Cultural Production, Music and the Politics of Legitimacy: The Case of the FARC in Colombia

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the role of cultural production as a practice with important implications for rebel legitimacy. Cultural production is employed to bolster rebel group legitimacy internally, by justifying existing hierarchical relations between the leadership and fighters, and externally by positioning the rebel group as a legitimate alternative to established elites and a rightful representative of the people. Building on a relational approach to armed groups legitimacy, the article analyses cultural production by the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC). The analysis draws on FARC music production from 1988 to 2019, internal documents, artists’ testimonies, and field observations from 2017.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful for comments from Lee Seymour, Marek Brzezinski, Björn Horgby, two anonymous reviewers and the participants of the 2018 spring symposium of the Peace Research Institute Oslo Research School on Peace and Conflict. I also thank Jenny García and Iván Hernandez-Neuta for their help with the song transcripts and the Spanish translations as well as Dan Sherrard-Smith for revising the text.

Disclosure Statement

The author reports no potential conflict of interest.

Notes

1. The terms Fariano and Fariana are adjectives meaning ‘of the FARC.’

2. Rebel groups are understood as ‘consciously coordinated groups whose members engage in protracted violence with the intention of gaining undisputed political control over all or a portion of a pre-existing state’s territory’ (Kasfir 2015, p. 24).

3. I worked in a project treating the reintegration of FARC women combatants for a Colombian non-governmental organisation. The programme was financed by the Swedish International Development Agency. I abided to a code of conduct specific to the programme. Research activities were carried out in ways that respected the consent, anonymity and security of participants in an unstable environment. The observations and testimonies in this article respect those ethical principles. The analysis of the songs and other material available online was carried out as part of my PhD project.

4. No date (n.d.) is inscribed in the song reference when the year of production is unknown.

5. In 1985, during the peace process with the Belisario Betancur government, the FARC and the Communist party created the Unión Patriótica. As the party entered the political arena, many of its members were assassinated. The FARC left the party and resumed armed violence in 1987.

6. Songs like Pa’ la Offensiva me Voy [To the Offensive I Go] (Pérez 2016b [n.d.]) and Pa’lante la Marcha [Forward the March] (Conrado 2015 [n.d.]) also motivate fighters into combat.

7. Lyrics clearly suggest that the song was written during the Uribe Vélez presidency.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada under Grant 767-2019-1288.

Notes on contributors

Simon Pierre Boulanger Martel

Simon Pierre Boulanger Martel is a PhD candidate in political science at the Université de Montréal in Canada. His research focuses on political mobilisation and ex-combatant reintegration processes in the Colombian armed conflict.