Body, ‘lords’ and territory.The power and the ‘medieval mentality’ of the criminalstructures in the city of Medellín

Abstract

This text presents a reflection, which is the result of a conjunction of three elements: the empirical evidence obtained through a research carried out into the Municipality of Medellin, for the project “Sistema de Información para la Seguridad y la Convivencia (SISC)”; the conceptual and interdisciplinary reflection (history, anthropology, psychology, and others), and the methodological game of analogie: parallelisms, juxtapositions and antagonisms. This exercise pretends to show that the situation of everyday life in different  neighborhoods of Medellín, related to the groups designated combos and their power, could be read as, or precisely, puts us in the scenery of a “New Middle Ages”. This “New Middle Ages” —unseen for the citizen observer, and which is ascribed and filtered across the length and breadth of the horizon of our city— is exposed in the different sections that compose this text. Over them, it is analyzed the way of acting of the leaders of combos, which are able to create new forms of micropower, new extra-institutional dynamics, new frontlines, barracks and fortifications. On the other hand, everyday experiences of some individuals are explored from oral sources (interviews). These individuals are, in one way or another, a part of the reality that this article tries to explain, based on the continuities, discontinuities and similarities of one epoch in transition. The one that from the point of view of some great thinkers indicate a “New Middle Ages”.