Artists who create political and socially engaged work are increasingly at risk. In contexts of protracted socio-political conflicts or post-peace agreements, discussions of safety and protection for social and cultural leaders (where artists and allied activists are situated), are often reduced to mitigating risk to harm and physical violence. Less is known about how artists, allies or their organizations experience those harms and what protection infrastructures they build up to continue collective action. This project identified how artists and allied activists understand protection and vulnerability based on lived experiences.

This interdisciplinary research connected South Sudan and Colombia. It compared findings from research conducted in South Sudan (2020-2022) with new research in Colombia (2023) to investigate two key questions:

• First, how do artists seek safety in times of conflict and unstable peace?
• Second, how can creative methods be used to investigate vulnerability and map out networks of safety, going beyond the need for artist protection and into collective solidarity within activist communities?

THE RESEARCH TEAM

Principal Investigator: Kara Blackmore 

Dr Kara Blackmore is a researcher, curator, and policy fellow at the Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa (FLIA). She will oversee the overall project and support Co-Investigators in their country-specific workstreams. She will use her experience in creative methodologies and curation to lead Workstream 3, culminating in the exhibition in Bogotá. She will also lead on the cross-country mixed-methods paper. As Principal Investigator, Blackmore will take responsibility for the overall delivery of the project.

She has worked on over 20 grant funded projects and is adept at working with professional support staff and overseeing cross-country financial reporting. Within the FLIA, she has experience in managing workstreams on six different UKRI, DFID and Bloomsbury Set projects namely the FCDO-AHRC funded Safety of Strangers and the GCRF funded Politics of Return research projects.

Co-Investigator: José Fernando Serrano-Amaya

Dr José Fernando Serrano-Amaya leads Workstream 1 in Colombia. He uses his expertise in conflict studies, peacebuilding, and activism in Colombia to conduct case study research. His most recent research on the politics and social pedagogies of reconciliation in post conflict settings documented the richness of the practices to transform conflicts, among which arts are very significant.

Serrano-Amaya has experience in Africa and Latin American comparative research, previously researching on issues of gender-based violence and homophobic violence between South Africa and Colombia. 

Co-Investigator: Rebecca Lorins 

Dr Rebecca Lorins leads Workstream 2 in South Sudan, conducting the Story Circle research. Her background in media, communication and performance arts are essential to implementing the Story Circle methodology with Likikiri Collective.

Lorins has extensive experience working on research projects, recently implementing the Story Circle Method as part of research on three collaborations with University of Portsmouth: the British Academy funded Art Heritage and Resilience, and two AHRC funded projects: Youth Voices and Rethinking Resilience in South Sudan through an Arts-based Curriculum.

Collaborating Artist: Manuela Lara

Manuela Lara has been commissioned to create portraits of artists and social leaders whose experiences of insecurity and efforts for safety help to visualize the research. She will work with Dr Kara Blackmore develop the commission. This work builds off her existing Vivas project that centres on women who have survived the civil war in Colombia. Many of these women are artists themselves and are active social leaders working to keep their communities safe.

Partner: Likikiri Collective / Elfatih Atem

Likikiri Collective is a multimedia arts and education organization located in Juba, South Sudan. Likikiri will support the research through hosting the Story Circles. They will contribute to the research by providing a collective as case study.

Elfatih Atem will lead this in his capacity as the founding Executive Director. He has worked in a leadership capacity for many national Sudanese and South Sudanese cultural projects, as well as a consultant in culture, heritage and the arts for international NGOs and the UN. Likikiri brings an intercultural and interdisciplinary approach to this project, building connections across various sectors, including education, culture, development, and peacebuilding.

RESEARCH FINDINGS

The research findings are connected to 3 areas:

1. We have come to understand some of the vulnerabilities in relation to how artists stay safe. We found that for artists working within the creative, cultural and educational sectors there is a real economic constraint to safety since it is costly to pay for cyber-protection, mobility and costs to legal fees for defending their rights to freedom of expression. Working with collectives illustrated that there is a need to be in social proximity to others as a way of ensuring a legitimate protection infrastructure, often already built into existing collective formats, such as unions of weavers/sewers, performers, theatre makers. Here we push the conceptualisation of ‘self-protection’ into a more indexical frame and argue that social dynamics of violence are always linked therefore making the self-as-individual an impossible equation.
2. Protection infrastructure as interlinked between
   (1) fortification (2) creative process
   within this framework we conceive of the notion that curation is a mode of protection, meaning that people in creative spaces collect certain materials and narratives to self-style their presence as a way of staying safe. These processes of selection, contextual evaluation, and public interface – when done in collective formats – creates a kind of fortress to protect the physical and mental wellbeing of the artist. Such a finding is important considering in both Colombia and South Sudan nearly all our collaborating partners and research participants did not see safety as an absence of violence, rather it is a way to withstand the ongoing violence that has been persistent in these contexts.
3. The value of creative methodologies.
   Using arts-based research methodologies to show how issues of safety and vulnerability can be investigated within and outside of artist and allied activist communities, using methods such as art commissions, and curation helped to further protection aims amidst violent conflict because it offered both direct confrontation with the issues and an alternative approach to dealing with issues of violence.
   One thing that we found from this research is related to the long-term and cyclical forms of bodily violence that are connected to historical legacies of epistemic violence. Such forms can be traced through symbolic and material lineages that goes beyond narrative-based oral histories. Conversely, we also found (which is not unique to this project) the affirming potential of spontaneous connection that can lead to healing and reconciliation to avert future violent events.

