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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]

The relationship between state and absent citizens is becoming more important since the globalization of the 1990s. Countries usually try to increase the number of their citizens through two methods. The first is by increasing the number of nationals living abroad using a dual-nationality system. The second is by expanding national power through dual culturalism. These methods increase the international capacity of the home state through the expansion of the de facto state territory from the perspective of network-power theory. Latin American countries have been relatively passive in this diaspora-engagement policy, but recently they have begun to show an active attitude by revising their migration policy—amendments to the Constitution and migration law, dual nationality, dual culturalism, voting rights abroad, and upgrading the status of diaspora agencies, etc. However, it is still unclear how the multinational and multi-ethnic Latin American countries conceptualize diaspora. This paper analyzes the diaspora-engagement policy of Latin American countries from the standpoint of network-power theory and tries to find out what its theoretical framework is. This paper concludes that the theorization work on diaspora should continue to track and analyze these policy changes, since it is difficult to understand what the diaspora concept is and what policy objectives the state is pursuing under the current diaspora-engagement policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian & Latin American Economic History is the property of Cambridge University Press 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.)

This paper analyses whether the implementation of business and human rights (BHR) frameworks in Colombia properly responds to the challenges posed by informal mining and gender-based violence and discrimination in the context of conflict and peacebuilding. The mining sector has been considered key in Colombia to promote economic growth, but it is also characterized by significant informality. Informal mining in Colombia has been linked to gender-based violence and discrimination. We contend that while informality has been identified as a substantial hurdle to the realization of human rights, BHR frameworks still fall short in addressing this aspect of business. By examining the specific measures Colombia has devised to implement BHR, including two National Action Plans on BHR, we demonstrate the urgency of addressing informal economies in BHR and to continue developing particular insights to properly protect, respect and remedy the human rights wrongs women experience in the context of informal mining. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines social, cultural and religious factors that affect the implementation of international humanitarian law concerning dead and missing persons in non-international armed conflicts. To this end, the behaviour of both armed groups and civil society is studied. The argument made in the paper is that in some cases endogenous and exogenous systems of value (social, religious and cultural understandings), operating within the logic of armed non-State actors and within local communities, should be considered by policies concerning the search for missing persons. The Colombian armed conflict is used as case study; the social, cultural and religious practices of the National Liberation Army and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army are analyzed as examples. Likewise, social and cultural values within affected populations can impact on post-conflict mechanisms agreed upon by the parties concerning the search for missing persons, and vice versa. Consequently, customs and traditions such as the "adoption" of unidentified buried people by local communities (social resignification of the dead) and the practices of indigenous communities are reviewed in order to establish a holistic framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The First Congress of Black Culture of the Americas, held in Cali, Colombia, in August 1977 and organized by Afro-Colombian intellectual Manuel Zapata Olivella, was the first Pan-Africanist conference held in Latin America. This paper examines the obstacles Afro-Latin American activists faced in organizing a racially defined event and analyzes how they articulated their own interpretations of black radical politics. It shows that a Pan-Africanist event in Latin America had to account for ideologies of racial harmony and mixture. Observers throughout the region mobilized these ideas to discredit the First Congress as a racist and illegitimate threat to mestizo nationhood. Afro-Latin American activists used it as a platform to debate and denounce ideologies of racial harmony and mixture which many argued cloaked racism and impeded black mobilization. However, for many of the delegates engaging with black radical politics did not imply an absolute rejection of these ideas, but instead highlighted the varying ways in which Afro-Latin American activists understood and contested these concepts in the 1970s. Many Afro-Latin American delegates, even those who were openly critical of ideologies of racial harmony, called for multiracial forms of solidarity and expressed support for culturally mixed visions of the nation-state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian & Latin American Economic History is the property of Cambridge University Press 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.)

A growing body of scholarship connects the participation of women and the inclusion of gender provisions to the sustainability of peace settlements. But how do women's groups navigate gender power structures and gendered forms of violence within complex and fragile political bargaining processes aimed at ending large-scale conflict? The 2016 Colombian peace agreement, internationally applauded for its inclusion of strong gender provisions and women's participation as negotiators and peace advocates, is a significant case for examining these questions. Drawing on original case material, including interviews of key actors on different sides of the conflict – this article analyses the political bargaining dynamics within and among women's movements, the Santos government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC). We argue that the inclusion of women was pivotal in transforming the elite bargaining process and power structures of Colombian society enabling a gender-based approach to the substantive peace agenda addressing transitional gender justice for sexual violence survivors and gender-equal redistribution through land and rural reform programmes. The study suggests that deeply situated political bargaining analysis is essential to navigating gender in elite bargains rather than a one-size-fits-all approach to inclusive peace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Animal Genetic Resources is the property of Cambridge University Press 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 Journal of Latin American Studies is the property of Cambridge University Press 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 Journal of Latin American Studies is the property of Cambridge University Press 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.)

