Category: P

Documentary: Peñas Coloradas

“Peñas Coloradas: Memories carried by the river” is an emotional journey into the heart of the memories of a displaced community in Caquetá, Colombia. Through collective memory exercises, the documentary relives what it meant to build their village from scratch on the banks of the Caguan River, before their forced displacement by the Army in 2004. Although return is not their goal, these resilient voices demand their recognition as collective victims of the armed conflict and reflect on a future that honors their history and dignity. Beyond the pain, this work is a testimony of struggle for justice and the preservation of their community identity.

Postconflict

The temporal term ‘post-conflict’ is used in peace and conflict studies and international development discourses to mark the end of civil wars or the conclusion of peace negotiations. This reference hides sources of persistent violence, and quickly becomes a misnomer in cases of conflict relapse. Postconflict can be reimagined as a qualitative condition that accounts for the lasting impact of war and other conflicts, as a process, and as an aspirational goal; this is possible through decolonial perspectives that underscore social justice as the basis for sustainable, durable peace.

Postcolonial and decolonial differences

Amid academic fondness for embracing trends and ‘turns’, it is reasonable to ask about the actual difference between post- and decolonial perspectives and to consider whether this difference warrants our attention. This lemma seeks to provide some answers, engaging critically with key arguments by decolonial scholars on how their work differs from postcolonial perspectives. I argue that we should pay attention to the key debates sparked by the ‘decolonial turn’ while avoiding the use of buzzwords and strawman arguments. Additionally, I demonstrate the synergies and frictions between post-/decolonial writings within peace and conflict studies, focusing specifically on the deconstruction and reconstruction of human rights.

Pluriversal peacebuilding

Pluriversality is a concept from decolonial theory that names the existence of irreducibly plural ways of knowing and being that connect people to one another and to the world(s) around them. Decolonial theory reveals how modern Eurocentric epistemologies support their claims to universality by eradicating resources for imagining and enacting alternatives to a world structured according to the racialized, gendered, territorialized, and capitalist logics of modernity.

Skip to content