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Abstract
In the Colombian–Venezuelan borderlands, the reconfiguration of armed group presence and mass migration create and reinforce conditions of high violence and risk. Against this backdrop, we ask: What are the gendered security implications of the double crisis in the borderlands? Based on fieldwork in four regions along the border, this article argues that the border effect is gendered; the very factors that coalesce to produce this effect exacerbate existing gendered power dynamics, particularly as these relate to gender-based violence. Accordingly, this article demonstrates the specific ways in which the border – as a facilitator, deterrent, magnet and/or disguise – reinforces experiences of gendered insecurity in this region. The article finishes by outlining the implications for other international borderland settings.
Disclosure statement
The authors declare no conflicts of interest in the writing of this article.
Notes
1 Interview (6 February 2019).
2 For a discussion of our use of this term, see Idler, Borderland Battles.
3 R4V, “Plataforma de Coordinacíon Para Refugiados y Migrantes de Venezuela.”
4 CONPEACE, “Ensuring People-Centred Security.”
5 Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, “Gender and Forced Migration.”
6 See Chapter 7 of UN Women, “Progress of the World’s Women 2019–2020.”
7 Idler, Borderland Battles, 251.
8 Idler, Borderland Battles.
9 CONPEACE, “Ensuring People-Centred Security in Colombia’s Borderlands”; Idler, Borderland Battles.
10 Duriesmith, Masculinity and New War; Ní Aoláin et al., Oxford Handbook of Gender and Conflict.
11 Cockburn, “War and Security, Women and Gender.”
12 Boesten and Wilding, “Transformative Gender Justice,” 2.
13 Meertens, “Forced Displacement and Gender Justice in Colombia”; CMH, “La Guerra Inscrita En El Cuerpo”; Zulver, “Building the City of Women”; Zulver, “High Risk Feminism in Colombia”; Kreft, “Responding to Sexual Violence”; Idler, “From the Margins of War.”
14 Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, “Gender and Forced Migration”; Buckley-Zistel and Krause, Gender, Violence, Refugees.
15 Buckley-Zistel and Krause, Gender, Violence, Refugees.
16 Freedman, “Sexual and Gender-Based Violence against Refugee Women.” See also Amnesty International, “Female Refugees Face Physical Assault.”
17 Freedman, “Analysing the Gendered Insecurities of Migration.” See also Achtnicht, “Mobility in Crisis.”
18 Menjívar and Drysdale Walsh, “Gender, Violence and Migration.”
19 Korf and Raeymaekers, Violence on the Margins; Scorgie-Porter, “Economic Survival and Borderland Rebellion.”
20 Conciliation Resources, Borderlands and Peacebuilding; Lewis, “Gendering Borderlands.”
21 For critiques on this approach, see Carpenter, “Women, Children, and Other Vulnerable Groups.”
22 Meger, “Fetishization of Sexual Violence in International Security.”
23 Krystalli, Hawkins, and Wilson, “I Followed the Flood.”
24 Sandvik, “Gendering Violent Pluralism”; Kreft, “Responding to Sexual Violence.”
25 Berry, War, Women, and Power.
26 Deported Colombians who had previously lived in Venezuela. Many of them had fled violence in Colombia during the 1990s and 2000s. While some chose to come back to Colombia as part of the humanitarian crisis, some were deported in 2015 under a policy led by the Chávez government.
27 Przeworski and Teune, Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry.
28 Which Idler differentiates as ‘enmity, rivalry, and friendship’ clusters (Borderland Battles).
29 These groups range from small-scale neighbourhood organisations to national-level advocacy organisations.
30 Yuval-Davis, Wemyss, and Cassidy, “Everyday Bordering, Belonging”; Yuval-Davis, Wemyss, and Cassidy, Bordering.
31 See for example Andersson, Illegality, Inc.
32 Cassidy, Yuval-Davis, and Wemyss, “Intersectional Border(ing)s.”
33 Idler, Borderland Battles.
34 Idler, Borderland Battles; see especially Chapter 7 for a detailed discussion of the border effect.
35 Nugent and Asiwaju, African Boundaries: Barriers, Conduits, and Opportunities.
36 Ratzel, Politische Geographie; Morehouse, Pavlakovich-Kochi, and Wastl-Walter, “Introduction: Perspectives on Borderlands.”
