Taking Peace into Our Own Hands: Colombian Feminists Use Local Politics to Advance Their Agenda for Peace

Abstract Feminist activism was a key force that shaped the peace negotiations between the Colombian government and Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia—Ejercito Popular and the resulting 2016 peace agreement. Their efforts have resulted in a historic agreement that includes over 120 provisions related to issues of gender equality. However, as they advance a vision of sustainable and gender-equal peace, Colombian feminists have also faced a host of challenges. Important commitments made at the national level—for example, through the 2016 peace agreement or the recently drafted National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security—are often not translated to the local level, where gender inequality and different forms of insecurities faced by women remain rampant. In this article, the three coauthors build on their lived experiences of advancing the feminist agenda in Cauca, Colombia, to map out the ways in which Colombian feminists respond to the challenges they face. Bringing together a feminist institutionalist perspective with the norm localization framework, we trace how Colombian feminists have appropriated, adapted, and used global norms to influence local institutions through three processes: localization of the Women, Peace, and Security agenda; drafting of Local Development Plans; and the development of municipal Public Policy for Women in Puerto Tejada. We argue that norm localization can be effectively used as a strategy to influence institutions and gender dynamics within them. This adds to the ongoing discussions around the different strategies feminists can use to navigate in and change male-dominated and masculinized institutions.