PROJECT WEBSITE

https://www.lse.ac.uk/africa/research/Art-Allies

PROJECT OUTPUTS

This research project involved learning from a collective impact initiative for unarmed civilian protection launched in 2017, in Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria. Using quantitative and qualitative research on local violence reporting from newspaper archives; focus group discussions, and a video documentary with the members of the Jos Stakeholders Centre for Peace (JSCP) network, this project contributed new theoretical and empirical insights on enhancing civilian protection through unarmed collective action in the area of community security. Prominently, the research included partner organisations and collaborators in Nigeria to promote grassroots advocacy, capacity building, and knowledge dissemination around unarmed civilian protection (UCP) in Maiduguri, Borno state, where civilians have witnessed both state and non-state directed violence due to the Boko Haram insurgency. A growing normalisation in state-insurgent relations since 2015 has created the opportunity to build the self-protection capacities of local communities. Towards this end, the novelty of the project was three-fold. First, it encouraged inter-regional learning of the collective impact model in UCP. Second, it built the capacity of the people at the grassroots, and those in positions of local power and influence through workshops, mobile video projection and community discussions around UCP in Maiduguri, Borno state. Third, it developed the local capacity in Maiduguri to arrest conflict escalation and mitigate both state and non-state armed violence directed against civilians, through unarmed community security initiatives.

RESEARCH TEAM

• Sukanya Podder, King’s College London, UK (principal investigator)
• Pwakim Jacob Choji, Youth Initiative Against Violence and Human Rights Abuse, Jos, Nigeria (co-investigator)
• Allamin Foundation for Peace & Development, Nigeria (project partner)

PROJECT DATES

1 November 2022 – 31 January 2024

RESEARCH OUTPUTS

Article in Humanitarian Exchange Magazine

Podder, Sukanya, ‘Unarmed civilian protection through collective impact: The Jos Stakeholders Centre for Peace (JSCP), Plateau State, Nigeria’, Humanitarian Exchange, 82:11, 2023.

Short Film: Inter-regional learning on UCP in Nigeria

This short learning video captures insights from an intergenerational and collective impact model adopted by the Jos Stakeholder’s Centre for Peace in Jos, Nigeria, to reduce violence in the context of two communities, Angwan Damisa and Balakaze, that have witnessed several episodes of communal conflict. The insights could help other Nigerian communities adapt the model to reduce or prevent violence in their specific context, such as in Maiduguri where ex-Boko Haram fighters and internally displaced persons (IDPs) are returning and changing the composition of the communities.

RESEARCH FINDINGS

The Jos-based model of intergenerational collaboration through multi-stakeholder driven collective impact has had the following lessons to offer for the practice of civilian protection.

The project findings point to the diversity of local capacities that exist for civilian protection that is inclusive and collaborative in nature. In our presentation of the learning video and discussions with governmental and non-governmental stakeholders (n=23) in Maiduguri we found similarities with the Jos model, although these were less deliberate in including a youth-focused, intergenerational and collective impact design.

One of the areas of success in Bala Kaze and Angwan Damisa was collaboration between security agencies (police) and the community leaders. This collaboration included reporting on violent and crime-related incidents. The Breaking the Borders (BtB) Ambassadors who were trained unarmed
defenders of the community would arrest miscreants and hand them over to the police for further action.

The BtB included members of different age groups and their ability to use unarmed methods of civilian policing presented an improvement on localised jungle justice methods. In both communities youth involvement in drug abuse and high levels of unemployment were cited as a trigger for localised fights at the stream dividing the two villages. This area of cooperation between formal security agencies/police and the civilians had mixed results in the Tudun Wada community. Some level of complicity between criminals and the police was observed; miscreants were often released without repercussions when the local community leaders attempted to hand them over for selling narcotics or for any other localised crime-related issues.

This variation in the success of the collective impact model suggests that cooperation with the formal security agencies and their willingness to work with local communities is a significant factor in defining the success of civilian protection methods in the area of community security provision.

Finally, the success of civilian protection methods in arresting conflict escalation and maintaining inter-community peace in Angwan Damisa and Bala Kaze does offer important lessons around when unarmed civilian initiatives can become sustainable, locally led, and locally maintained networks for security and protection. They suggest that state agencies need to become willing collaborators and supporters of these initiatives. Local arrangements need to include different age groups and genders.

Following the video screening at the Maiduguri workshop, the five communities whose members took part (communities of Gangamari, Kawar Maila, Limanti, State Low Cost and Old Maiduguri (n=150, 45 F, 105 M), were encouraged to launch an informal civilian protection network and a WhatsApp group to report on civilian protection-related developments.

The sustainability and effectiveness of these networks are likely to be variable and could benefit from the adoption of a more deliberate organisation structure grounded in collective impact-type design. The communities in Maiduguri would benefit from adopting intergenerational collaboration and not just dialogue, as we found that the collective and inclusive decision-making model that was adopted in the case of the Jos network was more effective than one that is consultative or based on elders directing younger members of these networks on proposed routes of action.

Gender-based violence (GBV) is experienced by one in three women worldwide; however, the risk of GBV grows substantially in conflict. Our understanding how GBV relates to land, natural resource and climate-related conflict is limited however. Our aim was to address this gap in knowledge and improve understanding of the prevalence, intersecting vulnerabilities and resilience to GBV in these contexts, and identify community responses and local protection infrastructure to reduce GBV risks. Through case studies in Colombia, Nigeria and the Philippines, our project used visual and participatory action research methods to understand GBV risk and identify community responses that UCP practitioners and beyond could both learn from and engage with to foster support for communities experiencing violence.

