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Die vorliegende Masterarbeit, die im Rahmen des Masterstudiengangs „Gender, Kultur und sozialer Wandel“ erstellt wurde, befasst sich mit internationaler weiblicher Migration. Sie rekonstruiert die Migrationserfahrungen junger Frauen aus Kolumbien, die ab den 2015er Jahren nach Österreich und/oder nach Deutschland gekommen sind. Ziel der Arbeit ist es zunächst, die Strategien zu erkennen, die die Frauen entwickelt haben, um ihre Lebensprojekte außerhalb des Landes, in dem sie geboren und aufgewachsen sind, zu realisieren. In einem zweiten Schritt werden die Auswirkungen des Migrationsprozesses auf Selbstwirksamkeit und Selbsteinschätzung sowie auf Agency- und Empowerment-Erfahrungen analysiert. Für die Studie wurde eine qualitative Forschungsstrategie gewählt: Mithilfe offener, problemzentrierter Interviews wurden insgesamt sechs kolumbianische Frauen im Alter zwischen 24 und 31 Jahren, die sich aus unterschiedlichen Gründen und auf unterschiedlichen Wegen zur Migration nach Europa entschlossen haben, befragt. Die Studie zeigt anhand sechs ausführlicher Fallvignetten, dass der Migrationsprozess die Fähigkeit der Teilnehmerinnen gestärkt hat, sich selbstständig verschiedenen Herausforderungen zu stellen und im Umgang mit den Widrigkeiten ihre Widerstandsfähigkeit und Handlungsfähigkeit zu erweitern. Darüber hinaus hat der Migrationsprozess das kritische Denken der Teilnehmerinnen in Bezug auf ihre im Herkunftsland erworbenen Überzeugungen und hinsichtlich ihrer Position als Migrantin im Aufnahmeland gefördert und sie in die Lage versetzt, alltäglichen Stereotypisierungen und Diskriminierungen aus einer (selbst)bewussteren Position heraus zu begegnen., This master’s thesis, which was presented as part of the master’s degree program "Gender, Culture and Social Change", deals with international female migration. It reconstructs the migration experiences of young women from Colombia who came to Austria and/or to Germany from the 2015s onwards. The aim of the work is firstly to identify the strategies that the women have developed to realize their life projects outside the country in which they were born and raised. In a second step, the effects of the migration process on self-efficacy and self-assessment, as well as on agency- and empowerment experiences are analyzed. A qualitative research strategy was chosen for the study: With the help of problem-centered interviews, a total of six Colombian women between the ages of 24 and 31, who decided to migrate to Europe for different reasons and by different ways, were examined. Based on six detailed case studies, the thesis shows that the migration process strengthened the ability of the study participants to face various challenges independently and to expand their resilience and agency to act in the face of adversity. In addition, the migration process encouraged the participants to think critically about the beliefs they had acquired in their country of origin and about their position as migrants in the host country and enabled them to confront the everyday stereotyping and discrimination from a more conscious position., Dyhane Vanessa Roa Vergara, in englischer Sprache, Masterarbeit Universität Innsbruck 2024

This article presents a methodological proposal for formulating a Human Security Index (HSI), including information from institutional sources and the inhabitants' perception of security. The developed methodology uses quantitative methods to evaluate HS (Human Security) in small municipalities with large rural areas affected by the confluence of different social and economic problems. Given the security conditions in the area, it was impossible to use a random sampling mechanism. Therefore, the data collected have a sample size that cannot be considered significant enough to make inferences using a frequentist statistics approach. The method to construct the index is illustrated using Miranda's data, a Colombian municipality exposed to decades of armed conflict. With the answers given by 55 interviewees to questions related to the armed conflict such as presence-absence reminders and retained values of violent events, a proposal of 36 indices was made, and two of them were selected for the study, following some statistical criteria. In the construction of one of these selected indices, we used information from binary variables and, for the other index, we used information from count data. The values obtained by both indices for the municipality of Miranda were, respectively, 46.4 and 35.8. According to HS experts, both values can be considered moderate levels in the perception of insecurity by residents of the municipality.

