Everyday Citizens and Peacebuilding. Social Beliefs on Forgiveness, Justice, and Reconciliation in Colombia

This article explores processes that are significantly interconnected from a psychosocial perspective: forgiveness, justice, reconciliation, and peace. It encompasses part of the findings from the research project "Psychosocial Barriers to Peacebuilding and Reconciliation in Colombia," conducted during 2019 and the first half of 2020. The study was intended to understand beliefs about forgiveness, justice, and reconciliation among 256 individuals from 9 cities in Colombia. A qualitative design and a phenomenological-hermeneutic method were used, employing semi-structured and in-depth interviews. An intratextual and intertextual content analysis and theoretical coding at two levels (descriptive and hermeneutic) were performed, leading to the emergence of five categories: 1) conditional forgiveness and retributive justice; 2) neither forgiveness nor forgetting: death penalty and punitive retaliation: 3) compensatory forgiveness and transitional justice; 4) delegitimization of transitional justice: the offended; and 5) opportunities for reconciliation. The main results reveal that a retributive perspective of justice prevails among the participants, limiting the possibilities of forgiveness and reconciliation within the framework of the peace agreement between the Colombian State and the FARC-EP guerrilla. A significant but smaller group of interviewees find paths to forgiveness through the transitional justice mechanisms established by the agreement. The discussion revolves around how the prospect of creating spaces for peace and reconciliation appears to hinge on the potential to humanize the aggressor, particularly the low-ranking ex-combatant (a point of convergence in perspectives), presenting an opportunity for leveraging psychosocial interventions.