Description
This paper contemplates how ‘everyday resistance’ is articulated to the (in)security produced by liberal post-conflict societies in their provision of peace. Resistance is a broad church of relational and emergent processes, which have been under-emphasised in critical approaches to international studies. The analytic value of ‘everyday resistance’ is illustrated through an examination of a confrontation between a group of former FARC-EP guerrilla fighters and a group of armed soldiers on 10 December 2022 in the Urabá region in Antioquia, Colombia. Through this lens, the techniques of (in)security operating at the peripheries of sovereign control become illuminated. As a point of departure, the paper argues (in)security is a co-production of both how the state provides security and also the way former guerillas produce (in)security in their resistance to statist notions of peace. On the one hand, (in)security supports violence at the peripheries, restricts citizens from access to protection and consolidates social hierarchies. While on the other, it fosters opportunities to resist and practice an alternative emancipatory politics. The paper concludes by emphasising how greater integration of relational approaches to everyday resistance offers insights in the politics of security, peace and conflict.
