Colombia Internacional

Colomb. int. | eISSN 1900-6004 | ISSN 0121-5612

Local Participation at Stake: Between Emancipatory Goals and Co-Option Strategies. The Case of Territorially Focused Development Programs in Colombia

No. 109 (2022-01-01)
  • Ana Isabel Rodríguez Iglesias
    Universidad Ramón Llull & Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (Spain)
  • Noah Rosen
    American University (United States)
https://doi.org/10.7440/colombiaint109.2022.04

Abstract

Objective/Context: We examine how participatory peacebuilding projects create emancipatory outcomes by investigating the implementation of Territorially Focused Development Programs (Programas de Desarrollo con Enfoque Territorial, PDETs), one of the centerpieces of the Colombian peace process. We define “emancipatory outcomes” as allocations of decision-making power (e.g., control over budgets, project priorities) and/or material benefits (e.g., new infrastructure, public goods) to marginalized groups in society. Methodology: The article is based on a combination of ethnographic peace research and semi-structured interviews with key government and civil actors involved in the design and implementation of the PDETs both at the national and local levels. We focus on the PDET of the department of Chocó, where both authors conducted ethnographic work during the design and implementation of the peace program between January 2018 and March 2020. Conclusions: We argue that the emancipatory outcomes of a participatory project are never fixed in advance: the degree to which such projects serve bottom-up, emancipatory goals rather than top-down state expansion are contingent on the outcomes of contestation and cooperation processes between actors within and outside the state. Originality: Critical scholarship tends to understand participatory peacebuilding programs as top-down programs to co-opt grassroots actors and expand the reach of the state rather than emancipatory projects that create real shifts in existing political settlements. Our contribution lies in the study of the dynamics of these peace processes to identify the potential spaces they open for emancipatory goals.

Keywords: Local participation, peacebuilding, emancipation, territorially focused development programs (PDETs), Colombia, Chocó

References

Ante Meneses, Rodrigo. 2019. “Participación entre la espada y la pared en el PDET.” La Silla Llena (blog), December 16, 2019. https://lasillavacia.com/silla-llena/red-de-la-paz/participacion-entre-la-espada-y-la-pared-pdet-71884

Asher, Kiran, and DianaOjeda. 2014. “Producir la naturaleza y hacer el estado: el ordenamiento territorial en las tierras bajas del Pacífico colombiano.” In El poder en plural. Entre la antropología y la teoría política. edited by Mónica EspinosaArango and AlexBetancourt, 149-181. Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes.

Consejo Nacional de Paz Afrocolombiana.2020. “Balance de la implementación del Acuerdo de Paz.” No. 2. Bogotá: Consejo Nacional de Paz Afrocolombiana.

Boege, Volker, M. AnneBrown, and Kevin P.Clements. 2009. “Hybrid Political Orders, Not Fragile States.” Peace Review 21 (1): 13–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/10402650802689997

Boulding, Elise. (2000). Cultures of Peace: The Hidden Side of History (1st ed). Syracuse University Press.

Curle, Adam. 1994. “New challenges for citizen peacemaking.” Medicine and War, 10 (2): 96-105.

Castro-Gómez, Santiago. 2005. La hybris del punto cero: Ciencia, raza e ilustración en la Nueva Granada (1750-1816). Bogotá: Pontificia Universidad Javeriana.

Consejería Presidencial para la Estabilización y la Consolidación.2020. “Informe de Gestión. 22 meses. Agosto 7, 2018 – Junio 30, 2020.” Bogotá: Consejería Presidencial para la Estabilización y la Consolidación (CPEC).

Cruz, Juan Daniel. 2018. “Los estudios de paz latinoamericanos en la encrucijada.” Revista CoPaLa 3 (5): 9-21.

