From the myth of the national state to a norcontinental state in the Colombian Caribbean

Abstract

The dialectical construction of the national State in Latin America in general, and Colombia in particular, is a process based to a large extent on a national historiography characterized by its lack of political scientificity, its excessive personalism, its overwhelming centralism and its systematic omission of the decisive participation of social collectives and regional territorialities in the emancipatory phenomenon. In this sense, the objective of this article is to discuss (critically and proactively) the idea of the national State, identifying its main myths and contradictions, as a condition of possibility to build the proposal for the structuring of a new norcontinental State of the Colombian Caribbean. Methodologically, the technique of documentary research and historiographic criticism or internal critique of the sources was used. Everything allows concluding on the persistent existence of the myth of the national State and, in stark contrast, the radical political autonomy of a north-continental State of the Colombian Caribbean emerges.