Description
In Colombia’s ongoing peacebuilding efforts, the notion of responsibility among former combatants remains central yet deeply contested. Over the past two decades, the country has implemented a range of transitional justice and reconciliation mechanisms — from the Justice and Peace Law to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) — to address past violence and promote accountability. However, these frameworks often privilege legal and institutional understandings of responsibility, overlooking the complex ways in which ex-combatants themselves interpret their involvement in the conflict and their moral positioning in its aftermath.
Drawing on qualitative research based on life histories with former members of different armed groups, this paper examines how responsibility is narrated and negotiated in everyday post-conflict settings. The analysis reveals that responsibility is not a fixed moral state but a fluid and relational process, expressed through denial, minimisation, guilt, shame, or reflective reinterpretation. These diverse articulations expose how responsibility operates not only as a juridical category but as an ethical, emotional, and political practice embedded in the lived experience of transition.
By foregrounding the perspectives of those typically framed as perpetrators, the paper contributes to broader debates on peacebuilding and transitional governance. It argues that understanding responsibility beyond institutional frameworks allows for a more nuanced grasp of how peace is constructed, contested, and felt on the ground. In doing so, the paper connects to critical peacebuilding and International Relations debates on everyday peace and vernacular practices, highlighting responsibility as a dynamic and situated process that both reflects and reshapes the moral economies of post-conflict life.