Während mit quantitativen Methoden zwar einsichtsreicher Forschungsarbeiten zur Ungleichheit durchgeführt werden, vermitteln diese Ansätze ein unvollständiges Bild der zunehmenden sozioökonomische Trennung innerhalb der Gesellschaften im globalen Norden sowie auch im globalen Süden. Diese Dissertation untersucht, welchen Beitrag die Theorie der sozialen Reproduktion zum Verständnis der gesellschaftlichen Spaltung im Zusammenhand mit wirtschaftlicher Veränderung leisten kann. Ausgehend von den theoretischen und experimentellen Arbeiten von Jodhka, Souza und Rehbein geht diese Arbeit der Hypothese einer zunehmenden Trennung zwischen den aufstrebenden und den defensiven Untergruppen der Kämpferklasse als Folge der neoliberalen Reformen des späten XX Jahrhunderts nach. Deutschland und Kolumbien dienen dabei als Studienfälle. Diese Dissertation präsentiert die Gemeinsamkeiten der Folgen entsprechender Reformen in beiden Ländern wie auch ihre Verbindung mit der weltweiten Verbreitung des Neoliberalismus auf. Diese Recherche zeigt, dass die Reformen in den Gesellschaften beider Länder zu Veränderungen geführt haben und dass sie für jede Untergruppe der Kämpferklasse eine entgegengesetzte Wirkung hatten. Sie förderten die Eigenschaften und Kapitalien, die eher mit den Mitgliedern der aufstrebenden Kämpfer in Verbindung gebracht werden, während sie sich gleichzeitig negativ auf die Eigenschaften und Kapitalien auswirkten, die mit den defensiven Kämpfern in Verbindung gebracht werden. Diese Recherche zeigt auch den Zusammenhang zwischen der Internationalisierung der Produktionskette, der Prekarisierung der Arbeit, der zunehmenden Kommodifizierung des sozialen Lebens und der wachsenden Spaltung der Gesellschaften. Letztlich beweist die Dissertation, dass die Theorie der sozialen Reproduktion ein gültiges Instrument ist, um die Auswirkungen von Wirtschaftsreformen zu verstehen und die beobachtete zunehmende Ungleichheit und Segregation innerhalb der Gesellschaften zu erklären., Although very valuable research on inequality is done with quantitative methods, these approaches provide an incomplete picture of the growing socioeconomic separation inside societies in the global north as well as in the global south. This dissertation evaluates the contributions that the theory of social reproduction can give to understanding of the divide inside societies in relationship with economic transformations. Departing from the theoretical and experimental work of Jodhka, Souza and Rehbein, this research tests the hypothesis of a growing separation between the subgroups of the fighter class, aspiring and defensive, as a result of the neoliberal reforms of the late XX Century. Germany and Colombia being used as cases of study. This dissertation presents the similarities between the impact of reforms in both countries and their relation to the spread of neoliberalism across the globe. This research shows that there have been transformations as a result of the reforms inside each society and that they had an opposite effect for each subgroup of the fighter class. On one side favoring the traits and capitals that more closely associate with the members of the aspiring fighters while simultaneously negatively affecting the traits and capitals that are associated with the defensive fighters. This research also shows the interconnection of the internationalization of the production chain, precarization of work, the rising commodification of social life and the growing divide inside societies. Ultimately, the dissertation proves that social reproduction theory is a valid tool for understanding the impact of economic reforms and explaining the observed increasing inequality and segregation inside societies.