Díaz Parra, Karla. 2018. “¿PDET sin suelo? Preocupaciones desde los pueblos indígenas y campesinos del Caquetá”. La Silla Llena (blog), March 8, 2018. https://lasillavacia.com/silla-llena/red-verde/historia/pdet-sin-suelo-preocupaciones-desde-los-pueblos-indigenas-y

Dudouet, Veronique, and StinaLundström. 2016. Post-War Political Settlements: From Participatory Transition Processes to Inclusive State-Building and Governance . Research Report. Berlin: Berghof Foundation.

Escobar, Mariana. 2017. “Territorially Focused Development Plans can transform the countryside and strengthen peace in Colombia.” LSE Latin American and Caribbean, (blog), October 10, 2017. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/latamcaribbean/2017/10/10/territorially-focused-development-plans-can-transform-the-countryside-and-strengthen-peace-in-colombia/

Hirblinger, Andreas T, and ClaudiaSimons. 2015. “The Good, the Bad, and the Powerful: Representations of the ‘Local’ in Peacebuilding.” Security Dialogue 46 (5): 422–39. https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010615580055

Junieles, Irina. 2018. “Montes de María tiene su PDET.” Dejusticia (blog), September 8, 2018. https://www.dejusticia.org/column/montes-de-maria-tiene-su-pdet/

Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.2019. “Tercer informe sobre la implementación del Acuerdo de Paz.” 2019. Notre Dame: Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.

Lederach, Angela. J. 2017. “‘The Campesino Was Born for the Campo’: A Multispecies Approach to Territorial Peace in Colombia.” American Anthropologist 119 (4): 589-602.

Lederach, John Paul. 1997. Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies. Washington, D.C: United States Institute of Peace Press.

Leonardsson, Hanna, and GustavRudd. 2015. “The ‘Local Turn’ in Peacebuilding: A Literature Review of Effective and Emancipatory Local Peacebuilding.” Third World Quarterly 36 (5): 825-39. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2015.1029905

López, Claudia. 2016. Adiós a las FARC. ¿Y ahora qué?Bogotá: Debate.

Mac Ginty, Roger. 2010. “Hybrid Peace: The Interaction Between Top-Down and Bottom-Up Peace.” Security Dialogue 41 (4): 391-412. https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010610374312

Mac Ginty, Roger, and Oliver P.Richmond. 2013. “The Local Turn in Peace Building: A Critical Agenda for Peace.” Third World Quarterly 34 (5): 763-83. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2013.800750

McKay, Ben. 2017. “Democratising land control: towards rights, reform and restitution in post-conflict Colombia.” Canadian Journal of Development Studies / Revue canadienne d’études du développement 39 (2): 163-181. https://doi.org/10.1080/02255189.2017.1364621

Medina Bernal, Javier Lautaro. 2018. “Para Dónde vamos con los Programas de Desarrollo con Enfoque Territorial”. Cien Días 93 (June): 23-26.

Richmond, Oliver P. 2010. “A Genealogy of Peace and Conflict Theory”. In Palgrave Advances in Peacebuilding: Critical Developments and Approaches, edited by Oliver P.Richmond, 14-38. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Richmond, Oliver. 2011. A Post-Liberal Peace. London: Routledge.

Rodríguez Iglesias, Ana Isabel. 2019. “Las voces étnicas en el Acuerdo de Paz de Colombia: una resistencia ontológica.” Relaciones Internacionales 39, 165-182.

Sandoval Forero, Eduardo Andrés. 2016. Educación para la paz integral. Memoria, interculturalidad y decolonialidad. Bogotá: ARFO Editores e Impresores LTDA.

Serje, Margarita. (2005). El revés de la nación. Territorios salvajes, fronteras y tierra de nadie. Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes.

Velásquez, Mauricio, NikolaiÁvila, MónicaVillota, FranciscoQuintero, and SebastiánArbeláez. 2020. “Largely on Their Own: Dealing with the Rural Legacies of Conflict through Local Participatory Peacebuilding.” Journal of Agrarian Change, 21 (2): 313-331. https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12395

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.