Transformation of livelihoods and experiences of social justice in conflict affected areas : the case of the rural area of Pitacapacho, in Montes de Maria, Colombia

“Vale la pena luchar por lo que vale la pena tener”. (“It’s worth fighting for what is worth having”). Picture taken at the rural school of Pitacapacho, in Sucre, Colombia.

Paulina Duque- Gómez Student number 11124695

Research Master International Development Studies Supervisor: Hebe Verrest

Acknowledgments or agradecimientos

This thesis is a synthesis, an arrival point not only of an academic exercise, but also of a life project that has had different pieces that started to be built years ago, with different people and within different places. Thus, first of all I would like to thank Colombia: a word that brings to me both ideas and practices linked to an identity reference that has kept me alive throughout these years.

I would like to thank therefore those who are part of this referent and that have timelessly supported me: my family, especially to my mother, Inés; my dad, Juan Guillermo; and my brother, Juan Camilo, for their constant and unconditional company overseas; to Guiller, my colleague and his sons whom are also my brothers; to my grandparents, my beloved Antonia and Fede, and to Silvia, whom always make me want to be a better person; to Gabriel and Denisse, for being referents of who I am and who I want to still being; to my friends, for being part of this extended family; and to Rossanna, Juan Manuel, Elia, Gabriel Pulido, and all the wonderful people who made it possible to extend my country experience to Los Montes de María, a place where my conscience spread, became bigger and stronger.

I cannot fail to thank the people who have made Amsterdam my home for the last two years, and especially those who have been from the very beginning and remain being part of my life: to my friend Felipe, por no dejarme caer y mantenerme siempre con ánimo y en movimiento; to Adam and Margarita por compartirme “un pedacito de tierra”; and of course to the most beautiful and perfect Latin bond ever created, my Tiraflechas family,

with whom nothing would have been possible: to Lisa, por recordarme con constancia y nobleza lo mejor de mi; and especially to my soul sister Thais, with whom without knowing it we had parallel realities in different languages that life decided to gather: nena, bien sabes que nada sería igual sin ti.

Last but not least, I want to thank the University of Amsterdam, the professors, and now colleagues who have steered the ship along with me. To Michaela Hordijk, who has supported me from the very beginning; and especially to my thesis supervisor, Hebe Verrest, for all the time, insights and learning process achieved throughout this journey.

Transformation of livelihoods and experiences of social justice in

conflict-affected areas. The case of the rural area of Pitacapacho, in

Montes de Maria, Colombia

Table of Contents

how are they related with their current livelihoods and experiences of social justice? ... 87 7.2) Theoretical discussion: an analysis on the transformation of war torn societies by studying victims’ livelihoods. ... 88 7.3) Adapting the conceptual model ... 91 Annex...95

Abstract

In the last decade, growing recognition has been given to the reparation of the harmful experiences of victims of armed conflicts as a way to transform war torn societies into sustainable peace. Historically underrepresented, victims of violence from the Colombian armed conflict have gradually gained visibility through engagements with justice laws, policies, and initiatives of the peace process with Paramilitaries and Guerrilla groups from the mid-2000s onwards. Such initiatives have been oriented towards the reparation of rights, socio-economic improvements and cultural practices of people that have suffered the immediate effects of conflict; namely peasants and inhabitants of rural areas. However, many victimized groups still await reparation and continue to experience the absence of the state in regions, which are formally identified as successful post-conflict scenarios due to the absence of war. Therefore, daily life experiences of those are still being influenced and negatively affected by long-term effects of conflict. Despite the fact that the internal displacement phenomenon has long been addressed by academia, the trajectories and outcomes of unsupported returning processes on victims remain underdeveloped. Thus, this research aims to contribute to these matters by exploring the ways in which the effects of conflict have shaped victims’ livelihoods and their experiences of social justice. Specifically, this research focuses on the inhabitants of Pitacapacho in the Montes de Maria region, who, after being internally displaced are steadily returning to their territories, without support from the state. Utilizing a mixed methods design, this dissertation combines a variety of interviews and surveys conducted among rural families and key stakeholders. This research reveals how people of Pitacapacho found in the resettlement a claim on their agricultural vocation, and a way to avoid being an “urban poor” by returning to their territories. However, the transition from self-consumption to wage labor, the change of the agricultural land use to the development of extractive industries, and the worsening of public infrastructure in their rural areas are issues that indicate how peasant's ideas and practices towards the territory are still challenged. The approach followed in this paper provides an argument to explore the scope of long term effects of conflict in regards to people’s livelihoods, and whether reparation policies of rural victimized groups do or do not address matters of livelihoods and social justice in regards to the Colombian armed conflict.

Key concepts: Victims, return, post-conflict, livelihoods, social justice, Colombia, Montes de Maria

1. Introduction

In September of 2016, the peace agreements between the FARC guerrillas and the Colombian government were signed. During this period, I was doing this research in Colombia. Whereas the world celebrated the event as the end of the last armed conflict of the western hemisphere, Colombian civil society casted doubt on such achievement. Less than one week later, the peace agreements were defeated under popular consultation: the voters said NO in the referendum that asked if they agreed or disagreed with the results of the four-years peace conversations between the parties. As the experts commented, the higher amounts of votes were concentrated in big urban settlements.

The context in which I undertook this fieldwork was shaped by the reactions of the mass media all around the world to the referendum result, questions surrounding the scope of Colombian democracy, and the doubts of the Colombian people towards the legitimacy of the agreements. I went from my 8 million inhabitants city of Bogota, to interact with internally displaced peasants of the rural-spread are of Pitacapacho, in the Montes de Maria sub region: an icon of the violence that has reduced in the country's armed conflict and which is now formally recognized as a successful post-conflict area due to the absence of armed actors such as guerrillas and paramilitaries.

