I conducted 83 in-depth semi-structured interviews with adult campesinos. All interviews were audio-recorded with the consent of participants. In all interviews, I explained to the participants my research, its purpose, and the consent script. I asked for consent to the individual I was going to interview or all participants in a few cases in which more than one individual participated in the interview.
I conducted two types of interviews. The first type was a general interview with 40 campesinos from Ovejas. These interlocutors were selected through chain referral sampling. I selected the seed contacts from different campesino communities, mainly women and men who are community leaders in the rural areas of Ovejas. As I made new contacts with rural inhabitants, especially in workshops and the pre-assemblies of the PDET, I continued to solicit further contacts and followed them up. The final sample included community leaders and ordinary campesinos, members of different communities in rural areas, and women and men. I interviewed rural inhabitants of different generations, although this was not a criterion for the selection of interlocutors. I did not interview the younger generations, and in consequence, these views are not represented in the interviews. However, I interacted with young adults in communities and other spaces.
In these interviews, I explored issues concerning some aspects of the history of the community, the dynamics of the armed conflict and the presence of legal and illegal armed actors in the municipality and rural communities, relationships and encounters with guerrillas, the
presence of other state institutions, and interactions between campesinos and state actors and related experiences. I particularly examined narratives regarding campesinos’ experiences and encounters with the state during the militarization of the region, including different forms of violence and their effects on communities.
I explored aspects of the transitional period after the zone was declared free of guerrillas, such as the presence of state institutions and officials in rural areas during those years and state processes that began taking place in that context. I also examined manifestations of violence in campesino communities during subsequent years, and relationships between rural inhabitants and the fuerza pública. I asked about the meanings of the post-conflict category. I inquired about rural inhabitants’ experiences and opinions regarding reparations and land restitution, the implementation of the PDETs, and other aspects of the peace accords.
The second type of interview was conducted with campesino victims of state violence, in particular, those who were detained and incarcerated in the context of the mass detentions in the municipalities of Ovejas, Chalán, Colosó, and Los Palmitos. I focused on these detentions to examine in-depth how some violent practices carried out in rural communities during the militarization of the region have shaped relationships, encounters and experiences of the state in these communities.
I conducted 43 interviews with campesinos who were detained and incarcerated during the first decade of the 2000s. I selected these interlocutors through chain referral sampling. The initial contacts were campesino leaders in Ovejas, Chalán, and Colosó. As I began conducting interviews with these victims, I was able to follow up with their subsequent contacts. The sample included community leaders and ordinary campesinos, members of different communities in rural areas, and individuals detained in different mass detentions and years. I interviewed women and men,
but women were detained to a lesser extent than men, which is reflected in my sample. I also explored the topic of mass detentions and the impact on communities in the general type of interviews with campesinos who were not direct victims of this form of violence.
Through these interviews, I gathered information concerning the context of armed conflict and militarization in which mass arbitrary detentions took place, relationships between campesinos and the military forces, the police and other state institutions, and characteristics of the detentions. I explored campesinos and families’ experiences during the detention, incarceration and after returning from jail, including encounters with state agents and the community. I also explored the accompaniment by human rights organizations and lawyers, the impact and consequences of the detentions at the individual, family and community level, and regarding relationships with the state. I examined victims’ experiences of trials and other legal processes, organizational processes, and current expectations and claims regarding truth, justice and reparations in the context of the peace accords.
To conduct the two types of interviews, I followed an interview guide with open-ended questions. Several of these questions invited the interlocutor to a more extended account of experiences and events, particularly those regarding the past. Responses took the form of narratives (Riessman 2008). Overall, during the interviews, the different topics were explored in chronological order, although it was not uncommon to go back and forth regarding past and present events and experiences. Campesinos talked about the open-ended questions by narrating their own experiences, and in some cases, what they had witnessed regarding relatives or other members of the community. Responses were often accompanied by detailed stories of something that happened to them, particularly concerning past events, anecdotes, descriptions, and reflections.
According to Riessman (2008), although there are different definitions of the term narrative, and it is used in various ways in different disciplines, it is often associated with stories. Narratives are also often understood as temporal sequences of events “with beginnings, middles, and ends” (Andrews et al 2004:7). Riessman (2008) points out that there is a continuum of definitions of narrative and ways in which the concept is operationalized. Some definitions refer to an extended answer by a research participant to a single question, others to an entire life story, or long sections of talk and “extended accounts of lives in context that develop over the course of a single or multiple research interviews” (p. 5-6). Narrators structure their stories and accounts of experiences temporally and spatially. Narratives not only include spoken or personal stories, but also written and visual materials.
