Ex-combatants and memory: Tensions and challenges of the collective memory built by the FARC in the colombian post-conflict

Abstract

The processes of reconstruction of collective memory carried out by the victims of armed conflicts are often studied. However, in the post-conflict period, voices and demands also emerge from ex-combatants–from legal and illegal armed groups–for constructing and positioning, in the public arena, the memory of events from the perspective of their organisation. This article identifies the main tensions and challenges facing the collective memory that the FARC is building in the Colombian post-conflict period. In this way, he affirms that such memory is expressed and disputed, in an early manner, in at least three scenarios: artistic expressions, commemorative dates and places of memory. Within the framework of a participative methodological bet, we give voice to three groups of ex-combatants, who were invited to write about the work and perspectives of the “fariana” memory from the insurgency itself.