Framing a Revolution
Narrative Battles in Colombia's Civil War

Using over 100 in-depth interviews, this book examines how gendered framing contests between warring groups affect peace prospects in Colombia.

Rachel Schmidt (Author)

9781009219556, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 9 March 2023

300 pages
23.5 x 15.5 x 2.2 cm, 0.61 kg

Rhetorical contests about how to frame a war run alongside many armed conflicts. With the rise of internet access, social media, and cyber operations, these propaganda battles have a wider audience than ever before. Yet, such framing contests have attracted little attention in scholarly literature. What are the effects of gendered and strategic framing in civil war? How do different types of individuals - victims, combatants, women, commanders - utilize the frames created around them and about them? Who benefits from these contests, and who loses? Following the lives of eleven ex-combatants from non-state armed groups and supplemented by over one hundred interviews conducted across Colombia, Framing a Revolution opens a window into this crucial part of civil war. Their testimonies demonstrate the importance of these contests for combatants' commitments to their armed groups during fighting and the Colombian peace process, while also drawing implications for the concept of civil war worldwide.

1. What's in a frame?
2. A history of (gendered) violence in Colombia
3. Navigating disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration in Colombia
4. Framing victimhood
5. Contesting the victimhood frame
6. Framing a revolution
7. Countering the revolution frame
8. Deserters vs. loyalists
9. Contesting the deserter frame
10
Framing reintegration
Bibliography
Appendix A
Appendix B
Index.

Subject Areas: Military life & institutions [JWT], Political corruption [JPZ], Regional government [JPR], Comparative politics [JPB], Crime & criminology [JKV], Violence in society [JFFE]