Exercising citizenship to resist violence: preliminary findings from an exploratory field research in Bajo Cauca, Colombia

This communication presents findings from an exploratory field research conducted with women who are victims of the armed conflict in the Bajo Cauca subregion of Colombia in May 2024. In the so-called post-conflict context, characterized by ongoing violence alongside initiatives aimed at halting it, rural women are struggling against the violation of their rights by both the armed actors and by the Colombian state. The Havana Peace Deal (HPD), signed in 2016, represented the hope that state could shift from its historical role as a repressive entity towards that of a provider for marginalized communities (Ramírez, 2019). However, many of its provisions produce and reproduce various forms of direct, structural, and symbolic violence (Gordon et al., 2020; Meger & Sachseder, 2020; Ojeda & Berman‐Arévalo, 2020). The HPD also introduced the idea of a new social contract in which the state acknowledges inhabitants of its margins as citizens entitled to rights, integral to the nation-state (Ramírez, 2019). This research explores how rural women, victims of the Colombian conflict and its recent reconfiguration, try to influence local and departmental politics (what they call “hacer incidencia”). This study focuses on social and organizational processes as vectors for demarginalization. Considering that everyday life is dictated by gendered power relations which condition women’s access to power and decision making (Hedström, 2021), I will show how they organise and learn to engage with state entities and various development agencies to protect their rights. Gordon, E., Henao, S. R., Duque, A. Z., & Dolan-Evans, E. (2020). Power, poverty and peacebuilding : The violence that sustains inequalities and undermines peace in Colombia. Conflict, Security & Development, 20(6), 697‑721. Hedström, J. (2021). On violence, the everyday, and social reproduction : Agnes and Myanmar’s transition. Peacebuilding, 9(4), 371‑386. Meger, S., & Sachseder, J. (2020). Militarized peace : Understanding post-conflict violence in the wake of the peace deal in Colombia. Globalizations, 17(6), 953‑973. Ojeda, D., & Berman‐Arévalo, E. (2020). Ordinary Geographies : Care, Violence, and Agrarian Extractivism in “Post‐Conflict” Colombia. Antipode, 52. Ramírez, M. C. (2019). Militarism on the Colombian Periphery in the Context of Illegality, Counterinsurgency, and the Postconflict. Current Anthropology, 60(S19), 134‑147.