Shaping the conflict: The role of judicial and humanitarian forensic knowledge in co-producing collective accounts of violence. A case study of the Colombian (post) conflict

Project Information

Shaping the conflict

Grant agreement ID: 898537

DOI

10.3030/898537

Project closed

EC signature date 7 April 2020

Start date 1 June 2020

End date 7 September 2022

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 187 572,48

EU contribution

€ 187 572,48

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Shaping the conflict (Shaping the conflict: The role of judicial and humanitarian forensic knowledge in co-producing collective accounts of violence. A case study of the Colombian (post) conflict)

Reporting period: 2020-06-01 to 2022-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

I ethnographically addressed forensic knowledge production practices as co-producers of the violence and armed conflict that they study. I attended to judicial and humanitarian forensic practices conducted currently on the Colombian armed conflict, in the framework of the post-peace agreement. My main question was how differentiated forms of forensic knowledge practices co-produce different versions of violence and conflict, as well as the actions set in motion to account for and handle them. This is because forensic experts’ knowledge puts in circulation specific understandings and enactments of the conflict that inform and shape actions such as the administration of transitional justice, memory and reconciliation practices, and the compensation of victims. The Colombian armed conflict is relevant due to its ongoing nature, and the fact that currently coexist judicial and humanitarian forensic actors working simultaneously. Additionally, knowledge derived from this project is potentially useful for approaching other armed conflict experiences elsewhere.
Objectives.
Empirical: (1) To explore how differentiated forensic knowledge, whether judicial or humanitarian, is produced. (2) To account for how coexisting yet different forensic practices that simultaneously attend to the same conflict produce multiple and situated versions of the conflicts. (3) To examine forensic experts’ role as actors (not just witnesses) of the conflict and violence that they work on. Social: (1) To provide elements for richer accounts of violence and conflict in different settings as forensic experts’ ways of knowing are made available for varied audiences. (2) To make visible the complex and nuanced work of forensic experts, as one of the crucial actors in violent and conflict contexts. Theoretical: (1) To develop a conceptual framework that allows addressing the differentiated world-making effects of forensic experts’ knowledge productions whether stemming from judicial or humanitarian forensic practices. (2) To provide new insights into the study of forensic practices and knowledge productions in contexts of violence and conflict that places experts as actors and not as passive witnesses.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

This project started in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. Various of the activities planned had to be modified, which, in turn, affected the deliverables and the timetable.

Affected activities:
1. Fieldwork. Due to the impossibility for international travel, I adapted the fieldwork to an online version. Fieldwork activities included: a). 18 on-line interviews with forensic experts (anthropologists, coroners, dentists, photographers, entomologists, topographers, psychologists, geneticists). b). Attendance to 6 online public meetings held by the organisations that host the 2 forensic teams that I approached. c). Analysis of Twitter accounts of the Unit for the Search of the Disappeared, The Special Jurisdiction for Peace, and the Attorney General’s Office. d). Organisation of 2 events: 1. with forensic experts of the Special Jurisdiction of Peace, 2. with family members of forcibly disappeared persons.
e). Enrolment to the organisation Rodeemos el Diálogo, to share research results and participate in ongoing conversations about the role of forensic experts in the context of (post)conflict and the implementation of the peace agreement.
2. The Co-supervision of Master of PhD students. Since courses were online, it was not possible to establish contact with potential interested students.
3. The exhibition planned with the results of the generative session with participants was cancelled in the absence of such material. With the gathered data, I (in collaboration with an illustrator, an animator, and a musician) developed an audiovisual piece.
4. The secondment at the University of the Basque Country was moved towards the end of the project, to facilitate on-site meetings.

The original timeline for the project was from 1st June 2020 to 31st May 2022. However, on 15th January 2022 started to work at the University of Vienna as a postdoc fellow. This implied the need to work part-time (50%) on this project. I entered a full-time position from August onwards, which supposed that I needed to finish the grant end of July. This didn’t affect the deliverables

Dissemination and communication:
10 talks by invitation
4 international conferences as a speaker
2 open events organised with Rodeemos el Diálogo
2 Blog entries written
PodCast participation 1 episode
2 times called in as an expert

Publications
Olarte-Sierra M.F. and J.E. Castro Bermúdez (2021). De guerrilleros a víctimas; de héroes a perpetradores: movimientos y relaciones del conflicto armado colombiano y la práctica de identificación forense en el caso de los Falsos Positivos. Papeles del CEIC 2: 1-17

Audio-visual essay submitted
Olarte-Sierra M.F Forensic tales: Embodied peace and violence in Colombian armed (post)conflict. An audio-visual exploration. TRAJECTORIA

Book chapters submitted
Olarte-Sierra M.F. “Lost in translation. Names and their stories in victims’ forensic identification practices in the context of Colombian armed conflict”. In Isaac et at. (eds) To Be Named: The Cultural Politics of Naming edited volume, website and exhibit (in rev)

Olarte-Sierra M.F. “Balance y flexibilidad en los límites. Prácticas forenses en Colombia en la implementación del acuerdo de paz”. In García Deister V. (ed) La genética forense en México: interacciones, infraestructuras e indocilidades. Ciudad de México: Siglo XXI editores (in rev)

Olarte-Sierra M.F. and J.E. Castro Bermúdez “Techno-legal Worlds in an Armed Conflict: The forensic making of Victims in Colombia”. In Toom, V., Wienworth, M. and M’charek, A. (eds.) Forensic DNA Profiling Across the Globe: Exploring Practices and Politics of Technolegal Worlds. London: Routledge (in prod)

1 book chapter in preparation
Olarte-Sierra M.F Forensic knowledge practices in transitional justice scenarios. Politics of exhuming and identifying victims. In Bliesemann de Guevara et al. (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Knowledge and Expertise in International Politics. Oxford: Oxford UP

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Overall, this project’s findings have allowed me to foster complexity and enrich the understanding of forensic experts’ role in war-ridden contexts and their key positionality as central actors in current peace-building and reconciliation efforts in Colombia and elsewhere. Through this project and its results, I have helped to open and expand new theoretical and methodological fields the understanding of forensic experts’ work as active and crucial actors that play a paramount role in shaping the realities in which they participate. Such a way of addressing forensic experts is innovative and relevant, for it departs from the well-rehearsed understanding of forensic experts as mere passive witnesses.

The varied platforms in which I have participated, the publications, and the project’s website have made the project’s results visible. As such, I have been able to share my findings with varied audiences that range from academic to civil society’s human rights defenders in Colombia, Mexico, The United States of America, and European Countries. In this sense,

Additionally, the pending publications, especially the story-telling audiovisual piece (currently under revision) in the open access journal TRAJECTORIA, will help circulate the project’s findings to wider audiences than only academic ones.

Illustration of reconciliation by Gina Urazan Razzini