Post-war economies

Colombia experienced one of the longest civil wars in contemporary history. After several attempts to make peace, finally after more than 50 years, in 2016 the final peace agreement with the FARC-EP and the Colombian government was signed. In 2019, a survey developed by the National Agency for Reincorporation (ANR) concluded that 95,7% (10.415) ex-combatants aspire to have a productive business. On the other hand, only 4.3% of ex-combatants want to be part of the labour market (Agencia Nacional Para la Reincorporacion, 2019). In the agreement, FARC-EP established a collective economic reinsertion program based on the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) principles, mainly creating a cooperative called ECOMUN that serves as an umbrella for several territorial cooperatives and other associate projects of the ex-combatants in their local territories. For FARC-EP, this cooperative is a mechanism of peace that they already had implemented in their organization in times of war. The innovative of this type of reintegration shed light of new ways to understand the SSE actors. The focus of this research is to understand the historical roots that led the former guerrilla to willingly and collectively decided to integrate SSE models rooted in their history as a peasants movement, as military insurgency, as narcotraffic actors and now as a former guerrilla. Understanding the nuances of the solidarity actor of FARC-EP in war and in times of peace is at the heart of this research paper. Also, the challenge of reintegration due to an institutional government and communities that recognize the ex-combatants as such, while neglects them due to their past, thus constraining their collective reintegration.