Post-Armed Struggle Feminist Militancy of the Farianas

Book presentation and discussion with
Priscyll Anctil Avoine

This book project is an art-based dissemination strategies concerning the on-going research on war and post-war militancy of insurgent women. It is a fiction based on over 10 years of fieldwork with women (ex)combatants and urban militants in Colombia, recollecting their testimonies about their experiences in war and transitions from war-to-peace. It is a collective project with the Colombian illustrator Zulay Carolina Rueda.

The graphic novel takes place in the Northeast of Colombia, bordering Venezuela. Particularly, the story evolves in the region of Catatumbo, where there is a reincorporation zone in which women ex-combatants have been transiting from the armed group to civilian society. It tells the story of women fighters who, in one way or another, became involved in left-wing militancy, clandestine or armed, with the conviction of building a more just future for Colombia. It is particularly based on the testimonies of the farianas – or the women ex-guerrilleras from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (Farc-ep).

The book follows the story of two guerrilleras, from their life before the armed struggle, to their participation in arms and then, in their return to civilian life. It explains the disciplining of their body to fit the military order, and it talks about love, combat, fear and the courage to change. It insists on the meaning of ‘dis-embodying’ combat and war, and the transformation of this combat into a feminist one.

The book is divided into three moments: the war, the civilian life, and the post-war feminist militancy. It focuses on the embodied sensations and emotions that are experienced in this process of transformation, and it ends with examples of projects led by the women in the northeastern region. Most of the novel is fiction, except the productive projects that are presented at the end of the novel – which are currently implemented by the farianas.

Priscyll Anctil Avoine is a researcher in Feminist Security Studies and an Associate Senior Lecturer at the Department of War Studies, Swedish Defence University. Her research focuses on embodied and emotional processes in contemporary wars, with a particular emphasis on women’s political militancy in leftist insurgencies and in peace processes. She is the co-author of the graphic novel Militancia feminista post-lucha armada de las farianas (2024) with Zulay Carolina Rueda. Priscyll is also actively involved in the activities of the Fundación Lüvo, a feminist and antiracist collective working in peacebuilding and nonviolence.

Zulay Carolina Rueda is a social worker from the Universidad Industrial de Santander, a specialist in care policies from the Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales and a master’s degree candidate in Social Work at the University of Missouri. Together with Priscyll Anctil Avoine, Zulay Rueda is co-author and illustrator of the graphic novel Militancia feminista post-lucha armada de las farianas (2024). She is also an assistant teacher in the Ritenour School District in the city of Saint Louis (United States) where she works with migrant and refugee populations. Her academic and work interests have always been guided by the use of art as a tool for social transformation. Since she was a child, she has used graphic art as a tool for protest and communication with the world around her, using media such as watercolor, digital illustration, aerosol, embroidery, muralism, among others.

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