ABSTRACT
This introduction offers a preliminary outlook of the South-by-North market dynamics and commodification processes that perpetuate Colombia’s “violent condition” for worldwide consumption (including the Latin American diaspora in the US). As the literary and cultural market is now avid to reinforce cultural consumers’ knowledge of Latin America’s “darker side,” Colombia has become a privileged source of gruesome narratives on narcotics warfare, kidnappings, guerrilla and paramilitary activity, and a plethora of traumatic personal accounts. Thus, “Colombian violence” has become a viable commodity for the global culture industry particularly in the last three decades, as magical realism has been replaced by a focus on specific local conflicts that satisfy global expectations of dirty realism. This appropriation of Latin America by global media conglomerates reflects and exposes “the unbearable lightness of history” (Masiello) which leads to a deterritorialization, spectacularization, and fetishization of violence “without guilt” (Herlinghaus) on the part of consumers and cultural producers. Furthermore, it is produced in accordance with neoliberalist economic practices that foster social inequality and violence.