TEAM MEMBERS

Dr Lora Forsythe (PI)
l.forsythe@gre.ac.uk
Associate Professor Gender, Inequalities and Food Systems
Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich, UK

Colombia

Javier Lautaro Medina Bernal (Co-I)
jmedina@cinep.org.co
Project Manager, member of the Technical Secretariat of the International Verification Component of the Peace Agreement, and coordinator of the National Engagement Strategy in Colombia with the International Land Coalition
Conflict, State and Peace Programme, Centro de Investigación y Educación Popular (CINEP)

Diana Lopez Castaneda (researcher)
Independent Consultant

Nigeria

Dr Aliyu Barau (Co-I)
Associate Professor Urban and Regional Planning
Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Bayero University Kano

Philippines

Timothy F. Salomon (Co-I)
Facilitator National Engagement Strategy in the Philippines for the International Land Coalition
Center for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (CARRD)

United Kingdom

Lilian Treasure (Researcher)
PhD Candidate and Vice Chancellor Scholar
Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich

Dr Uche Okpara (Co-I)
Fellow in Climate Change and State Fragility
Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich

Professor Tilman Brück (Co-I)
Visiting Professor of Food Security, State Fragility and Climate Change
Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich

PROJECT OUTPUTS

RESEARCH SUMMARY

The research used a mixed-method and participatory action research design. Firstly, the project conducted literature and data reviews at both country and global levels. Secondly, the project conducted primary research in the Philippines, Colombia and Nigeria to produce case studies. This included both key informant interviews and workshops with community leaders, civil society organisations, academics and policymakers, as well as focus group discussions with men and women in communities who have experienced or are experiencing violence to understand its relationship to gender based violence and the development of community-based responses to address this. The project also engaged in art-based research activities and immersion in nature-based activities.

Overall, the case studies found that gendered violence is embedded in social relations creating ‘ruptured fabrics’ within territories and enables exploitation of territory, labour, and identity. The focus of UCP on strengthening relationships and communication has an important role to play in healing these ‘ruptured fabrics’, with UCP actors having strong cognizance of power and gender relations in context and their own role within it. Furthermore, women experienced a continuum of violence at different scales. In every case, women related the violence they experienced to structural violence. The deep inequality was considered a form of systemic oppression linked to the production of environmental degradation and capitalist accumulation.

Power (physical, discursive etc) is used over and about women, devaluing their status and roles, enabling violence to be ‘justified’, which is linked to broader patriarchal, colonial, and racialised structures particularly around the creation of property. As such, UCP approaches and actors may only have the capacity or ethical background to address specific forms of violence but will need to recognise the interconnections between different forms of violence, including intimate partner, intra-household, and structural violence.

Utilizing a qualitative research-action design, this project delved into the experiences in the field of unarmed civilian self-protection of a group of women who were displaced by armed conflict and now reside in contexts characterized by social and urban segregation. In these environments, they remain exposed to multiple forms of violence linked to fear-based political dynamics. The research explored the appropriation and implementation of innovative strategies, focusing on community advocacy and storytelling as active participation methods and testimonial resources for collective efforts aimed at promoting social cohesion as the foundation for peaceful community organization.

Research Team:

• Luisa Maria Colonia, Masterpeace Cali, Colombia (principal investigator)
• Gustavo Suárez, Universidad del Valle, Colombia (co-investigator)
• Fundación Carvajal, Colombia (project partner)
• Unicatólica, Colombia (project partner)
• Humanos: Foro Iberoamericano de Periodistas en DDHH, Colombia (project partner)

Transmedia Booklet

This booklet has been prepared to communicate the key findings of the research. Through this research, Masterpeace Cali presents an innovative approach to peaceful protection strategies employed by displaced civilian populations in urban areas where violence persists and escalates despite ongoing state conflict resolution processes. Furthermore, by co-creating this booklet with the participating women, we aim to share their positive experiences related to the implementation of these strategies with other communities and grassroots organizations at the local, regional, national, and international levels. Our goal is to encourage the adaptation and replication of these strategies in other regions and communities affected by fear-based policies, thus fostering the exchange of best practices in the field of unarmed civil protection (UCP).

Further Information:

• Footage of the research experience (English)
• Footage of the research experience (Spanish)
• Information about the fieldwork (English and Spanish)
• Excerpt from the play Lirios de Paz by Semillero de Paz Llano Verde (English)
• Excerpt from the play Lirios de Paz by Semillero de Paz Llano Verde (Spanish)

Website:

www.masterpeace-cali.org

In the South Hebron Hills of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, an area known as Masafer Yatta, there are 32 small Palestinian villages, farmer and Bedouin communities living on agriculture and herding. The Israeli state and settlers seek to expel them from this land. To support the local communities to stay on their land, a number of actors (Palestinian, Israeli and international) have sought to protect the civilian population from the escalating acts of violence by the state and settlers in which their lives, homes, crops and livestock have been targeted.

The settlers act with complete impunity, confident they will face no legal sanctions for their acts of violence, and they serve as a tool of the Israeli state in its pursuance of its annexationist policies of the Palestinian land. In the words of a report by the Israeli human rights agency B’tselem, ‘settler violence is a form of government policy, aided and abetted by official state authorities with their active participation.’

