Born of War in Colombia: Reproductive Violence and Memories of Absence (Genocide, Political Violence, Human Rights)

Born of War in Colombia addresses why people born of conflict-related sexual violence remain unseen within transitional justice agendas. In Colombia, there are generations of children born of conflict-related sexual violence across the country. Whispers of their presence have traveled outside their communities. They also exist within the country’s domestic reparations program, which entitles them to reparations. Drawing on an immersive feminist ethnography with a community that endured a paramilitary confinement, the book reveals how a past-oriented and harm-centered model of transitional justice has converged with a restricted notion of gendered victimhood and the patriarchal politics of reproduction to render the bodies and experiences of people born of conflict-related sexual violence unintelligible to those seeking to understand and address the consequences of war in Colombia. Cover Title Page Copyright Page Contents List of Illustrations Introduction: Gendered Victimhood, Reproductive Violence, and Layers of Unintelligibility 1. Between Political Struggles: Gendered Victimhood and Unwanted Lives 2. The Bureaucracies of Victimhood in the Making: A Record of the Unintelligible and the Uncertain 3. Contested Identities: Reproductive Violence, Reproductive Labor, and War 4. Memories of Absence: Collective Reparations and Impossible Witnesses Conclusion: Toward Futures of Reproductive Justice Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index About the Author