Oral Presentation Session

Reviewed by: Society for Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology

Of interest to: Practicing and Applied Anthropologists, Teachers of Anthropology in Community Colleges, Students

Primary Theme: Violence

Secondary Theme: Truth and reconciliation

(2-0460) The “Post-Conflict” and Social Change in Colombia: Looking Forward, Looking Back

After more than 50 years of armed conflict, the Colombian government has officially negotiated the demobilization of the country’s largest guerrilla and paramilitary groups. The state’s ongoing peace and reconciliation program supposedly prioritizes the needs of victims of the conflict and the socio-economic incorporation of demobilized armed groups. Today, many Colombians hope that the latest of these negotiations, the 2016 peace agreement between the Colombian government and The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—People's Army (FARC-EP), will lead to economic and social stability throughout the country. This panel explores the historical and contemporary socio-economic and political forces that have shaped the unfolding of the Colombian conflict. The panelists each contribute ethnographic accounts of groups whose lives continue to be shaped by it. We examine the everyday concerns of differently positioned subjects in this “post-conflict” time—including those of recognized and unrecognized conflict victims, and demobilized paramilitaries and guerrilla members —as they rebuild their lives in new places and during a seemingly changing political moment. Panelists also explore the efforts of grassroots, state, military and non-governmental organizations to create and implement peace and reconciliation initiatives. We examine how these individuals and groups are surviving, reconciling, and rebuilding, and ask how their perspectives and struggles to overcome adversity can contribute a nuanced understanding of building long term peace and political stability in the country and Latin America as a region.

Organizer(s)

• Gloria Perez-Rivera

  PhD Candidate, Anthropology Department
  Vanderbilt University

Chair(s)

• Gloria Perez-Rivera

  PhD Candidate, Anthropology Department
  Vanderbilt University

Presenter(s)

• Gloria Perez-Rivera

  PhD Candidate, Anthropology Department
  Vanderbilt University

• Vanesa Giraldo-Gartner

  University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Organizer(s)

• Emma Banks

  PhD Candidate
  Vanderbilt University

Presenter(s)

• Emma Banks

  PhD Candidate
  Vanderbilt University

• Emma Crane

  PhD Candidate
  New York University

• Vivian Laurens

  University of Connecticut

Discussant(s)

• Federico Perez

  Assistant Professor of Urban Anthropology
  Portland State University Honors College

Presentations:

• 2:15 PM - 2:30 PM

  Financialization in the Everyday Economies of Internally Displaced Persons in Cartagena, Colombia
  Gloria C. Perez-Rivera – Vanderbilt University
• 2:30 PM - 2:45 PM

  Governing Reproduction in War and Peace: Contraception, Abortion, and Motherhood in the FARC in Colombia
  Vanesa Giraldo-Gartner – University of Massachusetts, Amherst
• 2:45 PM - 3:00 PM

  On the Frontlines after the FARC: New Challenges and Possibilities for Environmental Defenders in Colombia
  Emma L. Banks – Vanderbilt University
• 3:00 PM - 3:15 PM

  Crónicas of the Afterwar: Combatant Demobilization & Chronicity in the Post-Conflict City
  Emma Shaw Crane – New York University
• 3:15 PM - 3:30 PM

  Buen Vivir within Neoliberal Health: The Peace Accord and Rural Health Reform in Colombia
  Vivian Laurens – University of Connecticut
• 3:30 PM - 3:45 PM

  Discussion
  Federico Perez – Portland State University Honors College