Campesinos and the State: Building and Experiencing the State in Rural Communities In
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Title Page Campesinos and the State: Building and Experiencing the State in Rural Communities in the ‘Post-conflict’ Transition in Montes de María, Colombia by Diana Rocío Hoyos Gómez Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 2000 Master of Arts in Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, 2015 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2020 Committee Page UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Diana Rocío Hoyos Gómez It was defended on May 11, 2020 and approved by Dr Robert Hayden, Professor, Department of Anthropology Dr Laura Gotkowitz, Associate Professor, Department of History Dr Tomas Matza, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology Dissertation Co-Chairs: Dr. Kathleen Musante, Professor, Department of Anthropology, and Dr. Heath Cabot, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology ii Copyright © by Diana Rocío Hoyos Gómez 2020 iii Abstract Campesinos and the State: Building and Experiencing the State in Rural Communities in the ‘Post-conflict’ transition in Montes de María, Colombia Diana Rocío Hoyos Gómez, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2020 This research is an ethnographic study of relationships and interactions between campesino communities and the state during the escalation of the armed conflict and the ongoing ‘post- conflict’ transition in the mountain zone of Montes de María, Colombia. This study contributes to the understanding of state building ‘from below’, with a focus on rural areas in contexts of ‘post- conflict’ transitions. I examine forms of political violence carried out in campesino communities by state actors during the militarization of the region and the long-term effects of that violence on campesinos and their relationships with the state. I analyze how citizen-state relationships and experiences of the state are shaped in the ‘post-conflict’ transition in rural areas, in the context of state processes centered on the victims of the armed conflict and the implementation of the peace agreements between the Colombian government and FARC guerrillas. I explore continuities of violence in campesino communities during the last decade. I also examine state images constructed in these territories. I argue that state violence carried out in campesino communities as part of counterinsurgency practices constituted rural populations as subjects at the margins of the state. Practices of producing visibility and invisibility of past state violence by campesinos and state actors and the lasting effects of violence continue shaping relationships with the state. iv The Law of Victims and Land Restitution created opportunities regarding the rights of the victims. However, campesinos experiences have also been shaped by the partial or slow fulfillment of reparations and a politics of waiting. As part of the peace accords, the Development Plans with a Territorial Focus created opportunities to reshape citizen-state relationships by relying on a territorial approach and a participatory process. Rural communities participated actively in the formulation of these plans but the rights of these populations have yet to materialize on the ground. Finally, institutional efforts to reshape relationships between the state and rural inhabitants have coexisted with structural violence and the threats that social leaders continue to face in rural areas. Narratives and images of state abandonment continue being constructed and mobilized by campesinos in a context of state interventions. v Table of Contents Preface .......................................................................................................................................... xii 1.0 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Conceptual and theoretical framework: the state, political violence, other forms violence, and the ‘post-conflict’ category ........................................................................... 9 1.1.1 Unpacking the state: images, practices and affect and other conceptual precisions ......................................................................................................................12 1.1.2 Political and other forms of violence and the continuum of violence ............16 1.1.3 The ‘post-conflict’ category ...............................................................................20 1.1.4 Ethnographies of the state in contexts of political violence, armed conflict and ‘post-conflict’ and ‘post-war’ contexts ......................................................................25 1.2 Outline of chapters ....................................................................................................... 29 2.0 Context and Methods: Campesino Communities, Armed Conflict and State Processes in the Mountain Zone of Montes de María ............................................................. 34 2.1 Field site: the mountain zone in the region of Montes de María .............................. 34 2.2 The municipalities of the mountain zone and campesino communities .................. 37 2.2.1 Land struggle and campesino communities .....................................................39 2.3 Armed conflict and state violence in the mountain zone of Montes de María ........ 42 2.3.1 The guerrillas ......................................................................................................43 2.3.2 The fuerza pública and state violence ..............................................................49 2.3.3 Paramilitary groups and the massacres ...........................................................52 vi 2.4 State processes, interventions and the Final Agreement in the ‘post-conflict’ transition ............................................................................................................................. 56 2.5 Some notes on positionality and conducting fieldwork in contexts affected by violence and ‘post-conflict’ transitions ............................................................................. 61 2.6 Methodology .................................................................................................................. 69 2.6.1 In-depth semi-structured interviews ................................................................70 2.6.2 Participant observation .....................................................................................76 2.6.3 Archival research ...............................................................................................78 2.6.4 Data analysis .......................................................................................................79 3.0 Militarization of Everyday Life in Campesino Communities and Invisibility of State Violence at the Margins of the State in Mountain Zone of Montes de María ............. 81 3.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 81 3.2 Margins of the state and invisibility and visibility of state violence ........................ 84 3.3 The image of the “weakness of the state”: the military versus the social presence of the state at the territorial margins .................................................................................... 87 3.4 Campesinos experiences of the state in a context of militarization of everyday life and control, surveillance and violent state practices ....................................................... 93 3.4.1 Presence of other institutions in campesino communities and practices of resistance ....................................................................................................................103 3.5 Making visible the violations of human rights and denial ...................................... 105 3.6 A look into the present: the production of invisibility and visibility of state violence ............................................................................................................................................ 108 3.7 Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 122 vii 4.0 State Violence and Invisible Victims: Mass Arbitrary Detentions, Long-term Effects and Emotions in Campesino Communities in the Mountain Zone of Montes de María ..................................................................................................................................... 126 4.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 126 4.2 State affect and emotions in the context of encounters with the state ................... 130 4.3 Characteristics of arbitrary and mass detentions as state practice in rural communities ...................................................................................................................... 134 4.3.1 The Mariscal Sucre Operation ........................................................................140 4.4 State terror and the impact of arbitrary detentions on campesino victims, families and their communities ...................................................................................................... 144 4.5 Relationships with the state: state affect, invisible victims and claims for truth and reparations