Manchester University Press In/Security in Colombia: Writing Political Identities in the Democratic Security Policy (New Approaches to Conflict Analysis)

Based on geo- and biopolitical analyses, this book reconsiders how security policies and practices legitimate state and non-state violence in the Colombian conflict. Using the case study of the official Democratic Security Policy (DSP), Echavarria examines how security discourses write the political identities of state, self and others. She claims that the DSP delimits politics, the political, and the imaginaries of peace and war through conditioning the possibilities for identity formation. "In/security in Colombia" offers an innovative application of a large theoretical framework on the performative character of security discourses and furthers a nuanced understanding of the security problematique in a postcolonial setting. This wide-reaching study will benefit students, scholars and policy-makers in the fields of security, peace and conflict, and Latin American issues. Review Echavarria's book raises the debate on the Colombian civil war to a new dimension of analysis and insight. Beautifully written, the book illuminates the way the state perversely fosters violence in the name of security and peace. It enables us to rethink these categories of human thought in the light of their hijacking for an authoritarian and exclusionary state project. In the process, the book makes an original and important contribution to peace and security studies --Professor Jenny Pearce, Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford From the Inside Flap Based on geo- and biopolitical analyses, this book reconsiders how security policies and practices legitimate state and non-state violence in the Colombian conflict.Using the case study of the official Democratic Security Policy (DSP), Echavarría examines how security discourses write the political identities of state, self and others. She claims that the DSP delimits politics, the political, and the imaginaries of peace and war through conditioning the possibilities for identity formation. In/security in Colombia offers an innovative application of a large theoretical framework on the performative character of security discourses and furthers a nuanced understanding of the security problematique in a postcolonial setting. This wide-reaching study will benefit students, scholars and policy-makers in the fields of security, peace and conflict, and Latin American issues. From the Back Cover Based on geo- and biopolitical analyses, this book reconsiders how security policies and practices legitimate state and non-state violence in the Colombian conflict. Using the case study of the official Democratic Security Policy (DSP), Echavarría examines how security discourses write the political identities of state, self and others. She claims that the DSP delimits politics, the political, and the imaginaries of peace and war through conditioning the possibilities for identity formation. In/security in Colombia offers an innovative application of a large theoretical framework on the performative character of security discourses and furthers a nuanced understanding of the security problematique in a postcolonial setting. This wide-reaching study will benefit students, scholars and policy-makers in the fields of security, peace and conflict, and Latin American issues. About the Author Josefina Echavarria is Lecturer in Peace Studies at the University of Innsbruck and in Latin American Studies at the University of Vienna.