Earlier empirical research on party list proportional representation systems shows that women spend less on campaigns than men, particularly when quotas are applied. An analysis of the candidate campaign expenses for the 2014 and 2018 Colombian Lower Chamber elections provides a novel test of this gender gap and its underlying causes. The research design leverages Colombia's unique context of electoral institutions, with interdistrict variation in terms of quota rules, and the availability of detailed information on campaign spending and funding. The regression models show that the gender gap in campaign spending is limited to districts with quota rules and disappears among incumbents and candidates listed first on the ballot. As for funding, women candidates are most disadvantaged with regard to personal funds and corporate donations but attract as many individual donations as men do. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the process of legal contention between civil society, political parties, and state institutions for the baldíos lands in the Colombian Altillanura region in the last two decades, a region considered the country's "last agricultural frontier." The article focuses on the dual and sometimes contradictory roles of the state institutions, both as facilitators of baldíos grabbing and as guarantors of the peasants' legal land rights. It analyzes the different attempts by the Colombian government to remove the legal limitations to land accumulation and the resistance put up by civil society and the political parties, which resorted to the existing legal mechanisms to deactivate those attempts. The results reveal the two-sided role of the state: while the government introduces legal changes to facilitate baldíos grabbing, state bodies are actively denouncing and sanctioning illegalities or ruling in favor of peasants deprived of their lands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Colombian peace process was internationally celebrated for its unprecedented focus on women's experiences of war, but the everyday violence women that may face in their homes was not acknowledged. This article explores the links between exposure to local armed conflict violence and individual women's experiences of intimate partner violence. I combine pooled nationally representative data on individual women's experiences of intimate partner violence with information about the intensity of conflict during 2004–16. Results of fixed-effects linear probability models show that conflict was generally linked to a slightly elevated risk of women experiencing emotional, physical, and sexual violence perpetrated by their partner. Among women who had experienced intimate partner violence, conflict was related to an increased probability of being partnered at interview, which could reflect women staying in abusive relationships because conflict normalizes violence or increases women's reluctance to leave those relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Six vertebrae (one cervical, three articulated thoracic, and two lumbar) and an incomplete thoracic neural spine from a new late Pleistocene site at Anolaima, Cundinamarca, Colombia, are attributed to the extinct gomphothere (Elephantoidea, Proboscidea) Notiomastodon platensis. The preserved bones exhibit a range of alterations, including porosities, piercings, hollows, and deep bone lesions on the spinous process and the neural arch; asymmetrical zygapophyseal articulations; and osteoarthritic lesions. Diet, behaviour, ecological aspects, selective pressures, and disease have the potential to affect the bones, so the study of individual variations and palaeopathology provides important information for understanding aspects of the life of extinct organisms. Osteological anomalies in the Anolaima gomphothere are interpreted as the result of nutritional deficiencies in essential minerals caused by environmental stresses, possibly related to the palaeoenvironmental instability that characterized the late Pleistocene and that coincides with the age of the fossils. Excessive biomechanical loading on already weakened bones from locomotion through the uneven, upland terrain of the Anolaima region may have contributed to the pathologies. This palaeopathological analysis is the first for Colombian megafauna, and thereby broadens our knowledge of the health conditions of South American gomphotheres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We studied the sperm whale Physeter macrocephalus in the Colombian Caribbean by combining data from our offshore surveys of behaviour, encounter rate, group structure and density with data from the literature. We describe for the first time the potential distribution of sperm whales in the Colombian Caribbean, using sighting and acoustic data obtained during our surveys, published information, and opportunistic encounters during 1988–2020. We conducted surveys on seismic vessels over 703 days during 2011–2016, covering an area of 68,904 km2. We recorded 98 individuals in a total of 50 groups, a density of 1.42 individuals per 1,000 km2. To determine the potential distribution of the species, we built Maxent models with uncorrelated environmental variables at five depths (from the surface to c. 2,000 m). The model for 1,000 m depth had the best performance, with areas of high probability of occurrence of sperm whales in the south and north-east Colombian Caribbean over the shelf break to waters up to c. 3,000 m deep, at a median distance of 107 km from the coast, and near the Archipelago of San Andrés, Old Providence and Saint Catherine in the north-west. This area may be an important tropical habitat for sperm whales, in which they socialize, rest, breed and feed. Our