Mit dem Ansatz der Intersektionalität wird die Situation der Women of Color und deren literarische Repräsentation durch eine Lektüre zweier Romane der kolumbianischen Gegenwartsliteratur fokussiert, die konkret untersucht, wie die alltägliche soziale Benachteiligung mit der Überschneidung mehrerer Kriterien der Ausgrenzung der Protagonistinnen of Color dargestellt und so die mehrdimensionale Diskriminierung dieser Personengruppe sichtbar gemacht wird. Die Protagonistinnen der im 21. Jahrhundert spielenden Romane erfahren verschiedene Formen von sowohl physischer wie auch struktureller Gewalt, was als paradigmatisch für noch heute herrschende soziale Hierarchien und Differenzen verstanden werden kann. Der Roman "Hündin" (2020 [2017]) von Pilar Quintana macht über die intern fokalisierte Darstellung der Erinnerungen der marginalisierten afrokolumbianischen Protagonistin gesellschaftliche Stereotypen sichtbar, was zu einer teils kontroversen Rezeption geführt hat; die Herangehensweise, das Werk unter dem Blickwinkel der Intersektionalität zu lesen, lässt jedoch die Beschreibungen der prekären Umstände als Offenlegung bestehender Machtverhältnisse deuten, um neben diesen Machtstrukturen die traditionelle Rolle der Frau in der Gesellschaft kritisch zu hinterfragen. "Die Kosmetikerin" (2019 [2015]) behandelt die Lebensumstände verschiedener Frauen im Kontext der 'estratificación' als gesellschaftliche Schichtung in Kolumbien und schildert vorrangig das Leben einer Protagonistin of Color in äußerst prekären Situationen, wobei das Element der Gewalt als omnipräsentes Motiv in der kolumbianischen Erzählliteratur deutlich wird.

While the recent Taliban takeover in Afghanistan sparked new debate about peacebuilding, Latin American experiences have largely been ignored in such discussions. These could be instructive, particularly in their shortcomings, missed opportunities, and violent backsliding. Colombia five years into the peace agreement and Central America more than 25 years after the end of war hold important lessons. Ending the civil wars in Central America had been amongst the first empirical tests of the liberal peacebuilding approach. However, today the region is confronting old problems in new forms: increasing authoritarianism, social exclusion, and high levels of state and non-state violence. The peace process in Colombia remains entangled between those forces pushing for the implementation of the agreements’ transformative agenda and those who staunchly resist it. International actors such as the United Nations and the European Union actively supported the termination of wars. However, they delegated the structural reforms necessary for conflict transformation to the political systems. Peacebuilding is possible through a variety of pathways and is a long-term endeavour. It needs to be based on context-specific combinations of violence reduction and prevention, conflict transformation, and political and social inclusion. Latin America and other post-war societies tend to receive decreasing international attention after wars have ended and initial post-war elections have taken place. At the same time, there has been a shift in emphasis from peacebuilding to stabilisation at the international level. But peacebuilding requires long-term international support beyond short-term interventions. Latin American experiences show how short-term success can be forfeited through the re-creation of path-dependent developments, which reproduce old problems in new forms. Neither peace nor democracy is feasible without transformative reforms and an inclusive social basis.

The War in Ukraine has highlighted the divisions within and between Latin American countries. Although the Russian invasion of Ukraine goes against international norms endorsed by Latin American countries, the conflict seems remote and evokes long-standing rejection of United States policies. Notably, both regional powers, Mexico and Brazil, were reluctant to join the Western condemnation of Russia. Both the left-leaning Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador as well as Brazil's far-right president Jair Bolsonaro have maintained the traditional position of autonomy and neutrality that has characterised their countries' diplomatic histories. The Russian argument that NATO went too far in penetrating its security perimeter finds broad echo in Latin America. Paradoxically, such realist reasoning accepts the old geopolitical theory of great powers' "spheres of influence," which contradicts the autonomist theories historically endorsed by Latin American governments vis-à-vis US power. The war, and especially the sanctions on Russian hydrocarbons, have triggered fuel-price hikes, stimulated a rapprochement of the US with Venezuela, and altered the latter's tense relationship with neighbouring Colombia, easing conditions for the restoration of bilateral relations. Those interested in maintaining relations with Latin America should take note of the divide among the region's governments, many showing only reluctant support for the West's anti-Vladimir Putin policies. The insistence on foreign policy autonomy here cannot be understood as an articulated regional project but rather serves as a discursive framework which allows each government international room for manoeuvre, favouring relations with multiple external actors.

