REGULATION AND CONTROL OF SUBJECTIVITY AND PRIVATE LIFE IN THE CONTEXT OF ARMED CONFLICT IN COLOMBIA1

1. This paper is based on the final report of a study for the Make Peace Policy of the Presidential Council for Social Policy, with the support of the Japanese Corporation JICA. The study was carried out by a team directed by the first author, which included the authors of this paper and Marcela Rodríguez Díaz (Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá) as co-researchers, and the students in the Master's degree in psychology at the Universidad de los Andes, and Teresa Salazar and Diana Potes as assistant researchers. Translation by Mark Burton and Carolina Ibarra. An early version was presented at the Fifth International Congreso de la Psicología Social de la Liberación, Guadalajara, Mexico, November 2002, and published in Spanish in Revista de Estudios Sociales, 15, 133–149, 2003.

Abstract

A qualitative study was carried out in four municipalities in four different conflict zones in Colombia. Intrafamilial violence and gender violence are studied through the testimonies of the people interviewed. The impact was analysed in terms of the exercise of control over the civilian population by paramilitaries in relation to subjectivity, the family, social networks and the prevailing moral order. In effect, the strengthening of barriers between traditional gender identities has enabled a de-structuring of traditional masculinity through moral co-optation, the reinforcement of traditional feminine identity and the objectification of the sexuality of young women, at the same time as they are manipulated sexually and emotionally. In general, strong legitimation of the model of the armed fighter as a paradigm of masculinity is found in children. In addition, the de-structuring of the family and its manipulation as a means of influence over civil society is one of the strategies employed for the installation of a regime of terror that fractures social networks. It does this through the erosion of confidence and the legitimation and mystification of the power of an actor whose mediation in inter-family and micro-social conflicts has been legitimated, instrumentalizing and scaling up traditional violence, taking advantage of the power vacuum and moral weaknesses in local culture.

A partir de la investigación cualitativa adelantada en cuatro municipios ubicados en cuatro diferentes zonas de conflicto en Colombia. Se estudian tanto la violencia intrafamiliar como la violencia de género a través de los testimonios de las personas entrevistadas. Se encontró como resultado emergente el control hegemónico por parte de los paramilitares del territorio urbano, se analiza el impacto que está teniendo el ejercicio de control sobre la población civil, en relación con: la subjetividad, la familia, las redes sociales y el orden moral imperante. En efecto, el fortalecimiento de las barreras entre las identidades de género tradicionales ha permitido una desestructuración de la masculinidad tradicional debido a la cooptación moral, el reforzamiento de la identidad femenina tradicional y la objetivación de la sexualidad de las mujeres jóvenes, al tiempo que se las manipula sexual y afectivamente. En general se encuentra en altísima legitimación del modelo del guerrero, como paradigma de masculinidad entre lo niños. De otro lado, la desestructuración de la familia, su manipulación como estrategia de incidencias sobre la sociedad civil, hacen parte de las estrategias empleadas para la instauración de un régimen de terror que desestructura las redes sociales mediante la instauración de la desconfianza y la mistificación del poden de un actor que ha logrado legitimar su mediación en los conflictos intrafamiliares y microsociales instrumentalizando y escalando la violencia tradicional, aprovechando los vacíos y debilidades morales de las culturas locales.

Keywords:

• Intra-familar violence
• gender
• armed conflict
• private life

Palabras claves:

• Violencia intrafamiliar
• género
• conflicto armadò
• vida privada

Notes

1. This paper is based on the final report of a study for the Make Peace Policy of the Presidential Council for Social Policy, with the support of the Japanese Corporation JICA. The study was carried out by a team directed by the first author, which included the authors of this paper and Marcela Rodríguez Díaz (Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá) as co-researchers, and the students in the Master's degree in psychology at the Universidad de los Andes, and Teresa Salazar and Diana Potes as assistant researchers. Translation by Mark Burton and Carolina Ibarra. An early version was presented at the Fifth International Congreso de la Psicología Social de la Liberación, Guadalajara, Mexico, November 2002, and published in Spanish in Revista de Estudios Sociales, 15, 133–149, 2003.

2. The codes which identify the quotations included in this paper correspond to the classification of field material, enabling both an adequate cataloguing as well as the preservation of anonymity of our informants.

3. This study developed a qualitative approach that focused on the following dimensions: a conception of knowledge that maintains emancipatory ideals, the use of a gendered perspective in the study of violence against women in the context of armed conflict, methodological criteria for work with women that makes use of the metaphor of conversation and emphasizes respect for the participants, and a model of qualitative analysis that seeks the construction of ‘thick theory’ from the voices of the others. Analysis made use of the NUD*IST software for qualitative analysis.

4. The transcription of the material and its systematic analysis followed the model of grounded theory (Strauss, 1987; Strauss & Corbin, 1990) allowed us to construct a point of view of the women that went beyond mere description, mediated by a coding process that allowed the construction of an increasingly wide analytic network.

5. In each town the voice of women of different ages was given priority. The study involved the participation of 47 female victims of intrafamilial violence and various levels of political violence, the majority linked with or served by organizations specializing in these problems. In the case of Turbo, the majority of the women were widows, some of whom had been forcibly displaced, or Afro-Colombian women from rural areas. In Barrancabermeja, the majority were community leaders, many displaced by political violence, who had personally, or through family background, a history of migration, in many cases linked to processes of colonization specific to the region. In Santander de Quilichao all the participants were indigenous women belonging to indigenous reserves in Cauca province. Finally in Puerto Asís, the participants were women, some in a situation of displacement and/or with family histories of migration linked with the process of colonization. Others were of indigenous origin.

6. Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia: paramilitary organization that accounts for the majority of the right-wing paramilitary groups.

7. FARC-EP: Fuerzas Armardas Revolucionarias de Colombia — Ejército Popular (Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces — People's Army), the largest left-wing guerrilla army in Colombia.

8. ELN: Ejército Nacional de la Liberación (National Liberation Army), the second largest (after the FARC) of the leftist guerrilla armies in Colombia.

9. Chimbre: perforation along the pipeline to steal petrol.

10. Another term for the paramilitaries of the AUC.