Activist anthropology "on the live edge" in Colombia: A conversation among collaborators

In this chapter we dialogue about the nature of our collaboration as committed activist anthropologists from the South and the North working towards territorial defense of Black Communities in Northern Cauca, Colombia. Departing from an ethnographic vignette illustrating the type of close encounters involved in undertaking research in dangerous places on dangerous issues with some of the most at-risk people caught in the crossfire of Colombia’s armed conflict, we examine the thorny ethical questions of engaged, activist research on “the live edge” - namely, the sharp edge between life and death that social leaders in Colombia and other violent contexts face day to day. We examine the effects produced by violent intrusions of interlinked coca and gold economies for activist research that supports the assertion of self-government and ancestral law despite this lethal context. The central dilemma we examine is the balancing act underpinning activist anthropology allied with social movements within the context of violent conflict on when/whether/where to stand to undertake collective research, and to co-labour.