Arturo Escobar argues that violence is not only endemic but constitutive of development. He suggests that the level of violence is closely tied to a feature of modernity that has become so naturalized that it is no longer remarked upon and at times even celebrated: displacement. Indeed, modernity is essentially about displacement – conquering territories, uprooting peoples from place, restructuring spaces, such as creating plantations and urban sprawl or ghettoes. He uses his work on Colombia to illustrate his argument.
