Search

ABSTRACT Local power in Colombia has been profoundly restructured since the mid-2000s, with the partial demobilization of paramilitary groups and the state's direct presence at the local level. This has led to the articulation of claims to new rights by internally displaced people, paving the way for new conditions of access to property and citizenship. However, paramilitary groups and their political and economic allies remain a de facto power in some areas. This contribution argues that a situation of rupture, seemingly characterized by a re-monopolization of state violence, does not necessarily lead to the marginalization of criminal actors but to a reconfiguration of the links between statutory institutions and unofficial networks. This argument is based on an ethnographical exploration of claims regarding citizenship and property rights. The analysis of the strategies of rights claimants sheds light on the formation of both political authority and political subjectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the linkages between organized armed violence, land grabbing and the Colombian state, where paramilitary groups are key actors in recent large-scale land transfers. The author argues that institutional and violent mechanisms of land grabbing must be understood as historical processes of state formation and market reconfiguration. As such, crime and violence are not considered as extraneous factors, separated from political institutions and the market; they are instead analysed as constitutive components of political competition, accumulation and economic development. This article provides an analysis of these processes through an examination of agribusiness-related land grabs in the Lower Atrato Valley in northwestern Colombia, illuminating the relations between private counter-insurgent violence, criminal networks and state incentives to agribusiness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]