In this context, UCP is significant as a mode of enhancing the security and protection of the Palestinians in Masafer Yatta and to create safer spaces within which they can continue to maintain their livelihoods, hold on to their land and way of life. This research project examined the different forms of community self-protection measures and the role of others in creating safer space for the Palestinians, as well as the challenges faced by the local community and external actors in providing civil protection in violent conflict.

PROJECT TEAM

Dr Marwan Darweish is the principal investigator (PI) of the project, with overall responsibility for the management, planning and delivery of the project.

Marwan Darweish has an unparalleled research background in the OPT and Israel. He has conducted many research projects and consultancies with Palestinian and Israeli NGOs and EU about conflict transformation and nonviolent resistance. As a Palestinian with Israeli and British citizenship his political involvements and his fluency in Arabic, Hebrew and English have enabled him to develop a close relationship with many Israeli solidarity and peace activists and with their Palestinian counterparts – a trust relationship that makes his research in this conflict zone so rich and textured.

Dr Andrew Rigby is Emeritus Professor of Peace Studies with the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations (CTPSR), of which he was the founding director.

He began researching and writing about unarmed civilian resistance in the OPT in the 1980s, and has continued his involvement over the ensuing four decades as a researcher, consultant and advocate of unarmed resistance to occupation.

Over the years he has developed a wide network of contacts amongst Israelis, Palestinians and representatives of international humanitarian aid and human rights agencies. He will draw on these contacts throughout the period of the proposed research project.

Dr Mahmoud Soliman is a Research Fellow at the CTPSR, based in the West Bank and closely associated with the Al-Shmoh Cultural Center, a small NGO in the OPT. Mahmoud is a highly regarded activist, community organiser and researcher. He will be ‘in the field’ for the majority of the research project, liaising with key informants, organising the field visits and taking a leading role in the dissemination of the findings of the research the follow up in-country activities. He will be the main contact with a Local Advisory Group (LAG) which will be established as part of the research process.

RESEARCH OUTPUTS

Short Film: Civil Protection to stay on our land

Produced by local film makers, this film documents the experience of Palestinian farmers and shepherds with civil protection in the South Hebron Hills (Masafer Yatta). It explores the efficacy of unarmed civilian protection and how to strengthen self-protection against the threats of expulsion and dispossession by Israel and the settlers.

Articles in Rethinking Security

• ‘Frontier Genocide: The West Bank a year after the ICJ ruling on Gaza’ (January 2025)
• ‘Settlers turn Soldiers: The imperative for international presence and protection in the West Bank’ (November 2023)
• ‘Weaponising Sheep: Israeli settler colonialism in the South Hebron Hills’ (July 2023)

RESEARCH SUMMARY

We conducted two field visits to Masafer Yatta in October 2022 and June 2023. We interviewed local community leaders and activists, in addition to members of international groups engaged in different forms of ‘accompaniment’ and civil protection. We interviewed about 30 people, accompanied shepherds and farmers, and witnessed the UCP activities by Palestinian, Israeli, and international organisations.

The research highlighted that in such an asymmetric struggle the local inhabitants have few resources of resistance beyond their own everyday courage, tenacity and steadfastness – sumud. To support them, different organisations and groups have sought to offer various forms of accompaniment as means of civilian protection, assisting the Palestinians in their efforts to achieve a degree of ‘safe space’ within which to pursue their lives.

The research highlighted that community self-protection measures are a first line of defence. There is a culture characterised by an emphasis on the importance of family and family networks, mutual aid, faza’a (traditional collective effort), significance of personal and family honour and avoidance of shame. Community-based protection methods in response to threats from the outside, especially settlers, include: recognition of strength in numbers, importance of look-outs, coordination, mutual support and local knowledge. Our conclusion is that all these actions by locals will not end the occupation; it will enhance local resilience to stay on the land and frustrate the Israeli occupation, but it will not guarantee that they will not be expelled from their land.

There is a symbiotic relationship between local Palestinians and international accompaniers. The
accompaniers are there to enhance the security of the Palestinians, but the Palestinians in turn ‘protect’ the internationals – advising them of potential threats, identifying escape routes in case of attack, and indicating where they should stand in order to minimise the risk of injury during encounters with settlers.

We learned how the presence of Palestinian and Israeli solidarity activists, alongside internationals from networks such as the International Solidarity Movement, the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel, Operation Dove from Italy and the US-based Centre for Jewish Nonviolence, played a significant role in enabling locals to continue to graze their sheep. The accompaniers acted as a kind of protective presence, deterring Israeli settlers from attacking the villagers through their monitoring and documentation of human rights abuses.

Most significantly, their presence had a profound impact on the morale and hence the resilience of the locals, who saw the accompaniers as evidence that they were not alone in their struggle.

Broader research on nonviolent action points to the spontaneous and diverse nature of nonviolent actors and the nonviolent action they deploy. As noted by many UCP scholars and practitioners, community-level UCP initiatives often emerge from local actors simply trying to adapt and reduce violence in their communities without any pre-emptive support from specialist NGOs. We refer to such local action as “spontaneous UCP”: community-level protection activities carried out by local actors spontaneously in response to local conditions, and not necessarily with support of specialist NGOs. Consequently, the project explored the emergence of spontaneous UCP by local actors and documented and analysed their attempts to create “safe spaces” in Colombia, Myanmar, and South Sudan. Working collaboratively between University of Winchester researchers, and in-country co-investigators (Co-Is), comparative data collection and analysis were carried out in an attempt to better understand how spontaneous instances of UCP occur in the three chosen contexts; what strategies/ networks these actors have developed to broaden their UCP activities; and how the context shapes the emergence of UCP activities.