study underlines the importance of monitoring marine mammals offshore and describes the potential distribution of sperm whales in the Colombian Caribbean, supporting conservation actions for this Vulnerable species, which is currently facing several threats in this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines how the inhabitants of Putumayo, a department of Colombia both divided and held together by licit and illicit authority structures and markets, engage with varied political orders as they advance individual and collective economic and political projects. Putumayo's inhabitants adopt four basic strategies to maintain their often illicit livelihoods amid state repression. The first is intellectual resistance, wherein they develop explanations for their involvement in illicit markets that they can use to alter local and national state behavior. The second is protest, through which groups of peasants mobilize to support their illicit but socially normalized economic endeavors. A third is evasion or malicia, in which peasants seek to strategically adhere to state policy to misdirect the state as they continue to grow coca. Fourth, some peasants pursue a strategy of exit, going deeper into the jungle in search of land where they can peacefully grow coca. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Later years have seen the growth of a vibrant theoretical discussion on agonistic peace and the importance of creating space for contestation, plurality, and dissensus post-accord. However, there has been very few attempts at embedding agonistic theory in empirical analyses of peace agreements. This study attends to that lacuna by investigating how agonistic principles can be integrated and investigated in peace agreements. We suggest a threefold set of indicators for assessing the degree to which peace agreements are invested with agonistic dynamics: (1) what types of spaces for interaction are offered post-accord; (2) what forms of inclusion are stipulated; and (3) how is the peace agreement framed in terms of conflict termination and consensus/dissensus? We illustrate how the various indicators could be put into motion in concrete analyses applying them to examples from the Oslo Accords, the Belfast Agreement, and the Colombian Peace Agreement. Finally, we discuss four dilemmas and problematiques of integrating agonistic ideas in peace agreements; the issue of power, the mixing of agonistic and liberal ideals in peace agreements, the principle of 'nothing is agreed until everything is agreed' and the related double-edged potential of constructive ambiguity and finally the challenges of implementing peace agreements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses how the Colombian medical elites made sense of typhoid fever before and during the inception of bacteriological ideas and practices in the second half of the nineteenth century. Assuming that the identity of typhoid fever has to be understood within the broader concerns of the medical community in question, I show how doctors first identified Bogotaá's epidemics as typhoid fever during the 1850s, and how they also attached specificity to the fever amongst other continuous fevers, such as its European and North American counterparts. I also found that, in contrast with the discussions amongst their colleagues from other countries, debates about typhoid fever in 1860–70 among doctors in Colombia were framed within the medico-geographical scheme and strongly shaped by the fear of typhoid fever appearing alongside ‘paludic’ fevers in the highlands. By arguing in medico-geographical and clinical terms that typhoid fever had specificity in Colombia, and by denying the medico-geographical law of antagonism between typhoid and paludic fevers proposed by the Frenchman Charles Boudin, Colombian doctors managed to question European knowledge and claimed that typhoid fever had distinct features in Colombia. The focus on paludic and typhoid fevers in the highlands might explain why the bacteriological aetiology of typhoid fever was ignored and even contested during the 1880s. Anti-Pasteurian arguments were raised against its germ identity and some physicians even supported the idea of spontaneous origin of the disease. By the 1890s, Pasteurian knowledge had come to shape clinical and hygienic practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We assessed the relation between social pension benefits and health among poor older individuals in Colombia based on a qualitative case study (N = 51) using in-depth semi-structured interviews. Participants were beneficiaries of the Colombia Mayor social pension programme, recruited through snowball sampling in one rural and one urban area. Participants reported using cash benefits mainly for purchasing essential foods and medicines, as well as for paying for household utilities and satisfying personal needs. Beneficiaries of the programme view the latter as being positively associated with their health as it not only satisfies material needs but also increases their sense of autonomy, emotional wellbeing and also promotes a positive and cheerful attitude. Despite most beneficiaries perceiving the programme as positively associated with their health and wellbeing, results also highlight the importance of the various individual- as well as contextual-level factors in determining the relation between social pensions and health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article pits two conceptions of modernity—that of the Marxist humanist Marshall Berman and the ANT (Actor-Network Theory) sociologist Bruno Latour—against each other, exploring the implications of each for postcolonial and world literary criticism. The article begins by explaining "modernity" in the terms of both theorists, focusing on the "split" between subject and object, text and world. It then identifies a wider Latourian turn in postcolonial and world literary studies that has emerged in response to the prescriptively structural approaches of groups such as the WReC. In response, the article offers in turn a Latourian reading and then a structural critique of the Colombian novelist Juan Gabriel Vásquez's fifth novel, The Sound of Things Falling (2011, trans. 