1st Edition
Genocide, Geopolitics and Transnational Networks Con-textualising the destruction of the Unión Patriótica in Colombia
This volume seeks to uncover and discuss the links between genocide, geopolitics and transnational networks. By studying the destruction of the Union Patrotica (UP) in Colombia - a process usually regarded as one of the extreme by-products of the Colombian armed conflict- through the lens of genocide studies, Gomez-Suarez challenges mainstream international relations, genocide and Colombian armed conflict studies.
Moving beyond the analysis of the Colombian case, the book offers a broader interdisciplinary theoretical framework that also attends to transnational relations of perpetrators and resisters and the political economy of affective-dispositions for mapping genocidal conjuncture. Methodologically, the text aims to present a re-interpretation of what constitutes genocide beyond its legal definition and turn towards its political and ethical dimensions to create a conceptual framework in which genocide appears to turn ever more into a decentralized network of various actors that contributed to a genocidal mentality, which, ultimately, enable the destruction of the civil society networks.
This work will be an important contribution to both the debates on genocide and international relations and the study of global connectivities.
1. Introduction. Geopolitics and Genocide: Scripts, Networks, and Affective--‐dispositions 2. Civilian Social Networks and the Social Construction of Genocide--‐Victims: A Topology of the Unión Patriótica 3. A Topology of a Perpetrator Bloc: A Critical Mapping of Genocidists 4. Mapping Genocide--‐perpetrators Transnationally: A Topology of the Mindset Informing the Participation of Colombian Security Forces in the Perpetrator Bloc 5. Hyperreality and Foreign Policy Space: Con--‐textualising the UP Genocide in US writing of Colombia 6. Transnational Il(legal) Material/Discursive Flows in the Unfolding of Genocide: Mapping the links between Drug traffickers, Paramilitaries And Transnational Companies in the UP Genocide 7. Anti--‐geopolitics: the UP as Part of a Transnational Network of Resistance to Genocide 8. Conclusion. Genocidal Geopolitical Conjunctures and the Political Economy of Affective--‐ dispositions: A critique of the Genocide Script.
Biography
Andrei Gomez-Suarez is a Researcher for the National Centre for Historical Memory of the Department of Social Prosperity of the Colombian Government, member of the Sussex Centre for Conflict and Security Research (SCSR), Rodeemos el Diálogo (ReD), and founding member of British Academics for a Colombia Under Peace (BACUP). During 2013 and 2015, Andrei is Research Associate at the Centre for Criminology at the University of Oxford which hosts the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) network.
A highly original, well researched and provocative re-reading of what the author calls the global 'genocide script'. Genocide is contextualised and explored through the complex dynamics surrounding the systematic killing of members of the Patriotic Union in Colombia. Both this dark period in Colombia's history and the meanings attached to genocide are illuminated.
Jenny Pearce, Professor of Latin American Politics, University of Bradford, UK.
Andrei Gomez-Suarez maps the historical and political terrain leading to and following the annihilation of the Union Patriotica (UP). He reveals the usual suspects and the strange bedfellows allied in the politicide that set back the country in its earlier peace efforts. This book is an important reference for understanding the complexity behind Colombia's history of armed conflict and its struggle for peace.
Leigh Payne, Professor of Sociology of Latin America and Director of the Latin American Centre, University of Oxford, UK.