RESEARCH TEAM

The project team consisted of researchers from the Centre of Religion, Reconciliation and Peace (CRRP), which worked closely with researchers from in-country Co-investigators; Organisation for Nonviolence and Development (ONAD) in South Sudan, Religions for Peace Myanmar (RfP-M) and Rodeemos el Diálogo – Embrace Dialogue (ReD) in Colombia (see below):

The CRRP led the project with Prof. Mark Owen as Principal Investigator (PI) and Dr. Andrei Gomez-Suarez and Dr. Luke Abbs as Co-Investigators (Co-Is).

Prof. Owen as principal investigator led the overall project and led fieldwork in Myanmar. Prof. Owen is an expert on religious peacebuilding and has extensive experience in engaging in fieldwork in conflict zones and conducting project evaluations, including in Myanmar. Dr. Gomez-Suarez as Co-I managed field work in Colombia where he has explored reconciliation and peacebuilding and has extensive experience in conducting fieldwork, and engaging in arts-based research dissemination. Dr. Abbs has regional expertise of Sub-Saharan Africa and as Co-I managed fieldwork in South Sudan. As an expert on the use of nonviolent resistance during armed conflict, Dr. Abbs was the academic lead and supported academic dissemination and interpretation of findings across all three cases.

Our in-country Co-Is played a vital role in data collection; helping us to identify nonviolent actors that engage in spontaneous UCP outside of intensive fieldwork conducted by investigators from the CRRP, and in logistics; setting up meetings, focus groups and interviews, facilitating access to researchers, and supporting arts-based initiatives by organising research dissemination events.

The Organisation for Nonviolence and Development (ONAD) has been working in South Sudan for over two decades and has extensive experience in collaborating with NGOs and research initiatives. The CRRG recently collaborated with ONAD, assessing and conducting fieldwork on the impact of United States Institute of Peace initiatives in South Sudan.

Religions for Peace Myanmar (RfP-M) have significant experience of carrying out peacebuilding and reconciliation work across Myanmar, have previously collaborated with the CRRP and have worked extensively in Rakhine, Central Myanmar, Kachin, Chin state, and Kayin.

Rodeemos el Diálogo (ReD) have extensive experience of conducting and supporting peacebuilding initiatives, and have previously worked in the Catatumbo region (supporting the work of Mesa Humanitaria del Catatumbo in opening up political space) and Nariño.

• Centre of Religion, Reconciliation and Peace (University of Winchester)
• Organisation for Nonviolence and Development (ONAD)
• Religions for Peace Myanmar (RfP-M)
• Rodeemos el Diálogo – Embrace Dialogue (ReD)

PROJECT OUTPUTS

PROJECT PHOTOS

The social, political and armed conflicts that persist in the Bajo Cauca subregion of Antioquia (Colombia) have caused peasant and indigenous communities to develop their own protection mechanisms to confront the attacks suffered by their leaders at the hands of legal and illegal armed actors present in the territory. These protective actions have been linked with the Social Process of Guarantees of Antioquia (PSG), a platform of social and community organizations dedicated to strengthening internal community processes of self-protection and dialogue with the authorities responsible for guaranteeing safe conditions for the work of human rights defenders.

This research project systematized the experience of the PSG with the Senú indigenous people and peasant communities of the municipalities of Cáceres, El Bagre and Tarazá, as a mechanism for the unarmed protection of civil society that is contributing to the prevention of risks emanating from violent actions in the territory. The project identified factors that have influenced the success or failure of the strategies implemented by the PSG and the local communities, and has contributed to the production and dissemination of knowledge about collective unarmed protection mechanisms.

RESEARCH TEAM

• Astrid Torres Ramírez, Corporación Jurídica Libertad, Colombia (principal investigator)
• Winston Gallego Pamplona, Corporación Jurídica Libertad, Colombia (co-investigator)
• Fundación Sumapaz, Colombia (project partner)
• Antioquia Node of the Coordination Colombia Europe United States, Colombia (project partner)

PROJECT OUTPUTS

Publication: El Proceso Social de Garantías de Antioquia, Colombia: Una experiencia de protección civil no armada con comunidades indígenas y campesinas del Bajo Cauca antioqueño (Spanish only)

Short Film: Caring for Community Life

The Senú indigenous people of the Almendros 2 reservation in El Bagre, one of the municipalities hardest hit by armed violence in Colombia, tell how they have been organizing to resist armed groups and remain in their ancestral territories.

Project Website

Publications, posters, podcasts, photos, and more.

RESEARCH SUMMARY

The situation for social leaders, peasant leaders, human rights defenders, and indigenous authorities in Bajo Cauca, Antioquia, is alarming. The communities of this region are trapped in the middle of a social, political and armed conflict that is worsening. This is due to the territorial advance of armed groups who seek control of their territories, economies such as drug trafficking and illegal mining (not including traditional artisanal mining), and the presence of megaprojects. These circumstances have increased the risk for social leaders who, hand in hand with their communities, have had to face threats to their territories and lives. The limited presence of the State and the lack of basic services such as health, education, and housing have made the situation even worse.

The framework of impunity, in which the various attacks and patterns of crime have taken place, has generated a climate of fear and mistrust in the population, who live in constant fear of being a victim in their own territories. Human rights violations, attacks on social leaders, gender-based violence, forced disappearances, homicides, threats, and even extrajudicial executions continue to be reported in the subregion.

