and the post-agreement in Nariñense territory is analyzed by Amanda Riascos and Alba Lucy Ortega in the second chapter. The authors agree with the analysis made in the first chapter by Biel and Casanova and take a closer look at the set of instruments and mechanisms addressed to promote post-agreement transformations. With a reflective approach, they find that conflict is a social effect that will be present in the department of Nariño and that its accentuation will be proportional to the extent that structural social problems are not resolved. Therefore, a culture of conflict resolution is necessary with peaceful negotiation strategies that make it possible to maintain coexistence in the territories with clear policies of economic opportunities, education and social inclusion.
In the third chapter, the authors Andrés Salas, Franco Montenegro and Julie Benavides conduct a study that positions health as a fundamental human right. Therefore, they develop a demographic analysis, on the health conditions of the population of the municipalities of Leiva, Policarpa and Los Andes, to project the current quality of life of the rural population and explain how the implementation of the Peace Agreement can improve this situation, resolving epidemiological problems that affect physical, mental and social wellbeing at different life stages of the population: early childhood, childhood, adolescence, adulthood and the elderly.
The fourth chapter, by Deicy Villarreal, addresses the challenges of education and pedagogy in rurality. They can lead to social transformation if the contributions of social pedagogy are resumed, leading criticism, reflection, freedom through historical knowledge, social justice and the search for good living with alternative pedagogical processes; contextualized and built participatively with the populations that contribute to the construction of peace in the territories.
Along the same lines, the fifth chapter, by Ángela Mora and Claudia Guerrero, emphasizes the criteria of quality and relevance of rural education as a factor that has had a negative impact on rural poverty, armed conflict and the development of illegal economies.
The sixth chapter, by Karen Ocaña, Natalia Villota and Camilo Fajardo, shows the educational experience of the 45 young beneficiaries of the “Rural Development Alternatives” project and the importance of planning rural education environments that make it possible to reduce student dropout rates using strategies of academic support, student welfare, entrepreneurship and graduate support.
The seventh chapter, by Mauricio Chamorro and Ronal Urbina, theoretically analyzes the relationship of rural and agrarian studies with the prevailing economic models of Latin America. The authors encounter divergent approaches and political initiatives over the last 80 years in the region. However, they recognize that the rural territory is a scenario of permanent and collective construction, mediated by constant social struggles and disputes with the State, to the extent that it seeks to factor in the logic and rationality of rurality so that they become real instruments of rural development.
The eighth chapter, by Ángela Marcela Castillo Burbano, reflects on viable paths to consolidate rural development in Colombia; through social and solidarity economy practices. It argues that to overcome the limitations of conventional development paradigms, alternative fundamental conditions of good living must be considered: a broad guarantee of rights, the sovereignty of the State and the consolidation of public policies with the opening to new concepts and approaches, such as that provided by food sovereignty, the right to water and the rights of Nature.
The authors Alba Lucy Ortega and Amanda Riascos, in the ninth chapter, suggest that the formation of associations in the rural sector is a fundamental factor that can strengthen the potential of productive sectors, in order for communities to contribute to rural development, based on strategies that improve skills for the sustainability of rural enterprises.
In the tenth chapter, the authors Alba Lucy Ortega and Claudia Guerrero analyze, in a cross-cutting manner, corporate social responsibility as a strategy that stimulates investment, production and marketing activities in the countryside, addressing areas of governance, human rights, labor practices and the environment. Their case study of the “Federación de Cafeteros” or “Federation of Coffee Growers” provides insight into how a second-degree organization affects rural productive dynamics and how coffee production activity can be improved in territories dedicated to agriculture or in territories where this production has been decided as an alternative to the cultivating of crops for illicit use.
Finally, the eleventh chapter, by authors David López, Andrés Mosquera and Esteban Guerrero, punctually analyzes the economic opportunities of coffee for the generation of employment and income in the municipalities of Leiva, Policarpa and Los Andes, to the extent that they replicate quality and specialty criteria that generate greater added value and take advantage of opportunities in the market.
The ensemble of these chapters should demonstrate an academic work that tries to cast a light on the multiple dialogues around rural development from a polysemic and critical perspective that incorporates the visible realities of the territory. The Nariñense mountain range is a region full of cultural and ecological diversity with a significant community fabric, driven by leaders who hope to overcome the consequences of the armed conflict and interweave the paths of truth, justice, reparation and non-repetition. Current efforts, in adding inter-institutional and community alliances, are not enough and it should be a permanent task to ensure that the rural population appropriates the role of protagonist in this unfinished peacebuilding process.
References
Jaramillo, S. (2014). La paz territorial. Presentación en la Universidad de Harvard, Cambridge, MA, Estados Unidos.
Molano, A. (Mayo de 2016). Lanzamiento de la Revista de Derechos Humanos, No.1 ¿Cuándo Nace La Esperanza?. Evento llevado a cabo en la Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia, Pasto, Colombia.
Nussbaum, M. (2016). Paz en Colombia: perspectivas, desafíos, opciones. Buenos Aires: CLACSO.
Sandoval, M. F. L., Robertsdotter, A. y Paredes, M. (2017). Space, power, and locality: The contemporary use of territorio in Latin American Geography. Journal of Latin American Geography, 16(1), 43-67.
| how to cite this chapterBiel Portero, I. & Casanova Mejía, A. C. (2019). The challenges of building a stable and lasting peace in Colombia. In Á. M. Castillo Burbano & C. A. Guerrero Martínez (comps.), Challenges and alternatives towards peacebuilding: a rural development perspective (Philippe White, Transl.) (pp. 29-53). Bogota: Ediciones UCC & Centro Editorial Uniminuto. (Original title published in 2019). https://dx.doi.org/10.16925/9789587602388 |
Chapter I
The challenges of building a stable and lasting peace in Colombia
Israel Biel Portero, Andrea Carolina Casanova Mejía
Abstract
Following the Final Peace Agreement, signed between the Government and the FARC-EP, Colombia faces countless challenges in order to satisfy and guarantee the rights of historically excluded and underprivileged populations in different political, economic and social contexts. Therefore, the construction of a stable and lasting peace implies rethinking not only the old structures that generate inequality and poverty in the country, but also the way of understanding justice and reconciliation. In this sense, this chapter aims to review transitional justice as a set of instruments and mechanisms aimed at promoting such transformations, identifying in turn the major developments and particular challenges of the department of Nariño.
Keywords: armed conflict, peace agreement, transitional justice, human rights and rural development.
Resumen
Tras el Acuerdo Final de Paz suscrito entre el Gobierno y las FARC-EP,