Merging survey data from the Colombian AmericasBarometer 2018 with the number of violent incidents and peace initiatives that have taken place in the respondents’ respective departments of residence, this analysis attempts to improve understanding of social and contextual factors that inform individuals’ attitudes in post-conflict societies. For this purpose, I develop a theoretical framework by reviewing previous research on the effects of violence, the relationship between violence and peace activism, and how these factors may contribute to a sense of agency and readiness to reconcile with former perpetrators on the part of civilians. Subsequently, I conduct a statistical interaction analysis to test if and how the prevalence of violence and peace protests inform reconciliation attitudes regarding former fighters of the two biggest guerrilla groups FARC and ELN. Contrasting the common narrative of helpless and revengeful victimised communities, the present data suggests that the more violence per population of a department, the higher its prevalence of initiatives for positive peace. Furthermore, while readiness to reconcile cannot be predicted by prevalence of violence alone, combining it with peace protests has a positive effect on attitudes regarding reconciliation with both guerrilla groups. Even though this impact is rather moderate and only applies for some types of peace initiatives and the dichotomy "any peace protest vs none", the findings illustrate that contextual factors and civilian agency cannot be neglected in our understanding of civilian perspectives and political behaviour in post-conflict scenarios.

"Every Immigrant is an Emigrant (IMISEM)" is a 4-year project that was funded by the Leibniz-Gemeinschaft and hosted at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) from April 2017 until August 2021. Its main distinctive feature is that it adopts a comprehensive view of migration policy. This includes not only the policies that regulate the stages of entry, immigrant residence and integration to citizenship access, but also encompasses the stages of emigration, emigrant rights abroad, and retention of citizenship. Thus, this project bridges for the first time the two sides of migration policy which both the policy and research communities have assumed to exist, but which so far have not been systematically analyzed in their connections. By collecting information on a vast array of information for policies across these six areas (three "stages" * two "sides") for 32 cases from three world regions, we hope to offer the scholarly and policy communities the resources to discover connections between the different areas of migration policy within and across cases as well as noteworthy migration policy innovations in so far little-known cases in the world. The IMISEM project was led by Dr. Luicy Pedroza. The data collection for IMISEM took place in Berlin (Germany) from 2017 to 2019 and reflects the state of migration policy at the time of data collection. This report has been created based on the information contained in the IMISEM dataset.

Abordar la existencia de unas clases medias negras en Colombia no sólo es difícil sino un aparente contrasentido, un oxímoron, porque la gente negra es imaginada como inevitablemente pobre y de "clase baja". Pero ¿acaso no existen otras experiencias de clase dentro de esta población? Para responder al vacío investigativo sobre este grupo social este libro examina la configuración de las clases medias negras desde finales de los años treinta del siglo xx, a partir de las historias de vida de miembros de tres generaciones de familias originarias de la región del Pacífico y el Caribe que se identifican como parte de esta clase. Esta indagación se hace desde una perspectiva interseccional, que asume que no se puede entender el funcionamiento de las relaciones de poder que dan forma a estas experiencias desde un solo marco explicativo (de clase, género o raza), y que para hacerlo se deben considerar sus mutuas interrelaciones y afectaciones.

Colombia elected a new progressive government on 19 June. While the COVID-19 pandemic did not play a direct role in the campaign, it has deepened both structural problems as well as pre-pandemic trends such as high levels of social inequality, citizen distrust regarding state institutions, and increasing violence in certain regions of the country. While these social disparities led to a call for change by different groups, reducing violence will be a key policy test for the new government. COVID-19 hit Colombia at a delicate time. A comprehensive peace agreement had been signed in 2016, but the elections of 2018 brought the forces that had run on an anti-agreement platform into government. A half-hearted implementation of the accord resulted, which together with increasing citizen dissatisfaction led to mass protests at the end of 2019. In the wake of the pandemic's onset, around six million Colombians fell into poverty. Despite some social policies such as the solidarity income (ingreso solidario), in many fields the state retreated from the provision of public services - in contrast with an increase in repressive measures, as for instance in the pursuit of coca eradication. After a short decrease in collective forms of violence due to lockdown policies, pre-pandemic patterns resumed. In peripheral and border zones, armed actors strategically leveraged the pandemic to increase their control over illicit enterprises and local populations. The entanglement of deteriorating socio-economic conditions, increasing violence, and an extremely unpopular government opened the door to the election of the first left-leaning president in Colombia's history, Gustavo Petro. The new government offers the historic opportunity to save the peace agreement and initiate the profound changes Colombia desperately needs. External actors need to support the reform agenda. Particularly, the implementation of the structural changes established in the peace agreement as well as reform of the