Peasant and indigenous organizations have therefore taken the initiative and have developed and implemented a series of self-protection measures to protect the life of their communities and their permanence in their territories. These measures include the creation of early warning systems to detect the presence of legal or illegal armed groups and to prevent the occurrence of attacks against the community, the creation of indigenous guards, the organization of walking tours to delimit and protect the territory, so-called word circles to share experiences, humanitarian shelters, and women’s committees, among others. This, together with spaces where peasant leaders and indigenous authorities can meet and train, have allowed them to respond to the threats and to protect themselves despite the absence of the State.

The organizations have also established alliances with other communities and civil society organizations to strengthen their response capacity. The have created solidarity, support and communication networks between the different communities, established evacuation routes in case of emergency, and some platforms such as the PSG have provided psychosocial support and have facilitated political advocacy work with government entities and the international community. Through these self-protection measures, peasant and indigenous communities are seeking to guarantee the safety and integrity of their members.

Within indigenous communities, strategies aimed at strengthening their protection, culture, ancestry, and knowledge are of high importance. They are based on the spiritual relationship of their communities with the land and the legacy and ancestral knowledge of the elders of the Senues, Embera Chamí, and other indigenous peoples, as a way to protect identities and to confront the violent actions of legal and illegal armed actors, who are present in the territories and commit serious violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law. Their unarmed civilian protection strategies are based on their own forms of indigenous governance and their own protection mechanisms such as the indigenous guards and the word circles. Self-governance has become a significant method of unarmed civilian protection for indigenous communities, since it enables them to exercise control and organize the order and defense of their territory and their common goods, to preserve culture, ancestry, and spirituality, to provide justice and education, to exercise the right to autonomy, to defend their rights as historical peoples, and to protect life and integrity. Based on their self-determination and autonomy, they make decisions in accordance with their culture, norms, practices, and customs in the face of humanitarian crises and the risks they face.

Given the serious humanitarian situation in Bajo Cauca, Antioquia, national and local authorities need to urgently take concrete measures to protect the communities and guarantee their fundamental rights. It is necessary to give special attention to the victims of the conflict, to investigate and punish those responsible for human rights violations, and to implement public policies that promote the sustainable development of the region while taking into account peasant organizations’ and ethnic communities’ demands and ideas.

In view that the State has so far failed to regulate the violence or to establish routes to protection, it should now enforce and implement changed collective protection models, which are not based on militarization and which recognize the experiences of communities and organizations (such as decree 660 of 2018 “Comprehensive Security and Protection Programme for Communities and Organizations in the Territories), and develop further safety provisions.

This research contributes to knowledge on successful unarmed civilian protection practices and improves those practices that have proven to be less effective. It shows that, by collecting and analyzing information on different self-protection strategies and measures, patterns and trends can be identified that contribute to a greater understanding of community safety systems. In this way, a more comprehensive and effective approach can be developed to protect the population in emergency situations. Furthermore, by continuing to link and systematize diverse experiences, memories, and forms of collective action, unarmed civilian self-protection practices can be improved, ensuring that the best practices are implemented and adapted to the specific needs of each community. This translates into greater preparedness to face armed conflicts and other risk situations, which in turn can save lives and reduce material damage.

NEWS

• More information about the research team’s engagement event in 2024 is available here.
• More information about the research team’s fieldwork in 2023 is available here.

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA

• Website: https://cjlibertad.org/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/cjlibertad
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Using three field research sites in South Sudan, this research investigated Early Warning as understood, communicated and interpreted by local communities. Early Warning is a fundamental aspect of Civilian Protection in response to threats from types of violence (political, criminal and cattle raiding) perpetrated by both state and non-state groups. Steered by two South Sudanese field researchers with excellent peacebuilding and humanitarian networks, the project engaged a semiotic approach to investigate symbols and signs in Early Warning messaging, and how these are diffused, amplified and received in areas of low literacy where communication is mostly non-textual and sometimes non-verbal. This methodology also provided a suitable bridge for local perceptions and understandings to inform legal, training and policy frameworks using our existing networks. This research builds on the PI’s previous South Sudan fieldwork, and his research projects exploring local Early Warning and protection mechanisms to strengthen accessing and acting on such information. Our research is based on the premise that although multiple international frameworks exist, there are religious, cultural and tribal practices and perspectives which are highly relevant, organically produced and actionable. However, they have few formal links to policy statements and conventions, and remain under-studied.

Research Team:

• Chas Morrison, Coventry University, UK (principal investigator)
• Diria Vicky Thomas, Community Aid for Relief and Development, South Sudan (co-investigator)
• Haji Elias Hillary, Lomore Development Organization, South Sudan (co-investigator)

Research Findings:

This research project investigated cultures and practices of early warning and conflict preparedness among ethnic groups in different regions of South Sudan, through a semiotics lens. Group meetings, interviews and audio-visual materials were captured across 3 locations outside Juba city: in Central Equatoria; in Malakal, Upper Nile state; and in Yambio, Western Equatoria State. We investigated and recorded examples of signs and symbols used for communicating, for preparing, and for protecting. There are established mechanisms to avoid conflict, to postpone it, to negotiate or to call for it, and to defend one’s community using both practical and occult methods. This messaging and signing has a high implicit meaning, and is often opaque or misinterpreted by outsiders; the semiotic meaning has a clear in-group target and is not designed to be widely understood. Practices are very culturally bound, and often specific to certain tribes. Signs and symbols are shared within a specific group, and are then exclusionary with regards to the out-group. The semiotic functions support in-group cohesion and identity, which is particularly important in recent years with the receding of state authority and security.

