Ethnic(ized) activism and its decolonizing potential to build pluriversal peace. The case of Colombia. (completed)

(Doctoral research, finalized with summa cum laude).

Critical Ethnographic research wit 22 Afrocolombian, Indigenous, Rrom and Raizal peace activists. 

Abstract: The thesis sheds light on the possibilities to decolonize peacebuilding and to build pluriversal peace via ethnic(ized) top-level peace activism, prior to and following thesigning of the peace agreement between the FARC-EP guerrilla and the Colombian
government in 2016. Taking the case of ethnic(ized) peace activism within the context of the aforementioned Colombian peace agreement, this dissertation asks: Which opportunities and challenges in proposing and practicing peacebuilding differently are
 encountered by activists who work at the policy-impact level within the limits set by state-led peacebuilding? What decolonizing impact can be generated from their activism via the policy-impact level and how does it improve our understanding of conflict and violence, peace and peacebuilding? Results show how hegemonic ways of making and building peace (practices), of producing knowledge about peace (methodologies) and of seeing and understanding the world (onto-epistemology) are not only limited in their contribution to finding an end to violence, but also reproduce andprovoke violence in Colombia. Building on the practices of ethnic(ized) activists, three decolonizing, pluriversal concepts are developed that contribute to understanding how the
coloniality of peace and violence can be dismantled: Rooted Epistemic Resistance for Peace, understood as the onto-epistemic contribution of ethnic(ized) top level peace activists to re-think peace from a pluriversal perspective to exit anthropocentrism and
recognize the other; astucia, understood as the epistemic capacity to strategize exits to coloniality through meticulous kinds of activism; and articulación, understood as the praxis of building pluriversal peace. The thesis contributes to theoretical and practitioner debates about peace, peacebuilding, and conflict transformation, with regards to howpeace can be decolonized (as a reactive and dismantling endeavor), and how pluriversal peace be built (as a proactive and constructive practice).

Preliminary results published in:

• Cárdenas, María. 2023. “Why Peacebuilding Is Condemned to Fail If It Ignores Ethnicization. The Case of Colombia." Peacebuilding 11 (2): 185–204. https://doi.org/10.1080/21647259.2022.2128583.
• Cárdenas, M.; Henao, E.; Palacios, A. (2023): Epistemologías decoloniales y de los pueblos hacia la construcción de paz en Colombia. Una propuesta pluriétnica para el debate internacional sobre la construcción de paz. In: Peters et al: Aportes a los Estudios de Conflicto y Construcción de Paz desde la academia colombiana. UNAL / CAPAZ, Colombia. 
• Cárdenas, M. (2023). Decolonizing perspectives in peace research. In C. Cohrs, N. Knab, & G. Sommer (Eds.), Handbook of Peace Psychology (pp. 1–31). https://doi.org/10.17192/es2022.0022