The Impact of the Collective Reincorporation of Former FARC-EP Fighters on the Local Reconstruction of the Social Fabric in Colombia

Recon­structing the social fabric is one of the greatest challenges of buil­ding peace after civil war. A central ele­ment in this process is the normali­zation of relation­ships and the reduction of mis­trust between former combatants and the popu­lation they are reinte­grating into. In the case of the ongoing peace pro­cess with the FARC-EP in Colombia, the reinte­gration of former guerrilla fighters was orga­nized as a collective process, called reincor­poration: After the signing of the peace agree­ment in late 2016, groups of demobilized FARC-EP members gathered in canton­ments in rural areas, which were initially meant to be transi­tory but which, for the most part, lasted for years and, in part, have turned into perma­nent settlements. The project, with support from the Instituto Colombo-Alemán para la Paz (CAPAZ) and Rice University, ana­lyzes the impact of this collective reincor­poration process on the recon­struction of the social fabric at the local level. It does so by com­bining a survey and qualitative research in seven selected muni­cipalities.

The project is carried out in coope­­ration with the project "From War to Peace? Impacts of community-based rein­­corporation of former FARC comba­­tants on local security settings".