The “Everyday Justice” Project supported a broad array of fieldwork in Antioquia, Colombia in two municipalities impacted by the country’s internal armed conflict: Dabeiba and Urrao. The municipalities experienced similar levels of violence, but only one, Dabeiba, has benefited from Colombia’s wide ranging set of peace and justice institutions, several of which were created as part of the 2016 peace deal between the Government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - People’s Army (FARC). Drawing on focus groups, participatory workshops and interviews, we derived a unique database of 487 indicators of coexistence and 366 indicators of justice across eight villages in these two municipalities. The indicators speak to the breadth and depth of everyday experiences and understandings of conflict, coexistence and justice–and help highlight both the alignments and gaps between national and local visions of peace.

This project was part of a larger effort to understand how diverse communities of Colombians understand peace on their own terms across diverse regions, in addition to Antioquia we worked in the Department of Northern Cauca and the region of Sumapaz. Like in Antioquia, we worked in municipalities in these regions with similar histories of armed conflict but divergent experiences of Colombia’s national post-conflict response.

We sought in this project to evaluate and inform Colombia’s wealth of transitional justice institutions that emerged prior to and out of the 2016 Peace Accord. Using community standards the project informed activities of the Colombian Truth Commission, as well as its final report published in 2022, and continues to engage the country’s national restorative justice court (Special Jurisdiction of Peace), as well as the follow-up Truth Commission (Comité de Seguimiento) and the Colombian Victims Unit.

As of 2023, the project has resulted in transitional justice related peer reviewed publications including in the Journal of Human Rights Practice, Action Research and Law and Social Inquiry. For example, utilizing our unique dataset of ‘everyday’ community-based indicators of coexistence and justice in Antioquia, we drew a distinction between ‘state-led’ and ‘community-led’ collective justice efforts and proposed that the latter can speak to both civilian and ex-combatant communities’ priorities and lived experiences, ultimately providing a pathway to coexistence between the two. This stands in contrast to the Colombian state’s historic approach to collective reparations projects, which have to-date been state-led. Instead, a more community-led model of reparative justice could serve as a more pragmatic middle ground between the individual and state-led collective approaches that dominate transitional justice in Colombia and internationally.

We have presented extensively on this work to Colombian and international audiences, alongside a dedicated team of Colombian researchers who continue to work on bottom-up peace research in the country to help guide its national post-conflict responses. We have also worked with Colombian and international organizations to train them in aspects of participatory methodologies and bottom-up measurement to support their work in ways that make peacebuilding more accountable to the communities they serve.

Last Modified: 12/12/2023
Modified by: Pamina M Firchow