Sound Postcards in Forced Displacement: Changes in the Social Fabric of Victims of the Armed Conflict in Colombia Based on an Analysis of Their Sound Environments

Abstract

The objective of this study was to analyse the changes in social fabric caused by the armed conflict in Colombia among people who had been the victims of forced displacement and who when arriving in the new places participate in a musical-social programme. The study was conducted using testimonies from interviews and in the form of sound postcards, an ethnographic research tool. Twenty-one interviews with 14 interviewees in the Music for Reconciliation (MFR) programme of the Batuta National Foundation (BNF) and their families were analysed, and 70 sound postcards, revealing the meaning of interviewees’ sonic landscapes, or soundscapes, in their everyday lives. Their sound environments were found to have changed significantly; having been rural before forced displacement they became urban, and there were also changes in interviewees’ social bonds with people and relationships to objects in the environment. The study reveals a significant change in their sound landscapes before and after forced displacement and analyses the impact of these sonic landscapes and their meaning in the everyday lives of the participants. Finally, the use of sound postcards highlights MFR music centres as places where displaced people can be helped to form new bonds. The sound environment of these music centres give meaning to music making, generating positive feelings and providing participants with an emotional support network.