37 Korf and Raeymaekers, Violence on the Margins.
38 Idler, Borderland Battles; Idler, Leite, and Orsini, Borderland Lens on Hubs of Protracted Conflict.
39 Amnesty International, “Amnesty International Report 2017/2018.”
40 For a discussion of survival sex in vulnerable contexts, see O’Brien, Criminalising Peacekeepers, 11–2. See also McGill, “Survival Sex in Peacekeeping Economies:.”
41 See map in Idler, Borderland Battles, 77.
42 Interview (5 February 2019).
43 Interview (7 February 2019).
44 Kamler, “Women of the Kachin Conflict”; Humphris, “Refugees and the Rashaida.”
45 Interview (6 February 2019).
46 Interview (8 February 2019).
47 Interview (29 March 2019).
48 Interview (29 March 2019).
49 Interview (29 March 2019).
50 We use this word intentionally: while the term may carry negative connotations for some, it is the word that most interviewees used, including prostitutes themselves. We choose to differentiate this from ‘sex work’, given the unclear boundary between sex work and survival sex in this case. For a similar discussion on how sex workers refer to themselves, see Hoang, “She’s Not a Low-Class Dirty Girl!”
51 Buckley-Zistel and Krause, Gender, Violence, Refugees.
52 Interview (8 March 2019).
53 Interview (5 February 2019).
54 Interview (6 February 2019).
55 Interview (7 March 2019).
56 Idler, Borderland Battles.
57 France 24, “Desperate Venezuelan Migrants.”
58 Interview (4 April 2019).
59 Interview (4 April 2019).
60 Interview (2 April 2019).
61 See, for example, Goldberg, “La Mayoría de Muertes de Venezolanas.”
62 Human Rights Watch, “La Guerra En El Catatumbo.”
63 Interview (8 February 2019).
64 For a nuanced typology of trafficking dynamics during conflict, see Jesperson, “Conflict and Migration.”
65 Copy on file with the authors (self-published community handbook), Asociación Comunal de Junta Zona 3 Corregimiento de Pacelli.
66 Interview (29 March 2019).
67 Interview (2 April 2019).
68 Idler, Borderland Battles.
69 Interview (6 February 2019).
70 Interview (4 March 2019).
71 Interview (29 March 2019).
72 Interview (4 April 2019).
73 Interview with UN official (10 April 2019).
74 Interview (29 March 2019).
75 In Castillo-Diaz and Cueva-Beteta, “Promise and Limits of Indicators of Women.”
76 Interview (6 February 2019)
77 Interviews with UN employee in Riohacha, government employee in Maicao, international organisation staff member in Cúcuta, and others.
78 Interview (21 February 2019).
79 Interview (29 March 2019).
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Julia Zulver
Julia Zulver holds a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellowship (2020–2023), based at the UNAM, Mexico, and Oxford, UK. In 2019 she was the Postdoctoral Gender Research Officer for the CONPEACE Project at the CCW, Oxford. Her ongoing research focuses on women’s grassroots mobilisation in high-risk settings in Latin America. Her current project compares women’s high-risk leadership in Mexico, El Salvador and Colombia.
Annette Idler
Annette Idler is the Director of Studies at the Changing Character of War Centre. She is also a Senior Research Fellow at Pembroke College, the Department of Politics and International Relations, and an Affiliate at the Latin American Centre, all at Oxford University. During 2019/2020 she is a Visiting Scholar at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University. Her research agenda lies at the interface of conflict, security and transnational organised crime, especially drug trafficking, as well as terrorism, peace building and governance.