However, during the first night I spent in the mountains of Pitacapacho, I realized that some of the related ideas towards the peace process, in general, meant something different than it did in my home city of Bogotá. As I watched

the TV news with the local family that was hosting me, I was struck by their apathy towards the pro-peace demonstrations being reported and discussed from the cities. It was in this specific moment that I realized that the ideas and practices related to concepts such as ‘peace-process’, and ‘post-conflict’, were mainly done so by urban dwellers. Until that moment, I had not thought about the extent to which these concepts were not only considered relevant but also understood and experienced by the people that were actually affected by violence.

The aim of presenting these anecdotes is to indicate the gap between national discourses on reparation and reconciliation measures for victims in the Colombian context, and its absence on the social practice in the rural area of Pitacapacho. Likewise, this breach indicates at the same time the theoretical and empirical gaps this research emerges from. Some theoretical elaborations on transformations of conflicts start from assumptions in which it is understood that if there is such a thing as "post conflict", there is no longer war; if there is no war, there is peace, and if there is peace there are, therefore, conditions for fostering development, and social justice (See: Warnecke & France, 2010; EPLA, 2011; DFID, 2013). All these assumptions are grounded in the ideas that transformations of conflicts will either be implemented or guided by external actors who will assure peace either by providing military security, and the institutionalization of democracy, or by enlarging citizenship from bottom-up and social justice measures (Uprynmy & Saffon, 2009; Warnecke & France, 2010; Novelli, Lopes Cardozo, and Smith 2015). However, the literature does not

sufficiently explain how to understand “post conflicts” scenarios which lack interventions, or if is possible to think of such a thing.

This is the condition that encompasses the current situation of the persons that inhabit the area of Pitacapacho: displaced peasants that after settling down in urban areas, have been gradually returning to their original territories without any institutional support in order to claim their lands rights, their agricultural vocation, and the recovery of their livelihoods. Although victims of violence from the Colombian armed conflict have gradually gained visibility through engagements with justice laws, policies, and initiatives of the peace process’ with Paramilitaries and Guerrilla groups from the mid-2000s onwards, victimized groups, such as people from Pitacapacho, still await reparation measures such as guarantees for returning in order to rebuild their lives. Therefore, the livelihoods of those are still being influenced and problematized by the long-term effects of conflict, in an area that is formally recognized as a “successful” case of post conflict, as the Montes de Maria sub region.

This research, therefore, aims to contribute to the theoretical discussion of how to understand post conflict scenarios without conflict-transformation interventions. Normatively speaking, post conflict scenarios relate to the stabilization of institutions and securitization of regions, the implementation of pro-peace policies, among others. However, the outcomes of such measures are not necessarily reflected in the experiences of the people or segments of the population that has, indeed, experienced war or a certain level of victimization.

The exploration of these theoretical elements is linked with the empirical gap that the research also wants to address. As stated above, in the Colombian context, a robust institutional framework exists that regulates the interventions that have to be delivered to victims of conflict, especially for Internally Displaced Persons –IDPs. These include, for example, the Constitutional Court's decision T025 of 2004, and the subsequent regulations that took place within the framework of transitional justice for overcoming the armed conflict with paramilitary groups and guerrillas through the Justice and Peace Law of 2005 and the Victims and Land Restitution of 2011. Whereas the first was designed for the demobilization of paramilitary groups; the second focused on the integral reparation of the harm suffered by the victims of the conflict1_.

Within this context, there has been a large academic literature produced in order to understand the scope of the IDP´s phenomenon2_{. However, the understanding}

of returning has not been sufficiently addressed. Until the moment it has been especially understood as a supported intervention from the institutions within reparation measures for harm on victims. For this reason, its understanding has focused particularly either on obstacles and possibilities for returning and on the construction, evaluation, and implementation of public policies for returnees (Garzón, 2011). Nevertheless, literature has not pointed out what happens when there is returning without reparation. Thus, the trajectories and outcomes of

1 _{"All victims of the armed conflict recognized in the Victims' Law have the right to full} reparation. Have been dispossessed of their lands or have been forced to abandon them have the right to restitution" (Centro de Memoria Histórica, 2011).

2 _{In regards to both, access to rights and policies, and socio economic conditions in,} expelling and receiving municipalities. See, for instance: “Más allá del desplazamiento. Políticas, derechos y superación del desplazamiento Forzado en Colombia” (César Rodriguez Garavito, 2010), and “El desplazamiento forzoso en Colombia. Un camino sin

unsupported returning processes on victims’ livelihoods, still need to be further developed. This is the empirical gap where this research stands from.

In sum, by acknowledging different theoretical elements on transformation of conflicts, this research casts doubt on a normative scope of the understanding of post-conflict scenarios as absence of war, and claims for an analytical comprehension where the experiences of both, cultural recognition, and economic redistribution and political representation of those who have experienced war must be acknowledged Thus, this research claims for understanding the effects of conflict in social justice experiences in unsupported returned population, by exploring their livelihoods and the ways they have been transformed due to conflict.

Besides the introductory part, the thesis starts by underpinning the theoretical chapter, which explores elements of social justice and its importance in overcoming violent conflicts and the inequalities that victims of war usually have to experience; it also shows a discussion on livelihoods and its importance to understanding how people cope, adapt, transform, improve and diversify their strategies on living. (Scoones, 2009). This chapter is followed by the methodological section, which reflects the research questions, the methods, learning processes achieved and ethical considerations of the research. The fourth chapter is the context that precedes the empirical chapters: the fifth answers to the experiences of social justice and trajectories of conflict in returned population of Pitacapacho, and sixth chapter points out the current livelihoods (in terms of access to assets and activities) of this group of people, by

stressing the perceptions on how conflict has shaped their life. The seventh chapter shows the conclusions of the research questions and discusses the empirical evidence in regards to its theoretical relevance. Picture 1: Massive demonstration supporting the peace agreements. Bogota, Bolivar Square, October 2016. Source: Facebook 2016

2.Theoretical Framework

2.1 Some theoretical elements on social justice, peacebuilding, and transformation of war torn societies

When exploring the concerning issues of war torn societies, literature mostly has focused either on understanding the conditions where violent conflicts emerge and on the measures that ideally might be taken in order to rebuild peace and to achieve the legitimacy and functioning of democratic regimes. Generally speaking, those measures are embedded in the concept of peacebuilding, in order to point out the necessity of transforming the social, economic, political and cultural relations in whom conflicts reached a violent scope and negative effects for those who experienced it. Although considered nowadays as a buzzword, by sticking to Galtung's starting point on the topic, one can see that peace building suggests a “comprehensive approach characterized by ―the practical implementation of peaceful social change through socio-economic reconstruction and developmentǁ and emphasizes the long-term and sustainable transformation of structural conflict causes and patterns in all societal sectors, including military, political and economic structures” (Warnecke & France:2010, p: 77). Literature has also focused on debating by what means might war torn societies be transformed. The questions are not directed towards if achieving sustainable peace might be a priority or not, but instead, how to achieve such an endeavor. Throughout what means might war torn societies be transformed? By focusing on top-down, or bottom up initiatives? By prioritizing the military efforts to avoid violent encounters, or by fostering development and social justice conditions of those that have been affected the most? Generally speaking, the discussion has been divided between those who claim that for achieving sustainable peace securitization measures need to be prioritized, and the ones that claim for development and social justice as a prerequisite so as to achieve peace. Whereas the first approach seeks to give immediate measures in order to tackle violence effects, the latter seeks to address long-term transformations.

Throughout the security first approach peace can be understood as the absence of war; the latter in contrast highlights the need to meet social and economic changes that support social transformations in order to get a sustainable peace. From Galtung's approach, this differentiation refers to both, negative and positive peace. (To follow the discussion about the distinction between positive and negative peace see: Warnecke & France, 2010; Novelli, Lopes Cardozo, and Smith 2015).

Therefore, within the academic literature, it has also been acknowledged the relationship between peacebuilding and development in order to transform societies that have been affected by war. According to the Department for International Development-DFID (2013), the last decade has experienced a growing recognition of the relationship between goals of development, peacebuilding, and state building, within the so called fragile States: “all interventions in all sectors in Fragile and Conflict Affected States should contribute to tackling conflict as a primary or secondary set of objectives”-Thus- “There is an emerging body of evidence that explores the causal relationships between poverty and conflict highlighting the potential contribution of interventions across a variety of sectors to peacebuilding outcomes” (DFID 2013: 1,7). The linkages between development and peacebuilding have been acknowledged in terms of processes, shared outcomes, tools so as to both be implemented, among others. (See: EPLO 2011; DFID 2013). According to the European Peacebuilding Liason Office-EPLO, “peace-building refers to policies, strategies, and actions which aim to build the capacity within society to resolve and manage conflicts nonviolently. At the heart of both development and peace-building processes is the need to strengthen resilience and the capacity within society to manage change and resolve differences” - In terms of tools- “The best practice in both fields is to work at multiple levels, using participatory, consultative methods to link grassroots with higher level perspectives” (EPLO, 2011:1).

Until the moment, one can briefly say that when talking about transforming war torn societies towards sustainable peace is not only necessary achieving the

absence of war, but also providing interventions that might overcome socio economic deprivations for those who experience the negative effects of war. These elements might point out some relevant questions: do violent conflicts lead to a material deprivation and to the impoverishment of its victims? Or, does material deprivation and chronic impoverishment conditions facilitate the emergence of violent conflicts? As it will be further developed, and according to some authors, both questions are to some extent true: on one hand, conflict leads to the worsening of socio economic conditions of its victims. Furthermore, the vulnerability that poverty brings facilitates that the harm of conflict directly affect groups of people that have historically lacked access to privileges that other segments of the population have had. In other words, marginalized groups of war torn societies are likely to be the principal victims of the conflict. ( Arias, Ibañez & Querubin, 2014; Ibañez & Moya 2006; Ibañez & Moya 2010; Valencia & Pizarro 2009). Therefore, the conditions that victims of conflicts have to face before, during, and after experiencing violence are multidimensional and relate to different domains that can be understood within the concept of social justice (or its absence). The starting point of the concept of social justice will be the one theorized by Nancy Fraser. In her words: “Injustice comes in more than one form and that no single view of the “what” can capture them all”. Therefore, “first, from the standpoint of labor struggles, justice comprises an economic dimension, rooted in political economy, whose associated injustice is maldistribution or class inequality. As seen, in contrast, from the perspective of struggles over multiculturalism, justice encompasses a cultural dimension, rooted in the status order, whose corresponding injustice is misrecognition or status hierarchy. As seen, finally, through the lens of democratization struggles, justice includes a political dimension, rooted in the political constitution of society, whose associated injustice is misrepresentation or political voicelessness” (Fraser, 2008: 11).

Fraser’s approach to social justice includes two major political struggles: first, the economic injustice, which is anchored to the social class clash and the claims the necessity of egalitarianism and to the economic redistribution. Second, the

cultural or symbolic injustice, which refers to cultural domination, lack of recognition, representation, and that therefore, claims for the acknowledgment of cultural diversity and the positive assessment of minorities. The author states that these political struggles are usually presented as disconnected and therefore have had contradictory solutions. On one hand, the claim for the economic redistribution would lead an eradication of social differentiation by achieving the abolition of the working class, for instance. On the contrary, the cultural recognition would claim for the acknowledgment of societal differentiations by achieving the recognition of ethnic, and sexual and gender minorities, for instance. However: as the author expresses, the “distinction between redistribution and recognition solutions is analytic. Redistributive solutions usually presuppose an implicit basic conception of recognition. Some proponents of egalitarian socio-economic redistribution, for example, base their claims on the 'equal moral value of persons'; therefore, deal with economic redistribution as an expression of recognition”. (Fraser, 1997: 7).3

In regards to the issue of the transformation of war torn societies, the concept of social justice allows, therefore, to analytically grasping how the lack of social justice conditions are related to the emergence of the conflict, and allows to conceptualize specific interventions so as to transform war torn societies towards peace4_{. However, what is at the core of the discussion of this research is}

that although violent conflicts could have ceased, the effects that conflicts brought to their victims still being produced, and reproduced by economic, political and cultural structures. Therefore, by using the concept of social justice, it would be possible to explore how elements of misdistribution, misrecognition, and misrepresentation can be deepened in victims´ lives due to experiencing conflicts.

Having seen how the concept of social justice refers to the topic of societies that have been affected by conflict, the next session would look at how issues of

3 _{The original text from which the quote is taken is in spanish. The translation was made} by own source.

economic inequalities and cultural misrecognition in victims of violent conflicts have been addressed by the academic literature. 2.2 Economic inequalities and cultural misrecognition in victims of violent conflicts The literature revision of this section focuses on the academic discussion of the conditions of social justice of victims of violent conflicts, with special regards to the victims of the Colombian armed conflict. It is worth pointing out that literature has been mostly divided either in analytical research that has shown the major negative effects of people that have experienced conflict and on normative elements which state how laws and policy measures might be driven so as to overcome the impact of conflict and enhance social justice conditions of victims. It is also important to point out that whereas the analytical research has especially focused on the economic inequalities that victims have had to sort out, the normative approaches have also considered both elements of cultural recognition and political representation. In other words, the literature consulted has especially focused on discussing what have been the economic implications of the conflict in its victims, rather than the cultural and political ones. However, and sticking to Fraser’s approach, they are all interconnected in practice and therefore are not mutually exclusive, as it will be developed in the empirical chapters.

2.2.1 Economic inequalities: loss of assets and deterioration of well-being in victims of armed conflicts

From an economic redistribution perspective, Ibañez & Moya largely explain how different events of internal armed conflicts can impact in the chronic impoverishment of its victims. The authors (2010) explain how losses of assets experienced by victims of internal conflicts may entail segments of populations to be prone to poverty and to the deterioration of their well-being. According to the authors, well-being is determined by the access that people have to social

services (education and health), decent housing conditions, and formal labor markets. From this starting point, the well-being of people that experience internal conflict is deteriorated, even if they are not forcedly displaced. In the Colombian experience, most of the victims of the armed conflict have been profiled as low-income peasants of rural areas. Thus, the illegal appropriation of productive capital (as land and cattle) by armed groups, and the limited interventions of the State in conflict-affected areas are factors related to insufficient asset base that victims of conflict deal with: before being displaced, people find restrictions on agricultural production and the support of government to get involved with productive activities (Ibañez & Moya, 2010). As a result, insufficient asset base is correlated with experiencing structural poverty. This “lack-of-access initial conditions” worsen and deepen when people are forcibly displaced. On this matter, is worth commenting that whereas the initial deprivation condition is correlated with experiencing structural poverty, the loss of physical and human capital, as land, and the possibility to finish an educational cycles, are direct reasons associated with the fall of displaced households into chronic poverty (Ibid: p. 39). As seen, displaced households do not necessarily start losing their well-being after becoming displaced, but when coexisting with armed groups. In other words, the scope of impoverishment and loss of well-being does not only depend on displacement but reinforces it.

The trajectories of loss of well being of victims when forcibly displaced are varied, and represent a major victimization event from which is hard to recover for those who experience it. Those trajectories refer to the constraints found by members of households when arriving and staying in the so-called receiving municipalities in order to generate income, participate in urban labor markets, having access to education, health, and decent housing, among others (Ibañez & Moya 2006). After being expulsed from their original territories, displaced households usually experience the decrease in aggregate consumption per

household, the drop of the attendance to the secondary school of members of the household, the deterioration of housing conditions, and restrictions in fully participating of health systems (Ibid; Arias, Ibañez & Querubin, 2014).

It is relevant to highlight the unequal access to human and productive assets of forcibly displaced persons –IDPs, even when compared to other impoverished segments of the population. In receiving urban areas, for instance, displaced people are even more vulnerable to experience poverty than original urban poor population. Thus, the educational levels achieved by the head of displaced households in the receiving municipalities are lower than the ones achieved by the urban poor. Furthermore, educational assistance rates of internally displaced people are also lower than those of the poor population in urban areas. Although receiving urban areas do it better in terms of access to public services, displaced households are likely to live in overcrowded housing with unsatisfied basic needs. Therefore, in regards to housing, displaced persons also have lower living standards than urban poor households (Ibañez & Moya 2006: p.18- 20).

Constraints on access to such assets also relate to the economic activities that can be performed by displaced people when establishing in new cities. Ibañez & Moya (Ibid) suggest that due to the null agricultural abilities required in urban labor markets, displaced people are likely to perform informal and poorly paid low skilled activities in receiving cities. The loss of well-being does not only refer to low income and the difficulties to get into the labor market, but also to the impossibility of producing food for self-consumption, and of choosing a profession that matches with their vocation and necessities: displaced people have “the impossibility of choosing the most appropriate professions and occupations with their characteristics and needs. Likewise, there are the psychological effects, the loss of abilities, the loss of confidence, the increase in mortality rates, the dissolution of family relationships and social life, the

intensification of social exclusion patterns and the increase of tensions and gender asymmetries” (Ibañez & Moya, 2006: pp 13,14).

In sum, from an economic redistribution perspective of social justice, the effects that internal conflict causes on the victim population can be measured throughout the loss of their assets and the deterioration of their well-being. As seen, different events of the conflict, such as coexisting with armed groups, and forced displacement, generate shocks in households, which in turn, brings the deterioration of well-being conditions. In some cases, households were experiencing some kind of poverty even before suffering the effects of conflict. In such conditions, household’s well-being is even more difficult to recover even after years of settlement in urban areas (Ibañez & Moya, 2010).

2.2.2 Cultural misrecognition and political misrepresentation in victims of conflicts: a look into reparation measures

In order to see how elements of cultural misrecognition and political misrepresentation in victims of war turn societies have been addressed in the existing literature, it is necessary focusing on the theoretical elements of the reparations of victims of armed conflicts. Reparations of victims of armed conflicts start from a rights based approach, which claims not only the restoration of the conditions that victims of conflict had before experiencing conflict but also the transformation of the social, economic and political structures that facilitated its emergence. What is central to highlight in regards to the conceptions of social justice from which stand the reparation of victims is that overcoming conflict effects does not only refer to improve a socio economic condition but specially, to claim the rights to develop a life project that includes different cultural practices of the victimized groups: “The purpose of this duty is to repair harmful experiences through various mechanisms, such as restitution,

compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and the guarantees of non-repetition, in such a way that the effects of the harm disappear and that the dignity of the victims is re-established” (Uprimny & Saffon: 2009, p. 46) (See also: Gómez 2010; Pizarro & Valencia 2009).

As stated above, reparations of victims firstly points out the emergence of the recognition given to victims as subjects of rights; and secondly, affirms the relevance of transforming foregoing injustice conditions that facilitate its victimization status: "structural conditions of exclusion and unequal power relations are generally the base of the conflict and largely explain why some and not others are victimized social sectors” (Uprynmy & Saffon: 2009, 33). The core of reparations and of the rights of victims lay on the institutional acceptance that there have been serious violations of human rights within dictatorships or armed conflicts that not only need to be restored but transformed in order to enlarge the citizenship of victims. The discussion of transforming, instead of restoring the previous status quo of conflict affected societies is introduced by Uprimny and Saffron (2009), when saying that “the purely restorative approach of reparation is limited, because it aims to restore victims to a situation of vulnerability and deprivation. Therefore, the restorative approach does not address the structural factors of conflict”. (Uprynmy & Saffon, 2009: 33). In this train of thought, groups of people with less access to assets are more likely to suffer conflicts, and therefore, to be direct victims: namely ethnic minority peasants in the Colombian case.

When experiencing violence, some areas or regions have also been more likely to suffer the effects of conflict than others. Therefore, beyond individuals, reparations measures can also be addressed to groups of people that share a collective identity project within a specific territory. Beyond affecting individuals, conflict specifically threats groups of people that are likely to have

common values, political views, life projects and cultural practices. Therefore, beyond individual victims, conflict also generates collective ones. This acknowledgement introduces the necessity to focus on the reparation of collectivities, in order to repair social actors that have been collectively harmed by the effects of conflict: "Collective reparations can be understood as reparation to collective victims, that is, to groups of people who not only identify themselves as individuals, but also share a common identity project, and that have suffered collective damages as a result of serious violations of their individual or collective human rights”. (Díaz, 2010: p. 273).

Collective reparations include measures to tackle collective harms experienced by victims of conflicts within groups of people that identify themselves as part of the same community or as a collective subject. By doing so, collective reparations allow to see impacts of conflict in its victims within a broader scope than the sum of individual isolated cases. In regards to such matters, Diaz (Ibid) also indicates what have been the most recurrent collective harms caused to collective subjects within the Colombian armed conflict. Those are loss of the ability to reproduce itself as a community; destruction or worse of community leaderships, organizational structures, and community governance; weakening of the communitarian bonds; the worsening of economic production capacity and the deepening of poverty, among others (Díaz, 2010: p. 284 -286). All in all, some of the main long-term impacts that victims of armed conflicts have suffered because of war relates to the worsening of their cultural practices and their identity bonds.

To sum: a view on reparations on victims allows acknowledging that the redistributive effects of conflict in its victims (lack of access to assets, and worsening of well-being) also hinder the possibility of fully developing the plural identities and organizational skills of collective subjects affected by war. Thus,

although the literature on reparation points the redistribution issues of social justice, it also focuses on the scope that conflict brings towards cultural a political domains of victimized groups.

2.3 Livelihoods approaches and its relationship with exploring conditions of social justice

As stated in the introductory part and in the first section of the theoretical framework, achieving peace in post conflict societies not only refers to the eradication of violent acts by armed groups, but also to the transformation of war torn societies towards sustainable peace. Therefore, in order to understand the extent to which domains of redistribution and recognition are being actually experienced by victims, it is key focusing on microscale levels of analysis that allow identifying the assets, the activities, the strategies and outcomes that people manage to do in order to make a living. In other words, the importance of focusing on livelihoods approaches in this research stands from using them as a tool for identifying elements of social justice from local and people-centered perspectives.

Firstly, it is necessary pointing out what a livelihood and its studies refer to. According to the UN, a livelihood “comprises the capabilities and assets, which include both material and social resources, and activities required for a means of living. A livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with, and recover from, stresses and shocks and maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets, both now and in the future, while not undermining the natural resource base” (UN, 201: 40-41). Scoones (2009), comments that the studies of livelihoods respond to the questions of how people live, and their different perspectives of living, in order to understand complex institutional contexts from local perspectives. Therefore, studies on livelihoods analyze how people cope, adapt, transform,

same train of thought, De Haan states that livelihoods refer to strategies of groups of people in specific regions, emphasizing the interaction between their societies and environment. (Verrest, 2007: 5). Those strategies are often based on human, social, natural, financial, productive, and political assets that give people access to mobilize (Verrest, 2007: 5).

Livelihoods perspectives have also been identified as one of the key methods to tackle rural poverty and inequalities from the field of development (Scoones, 2009). Serrat (2008) in his work for the Asian Development Bank, states that the livelihoods help “to organize the factors that constrain or enhance livelihood opportunities and shows how they relate to one another” (Serrat: 2008,2). In his words, the livelihoods assets comprise: “Human capital, e.g., health, nutrition, education, knowledge and skills, capacity to work, capacity to adapt; Social capital, e.g., networks and connections (patronage, neighborhoods, kinship), relations of trust and mutual understanding and support, formal and informal groups, shared values and behaviors, common rules and sanctions, collective representation, mechanisms for participation in decision-making, leadership; Natural capital, e.g., land and produce, water and aquatic resources, trees and forest products, wildlife, wild foods and bers, biodiversity, environmental services; Physical capital, e.g., infrastructure (transport, roads, vehicles, secure shelter and buildings, water supply and sanitation, energy, communications), tools and technology (tools and equipment for production, seed, fertilizer, pesticides, traditional technology); Financial capital, e.g., savings, credit and debt (formal, informal), remittances, pensions, wages”. (Serrat, 2009: 2)

Epistemologically speaking, Verrest (2007: 6) places the studies on livelihoods within the discussion between action and structure. According to the author, livelihoods approaches emerged in reaction to a structural determination in order to grasp how do poor people make a living throughout their agency. Under

this framework of analysis, livelihoods give a discussion on the interaction between households and institutions. Considering that livelihoods are people-centered, Scoones (2009) states that the strengths of using livelihoods perspectives are based on using the knowledge and participatory approaches of communities to auto determine its own policy interventions. In the same train of thought, the DFID finds in Livelihoods the potential to bridge the gap between macro and micro levels of analysis “by directly linking problem causes, like for example political programs at a government level, with their effects on individuals, the SLA tires to connect the macro and micro level” (GLOPP, 2008:5).

Within the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework -SLF- depicted by the DIFD (figure 1) one can see the main elements of this perspective. First, the framework acknowledges a condition of vulnerability that frames the external conditions in which people take action. Second, the framework places the livelihood assets as people´s strengths and capacities that are considered in order to “achieve positive livelihoods outcomes”. Those assets can be human capital, social capital, natural capital, physical capital and financial capital (as seen above). The third element of the SLF is the policies, institutions, and policies that have a direct impact on the access of assets and in the decision making of people and in the feeling of inclusion and well-being. The fourth elements refer to the livelihood strategies, which “comprise the range and combination of activities and choices that people make/undertake in order to achieve their livelihood goals”. Those refer to dynamic processes of activities that people do in order to achieve their needs. Last but not least, the framework conceptualizes the livelihood outcomes, as the “achievements or outputs of livelihood strategies, such as more income, increased well-being, reduce vulnerability, improved food security and a more sustainable use of natural resources”. (GLOPP, 2008: 4).

Figure 1: Sustainable Livelihoods Framework -SLF- Source: GLOPP (2008), based on DFID (1999).

In regards to the limitations of the study of livelihoods, Scoones states that it lacks the possibility to comprehend relationships of power at a more structural level, and then to explain the influence of political contexts in the dynamics of rural livelihoods because of being focused on local levels of analysis. Therefore, identifying politics and power in rural development; linking micro levels of analysis towards much broader frames of power relations, and; giving an explanation to emerging dynamics, are some of the current dilemmas identified in the field (Scoones, 2009). In regards to this research, although livelihood approaches provide a picture of the current situation of peoples especially within an economic dimension of analysis (what are the economic activities developed by people, what is their income, expenditures, among others), the study misses the explanation of understanding if this current situation has

changed or not throughout time, and how cultural and political variables have affected these results.

Nevertheless, in the research context, the study of livelihoods would directly refer to how a “vulnerable context” such as the ones affected by conflict, can influence the access to human and productive assets, and therefore, the space of maneuver and possible actions that people are allowed to develop in order to have certain outcomes. By identifying the access, the activities, and the outcomes achieved by people that in this case are direct victims of conflict, one can analyze the extent to which the target population is experiencing not only domains of economic redistribution, but also of cultural recognition.

2.4 Conclusions on the theoretical framework

Steering war torn societies towards achieving sustainable peace implies not only the absence of armed confrontations but long-term transformations oriented to address issues of social justice that include redistributive, recognition, and representation dimensions of those who have been affected the most by violent conflicts. In the Colombian case, rural inhabitants as peasants and ethnic minorities have been largely acknowledged as segments of the population that have been vulnerable to suffer direct effects of conflict, such as forced displacement. Displacement has been diagnosed as a factor that is highly correlated with the intensification of structural poverty, and with the fall into chronic poverty, due to the loss of physical and human assets that households are incapable to recover sufficiently throughout time. In this train of thought, improving the foregoing socio-economic conditions of displaced population has been stressed as a constitutive element of the reparations of victims within the Colombian institutional context. Nevertheless, overcoming conflict effects does not only refer to improve socio economic conditions but especially, to claim the rights to develop a life project that includes different cultural practices of the victimized groups. Although the explored literature has shown some main issues of misdistribution and misrecognition that victims of the Colombian conflict have

had to deal with after experiencing conflict, it does not address to what extent their victimization status is still produced or reproduced after returning to their original territories within a post conflict context. Consequently, livelihoods approaches will be used to keep track on how peasant victims that have had trajectories on unsupported returning are actually doing in regards to key aspects of social justice.

3. Methods

This chapter will reflect the ways the research was both, conceived and developed. For doing so, it will explain firstly the conceptual framework and the epistemological positions or the ways I approached the objects of study as a researcher. Later on, I will expose the research questions, the unit of analysis, the methods design and the integration of the data collected. The chapter will also debate some concepts related to the quality criteria of the research, and therefore, with the credibility and consistency of the information gathered. Last but not least a reflection on the learning process will be discussed, followed by the ethical considerations that were faced during fieldwork. 3.1 Conceptual framework and operationalization Figure 2: conceptual framework

The conceptual framework (figure 2) starts by acknowledging that there are economic, political and social structures that shape the context in which people navigate. The context is firstly determined by a violent conflict. Different acts of war and the systematic violation of human rights throughout the years have had long time effects in persons that have experienced conflict directly. This situation is evidenced in a vulnerable context of poverty, internal displacement, and absence of legitimacy of the State, among others. In this conflict-affected context, there are people that make a living with the resulting and accessible assets of a conflict setting. At the same time, political processes towards overcoming conflict emerged from the economic, political and social structures. These political processes were materialized throughout laws and policies that frame a post conflict scenario in which the confrontation of armed groups and violence ceased, and where measures towards repairing harmful experiences of conflict were implemented in its victims. Nevertheless, not all the victims have been repaired, and long term effects of conflict still shaping their livelihoods and their experiences on social justice. Therefore, the lack of institutional support influences the assets, the activities, and the outcomes of livelihoods of victim population that start returning to their original lands in order to make a living. By understanding their trajectories and the strategies developed, one can see how these families are actually doing in terms of social justice while casting doubt on the extent to which war torn societies are being actually transformed or not in a formally acknowledged post conflict scenario. In order to be measurable, the main concepts explained above have been operationalized:

• Effects of conflict, as the different economic, Psyco social, political and communitarian aspects that were negatively affected after living conflict;

• Experiences of social justice as the major economic redistribution, cultural recognition, and political representation resulting experiences that have had the people of Pitacapacho after living different events of conflict (such as displacement and returning);

• Livelihoods assets; as the access to material and social resources that groups of peoples have in order to make a living. Those can be divided into human, social, natural and financial assets;

• Livelihoods activities as the resulting activities that people can develop from the existing assets they have in a specific context in order to make a living; • Measures of reparation as the main goals, actors and existing processes to overcome harmful experiences of conflict in its victim population5 3.2 Epistemological position During my first session of the epistemologies course given to Research Masters candidates, the professor in charge asked us: “what does doing research mean to you”? Immediately, I tried to use my academic background as Colombian sociologist, and I found the phrase I still use nowadays: for me, to do research refers to understand the construction of meaning given by people to their lives. Research means going underneath the social phenomena and casting doubt on the ways they are presented to our eyes; means having the capacity to understand the underlying motivations and representations that shape the reality that people experience in a specific context. Among many other possible answers, that is what doing research means to me, and therefore, to what I try to do to some extent in this academic exercise.

5_{As it will be seen, I have acknowledged several dimensions of the concepts that are not going to}

be necessarily addressed in the empirical data. For instance, although I acknowledge that “Psychosocial damages” is a key element of “effects of conflict”, it does not mean that I will describe the psychological damages of the inhabitants of Pitacapacho, but that I identify it as a relevant dimension of the concept. For further explication, the operationalization of the key concepts is explained in annex 1.

Now, when thinking in epistemological perspectives that encompass this point of view, we can ask, where does this starting point come from? We can get started by looking to the beginnings of the so-called scientific knowledge by using the positivist lens. Positivism refers first of all to the scientific paradigm that gave birth to the “Age of Enlightenment” in the 18th century in Europe, giving rise to scientific modern thought. In this context, positivism wants to give objective and rational explanations of phenomena by abstracting the subjects of study of any subjectivity that can hinder their understanding. According to Bryman (2008), main points of positivism are to approach to knowledge exclusively throughout senses; to build theories by hypothesis to be tested (deductivism); to acknowledge that knowledge comes through the gathering of facts (inductivism); to state that observation of facts could be done without values and opinions; to make a the distinction between the natural and social domains of study.

The positivist paradigm of the modern thought has been challenged by some “post modern” epistemologies. One of their main representatives is Michael Foucault, who claims that the mere act of observing, far from being neutral, implies exercising power (see Escobar, 1995). Neutrality becomes a myth, and the idea of objectivity is questioned when acknowledging that researchers are not unraveling the truth, but giving a partial sense of it. Then, perspectives as Realism appears, stating that instead of doing “hypothesis about regularities of patterns among events”, social science should be oriented to focus on “qualitative differences between various kind of interaction, their purposes and effects, and on what kinds of things produce those regularities” (Sayer:2006, 101). Similarly, the Colombian philosopher Armando Silva reflects on the different levels in which the experience of reality is built, by exploring the so-called “imaginaries”. The study of imaginaries looks at social constructions of reality. The study involves the understanding of an abstract reality, which is shaped by the perceptions and emotions shown in the way the citizens internalize spaces and communicate among them: “what is collectively imagined as reality, becomes the reality socially constructed” (Silva, 2006: 25).

In sum, one can say that the purpose of giving the previous epistemological insights is to make explicit the many viewpoints from which a researcher can conduct research. Despite my acknowledgment of the importance of observation and rigorous analysis when doing research, my epistemological starting point fits with the postmodern insights discussed above considering that: (i) the different layers of the understanding of social reality. To give an explanation of objective events is valuable as long as one can grasp the meaning given by the people that experience them; (ii) the importance of my personal and political ideas when doing research. Far from being neutral, my social conditions (sociologist, Colombian, upper middle class, women, among others) have not only shaped my research interests, but the motivations to conduct it. Believing in the importance of democratizing the public action, and giving voice to those who have been historically deprived to speaking up, are some of the none - neutralities that I acknowledge as a researcher in this work. Those definitely have marked my epistemological approach. 3.3 Research questions 3.3.1 Main research question What have been the main experiences of conflict that people of the rural area of Pitacapacho suffered and how are they related with their current livelihoods and experiences of social justice? 3.3.2 Sub research questions • What were the main experiences of different groups of Pitacapacho in regards to the Colombian armed conflict focusing on the domains of livelihoods and social justice?

• What actual and perceived changes in livelihoods have occurred in different groups of Pitacapacho from the displacement and the resettlement?

• How changes in livelihoods and the experiences on social justice can be explained from the experiences of conflict (displacement and the resettlement) that different groups of Pitacapacho suffered? 3.4 Unit of analysis Figure 3. Timeline of Pitacapacho and its surroundings from the displacement in 2000 until today

This research was conducted between the months of September 2016 and January 2017 and focuses on the effects that violent conflict has brought to inhabitants that were displaced from a rural area called Pitacapacho, and that nowadays have returned. Therefore, as could be seen in figure 3, the unit of analysis of the research is the existing households that are placed in the area, and consequently, the experiences of its members in regards to the effects of conflict on current livelihoods and experiences of social justice. The empirical sections are divided into two parts. The first one encompasses the narrative of the perceptions of people that after been violently displaced in the year of 2000, have finally come back to their territory. In other words, this section encompasses the memories of the trajectories of displacement and returning with regards to their livelihoods, of the so-called returned population that compounds the current 91 households of the Pitacapacho population.

