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Scholars of state classification practices have long interrogated how official legal categories are constructed. This paper analyzes the construction of "victimhood" in Colombia as a feat that required negotiation among international human rights organizations, local civil society actors, and politicians across the partisan spectrum. The Victims' Law of 2011, which sought to provide widespread reparations to victims of the civil conflict, originated from the concerns of the human rights community, yet the deliberation process leading up to the law's passage reveals the extent to which elite historical narratives of the conflict unduly narrowed the universe of eligible victims. Using archival evidence from congressional debates from 2007 to 2011, this paper argues that the broad conception of victimhood originally inherited from United Nations guidelines came to be constrained by disproportionate influence from politicians' personal understandings of conflict history, shaped by anecdote and the selective use of historical evidence. These rationales interacted with budgetary constraints to ultimately restrict the victim category according to negotiated temporal boundaries of the conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the conceptualizations of organized crime as both an enterprise and a form of governance, borderland as a spatial category, and borders as institutions, this paper looks at the politics of bordering practices by organized crime in the Colombian-Venezuelan borderlands. It posits that contrary to the common assumptions about transnational organized crime, criminal organizations not only blur or erode the border but rather enforce it to their own benefit. In doing so, these groups set norms to regulate socio-spatial practices, informal and illegal economies, and migration flows, creating overlapping social orders and, lastly, (re)shaping the borderland. Theoretically, the analysis brings together insights from political geography, border studies, and organized crime literature, while empirically, it draws on direct observation, criminal justice data, and in-depth interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Entramado is the property of Universidad Libre Seccional Cali and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The signing of the Final Agreement between the Colombian National Government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on November 24, 2016, created many expectations. However, key advances that were achieved during the subsequent months gave way to a period of stagnation and even actual backsliding in its implementation. This paper analyzes the difficulties of fulfilling the Final Agreement, in particular as concerns its first point regarding Comprehensive Rural Reform (CRR). The analysis is based on the argument that if the Agreement was focused on generating the conditions necessary to end armed conflict and reestablish democratic conditions in the country, it also contains structural factors which infringe upon the consolidation of peace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies certain forms of violence which occurred during the conquest of Antioquia between 1540 and 1550. As this province was a border area, both because of the aboriginal resistance and because of the confrontation between the governorates of Cartagena and Popayan, war and punishment against indigenous peoples was gruesome, even for the context of the Conquest. The aim of the paper is not to study the uniqueness of Antioquia, but to show that the border war was an imperial problem and that it relaxed morals allowing a punitive system foreign to civilized confrontation but valid in peripheral areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Universitas Humanística is the property of Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Geopolitica(s): Revista de Estudios Sobre Espacio y Poder is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

From an understanding of the struggles of popular movements for the defence of the territory, is an analysis of the Colombian Agrarian question. Presenting in a critical way the development model dependent capitalism restored by the ruling classes, which determines the territorial arranging of a hegemonic way and the territorial disputes gestated in the struggles of the popular movements, that in its historical experience are constituted in subjects of power, shown in its organizational capacity and in the practice of the warrants in the territories. The paper discusses about the category of popular classes, the links between the different movements, peasants, indigenous and black communities in the agrarian scene and the ways in which today the territorial dispute is addressed from the movements, They question and are related with other forms of expression of the popular classes at the current juncture of the war and the peace process, like left political parties and the insurgency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Colombian–Venezuelan borderlands are facing a 'double crisis': at the same time as armed groups reconfigure following the demobilization of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Colombia is concurrently receiving millions of refugees, migrants, and Colombian returnees from neighbouring Venezuela. While much international coverage of the crisis has focused on Cúcuta, the major border crossing in the department of Norte de Santander, the crossing via the Guajira Peninsula is the second most frequented official land crossing into Colombia. In 2020, La Guajira was home to more than 166,000 refugees and migrants, the third highest concentration in the country. This happened at the same time as new and old armed groups were using violent measures to control strategic territory in the region. This practice note takes stock of the risks that affect security conditions as perceived and experienced by communities in La Guajira, and outlines the self-protection strategies that some communities employ to respond to the changing security conditions. It demonstrates the need for enhancing efforts for integration (for example, documentation) and response mechanisms that are shared between Colombia and other countries in the region in order to mitigate risks for Venezuelans in border regions of Colombia. The information reported here comes from a targeted civil society workshop held in Riohacha—the capital city of La Guajira—and a field visit made in April 2019 under the research programme 'From Conflict Actors to Architects of Peace—CONPEACE'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South America has gained international media attention due to its ongoing arms race, with politicians and analysts warning about the possibility of war. Nevertheless, since the Chaco War in the 1930s, the region has seldom faced major inter-state wars, all of which have been short-lived and with relatively few casualties. This article will discuss in greater detail the ongoing arms race in South America, portraying it as a race 'of levels', with not all countries carrying out massive weaponry purchases. Finally, I will discuss regional geopolitics, geosecurity and integration as part of an analysis regarding the unlikelihood of war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]