We have audio-visual recordings of many of these practices, and group discussions regarding others:

• Drawing symbols and designs on the ground with spears or spikes
• Drumming to alert, convey messages (3x to fight, 4x for death).
• Songs with concealed meaning, blowing horns
• Drawings with ash on dwellings, ground or trees (protective circles, arrows, crosses etc).
• Reeds & grasses tied in specific ways: if tied together =>conflict, if separate =>no conflict.
• Cuttings of plants or positioning stones to indicate directions: (3 stones to show a place is dangerous and abandoned)
• ‘Tele-oor’ -hand whistling as an alert system.
• Elder women spiritual protection: fasting and praying for husbands/sons for days. They don’t eat or wash, but sing, dance and serve food to males This protects the fighting men.
• Boundary markers on ground: if enemy cross this, it means declaration to fight
• Use of spiritual curses against individuals or groups (fighting is not wrongful, but not following fighting rules is wrongful and should be spiritually punished)
• In some tribes, women watching the combat, may come and lay on an injured man to protect him. He can then no longer be attacked. This is also apparently used in preventing domestic violence.
• Revenge is important and permitted, but along strict demarcated lines
• Women, elders & children hide; young men armed with spear or bow & arrow, or small arms if they have them
• Women prepare packed lunch, sometimes carry and store weapons for the combatants
• Youth pass through legs of standing elders, to receive blessings
• Some tribes (Jur, Balanda) women also fight
• Move livestock to safety, and hide or bury any valuables.
• Symbols drawn on ground used to lure enemy for ambush
• Spiritual power is inherited, not miraculous, and used only by key individuals in a community
• Defence against insect attack (locusts, red ants etc, using ash circles and spiritually protected spaces).
• Defence against harmful ‘witch animals’: half human, half beast. This is distinct to armed groups, but the protection operates in a similar way.
• Ancestor power: invoking curses, protection etc.
• Chase away attackers using wild animals (bees, snakes), can cause bombs to be dropped in the wrong places.
• Blessed amulets that deflect bullets
• Blessed Charcoal and saliva mixture, to purify and protect people and particular locations
• Cursed animal skins for hanging above doorways and crossroads (also used against Covid). These harms and disorient any armed groups attacking the area.
• Cursed water for blindness. Invading attackers can no longer see, and will go the wrong way.
• Ash on women’s forehead if husband has died, to symbolise her loss and purification needs.

These signs and cultures may appear mysterious and irrational to outsiders. They conflate different threat types, of both secular and spiritual nature: armed violence, cattle raiding, insect infestation, diseases, spiritual threats such as ghosts and spirits, and natural hazards like drought, flood and bush fires. Preparation for fighting, or any other threat, is ritualistic and culturally bound. There are differences across tribal groups of such practices, but they tend to share some similar principles; we found that the cultural self-protection practices tend to be ritualistic, strictly hierarchical and divided along gendered lines. Many respondents mention the importance of ancestor power, and the select individuals who harness and wield it. Ancestor power can be employed for warding off danger and threats through ritualistic means, performing protection spells and incantations, or strengthening combatants for armed warfare.

Overall, these symbols, signs and incantations provide a framework for the ritualised, performative aspects of hand-to-hand fighting. Local civilian self-protection mechanisms not well understood or acknowledged by formal peacekeeping actors or other authorities. Anecdotal evidence suggests that these practices are becoming more prevalent, not less, due to the withdrawing of state power and the reversed development apparent in the country after years of war. Thus, tribal identities are becoming more embedded, and with that, the cultural practices that revolve around conflict and local level warfare. Communities report good results from UCP actors such as Nonviolent Peaceforce, but they tend not to share the wider UCP aim of avoiding conflict altogether. Instead, they tend to see it as a phenomenon to be managed, performed and interpreted along established cultural lines that seemingly allow some level of violence, as long as this is carried out within defined parameters and follows customary practice. That is, violence may one of several outcomes, but it not necessarily to be avoided as a goal in itself. Our respondents suggest that preparing for non-violence is not a specific approach in itself; it will be implemented if that seems the best thing to do, rather than as a moral goal. Otherwise, violence is reportedly planned for, implemented, mitigated, and recovered from. Unfortunately, much violence of recent years has instead been instigated for criminal and political ends, and does not adhere to traditional rules and limitations for armed engagement. Gender divisions are very marked and there are strict gender roles and identities. Communities discuss the chain reactions of cattle raiding, and revenge attacks linked to honour. The spread of guns has significantly altered the dynamics of combat, and increased the numbers of casualties and injuries.

We recommend that the cultural salience of these practices should be better acknowledged and addressed with sensitivity, to improve support to protection of civilians and other mechanisms for local human security. Low-tech low-literacy practices are a firmly established intrinsic part of life, and reportedly becoming more salient in identities. The centrality of these cultural practices and belief systems needs to be understood and engaged.

Find Out More:

https://www.coventry.ac.uk/research/research-directories/current-projects/2022/visualising-early-warning-and-preparedness-in-civilian-protection/

This project investigated and sought to strengthen the extraordinary capacity of Colombian communities to navigate the complex conflicts that threaten their security. Using a Participatory Action Research approach, which conducts research with rather than on communities, we collaborated with grassroots organisations and trained community researchers in three diverse communities in the Pacific region of South-West Colombia: i) the predominantly Afro-Colombian port city of Buenaventura; ii) mestizo coca growers based in and around the town of Lerma; and iii) members of an indigenous coffee-growing cooperative in Caldono, Toribio, Santander de Quilichao and Bolivar municipalities.

