Territory without State, the case of the stilt villages of Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta

Abstract

This study argues that in Colombia, where the state presence is lacking, communities create and recreate extra-state forms of government, allowing them to organize peaceful, politically and legally. Through the case study (the stilt villages of Cienaga Grande de Santa Marta) will expose how a society without a clearly differentiated cultural uniqueness, but where the state has been emerging, have generated different forms of local government and parallel to the legal state-legitimating organization.