2013), probing their possibilities and limitations. In conclusion, it suggests Berman's more expansive definition of modernist practice as one way in which postcolonial and world literary criticism might more effectively mediate between structural critique and close reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Gestational anaemia (GA) is common in developing countries. This study assessed the relationship of late GA and negative perinatal outcomes in participants recruited in a reference maternity unit of the Caribbean region of Colombia.Design: Prospective analytical birth cohort study. Maternal Hb and serum ferritin (SF) levels were measured. GA was defined as Hb levels <6·82 mmol/l (<11 g/dl), SF depletion as SF levels <12 µg/l. Birth outcomes such as low birth weight (LBW), preterm birth (PB) and small for gestational age (SGA) were examined.Setting: Mothers in the first stage of labour, living in urban or rural areas of Bolívar, were enrolled in an obstetrical centre located in Cartagena, Colombia. Blood and stool samples were taken prior delivery. Maternal blood count, SF levels and infant anthropometric data were recorded for analysis.Participants: 1218 pregnant women aged 18-42 years and their newborns.Results: Prevalence of GA and SF depletion was 41·6 % and 41·1 %, respectively. GA was positively associated with poverty-related sociodemographic conditions. Prenatal care attendance lowered the risk of PB, LBW and SGA. Birth weight was inversely associated with Hb levels, observing a -36·8 g decrease in newborn weight per 0·62 mmol/l (or 1 g/dl) of maternal Hb. SF depletion, but not anaemia, was associated with PB. SGA outcome showed a significant association with anaemia, but not a significant relationship with SF depletion.Conclusions: Birth weight and other-related perinatal outcomes are negatively associated with Hb and SF depletion. Prenatal care attendance reduced the risk of negative birth outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study aimed to examine in Colombian rural households the association between different severity levels of household food insecurity and the presence of the double burden of malnutrition (SCOWT), defined as the coexistence of a stunted child under 5 years of age and an overweight or obese (OWOB) mother.Design: A secondary data analysis was conducted using cross-sectional data from the Colombian National Nutritional Survey (ENSIN) 2015. Household food insecurity status was assessed by using the Latin-American and Caribbean Food Security Scale (ELCSA). The household SCOWT status (child stunting and OWOB mother) was determined using anthropometric data from a mother and her child.Setting: Rural Colombia.Participants: Totally, 2·350 mother-child pairs living in the same household.Results: Sixty-two per cent of the households were food-insecure and SCOWT was present in 7·8 % of the households. Moderate (OR: 2·39, 95 % CI (1·36, 4·21)) and severe (OR: 1·86, 95 % CI (1·10, 3·15)) food insecurity was associated with SCOWT in an unadjusted logistic regression. Only moderate food insecurity remained significantly associated with SCOWT in a multivariate logistic regression (adjusted OR: 2·41, 95 % CI (1·24, 4·68)).Conclusions: Colombian rural areas are not exempt from the worldwide concern of increasing OWOB rates while stunting is still persistent. These results highlight the need of implementing double-duty rural actions targeting the most vulnerable households to SCOWT, particularly in terms of overcoming food insecurity beyond hunger satisfaction to prevent all forms of malnutrition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The brown hairy dwarf porcupine Coendou vestitus is a poorly studied Andean species endemic to Colombia. Its current Red List category is contradictory: globally it is categorized as Data Deficient but in Colombia it is categorized as Vulnerable. This contradiction has limited the implementation of conservation programmes. We evaluate the level of rarity of the species and provide consolidated information for a new assessment of its Red List status. We reviewed literature, photographs, and voucher specimens in natural history collections. Using the confirmed records, we estimated the extent of occurrence (EOO) based on the minimum convex polygon and the area of occupancy (AOO) summing the area of grid squares occupied by the species. We found that C. vestitus is very rare, with a small range, low estimated population density, occurrence in only one habitat type and small body size. The species has an EOO of 3,323 km2 and an AOO of 24 km2, based on six confirmed localities, all on the western slopes of the Eastern Cordillera, in the central Andean region of Colombia. Based on the species' rarity, restricted distribution, and threats to its natural habitat, we recommend its categorization as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. This will help delineate research and conservation efforts for this porcupine, which has a highly restricted range and inhabits the threatened Andean forest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines organized opposition to feminist and LGBTI political projects in Colombia. Although there is a large body of literature on feminist movements and a growing