Shifting Frames, Vanishing Resources, and Dangerous Political Opportunities: Legal Mobilization among Displaced Women in Colombia

Abstract

How can we make sense of the use of legal claims and tactics under conditions of internal displacement and armed conflict? This article argues that in violent contexts mobilization frames are unstable and constantly shifting, resources tend to vanish, and political opportunities often imply considerable physical danger. It is grounded on a three‐year, multimethod study that followed internally displaced women's organizations as they demanded government assistance and protection in Colombia. Through detailed examples of specific cases, this article illustrates the constraints of legal mobilization in violent contexts, as well as different social movement strategies of resistance. It, thus, contributes to decentering theories of social movement uses of law that tend to be based on the legal cultures and institutions of industrialized liberal democracies, rather than on those of the Global South, and hence, tend to exclude violence.

Constitución de 1991, Ley de Cuotas y movimiento feminista: el papel del derecho en la generación de estructuras de movilización

“…Esta literatura hace eco a aquella producida en el contexto de la tradición de Law and Society sobre movilización legal (McCann, 1994(McCann, , 1991(McCann, , 2004(McCann, , 2006Epp, 1998;Scheingold, 2008;Vanhala, 2010;Andersen, 2008;Lemaitre, 2009;Lemaitre & Sandvik, 2015;Albarracín, 2009). La hipótesis planteada en este artículo intenta hacer un aporte a estas literaturas.…”

“…Esta tesis interviene en la literatura sobre movilización legal (McCann, 1994(McCann, , 1991(McCann, , 2004(McCann, , 2006Epp, 1998;Scheingold, 2008;Vanhala, 2010;Andersen, 2008;Lemaitre, 2009;Lemaitre & Sandvik, 2015;Albarracín, 2009). Esta literatura, por la tradición teórica en la cual apareció, sigue enfocada en la pregunta por la utilidad del derecho para el cambio social y los movimientos sociales (Levitsky, 2015).…”

Leaders against all odds: Women victims of conflict in Colombia

“…In some cases, conflict has been shown to offer a window of opportunity for the empowerment of women (Bouta and Frerks, 2001;Batliwala et al, 2002and DIIS, 2008and personal interviews, 2015. In Colombia, this has been well documented, through empirical studies of women's collective agency both nationally (Lemaitre and Sandvik, 2015) and locally, in the case of Trujillo, for example (Wills, 2009).…”

“…There is still no official data on the numbers of women leaders killed in Colombia, Arson (1999) claims that, by the end of the 1990s, 17 per cent of the leaders and activists assassinated in Colombia were women. Some claim that figures may run into the hundreds (Lemaitre and Sandvik, 2015). During the past 6 years of Juan Manuel Santos's presidency (2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018), 24 women leaders have been assassinated and there have been many failed assassination attempts.…”

‘Tactics Rebounding’ in the Colombian Defence of Seed Freedom

“…It has been demonstrated in social movements studies that the action of social movements in poor and violent contexts is different from the action of their counterpart in more democratic societies. Social movements in the former scenarios do not count with the same resources as their counterparts in more democratic societies, must face permanently shifting frames that make it harder to convey to the larger society the sense of injustice are fighting against, and have to adopt non-confrontational tactics (Domingo and O'Neil 2014;Lemaitre and Sandvik 2015) 4 .…”