After four years of negotiations between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC), a peace agreement was signed in 2016. This accord ended a five-decade-long conflict that has touched almost every Colombian in some way. Over these decades, the FARC has been an omnipresent actor who most citizens reject. Yet a minority of Colombians who have lived under the FARC's influence may still see them as a substitute for a distant state. Understanding how the Colombian public views the FARC as a political and social actor is not only important for understanding this intriguing case, but it also potentially holds lessons for other conflicts whose resolution will take place in the context of democratic politics. The purpose of this introduction is threefold. First, it seeks to contextualise the recent peace agreement historically. Second, it provides descriptive public opinion data on the 2016 accord, the FARC, and peace, underscoring elites' influence in these areas. Third and finally, this introduction gives thumbnail sketches of the articles in this special issue and outlines their main contributions.

The constant modification of land use, economic instability, environmental factors, and social behaviour changes among the inhabitants of big cities characterize current urbanism. In Colombia, land-use planning processes supported by geographical information systems are a recent phenomenon and the legal instruments of spatial planning are inadequate in most municipalities. Moreover, socio-spatial equity represents a challenge for Latin American cities in which there is increasing awareness of the role that spatial planning plays. Consequently, the question arises as to how the urban spatial structure and organization contribute to an inclusive and equitable socio-spatial evolution, considering climate change impacts. The case study analysed in this article focuses upon the northern limits of the city of Bogotá. Therefore, this research aims to define the ideal balance of urban land-use distribution between social stratum classification and the vulnerability of the communities seeking to better adapt to climate change. We propose a methodological approach of analysing spatial syntax and the (social) intensity of activities and infrastructure, which enables us to characterize the urban structure itself and identify vulnerable urban instances. As a result, we find that the urban network with low values presents spatial unpredictability in its pattern, constraining equitable development based on the urban morphology of the city. This research allows us to conclude that the degree of vulnerability encountered by the social urban spatial structure is higher in expansion areas than in central areas of the city.

German development cooperation has set itself the goal of contributing worldwide to gender equality, the management of conflicts, and peaceful and inclusive societies. This evaluation examines the extent to which the processes of German bilateral official development cooperation are suited to the purpose of supporting gender equality in post-conflict contexts. To this end, alongside other types of data collection, case studies were conducted in Colombia, Liberia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The evaluation finds that the procedures for gender mainstreaming are essentially adequate for anchoring the promotion of gender equality in post-conflict contexts. However, in practice the methods and analytical tools are rarely used in a way that systematically anchors the gender-conflict nexus in the projects. This means that some of the potential for generating effects conducive to gender equality is being forfeited. The evaluation therefore develops concrete recommendations on how the BMZ’s steering and the work of the state implementing organisations can be improved, how the structures and processes of official development cooperation can be refined, and how the necessary knowledge and the relevant competence can be consolidated and strengthened.

Paraphrasing the German poet Bertolt Brecht's 1949 poem "Wahrnehmung", it can be said that for Latin American regionalism, the fatigue of the summits has been left behind; it must now cope with the labors of the plains. The days when Latin American presidents socialized frequently at summit meetings are long gone. In the golden age of summitry, between 2004 and 2012, four Summits of the Americas, six Latin American summits, 29 South American summits (including the Southern Common Market-Mercosur), nine Andean summits, 18 Caribbean summits, 52 Central American summits, 18 Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) summits, and eight Ibero-American Summits were held, for a total of 144 summits in 9 years. It was the time when Chilean President Sebastián Piñera complained ironically that Latin America had so many summits it looked like a mountain range. Christopher Sabatini argued in Foreign Policy that, "the Western Hemisphere has a strong claim to the title of summit capital of the world," adding that, "if the number of summits were a measure of the quality of diplomacy, Latin America would be a utopia of harmony, cooperation, and understanding."