Community strategies for Unarmed Civilian Protection in South-West Colombia: local experiences and lessons learned

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

In February 2022, a group of Colombia- and Sheffield-based researchers and grassroots organisations in the region came to visit CENCOIC coffee warehouse in Popayan, Cauca. This was part of a three-day workshop, which led to the development of the project “Community strategies for Unarmed Civilian Protection in South-West Colombia: local experiences and lessons learned”.
Members of CENCOIC and research team of the University of Sheffield, Feb 2022
Meeting with the local researcher of CORMEPAZ and academic partners in Colombia to discuss training and capacity-building opportunities in Buenaventura in July 2022
Cultural event organised by CORMEPAZ in defence of the human and territorial rights of the community of Barrio Lleras, Comuna 6, Buenaventura, in July 2022.
Getting ready! This was a two-day workshop with academic and non-academic partners (Universidad Autónoma de Occidente (UAO), Pastoral Social Popayán, Comunidad de Lerma, Cencoic, Cormepaz and Sheffield University) associated to the project “Community strategies for Unarmed Civilian Protection in South-West Colombia: local experiences and lessons learned” in the UAO, Cali, 21-22 July 2022. The purpose of this workshop was to strengthen the partnership and listen to the partners’ views and expectations in relation to this project.