The peace process in Colombia: A knowledge management approach

Abstract

This paper is the result of an interinstitutional study that aimed at characterising knowledge management (KM) as a significant and intangible strategy that strengthened the peace agreement (PA) between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - People's Army (FARC-EP) and the Colombian government, which became a contemporary milestone in the American continent. To this end, the research identifies and analyses different manifestations that took place during the process (2002-2016); understands KM and intellectual capital (IC) from a heterodox perspective; highlights the KM and IC impact on the organisational field of the public domain; recognises KM and IC as differential factors of the political, legal, economic, and media framework of the peace dialogues and agreements; and shows KM and IC as an innovative and substantial aspect of the development and success of the process. The focus is not placed on evaluating the hits and misses of the PA, but on identifying and discussing further the KM techniques and tools used, given the accumulation of content and knowledge generated. Using an analytical method and a dialectical methodology of contrasting multidisciplinary and multi-institutional arguments, the study proposes a differential hermeneutics and an exegesis of what is intangible in the process by identifying, describing, and analysing the information collected, the tools, the methods, and the KM strategies applied in the process. Thus, this work presents a summary of the sociohistorical context of the Colombian conflict, the chronology and rhetoric of the peace process, and the management of the oral, written, and audiovisual material produced, as well as the IC acquired by the different active actors that have been present in the different stages of this process. This paper also presents the KM tensions, challenges, and opportunities in the Colombian social unfolding to tackle an unknown environment with supranational interests that demand peace and an inevitable commitment to the new generations. Finally, the current impacts of this KM approach are emphasised, in search of the theoretical and practical bases that favour the establishment of structures and/or models to be replicated in other latitudes.