literature on LGBTI movements, there is little research on resistance to them. Through an intersectional feminist lens, this study analyzes the "anti-gender" campaign organized against the gender perspective in Colombia's 2016 peace agreement to demonstrate the limitations of backlash theory and certain normative understandings of human rights. In contrast to assumptions that backlash is predetermined, the study demonstrates that the anti-gender mobilization against the peace agreement was circumstantial rather than inevitable. To highlight the productive nature of backlash, it traces how opponents employed human rights rhetoric to establish an alternative present and promote an imagined future rooted in exclusion and repression. In addition, it shows that mobilized backlash against feminist and LGBTI movements does not necessarily decelerate or reverse the respective movements' agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Black middle class has emerged in many Latin American countries. Yet given the fluidity of Black identity, it is unclear if socioeconomic gains will result in the consolidation of a Black middle-class group identity with a sense of political responsibility or purpose. In this article, we use qualitative interviews with twenty-two Black professionals in Cali, Colombia, plus a small convenience survey, to explore the following research questions: Does the intersection of being Black and middle class cohere into a group identity? If so, does it translate into a Black political consciousness? And if not, what are the obstacles? We find that while respondents individually identify with a Black middle-class label, they do not experience it as a group that feels symbolic bonds of attachment or acts in a coordinated or mutually cognizant manner. It is a category without shape or coherence. It is amorphous. There are four primary explanations for Black middle class amorphism: the absence of shared or positive markers of collective Black identity; a lack of organizational infrastructure; taboos against organizing along racial lines in the workplace; and a strong individualist ethos towards protecting opportunities and enhancing personal status. We situate our findings within the field of Black politics to discuss what might be lost or gained by this amorphism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article maps the contentious forms of political life that emerge when multicultural rights and non-formal gold extraction coincide. Specifically, it shows how, in the Colombian department of Chocó, Afro-descendant community councils have produced a unique form of mining governance that, while depending for its legitimacy on everyday uses of Afro-Colombian legislation, consists of the organisation, taxation and policing of mining activities that are in tension with official notions of extractive and multicultural law. In exploring such 'underground' cultural politics, the article highlights the limits of state-centric analyses of 'neoliberal multiculturalism' and, accordingly, underscores the instrumental role that governed subjects play in the on-the-ground unfolding of multicultural governance regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last ten years, Medellín, Colombia has undergone significant socioeconomic improvements and a reduction in homicides. By drawing from qualitative data collected in Medellín, this article shows how, despite these improvements, residents in the marginalized neighborhoods maintain a perception that the state is unable or unwilling to provide them with services, such as employment and order or social control. Criminal gangs in these neighborhoods appear to rely on, and even exploit, the weakness of the state, as they are able to get citizens to perceive them as more reliable and legitimate than the state. This article argues that it is important for Latin American policymakers to promote citizen engagement in the design and implementation of policies to reduce current levels of violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Observers have increasingly described the drug-related violence and corruption affecting Central America as the region's 'Colombianisation'. This narrative is not just confused and misleading; it is dangerous. The Colombianisation discourse perpetuates ineffective and destructive anti-drug policies. It also obscures the circulations and connections that make the drug trade, the drug war and their associated economies of violence possible. We do, however, recognise one form of Colombianisation that actually is under way, but it is not the one imagined by security pundits. The real Colombianisation is a convergence of geopolitical and economic interests that have seized upon the geographical realignments of the drug trade to expand the same agroindustrial-military nexus in Central America that proved so 'successful' in Colombia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does exposure to violence affect attitudes toward peace? Civilians living in war zones see peace agreements as an opportunity to improve their security prospects. However, in multiparty conflicts, this does not automatically translate into support for peace. Support hinges on the interplay between which faction has victimized civilians in the past and which faction is sitting at the negotiation table. If civilians have been victimized by the group that is involved in the peace agreement, they will be likely to support peace. On the contrary, if they have been victimized by another faction, they will be likely to refrain from supporting peace if they believe that this can trigger retaliatory violence against them. This article explores this argument empirically in the context of the 2016 peace agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC; both quantitative and qualitative data yield support to the study's theoretical expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To examine the association of all forms of malnutrition and socioeconomic status (SES), educational level and ethnicity in children <5 years, non-pregnant adolescent women (11-19 years) and non-pregnant adult women (20-49 years) in Colombia.Design: Cross-sectional analysis of data from the 2010 Colombian National Nutrition Survey. The prevalence of malnutrition was compared across categories of SES, educational level and ethnicity.Setting: Colombia.Participants: The sample for the current analysis comprised children <5 years, non-pregnant adolescent women (11-19 years) and non-pregnant adult women (20-49 years).Results: In children <5 years, a low SES and maternal educational level were significantly associated with a lower prevalence of overweight/obesity compared with high levels of SES and maternal education, that is, the prevalence of overweight/obesity was 1·4 and 1·6 times lower in categories of low SES and educational levels, respectively. In contrast, the prevalence of wasting, stunting and anaemia was higher in the lowest SES and maternal educational categories (the prevalence was between 1·1 and 1·8 times higher for these indicators). In women, the lowest SES (11 and 19 years) and educational levels (20 and 49 years) exhibited a higher prevalence in all forms of malnutrition compared with their counterparts in the highest categories (i.e. overweight/obesity, stunting and anaemia). Additionally, indigenous or Afro-Colombian children and women had the highest prevalence of malnutrition in comparison with other ethnicities.Conclusions: These results suggest that public policies should address all forms of malnutrition that occur in the most vulnerable populations in Colombia using multiple strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers an analysis of the transnational discursive construction processes informing Latin American security governance in the aftermath of 9/11. It demonstrates that the Global War on Terror provided an opportunity for external and aligned local knowledge producers in the security establishments throughout the Americas to reframe Latin America's security problems through the promotion of a militarised security epistemology, and derived policies, centred on the region's 'convergent threats'. In tracing the discursive repercussions of this epistemic reframing, the article shows that, by tapping into these discourses, military bureaucracies throughout the Americas were able to overcome their previous institutional marginalisation vis-à-vis civilian agencies. This development contributed to the renaissance of counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism discourses and policies in the region, allowing countries such as Colombia and Brazil to reposition themselves globally by exporting their military expertise for confronting post-9/11 threats beyond the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theories of the rise of the modern state hold that central rulers make land property "legible" to extract revenue, leading landholders to oppose state registration. This study revises this logic and argues that when land ownership is disputed, landholders use inscription into state records to secure legal property rights. To minimize resulting tax liabilities, propertied interests may exploit opportunities to manipulate land valuations, which determine the tax burden. The argument is substantiated using historical tax and cadastral records from Colombia. Difference-in-differences analyses of two critical attempts at land reform, led by the Liberal Party, show that land property registration spiked disproportionately in threatened Conservative municipalities, where tax revenues lagged behind nonetheless, due to systematic undervaluation of property. The study concludes that landholders' selective subversion of state building may disrupt the assumed link between legibility and taxation and spawn territorially uneven patterns of state capacity that mirror domestic conflict lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What causes stark differences in living standards between subnational units? What can countries do to lessen such variations? This article argues that there is an aspect of national policy frameworks that impacts subnational provision of social services: the sensitivity of policy to the particularities of place. Place-sensitive policies make adaptations to the way social services are organized and provided across a country, so that they are better equipped to deal with the different characteristics of places and better support their well-being. When policies are place-sensitive, subnational provision is facilitated in poor, rural, and marginal locations in a country. In contrast, place-blind policies employ a one-size-fits-all approach that excludes people in vulnerable areas and aggravates inequalities in social service provision and social outcomes. By studying the Colombian case, this article demonstrates that a key placeblind feature of its healthcare model disproportionately affects small localities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Body fat distribution may be a stronger predictor of metabolic risk than BMI. Yet, few studies have investigated secular changes in body fat distribution in middle-income countries or how those changes vary by socioeconomic status (SES). This study evaluated changes in body fat distribution by SES in Colombia, a middle-income country where BMI is increasing rapidly.Design: We applied factor analysis to previously published data to assess secular changes in adiposity