Through an extended engagement with these communities, and utilising a variety of ethnographic, archival and participatory research methods including the use of Participatory Video, the project aimed to:

• Document and analyse the diverse experiences, initiatives and infrastructures of Unarmed Civilian Protection in Colombia’s Pacific region;
• Identify and disseminate lessons for effective Unarmed Civilian Protection at a regional, national and international level;
• Strengthen community capacity for self-analysis and project collaboration through training in participatory research.

The overarching goal of the project was to facilitate an exchange of knowledge and experiences which enhances community capacities for UCP in the region and beyond.

The key findings of our project include:

• The key roles played by women and young people in the study communities in prompting initiatives to increase community security;
• The ability of communities to navigate and adapt to hybrid political orders, where social life is organised in parallel to the centralised state;
• The centrality of the concept of Juntanza (togetherness) to community-level UCP initiatives;
• Community-level conceptualisations of (in)security;
• The possibilities of participatory video as a method for researching UCP.

RESEARCH TEAM

• Juan Mario Díaz, University of Sheffield, UK (principal investigator)
• Simon Rushton, University of Sheffield, UK (co-investigator)
• Arlene B. Tickner, Universidad del Rosario, Colombia (co-investigator)
• Jesús Alfonso Flórez López, Universidad Autónoma de Occidente, Colombia (co-investigator)
• Natalia Campo, Universidad Autónoma de Occidente, Colombia (co-investigator)
• Adrián Alzate, Universidad Autónoma de Occidente, Colombia (co-investigator)
• Corporación Memoria y Paz (CORMEPAZ) (project partner)
• Central Cooperativa Indígena del Cauca (CENCOIC) (project partner)
• Escuela Agroambiental El Arraigo – Comunidad del Lerma (project partner)
• Pastoral Social Popayán (project partner)

PROJECT OUTPUTS

Short Film: Minga
This film explores the history and meaning of a community-based socio-cultural and political practice known as Minga, an indigenous form of protest and resistance. The film looks at Minga in the context of armed conflict through the experiences of resistance of the Nasa indigenous communities in the department of Cauca, Colombia. It was created by a group of local researchers from the Indigenous Community of Caldono, Resguardo San Lorenzo, Ancestral land Sath Tama Kiwe in 2023.

Short Film: Safe in Our Home

This documentary explores the potential of local semilleros (seedbeds) in facilitating community-based research on strategies for the protection of unarmed civilians and wider issues of (in)security. The documentary was created by two students at Universidad Autónoma de Occidente (UAO) in Colombia, Santiago Hernandez and Manuela Romero, who presented it as their final year project under the supervision of Dr Natalia Campo (Co-Investigator on the Creating Safer Space project).

Publication on Participatory Action Research

Semillero de Investigacion IAP (Spanish)
Participatory Action Research Semillero (English)
This publication shares a set of tools and techniques that were employed in conducting Participatory Action Research (PAR) with three communities in southwestern Colombia, and provides a helpful guide for community-based and academic researchers who are interested in using PAR.

FIND OUT MORE

• First International Festival of Participatory Video and Community-based Cinema in Cali, Colombia, 15-16 Nov 2023.

The emergence of the concept of unarmed civilian protection (UCP) in recent years has generated an interest in documenting different case studies of civilian self-protection strategies. This research project focused on Myanmar. Decades after its independence, the country’s population still lives under constant threats of violence in the context of both state-sponsored conflict and inter-communal conflict. This project offers a glimpse into the nation’s experience by investigating the experiences of people in Rakhine state.

Different ethnic communities living in central and northern Rakhine have been exposed, to varying degrees, to diverse forms of violence. In the span of two decades, there were at least three crises that sparked violent incidents across the region: the 2012 sectarian conflict between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in northern Rakhine; the 2016- 2017 violent campaign against the Rohingya; and the frequent armed tensions between Myanmar’s armed force, the Tatmadaw, and the Arakan Army (AA), the armed wing of an ethnic insurgency group, the United League of Arakan (ULA). These crises have never truly been reconciled but linger as the drivers to violence in the region. Different ethnic communities are exposed to violence in different ways.

Against this background, this project sought to understand the Rakhine people’s precarious journey of living in contexts of violence with different powerful actors. The project focused on three key areas of research: 1) civilian engagement with/disengagement from authorities, either military or ethnic armed groups; 2) civilian strategies for protection from violence; and 3) networks or infrastructures offering civilian protection.

RESEARCH TEAM

• Abellia Anggi Wardani, Knowledge-Hub Myanmar (Principal Investigator)
• Riyad Anwar, Knowledge-Hub Myanmar
• Florian Weigand, Centre on Armed Groups and London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
• Tony Neil, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

FURTHER INFORMATION

• Website: www.knowledgehub-mm.org
• Twitter / Instagram: @knowledgehub_mm

PROJECT OUTPUTS

Article in Journal of Global Security Studies

The project has published an article in the Journal of Global Security Studies, ‘Agency during Armed Conflict: Everyday Life under Competing Authorities in Myanmar’s Rakhine State’ (open access).

The article draws upon fieldwork in Myanmar’s Rakhine State to analyse the relationship between ordinary people and competing authorities during armed conflict. In particular, the paper investigates the sources of agency that enable civilians to engage with armed actors, for instance, to ensure their own protection.