Columbia: Carib­bean Tra­di­tional Nav­ig­a­tion Fest­ival

The sea is a fun­da­mental com­pon­ent of the his­tory, memory and daily life of the Ra­izal people, an African des­cent eth­nic minor­ity that in­hab­its Old Provid­ence and Santa Catalina (Colom­bia), small is­lands loc­ated on the West­ern Carib­bean. Much of the local know­ledge, prac­tices and live­li­hoods, are re­lated to this space, and fish­ing and nav­ig­a­tion have been cent­ral to Ra­izal so­ci­ety and cul­ture.

On Novem­ber 2020, Hur­ricane Iota dev­ast­ated Old Provid­ence and St. Catalina is­lands, des­troy­ing many houses, as well as pub­lic in­fra­struc­ture. Amongst the cul­tural ex­pres­sions that were deeply af­fected by the Hur­ricane, are fish­ing and sail­ing tra­di­tions. Al­most 80% of the ar­tis­anal fish­ing fleet was des­troyed, af­fect­ing the com­munity food sov­er­eignty, eco­nomy and cul­tural iden­tity. While sail­ing tra­di­tions, that keep alive as fun­da­mental ludic spaces also res­ul­ted af­fected, as cat­boats and cot­ton boats were par­tially or totally des­troyed.

Mean­while, the cur­rent cat­boat dam­age hinders the pos­sib­il­ity of cat­boats and cot­ton boat races, so this im­port­ant cul­tural spaces con­tinue to weaken with time. Ef­forts to safe­guard them have been scarce and dif­fi­cult, as cul­ture has not been cent­ral to the na­tional and cent­ral­ized view of the re­con­struc­tion pro­cess, al­though local de­mands of an in­teg­ral cul­tural ap­proach ac­cord­ing to local needs.

In 2022, we aim to de­velop the fourth ver­sion of the Carib­bean Tra­di­tional Nav­ig­a­tion Fest­ival, an an­nual space that seeks to con­trib­ute to safe­guard, value and strengthen the prac­tices and know­ledge of Ra­izal people mari­time cul­ture, bring­ing again dif­fer­ent activ­it­ies to the local pub­lic in Old Provid­ence and Santa Catalina, as well as San An­dres Is­land (also home to Ra­izal people and af­fected by the hur­ricane).

After the hur­ricane, we have make an ef­fort to con­tinue with this activ­ity as a way to con­trib­ute to the so­cial and cul­tural re­con­struc­tion that has not been cent­ral to the in­sti­tu­tional pro­cess. This way, in Septem­ber 2021, we de­veloped dif­fer­ent cul­tural activ­it­ies in Old Provid­ence and Santa Catalina as part of the fest­ival, link­ing know­ers/​bear­ers, cul­tural man­agers, new gen­er­a­tions (chil­dren and youth), act­iv­ists, aca­dem­ics and the gen­eral pub­lic.