Editorial Unimagdalena

Description in English: This book does not refer to specialists in the world of coal, nor is it limited to the specialised spheres of ecology or political ecology, in any of their ramifications. Rather, it represents an anthropological reflection led by an anthropologist and two anthropologists, who approach the coal issue from an eminently ethnographic perspective, giving voice to the main protagonists: the ordinary people who live around coal, whether related to its extraction, transport or dependent on it as their only source of subsistence.Oral narratives form the common thread of this book, which is the result of research funded by Colciencias, within the framework of the project entitled "Socio-cultural impacts generated by the exploitation, transport and export of coal in the departments of Cesar and Magdalena". This study focused on oral narratives as a key instrument for understanding, reflecting, analyzing, evading and resisting within popular cultures.Throughout three chapters, which in turn reflect the entire coal process from its extraction in the mine to its shipment to the port for export, the voices of those who live directly or indirectly from this industry express their approval or rejection of it. These oral narratives, considered at the national level as essential elements of folklore, become problematic when they are used as a basis for constructing differential identities that feed INSERT INTO national discourse. In fact, the regional "inventions" that shaped these cultural differences, in order to fit the exuberant concept of a multicultural country embodied in the Constitution, were often adapted or assimilated to non-existent principles or realities, i.e., folklorised.