics across network domains.” Social Research 65 (3): 695–724.Google Scholar
Oelze, Micah (2017) “Demolishing legitimacy: Bogotá’s urban reforms for the 1948 Pan-American Conference.” Journal of Latin American Studies 49 (1): 83–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oquist, Paul H. (1980) Violence, Conflict, and Politics in Colombia. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Ortega Ricaurte, Daniel (1990) Cosas de Santa Fé de Bogotá. Bogotá: Tercer Mundo Editores.Google Scholar
Padgett, John F., and Ansell, Christopher K. (1993) “Robust action and the rise of the Medici, 1400–1434.” American Journal of Sociology 98 (6): 1259–319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palacios, Marco (2006) Between Legitimacy and Violence: A History of Colombia, 1875–2002. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Pécaut, Daniel (1987) Orden y Violencia: Colombia 1930–1954. Bogotá: CEREC.Google Scholar
Polletta, Francesca (2006) It Was Like a Fever: Storytelling in Protest and Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rabinowitch, Alexander (1976) The Bolsheviks Come to Power: The Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Roldán, Mary (2002) Blood and Fire: La Violencia in Antioquia, Colombia, 1946–1953. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Said, Atef (2015) “We ought to be here: Historicizing space and mobilization in Tahrir Square.” International Sociology 30 (4): 348–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sánchez Gómez, Gonzalo (1984) Los Díaz de la revolución: gaitanismo y 9 de abril en provincia. Bogotá: Centro Cultural Jorge Eliécer Gaitán.Google Scholar
Sánchez Gómez, Gonzalo (1985) “La Violencia in Colombia: New research, new questions.” Hispanic American Historical Review 65 (4): 789–807.Google Scholar
Scott, James C. (1990) Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Sharpless, Richard E. (1978) Gaitán of Colombia: A Political Biography. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Snow, David A., Rochford, E. Burke, Worden, Steven K., and Benford, Robert D. (1986) “Frame alignment processes, micromobilization, and movement participation.” American Sociological Review 51 (4): 464–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snow, David A., Vliegenthart, Rens, and Corrigall-Brown, Catherine (2007) “Framing the French riots: A comparative study of frame variation.” Social Forces 86 (2): 385–415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sowell, David (1998) “Repertoires of contention in urban Colombia, 1760s–1940s: An inquiry into Latin American social violence.” Journal of Urban History 24 (3): 302–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steinberg, Marc W. (1999) “The talk and back talk of collective action: A dialogic analysis of repertoires of discourse among nineteenth-century English cotton spinners.” American Journal of Sociology 105 (3): 736–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, E. P. (1971) “The moral economy of the English crowd in the eighteenth century.” Past & Present 50 (1): 76–136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tilly, Charles (1995) Popular Contention in Great Britain, 1758–1834. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles (2003) The Politics of Collective Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tilly, Charles (2008) Contentious Performances. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tilly, Charles, and Tarrow, Sidney G. (2015) Contentious Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Williford, Thomas J. (2009) “Los actos anticlericales impulsivos del 9 de Abril: retórica y realidad,” in Augusto, César, Diago, Ayala, Javier, Oscar, Osorio, Casallas, Alberto, Henry, and Villalobos, Cruz (eds.) Mataron a Gaitán, 60 años. Bogotá: Editorial Universidad Nacional: 171–98.Google Scholar
Zaret, David (2019) “Petition-and-response and liminal petitioning in comparative/historical perspective.” Social Science History 43 (3): 431–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar