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Defining Victimhood: The Political Construction of a "Victim" Category in Colombia's Congress, 2007–2011.

Authors :
Foringer, Kristin
Source :
Comparative Studies in Society & History; Jan2023, Vol. 65 Issue 1, p219-241, 23p
Publication Year :
2023

Abstract

Scholars of state classification practices have long interrogated how official legal categories are constructed. This paper analyzes the construction of "victimhood" in Colombia as a feat that required negotiation among international human rights organizations, local civil society actors, and politicians across the partisan spectrum. The Victims' Law of 2011, which sought to provide widespread reparations to victims of the civil conflict, originated from the concerns of the human rights community, yet the deliberation process leading up to the law's passage reveals the extent to which elite historical narratives of the conflict unduly narrowed the universe of eligible victims. Using archival evidence from congressional debates from 2007 to 2011, this paper argues that the broad conception of victimhood originally inherited from United Nations guidelines came to be constrained by disproportionate influence from politicians' personal understandings of conflict history, shaped by anecdote and the selective use of historical evidence. These rationales interacted with budgetary constraints to ultimately restrict the victim category according to negotiated temporal boundaries of the conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
00104175
Volume :
65
Issue :
1
Database :
Complementary Index
Journal :
Comparative Studies in Society & History
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
161330767
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0010417522000433