Amidst conflict(s) and peace: students on the Colombian-Venezuelan border

This article explores how students who may be living amidst multiple conflicts in borderlands grapple with ideas around peacebuilding and conflict. Through a mixed methods analysis of survey data and interviews with students, we present findings from a case study of four secondary schools in Cúcuta, the largest city on the Colombian-Venezuelan border. We ask: How do Colombian and Venezuelan students in schools on the Colombian side of the border perceive and relate to the Colombian peacebuilding process? How does the school and border context shape how students learn about and understand conflict and peace? Findings indicate differences between Colombian and Venezuelan students’ perceptions of the Colombian armed conflict and peacebuilding process. While Colombian students reported knowing more about the conflict and showed greater support of the peacebuilding process, our findings suggest that these differences speak to students’ complex relationships to violence and the border. Venezuelan students’ experiences of violence are transnational and connected to a double crisis, causing a disconnect between their lived experiences and what they learn in school. Our findings point to the need to provide a broader framing of the peacebuilding pedagogy in Colombian schools to incorporate the experiences of migrant and multinational populations.