Navigating colonial debris: structural challenges for Colombia’s peace accord

Abstract

ABSTRACT In recent years, interest has grown in how Transitional Justice (TJ) can approach colonial harms and their long-lasting effects, because of a lacuna in both TJ practice and academic research . Scant attention has been paid, particularly, to how peace processes themselves can be undermined by ongoing colonial legacies. In this article, we offer an in-depth case study on Colombia, particularly the Havana Peace Accord of 2016, and discuss how the debris – to use Stoler’s term – of Spanish colonialism relating to land, ethnicity and gender have become evident throughout the process: during the negotiations, in the campaigns prior to the referendum, and while undertaking its implementation. We argue that peace processes must account for ongoing harms rooted in colonial projects; in the first instance, to provide structural justice for those who suffer these harms in a broader sense and, also, to protect the specific aims of the peace process in question.