Making the state: Roads, war, and local orders in the farc territories

Abstract

In August of 2017, as part of the Peace Accords with the Colombian government, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) presented an extensive list of assets to be destined toward the victims of the armed conflict. It included approximately 3,700 kilometers of roads, most of them located in areas of influence of this guerrilla group. In this article, we investigate the type of actors, collaborations, power relations and technologies that made the construction of roads possible in Puerto Guzmán, an Amazonian municipality with a prolonged FARC presence. We argue that the construction and transformation of these infrastructures over time enables us to understand the state as a co-production involving different dynamics and actors, including some antagonistic to the state order.