The second section, shows a picture of the current situation of these people in regards to their main socio economic assets and activities by pointing out a major difference within the households: although most of the members of the rural area inhabit it permanently, more than a third of the population partially came back to their household and still go back and forth from it to an urban setting. In other words, whereas 57% of the people came back permanently to the rural area after displacement, the 43% remaining population have divided their life between the urban setting to which they were displaced, and the rural area of Pitacapacho. Therefore, this section shows their current situation by pointing out main differences within these groups of peoples with regards to both their assets and their activities.

Figure 4: Exploratory mixed methods design

Source: own based on Ivankova et.al. (2006: 6)

The Preparatory Phase corresponds to the activities that were developed within the proposal of the thesis. It refers to all the secondary quantitative and qualitative information that was collected in order to define the societal relevance of the problem to be answered. Its main goal is giving the backbone of the project. The Qualitative Data Collection refers to the moment in which I arrived at the field in order to collect the first-hand qualitative data. After doing some preliminary observations, I conducted in depth semi structured interviews with the members of the rural area of Pitacapacho, and with persons that have

inhabited Palo Alto and San Onofre (9 interviews in total). Interviews were developed during the first part of the phase in order to validate and explore the information that had been already taken. The insights of the interviews were used to design the focus group tool. In this context and according to Kitzinger (1990), conducting focus groups was first thought to explore the main perceptions of inhabitants of the rural area of Pitacapacho about the changes that conflict brought to their lives from livelihoods and social justice perspective.

It is worth saying that all the insights and impressions were taken while visiting the area, talking to people, both, formally (throughout semi- structured interviews and focus groups), and informally, and field work notes (among others), are part of the participant and no-participant observations made within the project. All these observations made possible to categorize the preliminary findings, and therefore to design later on both, one of the two sets of surveys, and other structured interviews.

The next step taken wanted to connect the qualitative and quantitative research phase by shaping the results of the first empirical research part to questions for a quantitative survey. Here, the aim was to do a survey that included the preliminary findings of the qualitative part throughout a Likert Scale survey. The Likert Scale refers to multiple indicators, which aims to measure the intensity of feelings about an area in question, by grasping the level of agreement in a certain statement (Bryman, 2012). The statements were focused on how the chosen group perceived transformations in their livelihoods assets, livelihoods strategies, and experiences of social justice. Thus, there were chosen 20 heads of the 91 households in the area to conduct this set of the survey. In this case, the sampling exercise was not random, but convenient. Convenience sample refers to the sampling method that implies choosing the members that are available in order to achieve the research project. In this case, I chose members of the rural area of Pitacapacho that were available to participate. Although convenience sampling is usually related to present biased and non-generalisable results, the respondents represent an amount of 22% households.

At the same time, a socio economic conditions survey was applied to the inhabitants of the rural area of Pitacapacho. This survey was designed by the NGO I worked with during my fieldwork. It was a household survey database and its main objective was to “picture” the main demographic and socio economic conditions of the families of the area of study. It included none- numerical variables by household such as: place of residence, victimization status (including if displaced or not), educational levels achieved, access to health systems, economic activities developed by households (among others), and numerical variables such as monthly income and monthly expenditures by household (among others). For this case, sampling was not conducted because the survey was applied to all the households identified in the area.

The quantitative data analysis phase refers to the frequencies and a percentage distribution of answers. The aim here was not only giving the descriptive statistics but also categorizing the households within subgroups according to the variables established in the surveys, and relating them to the level of the perceptions found on the Likert Scale survey.

The Integration of quantitative and qualitative results phase refers to the interpretation of the data collected in order to answer the research questions. At the end, what was mainly done was trying to relate demographic characteristics and socio economic outcomes, to the extent to which different groups of people in the study area perceive how have affected their daily lives, according to the main concepts that were operationalized in the research proposal: reparation measures, social justice, livelihoods, and effects of conflict.

3.6 Reflection on the learning process

As said above, this project aim has always been related to exploring local perspectives on changes in livelihoods and experiences of social justice of conflict-affected settings. However, before getting to the field, the idea was to explore the perceived outcomes of a reparation and reconciliation national policy for victims of violent conflicts. Looking for this included the

implementation of peace building and development initiatives for communities of rural areas that have been historically affected by violence and the dynamics of armed conflict in Colombia. The idea was, therefore, to get to El Salado, also placed in the Montes de Maria Caribbean sub region. El Salado is considered a successful post conflict case: it was one of the first six communities that were chosen as subjects of collective reparation in 2006 among other rural communities, political parties, and unions, by the Colombian government Collective Reparation Policy. Furthermore, the systematic cooperation of both, profit and nonprofit private organizations in this community, and the exit of the violent actors in this area made El Salado a suitable place to be chosen in order to develop the research.

However, getting there was not possible. Making contact with the organizations that have a systematic presence at El Salado was unfruitful. Nevertheless, I managed to work with an organization (Fundación Puntos de Encuentro), which was willing to work with another community of the Montes de María that as El Salado suffered the impacts of the same conflict, at the same period of time. As El Salado, the rural area of Pitacapacho suffered massacres, targeted murders and the territorial control of paramilitaries, which in turn, caused the internal displacement of peasants, the disintegration of social organizations, and the dispossession of lands. The main difference between these two communities was that while one has been already repaired (El Salado), the other one has not (Pitacapacho).

The idea of exploring local perspectives of changes in livelihoods and experiences of social justice is still the objective of this academic exploration. However, now it is oriented to understand how conflict, specifically the internal displacement and the return, has contributed to the transformation of livelihoods and experiences of social justice on Pitacapacho´s community members, and what have been the strategies developed by its members to make a living in its territory.