Book

Meta Today: Territories and Post-Conflict

The book Meta Hoy: Territorios y Posconflicto offers a contemporary look at the structure and dynamics of the department of Meta and its sub-regions in the post-conflict context.

It analyzes the transition from a peasant economy, specialized in wage goods, to a model based on agroindustry, oil exploitation and new fronts of urban accumulation led by Villavicencio, a city that concentrates nearly 60% of the departmental population.

Currently, two development models coexist: a historical one and an emerging one, whose critical point is the “macrocephaly” of Villavicencio. These transformations have been intertwined with an intense armed conflict -between the State, the guerrilla insurgency and illegal groups- that deeply affected the sub-regions, whose particularities also shaped the dynamics of the conflict. All were involved in different ways, defining unique conditions for building peace and post-conflict.

The result is a socio-productive map that has changed rapidly: recomposition of peasant and settler economies, increased poverty in the capital, depopulation of several municipalities, growth linked to extractive economies, emergence of the FARC as a political force, persistence of coca crops, armed dissidents and the uncertainty of a post-conflict that is still diffuse.

The book is organized into several chapters: it begins with an overview of subregionalization and the armed conflict; continues with a detailed analysis of the phases of territorial development and their relationship with violence in each subregion; includes a pioneering exercise in historical and territorial mapping of the conflict; presents recent empirical evidence on socioeconomic and institutional dynamics; and concludes with matrices that synthesize the links between subregions and the post-conflict, projecting future scenarios.