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Daniela Suárez Vargas, Framing a revolution: narrative battles in Colombia's civil war, International Affairs, Volume 100, Issue 4, July 2024, Pages 1815–1816, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiae146
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Extract
In her book, Framing a revolution, Rachel Schmidt explores a crucial aspect of the Colombian armed conflict: the discursive battles. From the outset, Schmidt immerses us in the escalating polarization and conflicting rhetoric among the actors involved in the Colombian internal armed conflict. As she states, ‘the longer I stayed in Colombia, the more I saw these framing contests intersecting all around me … discursive battles were everywhere, in every single conversation’ (p. 4). Throughout the book, Schmidt analyses how guerrilla groups, paramilitary groups, deserters, loyalist ex-combatants and the Colombian government sustain different and competing narratives on the drivers of the war. In this narrative battle, concepts such as ‘victim’, ‘demobilized’, ‘narco-terrorist’, ‘traitor’ or ‘self-defence forces’ become tools to shape the identities of the different armed actors. Thus, depending on who is telling the story, the attribution of innocence or guilt for the violence, and who possesses each of these labels, will shift.
