Feminist intersectional activism in the Colombian Truth Commission: constructing counter-hegemonic narratives of the armed conflict in the Colombian Caribbean

Abstract

The article demonstrates the resistances and barriers of transitional justice to address historical intersecting inequalities and suggests avenues to advance transformative agendas in this framework through an examination of efforts to mainstream intersectionality at the Colombian Truth, Peaceful Coexistence and Non-Repetition Commission (CEV). On-going dialogues and collaboration with feminist activists working as CEV researchers in the Caribbean centrally inform this analysis. The article examines these activists’ understanding of intersectionality as a political project and their strategy of operationalising it as a ‘critical praxis’ to construct counter-hegemonic analyses of the armed conflict that centre the experience of historically marginalised sectors. The operationalisation of intersectionality as a critical praxis in this scenario provides insights for public policy and practice more broadly as it proposes guidelines to decolonise research and public engagement methodologies to produce intersectional knowledge of issues that affect differently situated populations and groups.

Keywords:

• Transitional justice
• Truth Commissions
• intersectionality
• peacebuilding
• Colombia
• Caribbean

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 These departments are Atlántico, Bolívar, Cesar, Guajira, Magdalena and Sucre.

2 In the 1990s women from popular sectors, specially from rural origin who had been displaced to urban areas, increasingly formed NGO’s in the Colombian Caribbean that centered around community development and women’s economic empowerment at the neighborhood level. These organizations received funding from different international cooperation agencies but relied mostly on women’s unpaid work (Rodríguez and Madera 1998).

3 Although these activists became paid staff members of the Commission, I continue to use the term ‘activists’ in this article since they remained accountable to their organizations and social movements.

4 Eduardo Porras (territorial coordinator for Sucre and Montes de María, CEV), p ersonal interview, Sincelejo, Colombia, December 4, 2019.

5 Alejandra Miller (Truth Commissioner, CEV), p ersonal interview, Bogotá, Colombia, September 4, 2020.

6 Jorge García (territorial coordinator for Tumaco, CEV), personal interview, Bogotá, Colombia, August 22, 2020.

7 Personal interview, Bogotá, Colombia, August 5, 2020.

8 Personal interview, Bogotá, Colombia, June, 5 2020.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the German-Colombian Peace Institute - CAPAZ (Instituto Colombo-Alemán para la Paz - CAPAZ).

Notes on contributors

Juliana González Villamizar

Juliana González Villamizar is a doctoral researcher at the Peace Studies Department of the Justus-Liebig-University Gießen, Germany. Since 2018, she has collaborated with the German-Colombian Peace Institute - CAPAZ. Juliana studied philosophy at Universidad Nacional de Colombia and obtained her M.A. in Political Theory at Goethe-University Frankfurt. Her research focuses on transformative justice and the mainstreaming of intersectionality in transitional justice.