1. Introduction
Colombia is a country of nearly 50 million inhabitants, with wide climatological and ethnic diversity. Its humanitarian profile is marked by a long-running armed conflict.
One of the most visible human costs of this is the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) – estimated at 5.2 million (government), 5.7 million (CODHES) and 6,044,200 (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre). Estimating the number of people affected by the multiple manifestations of violence over nearly seven decades is daunting, with fierce debate also over when the violence started, and what name to give it (armed conflict or political violence). The National Centre of Historical Memory estimates numbers of people affected by terrorist attacks, massacres, kidnappings, landmines, damage to civil infrastructure, military operation killings, selective killings and attacks on the civilian population. During the war at least 220,000 people have been killed, 39,000 kidnapped, 50,000 forcibly disappeared.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) estimates5 270,059 people are in a situation of confinement (2013) and that the Unit for Comprehensive Care and Reparation to Victims (UARIV) registered 142,181 new IDPs in 20146 . Other forms of violence include sexual and gender-based violence, forced recruitment of minors, forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.
The country is also affected by cyclical and regular natural disasters, risks and hazards including earthquakes, floods, landslides, volcanic eruptions, droughts, wildfires and storms. The 2015 INFORM Risk Index classes Colombia as ‘very high’ risk and at the highest risk among neighbouring countries, despite a higher ranking in terms of coping capacity.
Colombia’s decades of disasters and armed conflict have shaped the perceptions, experiences and practices of the wide and diverse number of national and local organisations involved in humanitarian response.
This paper presents the results of research examining these perceptions, attitudes and experiences. Using and adapting the Grounded Theory approach to data collection and analysis, we held in-depth interviews with 10 organisations and thoroughly analysed the data for emerging trends and concepts in terms of motivations behind involvement in humanitarian work. We made a conscious effort to remain very close to interviewees’ words and expressed ideas. Instead of imposing assumptions and preconceived concepts,
Grounded Theory makes it possible to go back to national actors to critically analyse their motivations in their own terms. Additional country profiling and interviews with Colombian and international stakeholders informed and triangulated the research.
This paper provides a different look at understanding experiences and perceptions of aid by national actors involved in response in Colombia. Instead of imposing assumptions and pre-conceived concepts, Grounded Theory approach enables to go back to national actors to be at the centre of the research, to critically analyse their experiences, perceptions and motivations in their own terms.
The organisations interviewed reflect the diversity and richness of Colombian civil society, a term that is often contested, given its political uses throughout the history of the country. The 10 organisations that were interviewed intensively cover both national and local-level work and a focus across 10 sectors, including education in emergencies, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), psychosocial support, food security, integral disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. They define themselves as humanitarian, developmental, social and human rights organisations, and range from social and minority group activists to faith-based groups and specialised sectoral professionals. Annex 1 provides a list of interviewed organisations.
A theme that recurred was that of ‘learning from exposure’. Decades of disasters and armed conflict have influenced and left an active learning mark on the experiences and practices of Colombian organisations. Learning from exposure means more than merely being affected: it relates to ways Colombian organisations involved in emergency and disaster response and management understand how the inter-sectionality of disasters and armed conflict has affected individuals and communities, triggering individual and collective action. Learning from exposure permeates the existence of individuals in such organisations, influencing their conceptions of working with and within affected communities.
This paper looks at the idea of learning from exposure as a way to understand the experiences and ways of working of Colombian organisations, in their own terms.
Learning from exposure defines how intervention in crisis situations often departs from personal exposure to entail a deep understanding of how human relationships are influenced by the crossroads of disaster and violence. Collective action often takes the daunting task of contributing to healing and rebuilding social relationships beyond physical and material damage and changes resulting from exposure to disasters, violence and their multiple consequences. Thus, the interviews for this research help surface an integral and broader conception of humanitarian action and what it means.
Learning from exposure alters how individuals, organisations and affected communities relate to one another and with ‘others’. The findings of this research reveal the nuances and tensions between an approach addressing immediate needs and one that takes a broader social and political context into account. The allocation of responsibilities varies, from public entities bound by law to the differing solidarity contributions of international and national non-governmental organisations (INGOs and NNGOs), private bodies and UN agencies. The ambiguities and tensions arising from coinciding (in time and space) during crisis with diverse actors with sometimes differing agendas are revealed and filtered through the lenses of what exposure has meant to them and how to address it.
In the perspective of Colombian organisations interviewed for this research, change resulting from exposure goes beyond visible and physical damage to encompass social and often more invisible forms of transformation. Change leaves people and the organisations that place them at the centre of their action and narrative with a profound sense of how human relationships should be in opposition to the damage and abuses exposure has inflicted. Intervening in crises then goes beyond material assistance and fixing physical and visible damage to include responses aimed at rebuilding human relationships between affected people and affected communities. How the response to changes through exposure is conceived and implemented not only matters, but also is critical to overcome negative change and further damage. It is a response that points at, rather than imposes, what to do and how to work with and from affected communities.
Change reveals a central role for agency – understood as a space for free will and initiative to unfold, as both an individual and a community. Agency is critical to overcome damage and enable healing. In this view, the humanitarian response becomes part of a much broader and more integral and continuous process (in time and space) of addressing the consequences of conflict and disasters, to include collective, organisational identity and advocacy aspects of action. The cyclical and chronic aspects of exposure lead to eroding certainties, meaning regaining agency is central. The vantage point from which to address the management of damage cannot be separated from a wider context of regained self-management.