Description
Perpetrator narratives present complex challenges in transitional justice processes. They can vary from being intensely scrutinised to being marginalised or ignored altogether. Despite this, these narratives hold significant political sway and can further or hinder memory-building, truth-seeking, and peace-building efforts. This paper examines the role of perpetrator narratives in elucidating the deployment of violence during the Colombian armed conflict through an analysis of the existing literature on the conflict and a first approach to narratives of ex-combatants produced in transitional scenarios.
The identification of four distinct narrative typologies seeks to enlighten the complexities inherent in these narratives and their implications as political tools.
- Justificatory Narratives: These narratives aim to rationalise armed struggle.
- Heroic Narratives: They seek to justify violence in the public sphere, perpetuating the armed conflict to resolve social tensions.
- Confessional Narratives: In which transitional justice and the principles of truth, justice, reparation, and non-repetition place victims at the centre and transform combatants into perpetrators
- Reparative Narratives: Arising from interactions between victims and perpetrators, these narratives aim to foster reconciliation and repair the harm caused, even if the reparation is not fulfilled in all cases.
Navigating the complexities of perpetrators' narratives raises ethical and political dilemmas. By critically addressing these narratives, we aim to promote a more integrative and transformative approach to recognising the complexities of violence and the discourses we construct about it. Additionally, we can answer questions such as how narratives of violence shift over time and why.
The paper presents initial outcomes from the doctoral project Beyond the Use of Violence: ex-combatants' Narratives on the Logic of Violence during the Colombian Armed Conflict. This project asks about ex-combatants' narratives on the justifications and rationalities of the use of violence in the Colombian case.
