Farianas’ insurgent feminism: for a militant, affective and embodied reincorporation in Colombia

In 2016, by moving from armed struggle to collective reincorporation, Colombian women ex-guerrilleras of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC-EP) – the farianas – reconfigured the ‘combatant’ identity by leaving their weapons and engaging in post-war politics with their own feminist vision: insurgent feminism. Drawing upon feminist ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the north-east of Colombia in 2019 and 2022, this article has two interlinked objectives. First, through the lenses of embodiment and affects, it explores the challenges and contradictions of transiting from an armed organisation to a civilian identity for women militants. From there, the article then uses the continuum of militancy to explore the (ongoing) consolidation of farianas ’ insurgent feminism and the tensions emerging in this endeavour. In doing so, the article contributes, theoretically, to the inclusion of emotions and embodiment in the theorisation of reincorporation and, empirically and politically, to the construction of knowledge and practice about insurgent feminism.