Close to Peace but Far from Home: Forced Displacement and Land Restitution in Post-Accord Columbia

My research looks at the opportunities and challenges of the Colombian transitional justice process to produce long-overdue societal transformations. It critically examines the land restitution framework established by Law 1448 using the transformative justice analytical lens in order to expose enduring patterns of violence that are embedded in, or influenced by, the current transitional justice process. Based on four months of fieldwork in various regions of Colombia in the summer of 2018, my research first suggests that the discrepancies between victims expectations of the transitional justice process and the states approach, which are most visible when considering reparations for collective non-material forms of harms, have significant implications for victims recovery. Secondly, my research challenges the assumption that transitional justice and development are complementary concepts and brings attention to instances in which the transitional justice process was conditioned by states development priorities that are in direct conflict with some of the fundamental elements of Law 1448.