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The capacity to aspire is understood as the capacity to identify and navigate pathways to realise personal ideas of the good life. The constrained capacity to aspire of poor people inhibits their ability to change their circumstances. The questions at the heart of this paper are whether local government plays a role in the development of this capacity and how. We examined these questions through interviews with over 50 young people in a rural municipality in Colombia, where particular development-related strategies are implemented, and found that local government can strengthen the capacity to aspire by creating spaces of participation and assisting access to higher education. However, corruption, unsustainability, discontinuity of programmes, and the disregard of youth preferences constitute hindrances to the capacity to aspire that originate from government action as well. This discussion is developed around the notions of conversion factors, practical reasoning, terms of recognition, and human agency. The paper concludes that the capacity to aspire can be developed by including youth voices in policy planning, which would initiate new levels of interaction with the government that could further change the terms of recognition, and by adopting a political discourse that takes the capacity to aspire seriously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the ideologies present in Colombian official policy for English language teaching (ELT) and traces the links between governmental planning for state-funded schools and school pedagogical practices. Building on analysis of interviews with policy agents, policymakers' pronouncements, documents and classroom observations, the article contends that instead of working towards educational equity, official policy actions are creating a new breach amongst state-funded schools, that is, between schools that are 'focalised' and others that are not. The national high-stakes exam for school leavers and the strategy of presenting policy goals and outcomes as a constant challenge perpetuate the knowledge-based economy ideology in the policy documents and pose a limit to teachers' and schools' decisions. The paper concludes with a call for a clear analysis of the material contexts of the ELT policy by policy actors at the macro-level and teacher agency that leads to student language learning despite policy constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following developments responding to the need for transition from a fossil fuel to a bio-based economy, the concept of bioeconomy has become increasingly present in the global economic agenda. Alongside ongoing debates about the understanding and implications of this concept, the definition of national approaches in regards to bioeconomy is a work in progress for many countries around the world. This paper explores this process for the case of Colombia, as a promising national context on the cusp of formulating its national strategy, and examines the variety of actors participating in this transition and the sources of assigned authority governing it. By taking a network perspective of agency theory, this research intends to answer: Who (actors) governs bioeconomy transitions and how (agency) these transitions are governed? By applying social network analysis and directed content analysis to interviews with actors from various sectors in Colombia, our results show that central actors are not necessarily also the relevant agents with the capacity to change the course of events or the outcome of transition processes. At the same time, our results illustrate that agents in bioeconomy transitions can play key roles from a variety of structural positions, as their relevance depends on the assigned authority and not primarily on their relative position in the actor network. Expert and capacity-based authority are the most relevant ones in determining agency for the Colombian context; even so, most of the agents identified mix different sources of assigned authority to legitimize their power regarding the direction of this transition. Image 1 • 55 central actors and 56 agents were identified in the actor networks governing the Colombian bioeconomy transition. • Agents depend on the assigned authority and not primarily on their relative position in the actor network. • Most relevant agents for Colombia belong to government and international research. Private actors also play a key role. • Expert and capacity-based authority are the most important types in determining agency for the Colombian context. • With its approach to bioeconomy Colombia has continued to be a trend-following country of the global economic agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyse two Colombian communities using elements of the capability approach. The first, Comuna 8, is an urban community in Medellín, Colombia’s second largest city. The second community is a Zona de Reserva Campesina (Peasant Farmer Reserve Zone) in the Cabrera municipality, in the Department of Cundinamarca. We explore the reasons why people value being part of a community, along with the collective capabilities that are expanded through community participation. As a product of these capabilities communities plan their own territories, which are examples of collective functionings. Social and environmental conversion factors, as well the historical background of the two communities, are key elements in the analysis. Finally, this research sheds light on individual and collective agency. This agency not only occurs in spaces recognised by Colombian law, but also in areas claimed by the communities themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to show the possibility of the agen-cy from an ethics course as part of executive training the force. Be part of the progress made in discussions on the concept of agency, particularly in American sociology. Next, we proceed to present the practices developed with students, in order to suggest possi-bilities for the agency from themselves. Finally, we discuss about the possibilitiesthat this proposal may be useful in the institutional development of the Na-tional Police of Colombia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Processes of globalization often render feelings of diminished agency in local actors, what Gerard Toal has termed a "global vertigo". This paper draws on Gibson and Graham's work on the relationship between agency and discourse within transnational economic processes in order to provide an analysis of a few facets of the Colombia-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. What becomes clear is that while similar dynamics have continued to predominate transnational discourses of economic development historically with regards to Colombia, alternate discursive strategies may be emerging within the context of transnational alliances which are increasingly enabled through processes of globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Armed conflict in Colombia has a history of 50 years that continues to this day. According to the Victims Record of Colombia, from 1985 to 2013 2.683.335 women have been victims of the armed conflict. Women have been described as the main victims of the armed conflict, especially in the Colombian cultural context that in some regions is still considered to be a 'machista' and patriarchal one. In contrast, some authors have explicitly stressed Colombian women's agency instead of positioning them only as victims. Some of them are described as 'survivors' of the war, emphasizing their impressive resistance to the outcomes of war and forced displacement. In contrast to the background of these scholarly discussions, our study focused on how displaced women living in Bogotá themselves articulate their experiences of agency and victimization. This paper will therefore explore how women, in reconstructing their life stories, expressed the tussles between victimization and agency. Methods: We used qualitative methods conducted within an ethnographic approach. Based on ten years of experience in the neighborhood and one year of fieldwork, we collected the life stories of twenty internally displaced mothers, and ran eight workshops with them. We analyzed the narratives with a specific focus on how women expressed victimization and agency in four important periods in their life that related to the process of displacement: when they left home, when they became pregnant, when they were forced to leave their towns, and when they arrived in Bogotá. Results: Participants' life stories showed how they struggled with agency during their lives. They were victims of abuse and violence during childhood and finally decided to leave their homes. They decided to have their babies despite the fact that they were abandoned by their partners and families, and after doubts about and attempts to have an abortion. Throughout the process of displacement the participants had been engaged in ambiguous relationships with armed groups. Finally they arrived in Bogotá and faced adverse circumstances but were looking for better opportunities for them and their children. Conclusion: The analysis of how internally displaced women narrated their life stories showed us that the concepts that dominate scholarly debates about agency, victimization and survivorship do not do justice to the life stories of the participants in our study. These stories show that changes with a major impact were loaded with ambiguity and were characterized by helplessness, lack of control and agency simultaneously. The reconstruction of these life stories goes beyond the stereotype of displaced women as only 'victims', but points also to their agency and courageous decisions they made in contexts that were not controlled by them and where support was often lacking. Instead of label them, it is important to understand the complexity of the life experiences of IDW, in order to build policies that offer them aids as victims, but also build policies and intervention programs that empower them as agents in order to support them during resettlement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]