Julieta Lemaitre (2016)
Social & Legal Studies
This article examines internally displaced women’s narratives of rebuilding their life after
displacement, focusing on questions of moral agency and community governance. The
data come from a 3-year research project (2010–2013) with internally displaced women
in Colombia, during the emergence of a new transitional justice regime. The article finds
in internally displaced women’s narratives of the injuries of war, of their own resistance
and overcoming, and of their aspirations for the future, concerns that go beyond poverty
alleviation and redistribution in peace-building efforts. Internally displaced women’s
narratives also engage with questions of ordinary ethics and community governance,
describing the loss of moral agency in civil war and its painstaking recovery. This article
questions the limitations of transitional justice regimes and peace-building efforts that
ignore concerns with the loss of moral agency and community during civil war as well as
the role of ordinary ethics in peace building at the grassroots.
Read the article here.
DOI: 10.1177/0964663916636442