A second chance to come back from war: the experience of demobilized FARC EP guerrilla members in their path to rein- corporate into society through business engagement

Colombia was immersed for more than fifty years in an armed conflict between the national government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). In 2016, former President Juan Manuel Santos and the FARC signed a peace agreement that ended half a decade of armed confrontation. As part of the commitments from this peace agreement, the Colombian government initiated with the FARC a transition to post-conflict, following a Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) strategy. This study focuses on the reintegration process of ex-combatants and aims to contribute to a better understanding of the ways in which FARC ex-combatants reincorporate to civil life. To do so, it answers the question: In what ways do market economic activities interact with the everyday reincorpo-ration process of ex-combatants in Colombia? And addresses this topic by engaging with the ‘local turn’ and ‘everyday’ body of literature (Mac Ginty 2010; Mac Ginty 2013; Mac Ginty 2014; Randazzo 2016; Brewer et al 2018; Berents and McEvoy-Levy 2015; Richmond 2008. This set of literature shows that peacebuilding is also made on a daily basis at the local level and not only through the implementation of traditional liberal peace models. This bottom-up approach is presented in the form of a case study analysis of everyday peace building actions conducted by FARC former combatants who developed a community-based social enterprise during their reintegration process. The case study selected is a microbrewery start up, called La Roja, created by ex-combatants with the aim of facilitating their transit into civil life. The overall finding is that market economy activities, channeled through social enter-prises and based on the principles of the social and solidarity economy, serves as a platform for social and economic reintegration, in the sense, that it creates an economic alternative for marginalized and stigmatized population. This market economy activities not only con-tribute to the creation of new livelihoods; they also enable the consolidation of social net-works which helps to counterattack the exclusion and marginalization experiences by former combatants. In this sense, La Roja, represents an example of how a social enterprise can impact peacebuilding processes through the everyday actions and it shows the importance of bottom-up initiatives to build peace. This case study has shown that even though public policies and institutional frameworks are necessary to achieve peace, a long-lasting peace can only be attainted after rethinking peace building approaches and re-centering the focus on the local realities and local agency that are constantly ignored by top-down peace strategies.