“Dignified Life” in the Colombian Peace Process

Security issues are at the heart of processes of peace—also in Colombia. The termination of hostilities and reintegration of combatants is aimed at increasing physical and public security in conflict regions. Peace measures such as land restitution and legalization are designed to reduce conflict causes and insecurity, notably in the rural areas. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, the article shows how the (in)security situation in the conflict area of San José de Apartadó is shifting rather than improving with the current peace process. At the same time, the peasant population developed security strategies that have enabled them to survive the armed conflict and adapt to the transforming (in)security situation. The strategies are based on a marginalized notion of security that is closely linked to imaginings of a dignified peasant life.