Historical memory from outside and below: Practices and political agency of women and LGBTIQ+ communities in Colombian exile

This article analyses memory practices developed by sectors of the Colombian exile during the Havana Peace Talks and the mandate of the Truth Commission (CEV). It examines how women and LGBTIQ+ people mobilised memory as a form of transnational political agency to intervene in transitional justice processes and challenge state-centred and territorially bounded frameworks of historical memory. Drawing on interviews, participant observation, and document analysis, the study engages debates in memory studies, political transnationalism, and feminist and queer scholarship. The findings show that exile-based initiatives produced autonomous memory practices “from below and from outside” that disrupted long-standing institutional silences surrounding exile as a form of political victimisation. These practices rendered visible gendered and sexualised experiences of violence marginalised in earlier memory frameworks. They also foregrounded the body, affect, and care-based methodologies as key infrastructures of memory-making and transnational continuity. The analysis identifies internal tensions linked to the institutionalisation of gender perspectives and the centrality of motherhood, which generated new boundaries of recognition for queer and trans experiences. Memory produced from exile emerges as a generative sociological site through which historical memory, harm, and political legitimacy are reconfigured.