La frontera invisible del territorio Wayúu

Abstract

The territory of the wayuu people is, currently, located along the northern border of Colombia and in the northeastern Venezuela. The representations concerning “the Great wayuu Nation, where there is no border” can be found in sociological and anthropological literature and are also expressed by some people of the wayuu ethnic group. But the legal international demarcation of the border has consequences for the mobility and affects the perceptions within the Wayúu territory. This paper discusses some of the representations concerning the invisible frontier that crosses the territory, comparing this to some testimonies of what in practice means the crossing of the invisible demarcation for the Wayúu, a reality that is confronted to the representations of a territory without borders.