Project at HIAS
Between Engagement and Detachment: Photographers Facing the Colombian Armed Conflict
During his fellowship at HIAS, Juan Pablo Aranguren Romero works on a research project that examines how photographers, photojournalists, and visual artists who document the Colombian armed conflict navigate the emotional impact of their work, engage with ethical challenges, and cope with the effects of war in their everyday lives. The project shifts the focus from considering images of political violence and war merely as final products to understanding them as relational processes shaped through encounters with others’ experiences. It draws on the testimonies of twenty photographers who have documented destruction, loss, and resilience in Colombia, exploring how they emotionally and ethically engage with the realities they portray. Grounded in a critical perspective on trauma studies, the research recognizes photographers not as passive witnesses, but as active agents who listen to, interpret, and respond to the stories of individuals and communities affected by violence. The project also includes an exhibition featuring 100 photographs by the participating photographers, contributing to broader public engagement with the human dimensions of conflict and memory.
His Tandem Partner is Sabine Kurtenbach, President (ad interim) of the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) and honorary professor at the Center for Conflict Studies of the University of Marburg.
Website
Funding
The HIAS Fellowship is provided by the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and the federal and state funds acquired by the University of Hamburg in the framework of its Excellence Strategy.
Tandem
Prof. Dr. Sabine Kurtenbach, Political Science, German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA)
Biography
Juan Pablo Aranguren Romero is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia). Trained as a psychologist and historian, he holds an M.A. in Social Anthropology and a Ph.D. in Social Sciences. Since 2014, he has led The Ethics of Listening, a research project that examines how individuals engage with and emotionally manage narratives of pain, loss, and violence. His work has received multiple national and international recognitions, including the Toyota Foundation Research Grant (2016), an Honorable Mention from the Alejandro Ángel Escobar Foundation (2017), and a senior research fellowship from the French Institute of Andean Studies (2019) for his research on forensic anthropologists. In 2022, he was awarded an Honorable Mention in the 11th Ibero-American Social Sciences Award (UNAM–OEI) for his work on the emotional management of listening among Colombian journalists. In 2025, he was a visiting researcher at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights at the University of Oslo.
Juan Pablo Aranguren Romero has more than two decades of experience researching the psychosocial impacts of war and armed conflict. Drawing on a critical social psychology perspective, his work examines how war becomes inscribed in the bodies and lived experiences of both victims and combatants. His research has explored the emotional management of absence among families of victims of enforced disappearance, the forms of resistance developed by survivors of torture, and the intergenerational transmission of war memories among former members of insurgent groups in Colombia. More broadly, his work engages with the ethical and emotional dimensions of listening to testimonies of war and political violence.
Juan Pablo Aranguren Romero Fellowship is provided by the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and the federal and state funds acquired by the University of Hamburg in the framework of its Excellence Strategy.
Image Information
“El momento del no.” Federico Ríos (2016). A group of FARC combatants gather to watch the results of the plebiscite called by the government of Juan Manuel Santos, in which citizens were asked whether they supported the peace agreement. The “No” vote won.