Suchergebnisse

A number of communities in rural Colombia are implementing nonviolence and sustainable resource projects with external support as a means of resisting displacement and dispossession. Practicing peace and rejecting relations with armed groups is a self-protective measure that raises the visibility of the communities' neutrality and status as noncombatants. Community residents' strong motivation to continue to live in a specific landscape and maintain small-scale, local-resource-based livelihoods opens potential sources of support beyond the realm of human rights, humanitarian relief, and solidarity organizations to groups interested in protecting traditional cultures and conserving natural landscapes. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright holder.]

A number of communities in rural Colombia are implementing nonviolence and sustainable resource projects with external support as a means of resisting displacement and dispossession. Practicing peace and rejecting relations with armed groups is a self-protective measure that raises the visibility of the communities' neutrality and status as noncombatants. Community residents' strong motivation to continue to live in a specific landscape and maintain small-scale, local-resource-based livelihoods opens potential sources of support beyond the realm of human rights, humanitarian relief, and solidarity organizations to groups interested in protecting traditional cultures and conserving natural landscapes.

AbstractThe article synthesizes contributions from the recent comparative research on civil war and the case-specific literature on Colombia to argue that too often, commentators on this conflict overlook some of its key dimensions. A comprehensive analysis shows that no fewer than six factors are fueling violent conflict in Colombia: economic forces, state weakness, landscape, U.S. policies, long-duration and spin-off violence, and malicious opportunism by non-combatants. The first three are the ones that matter most. The case made here is that when analysts disregard the range and interrelatedness of the factors involved, the result is a distortion of reality and a tendency to support policies that will not enhance the prospects for peace.