and body fat distribution in cross-sectional samples of urban Colombian women. Anthropometry was used to assess weight, height and skinfolds (biceps, triceps, subscapular, suprailiac, thigh, calf).Setting: Cali, Colombia.Participants: Women (18-44 years) in 1988-1989 (n 1533) and 2007-2009 (n 577) from three SES groups.Results: We identified an overall adiposity factor, which increased between 1988-1989 and 2007-2008 in all SES groups, particularly in the middle SES group. We also identified arm, leg and trunk adiposity factors. In all SES groups, leg adiposity decreased, while trunk and arm adiposity increased.Conclusions: Factor analysis highlighted three trends that were not readily visible in BMI data and variable-by-variable analysis of skinfolds: (i) overall adiposity increased between time periods in all SES groups; (ii) the adiposity increase was driven by a shift from lower body to upper body; (iii) the adiposity increase was greatest in the middle SES group. Factor analysis provided novel insights into secular changes and socioeconomic variation in body fat distribution during a period of rapid economic development in a middle-income country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the recent surge of scholarship on the role that civic organizations play in armed conflicts and postconflict settings, there is little consensus on how they interact with armed nonstate actors. This article examines how disparate armed nonstate actors can co-opt and manage preexisting civic organizations, and even create new ones, to embed themselves in civilian communities and perform governance functions while simultaneously advancing their ideological agendas. Employing a comparative historical analysis between two armed nonstate units in Colombia, one from a Marxist insurgent group and the other from a counterinsurgent paramilitary organization, the study demonstrates that regardless of their different ideological motivations, regional settings, and repertoires of violence, these actors could navigate formal processes related to legal economies, electoral contests, and bureaucratic-administrative institutions, and informal processes tied to illicit rackets and territorial and population control, more efficiently through their skilled management of local civic organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Biofire® Film Array Meningitis Encephalitis (FAME) panel can rapidly diagnose common aetiologies but its impact in Colombia is unknown. A retrospective study of adults with CNS infections in one tertiary hospital in Colombia. The cohort was divided into two time periods: before and after the implementation of the Biofire® FAME panel in May 2016. A total of 98 patients were enrolled, 52 and 46 were enrolled in the Standard of Care (SOC) group and in the FAME group, respectively. The most common comorbidity was human immunodeficiency virus infection (47.4%). The median time to a change in therapy was significantly shorter in the FAME group than in the SOC group (3 vs. 137.3 h, P < 0.001). This difference was driven by the timing to appropriate therapy (2.1 vs. 195 h, P < 0.001) by identifying viral aetiologies. Overall outcomes and length of stay were no different between both groups (P > 0.2). The FAME panel detected six aetiologies that had negative cultures but missed identifying one patient with Cryptococcus neoformans. The introduction of the Biofire FAME panel in Colombia has facilitated the identification of viral pathogens and has significantly reduced the time to the adjustment of empirical antimicrobial therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article analyzes the constitution of dockworkers' power and its impact on trade union strategy in recent labor disputes in Chile and Colombia. Dockworkers' strategic location in the economies of both countries would predict a high degree of shop-floor power among both groups. In practice, however, Colombian dock-workers had far less shop-floor power than their Chilean counterparts, as a result of mitigating social and political factors. Consequently, they developed a strategy this study terms human rights unionism, relying on external allies and lawsuits for leverage, rather than shop-floor action. Dockworkers in Chile, by contrast, adopted a strategy termed class struggle unionism, relying on nationally and internationally coordinated shop-floor action. This article therefore proposes an expanded model of workers' structural power, incorporating the roles of state and society to better account for power differentials and divergent strategic pathways among workers who share a common position in the economic system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Natural resource-related conflicts between local communities and nation states can be extremely destructive. Worldwide, interest is growing in gaining a better understanding of why and how these conflicts originate, particularly in protected areas inhabited by local communities. The literature on local attitudes towards and perceptions of park conservation and park–people conflicts is quite extensive. Studies have examined the socioeconomic and geographical determinants of attitudes to protected areas. However, the role of such determinants in the experience of park–people conflicts has received considerably less attention. Drawing on 601 interviews with people living in or near 15 Colombian national protected areas (NPAs), we examine the socioeconomic and geographical variables that are most influential in people's experience of conflict related to restricted access to natural resources. We find that the experience of this type of conflict is largely explained by the NPA where a person resides, pursuit of productive activities