Context of the social mobilizations that took place in Zarzal, Valle del Cauca, and their relationship with youth fighting for the right to education

Abstract

This article presents the partial results of an investigation whose object was to understand the senses that the young people of the municipality of Zarzal, Valle del Cauca, granted to their struggles for the right to education during the period 2016-2019 and gives an account of the context that framed the social mobilizations that took place in Colombia throughout the first two decades of this century, as a scenario in dialogue with what was happening for those same years in other countries of the region. Thus, it was identified that in the specific context of the municipality of Zarzal, the youth social mobilizations that occurred between 2016 and 2019 were linked to the vindication of the right to education and their main actors were university students.

In methodological terms, it was investigated in institutional databases and an extensive documentary review was carried out that allowed us to reconstruct the political dynamics that framed the various expressions of social mobilization. The results of the research allow us to conclude that, as the country moved forward in a peace process, changes were generated in the political environment that favored social mobilization as a form of legitimate political participation and the vindication of education as an important right for young people.