Venezuelan Migrants amidst Conflict and Peace in Colombia

• In Event: The Intersection of Migration and Peacebuilding: Perspectives from Colombia, Venezuela, and Honduras

Proposal

After more than fifty years of armed conflict and numerous failed attempts at peace, the Government of Colombia signed a peace agreement in November 2016 with the FARC. Despite the signing of the peace accord, Colombia has continued to experience conflict and instability: killings of ex-guerilla combatants and social leaders have continued in the aftermath of the peace process (HRW 2023). Moreover, the instability in Venezuela has resulted in an influx of more than 2.5 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants, including more than 500,000 students currently enrolled in the local schools (R4V 2022). This recent migratory wave parallels the long-standing experience of displacement within Colombia: there are nearly 8.5 million recognized victims of forced internal displacement (UDV 2023). The distinct yet overlapping conflicts have created additional pressures and tensions within the local education sector and call into question how schools should teach about issues of peacebuilding and transitional justice amidst continued conflict and displacement.

In this study, we aim to understand the confluence of the Venezuelan migration crisis
amidst peacebuilding in the case of Colombia. Specifically, we investigate the impact of the Venezuelan crisis and influx of Venezuelans on the larger peace-building and transitional justice process and how Colombian and Venezuelan students understand notions of peacebuilding and transitional justice. We seek to understand how students who may be living amidst multiple conflicts and across different geographical territories grapple with ideas around conflict, peacebuilding, and civic engagement.

Through a mixed methods analysis of survey data from students, as well as interviews with students and school observations, we present findings from a case study of 4 secondary schools in Cúcuta on the Venezuelan-Colombian border, as well as 8 secondary schools from two comparative regions. We ask: How do Colombian and Venezuelan students perceive and relate to the broader peacebuilding and transitional justice process? What differences emerge? How does the school and local context shape their perspectives?

Preliminary findings indicate differences between Colombian and Venezuelan students’ perceptions of the peacebuilding process, support of transitional justice mechanisms, and civic engagement. While Colombian students are more likely to be informed about the Colombian armed conflict and peace process, Venezuelan students have not necessarily learned about these topics in school or from their families and may not see the relevance of peacebuilding and transitional justice for their daily lives. In addition, a number of participants lived in Venezuela and attended school in Colombia, crossing the border daily and thus experiencing two parallel conflicts at the same time. These students' awareness of multiple sources of structural and physical violence presents a challenge and an opportunity to current approaches to education for peacebuilding: while aimed at the social transformation of the Colombian armed conflict, some of the educational efforts to engage youth in peacebuilding processes resonated with experiences of exclusion and marginalization. Our findings point to the need to provide a broader framing of the peacebuilding and transitional justice pedagogy to incorporate the experience of displaced populations, not only within Colombia but also from Venezuela.

Authors

• S. Garnett Russell, Columbia University Teachers College

• Paula L Mantilla Blanco, Columbia University Teachers College

• Sara M. Pan Algarra, Columbia University Teachers College

• Victoria H Jones, Columbia University Teachers College