Open-pit peace: the power of extractive industries in post-conflict transitions

Abstract

Three years after the peace accord signed by the Colombian government and the country’s largest guerrilla group, the guerrillas announced a return to arms. The announcement was met with dismay, but not surprise, as the numbers of murdered ex-combatants and social leaders rise and the government’s tepid commitment to the peace process sputters and stalls. At the centre of this violence have been the extractive industries. How should peace studies make sense of the power of extractivism, often described as a key element of postconflict reconstruction around the globe? This article focuses on Colombia as a case study of the contradictions of the postliberal peace, as stated commitments to gender justice and economic redistribution are undermined by commitments to mining and biofuel profits. A decolonial feminist lens, informed by Latin American anticapitalist feminists, sheds light on these contradictions and illuminates possibilities for a transformed peace in a postneoliberal world.