Violence, Power and Participation: Building Citizenship in Contexts of Chronic Violence

This 66-page Institute of Development Studies (IDS) Working Paper (#274) explores civil society participation in two contexts of chronic violence. Author Jenny Pearce uses data from a field study of civil society organisations (CSOs) in Colombia and Guatemala to inform her look at whether and how CSOs work on - as well as in - violence. Building meaningful citizenship in chronic violence contexts, Pearce argues, requires simultaneous attention to citizenship and to violence so that the intergenerational transmission of violence can be interrupted and rights can be embedded in social consciousness and practice. Ultimately, she argues, CSOs can play a vital role in building citizenship and confronting violent actors and acts of violence.

In order to understand the nature of this role and how to support it, Pearce and members of a team doing an evaluation for Dutch co-financing agencies - CORDAID, HIVOS, Oxfam NOVIB, and Plan Netherlands - conducted field work to investigate how CSOs are working to build non-violent and rights-based societies in Colombia and Guatemala, where "chronic violence is carried out by both state and non-state groups, in schools, other public spaces or within families" - causing "widespread fear and mistrust". In such contexts, "[v]iolence creates a climate of insecurity within society that enables elites to present undemocratic regimes as a solution while they preserve their privileged access to wealth and resources. Such is the level of fear in violent societies that this may be electorally appealing, even to less privileged sectors of society."

In the cases highlighted by this research, CSOs have encouraged victims to overcome fear, and have brought people together to make violence a visible, public, and political issue. Evidence from 24 CSOs shows how civil society activists can encourage awareness of rights, individual and group confidence, and public action - which are, Pearce claims, "preconditions for real citizenship". The paper includes 8 illustrative case studies; here are just a few brief summary examples:

• With the support of the mayor, CSOs in the Colombian city of Medellín have created opportunities for citizenship-building and participatory planning processes.
• The CSO Conciudadanía supports Amor, a women's organisation in Antioquia, Colombia, which has stood up to insurgents and paramilitaries, and campaigned against the abuse of women and children.
• In Guatemala, the CSO Maya Kaq'la has helped Mayan women to gain self-confidence and challenge gender discrimination and racism.
• In Guatemala City, the Legal Action and Human Rights Centre is insisting that elected officials address the fact that hundreds of women have been killed. It is also training Guatemalan young people to be human rights observers.

To understand how these victories have been pursued, Pearce works to clarify the relationship between power and violence. Power is conventionally understood as domination, she explains. Loss of such power or a bid to gain it can lead to willingness to inflict direct physical hurt on "the other", particularly where social constructions of masculinity are affirmed by such behaviour. In contrast, non-dominating forms of power focus on enhancing everyone's power potential and capacity for action, and on promoting communication. "If non-violence and non-dominating power gradually become the social norm," Pearce proposes, "this might enhance citizenship and participation in ways that tackle other forms of violence, such as structural violence."

Thus, Pearce asserts that a non-dominating theory and practice of power could enhance citizenship (or, the ability to exercise one's rights in a meaningful way) and reduce violence: "Civil society participation can...widen the gap between violence and dominating power, driving a wedge of civil action and civil spirit between the two. CSOs can be most effective in driving the wedge when they build a citizenship consciousness about rights and enhance capacity for action." Several of the case studies highlight the process of encouraging those whose potential has been limited or frustrated by dominating power and/or violence can come to see themselves as rights bearers with capacity to act. The following excerpt from the case study of Guatemala's Legal Action and Human Rights Centre (CALDH in its Spanish acronym) gives one picture of how this process may look in practice:

"...CALDH is in the frontline of the efforts to build a rights-based state and society in Guatemala, through working with grassroots groups who they help to know and then to exercise their rights. They do work in formal and informal spaces, but mostly they focus on creating spaces for the groups they wish to become the social change protagonists....In a focus group with twelve women from a number of municipalities in Chimaltenango, it was possible to see how people generate capacity for action through learning a sense of rights. The women first talked as individuals and why they had made the choice to come out of their private space of the home to participate in the public space....Violence is a major theme for the women and CALDH has helped the women to become aware that they are victims of human rights violations when they experience violence....CALDH...has incorporated some 450 women into organised local groups. Our conversation with some of these women revealed that many had very personal journeys which led them to these groups, but that the idea of 'rights' helped them to find a sense of dignity and self-worth and to overcome fear. It is a language of affirmation and legitimates their participation. This initial journey is then reinforced by the experience of collective enterprise and action, in workshops with other women, in street protests, in lobbying the mayor, and in defending themselves against abuse and injustice. Public roles, such as on the community and municipal councils are still mostly inaccessible to women, but each breakthrough strengthens the consciousness of the women and sense of capacity to do things and to stand up to the powerful. The interest in political participation has clearly been awoken in the women and they see it as a critical step to bringing about change..."