“There is a goblin emerging from the river, and it is green” Building peace in Colombia: Children's narratives in post-conflict armed territories

Abstract

This research is part of a social project within a community in the rural area of Huila, one of the provinces of Colombia, located in the southwestern part of the country. The community consists of individuals who are involved in COOAGROPAZ, a cooperative or productive association that brings together former combatants who signed the Peace Agreement between the National Government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - People's Army (known by its acronym FARC-EP), as well as peasants, families, victims, and various social actors who were directly or indirectly affected by the Colombian armed conflict and are now present in these territories to facilitate processes of coexistence and peace. The post-agreement process to establish a possible post-conflict situation requires recognition of its actors and the environments where they converge. In this regard, children are not unrelated to the armed conflict, and although they are not explicitly acknowledged in the agreement, they are integral to the post-agreement process. The objective is to acknowledge and make visible the experiences that children have in cohabiting within these territories, utilizing methodological tools such as their maps and narratives, which imbue meaning and significance into the peacebuilding process. The study engages with the authorship of children through experiential maps of the territories and their narratives, resulting in an exploration of how they contribute to the development of coexistence and conflict management.