Public policies subscribe into specific governmentality forms, as long as they are linked to certain government projects. Although these policies may have an instrumental role in the legitimation of a state domination project, their effectivity cannot be taken for granted. They take social forms depending on the particular contexts where they are implemented, while also having different readings and interpretations made by those who make them and the ones the policies are made for. In the light of the case study of the colonization and rural development programs executed between 1960 and 1980 by the Caja Agraria and the Incora in the Caquetá Foothill, we will see how the practices used by the settlers and public officers involved in the implementation of these programs may end up subverting their initial purposes, making them take unexpected turns.