within the NPA, previous employment in NPA administration, gender and ethnicity. We recommend implementing socially inclusive conservation strategies for conflict prevention and resolution in Colombia's NPAs, whereby both women and men from different ethnic groups are engaged in design and implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article challenges the conventional wisdom that enthusiastic state support is a prerequisite to building strong participatory institutions. Through an analysis of Colombia's planning councils, this study develops the concept of the societydriven participatory institution, in which civil society actors, rather than the state, undertake the core tasks involved in implementing participatory institutions. The article argues that while state neglect limits their involvement in decisionmaking, society-driven participatory institutions can still develop important policymaking roles in agenda setting and in monitoring and evaluating public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Costa Rica and Colombia, two of the earliest Latin American countries to protect many LGBT rights, attempted to amplify those rights and litigate same-sex marriage (SSM) in mid-2000s; however, these attempts sparked a major anti-LGBT backlash by religious and conservative organizations. Yet a decade later, Colombia legalized SSM while Costa Rica still lacks the right to SSM. Using a most-similar systems comparative case study, this study engages the judicial politics literature to explain this divergent outcome. It details how courts, while staying receptive to many individual LGBT rights claims, deferred SSM legalization to popularly elected branches. In spite of the lack of legislative success in both countries, in Colombia a new litigation strategy harnessed that deference to craft a litigated route to legalized SSM. In Costa Rica, the courts' lack of conditions or deadlines has left SSM foundering in the congress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Successful conservation actions require strategies that combine research, policy formulation and enforcement, practical interventions and education. Here we review the Armadillo Conservation Programme, which was initiated in 2012 as a pioneering multidisciplinary programme for the conservation and management of five armadillo species in the Orinoco Llanos of Colombia. It is led by a multi-institutional alliance that ensures active participation of stakeholders during all stages of the programme. Six main threats affecting armadillo populations in the Llanos were identified, and these were addressed in the first joint action plan of two Colombian environmental authorities. Scientific research facilitated an increase in the knowledge available about the armadillos of the Llanos, and the recategorization of the northern long-nosed armadillo Dasypus sabanicola on the IUCN Red List. Threat evaluation and mitigation included the assessment of illegal bushmeat trade and consumption in local restaurants and the establishment of a certification label for restaurants that do not sell wild meat. Multiple strategies were used to raise awareness about armadillos and position them as flagship species for the Llanos, including education programmes in schools, travelling exhibitions, talks at universities, and the publication of several books. The local communities were actively involved through a network of private reserves committed to the conservation of armadillos, in which armadillos are protected from poaching and monitored by farmers. Breeding and rehabilitation facilities were established that can host confiscated armadillos and raise awareness among the local communities. This case study shows that conservation programmes targeted at inconspicuous and poorly known species can be successful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: We aimed to assess the maternal and family determinants of four anthropometric typologies at the household level in Colombia for the years 2000, 2005 and 2010. Design: We classified children <5 years old according to height-for-age Z -score (<−2) and BMI-for-age Z -score (>2) to assess stunting and overweight/obesity, respectively; mothers were categorized according to BMI to assess underweight (<18·5 kg/m2) and overweight/obesity (≥25·0 kg/m2). At the household level, we established four final anthropometric typologies: normal, underweight, overweight and dual-burden households. Separate polytomous logistic regression models for each of the surveyed years were developed to examine several maternal and familial determinants of the different anthropometric typologies. Setting: National and sub-regional (urban and rural) representative samples from Colombia, South America. Subjects: Drawing on data from three waves of Colombia's Demographic and Health Survey/Encuesta Nacional de Salud (DHS/ENDS), we examined individual and household information from mothers (18–49 years) and their children (birth–5 years). Results: Higher parity was associated with an increased likelihood of overweight and dual burden. Higher levels of maternal education were correlated with lower prevalence of overweight, underweight and dual burden of malnutrition in all data collection waves. In 2010, participation in nutrition programmes for children <5 years, being an indigenous household, food purchase decisions by the mother and food security classification were also associated with the four anthropometric typologies. Conclusions: Results suggest that maternal and family correlates of certain anthropometric typologies at the household level may be used to better frame policies aimed at improving social conditions and nutrition outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]