Liberalism, working-class formation and historical memory: Dockworkers in a Colombian frontier

This dissertation is an analysis of the process of working-class formation in the Colombian frontier town of Puerto Berrio. It explores the impact of frontier conditions on gender relations and household formation, considers the diverse working communities that developed in urban and rural areas, and focuses on the significance of political identity. Based on archival research and oral history, the study considers the ways in which some events are remembered or not.; Puerto Berrio, located on the Magdalena River, emerged as a transportation hub connecting Antioquia, Colombia's coffee heartland, with river transportation and world markets. During the first decades of the twentieth century, the port attracted migrants from different parts of the country with diverse cultural and political traditions that included Liberalism and communism. They labored in numerous occupations with varied working conditions such as subsistence production, wage employment in haciendas, occupations in the informal economy, and dock work. Within this diverse world of labor, dockworkers emerged as a leading sector and enjoyed a high social status. The dissertation traces the creation of the Sindicato de Braceros Portuarios, the dockworkers' union, and cultural practices, such as the annual celebrations of the Virgin of Carmen, the union's patron, through which dockworkers expressed their status.; The impact of frontier conditions can be more directly observed in the type of domestic arrangements that workers created. Periodic migration in search of work translated into a constant process of household dissolution and reconstitution. At the same time, the mostly single male dockworkers that concentrated in the town met their daily needs not in households, but in the large informal economy that evolved.; These diverse working communities were integrated through the political language of Liberalism. The workers' appropriation of the discourse of the modernizing elite culminated in their support for Jorge Eliecer Gaitan. Memories of the armed revolt that took place in response to Gaitan's assassination and those of a major strike in 1945 reflect the impact of violent repression and persecution during the second half of the twentieth century in the creation of particular historical narratives.