Local peacebuilding in the shadow of the agreement: the role of grassroot initiatives in the lasting peace process of San Carlos
Summary
After the end of the protracted conflict in Colombia, a considerable formal peace process started that was meant to bring lasting peace to the entire country. However, rural communities such as the municipality of San Carlos, through its separation from the center, experience little of the ambitious promises of justice, reparations and structural change incorporated in the 2016 peace agreement. As a response, grassroot initiatives have started peace projects in the municipality to create a local peace process instead. Building on literature surrounding the local turn and grassroots peacebuilding, this thesis offers a new analytical framework to understand how the relationship between local and state peacebuilding is influenced both by existing dynamics and the introduction of a peace agreement. The framework shows how this distinction correlates to the different top-down peacebuilding limitations and bottom-up peacebuilding strategies and obstacles. This is then applied to empirical data coordinated around the grassroot initiatives in San Carlos and generated using qualitative fieldwork methods such as semi-structured interviews and participant observation. This shows how with the introduction of the formal peace process, new local expectations and images of peace were created that the government now does not have the capacity or political will to fulfill, thereby complicating the already disconnected relationship between rural grassroots initiatives and the Colombian government. However, the persistent and diverse peace strategies of the grassroot initiatives show the possibility for a more cooperative relationship with the official peace process if this disconnect would lessen.