Creating Safer Space Co-Investigator Beatriz Elena Arias-López and Research Assistant Laura Jiménez-Ospina will be publishing a chapter on Community Self-Protection in Colombia in the second edition of the Routledge Handbook of Peacebuilding, which is edited by Creating Safer Space Co-Investigator Roger Mac Ginty.
The chapter draws on Creating Safer Space research in Colombia. It examines unarmed civilian protection in Colombia whereby communities, human rights defenders, and others have come together to try to create safe spaces for non-combatants. The chapter looks at the mechanisms and processes involved in community self-protection, as well as a series of practical, and sometimes ethical, challenges that face such efforts. The lack of a clear demarcation between combatants and non-combatants poses a challenge, as does the issue of where unarmed civilian protectors fit in terms of legality and legitimacy. The chapter makes clear the multiple forms of agency and ingenuity that communities and activists engage in when faced with chronic conflict situations. The chapter is based on a close observation of the situation in Colombia but has resonance in other contexts.
The Creating Safer Space exhibition will be travelling to Brazil in August. It will be on show in the Arts and Design Department of the Pontifical Catholic University in Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) from 12 – 23 August 2024.
An exhibition launch will be held on 14 August from 3-5 pm, and there will be activities with students on 15 and 22 August. The workshops will focus unarmed civilian protection and community self-protection as an alternative protection and security mechanism that does not build on the use or threat of violence, and on the most appropriate – creative and participatory – methodologies to study such protection from below. They will also draw links with Brazil and see in how far Creating Safer Space learnings can be transferred to this setting.
The Creating Safer Space exhibition explores the unexpected power of nonviolence in the protection of civilians living in the midst of violence.
The objects, images, and voices originate from a selection of 26 research projects funded by the Creating Safer Space network, which have been conducted in collaboration between academics, self-protecting communities and nonviolent civilian accompaniers. The exhibition draws on experiences from Cameroon, Colombia, Indonesia, Kenya, Myanmar, Nigeria, Palestine, the Philippines, South Sudan, and Thailand, where civilians are harnessing the power of nonviolence to create safer spaces and work towards alternative presents and futures.
The exhibition is also available online in the form of a navigable 360° virtual tour, and it has previously been on show in Nairobi (Kenya), Bangkok (Thailand), Aberystwyth (UK), New York (USA) and Medellín (Colombia).
Creating Safer Space Exhibition in Colombia
The Creating Safer Space Exhibition was on show at the Carlos Gaviria Díaz Library of the University of Antioquia, Colombia, from 4 June – 30 July 2024. The exhibition was part of the Creating Safer Spaceregional workshop for Latin America, hosted by the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Antioquia.
Approximately fifty people participated in the tours and the forum, including twenty children from a school in Medellin who were visiting the University of Antioquia, students, and representatives of organizations such as the UNHCR and the Corporación Arlequín y los Juglares.
These were the reflections of some of the attendees:
“We are not only violated by the presence of armed actors, whether legal or illegal, but also by economies that do not care about our territories and those of us who inhabit them. To protect civilians, we must also change the conditions in which the communities live.” (Zenú indigenous woman from Antioquia)
“The creation of safer spaces does not depend on the state or the government, it depends on all of us.” (Nursing student, University of Antioquia)
“To protect yourself or others, you don’t need weapons.” (Nursing student, University of Antioquia)
“The exhibition moved me and somehow took me back in time. As I saw in the exhibition, Colombia has not been unrelated to wars and violence. I grew up in the Santo Domingo Savio, a neighborhood in Medellin, between 1990 and 2000, a time marked by violence. Although I was four years old, I clearly remember the shootings that took place. My parents could only leave the house to work or buy food. I still remember several dead bodies lying on the street, face up and bloodied. Perhaps I did not live through conflicts of the magnitude of some of the countries in the exhibition. However, it is challenging to remember these experiences and acknowledge that many lives have been profoundly affected by war”. (Nursing student, University of Antioquia)
The travelling exhibition, which has also been on show in Nairobi (Kenya), Bangkok (Thailand), Aberystwyth (Wales) and New York (USA) explores the unexpected power of nonviolence in the protection of civilians living in the midst of violence. The objects, images, and voices originate from a selection of 26 research projects funded by the Creating Safer Space network, which have been conducted in collaboration between academics, self-protecting communities and nonviolent civilian accompaniers. The exhibition draws on experiences from Cameroon, Colombia, Indonesia, Kenya, Myanmar, Nigeria, Palestine, the Philippines, South Sudan, and Thailand, where civilians are harnessing the power of nonviolence to create safer spaces and work towards alternative presents and futures. The exhibition is available online here.
“Weaponising Sheep”: New article about Israeli Settler Colonialism in Palestine
While media attention has focused on devastating Israeli military raids on Jenin and Nablus and land expropriations in East Jerusalem, the article shows how a slower burning form of violence is being perpetrated by settlers against Palestinian herders in the West Bank, seeking to gain control of their land and livelihoods.