Acceso usuarios
Florian Homann
This study explores how song lyrics–as a form of lyrical poetry–construct a counter-memory against the enforced forgetting of victims of multiple massacres in Colombia. Focusing on the song ¿Quién los mató? (Who Killed Them?) (2020) from Cali, it examines how the work challenges the impunity of those responsible for political killings, perpetuated through defensive forgetting that sustains injustice for affected families. The study adopts a transdisciplinary methodology, combining literary approaches to collective memory and intermediality–examining the interplay between text and music–with postcolonial perspectives on violence, social justice, political discourse, and resistant poetry. This approach highlights how the lyrics confront oblivion, racism, and discrimination against Afro-Colombian communities, emphasizing the decisive role of the song’s musical-poetic features and its references to extratextual sociopolitical realities as instruments for denouncing structural violence and the hegemonic systems that sustain it.