In this research, I use the term narratives to refer to the spoken stories and accounts told by interviewees based mostly on their experiences and often involving temporal sequences of events. I also use the term to refer to extended sections of talk and accounts of experiences and events told by interviewees. Narratives could also be about the past, the present, or the future. The narratives I collected regarding the recent past were based on interlocutors’ memories of past experiences and events that took place in their communities and the region. Through interviews, I gathered information not only about past events but also encounters with state actors in the context of ongoing state processes in the region. In this research I allude mainly to narratives and sometimes I use the term oral accounts.
This component of the interviews regarding past events can also be seen as oral histories. According to Ritchie (2015), “memory is the core of oral history, from which meaning can be extracted.” Oral history collects “memories and personal commentaries of historical significance
through recorded interviews” (p. 1).6 In turn, Yow (2005) points out that narrative is a relevant
component of oral history, “along with description, explanation, and reflection” (p. 15). Alluding to oral histories, Yow also states that participants often answer questions in the form of stories and narratives are constructed from our memories.
I mostly conducted individual interviews. However, regarding the general type of interview, in six interviews, two, three, and more campesinos participated. In the case of the interview with the victims of the detentions, most of them were individual interviews. In a few cases, I interviewed a small group of two or three people since they were part of the same detention or same family. In total, I gathered information regarding 47 cases through 43 interviews.
Interviews with campesinos lasted between one and three hours and 30 minutes. I often met the person days before the interview and scheduled it for a different day. Meetings were almost never cancelled. Only in two cases the campesino called me early in the morning to let me know that it was raining in the vereda, and suggested me to reschedule the interview, since it was impossible to enter the vereda by motorcycle. In some cases, I entered the vereda by walking in the mud.
In most cases I conducted interviews in the communities and campesinos’ houses in rural areas because it was often more comfortable for them and provided greater privacy. A few times interlocutors asked me to meet in their houses in the urban area. Conducting the interviews in the rural setting allowed me to observe the area where the parcelas are located and the places where violent acts took place; I could also ask about what I was observing. In the case of Chalán and Colosó, I conducted more interviews in the urban area since many campesinos did not return
6 However, Ritchie also points out that an interview “becomes an oral history only when it has been recorded,
processed in some way, made available in an archive, library, or another repository, or reproduced in relatively verbatim form for publication” (p. 8). This was not the aim of this research.
permanently to the rural area, although they have continued working in agricultural activities in their parcelas. I also conducted some interviews in rural areas in these municipalities, particularly in the case of Chalán.
I also conducted 15 additional in-depth, semi-structured interviews with other relevant actors in the region, including state officials in Montes de Maria, members of relevant NGOs working with rural communities, and lawyers who have accompanied victims and rural communities. I traveled to Bogotá at least three times to conduct some of these interviews. I interviewed the director of the Comité de Solidaridad de los Presos Políticos CSPP, a lawyer from the Colectivo de Abogados José Alvear Restrepo CAJAR, who participated in the humanitarian visit in the region and has accompanied rural populations in Montes de María, and a former fiscal (prosecutor) who was in charge of making decisions regarding one of the mass detentions. I interviewed a lawyer of the Comité Permanente de Derechos Humanos CPDH, representing the Finca La Europa in the process of land restitution, a lawyer of the CSPP in Barranquilla, and a lawyer who defended several campesinos detained and incarcerated in Sincelejo.
I interviewed a state official from the Defensoría del Pueblo and several officials of the ART’s team, both in Sincelejo. I interviewed four members of NGOs working with rural communities in Montes de María. I also interviewed one member of MOVICE in Sucre. I also had several informal conversations with a human rights defender in Sincelejo who has provided accompaniment to some campesinos in Ovejas.
These interviews often lasted around one hour and 30 minutes, although a few of them lasted more than two hours. I also interviewed four former members of the 35th and 37th front of
y Reincorporación in the Caribbean region, where former combatants of the FARC were concentrated at the time of the interviews. I stayed there for one week.