The Limits of Peace: Kidnapping, Recognition, and the Democratisation of Pain in Post-Agreement Colombia

As Colombia approaches the tenth anniversary of the 2016 Final Peace Agreement, kidnapping offers a revealing lens through which to assess the achievements, contradictions and vulnerabilities of the country’s transitional justice architecture. This article argues that kidnapping is not simply one crime among others, but a paradigmatic form of violence through which questions of legitimacy, victim participation, social recognition and the material limits of peace become especially visible. Colombia has placed kidnapping at the centre of judicial and truth-telling processes through the Special Jurisdiction for Peace’s Macro-Case 01 and the Truth Commission’s recognition and public pedagogy initiatives. The hearings, observation procedures and restorative design of Macro-Case 01 have enabled forms of recognition that extend beyond criminal accountability. The sophistication of Colombia’s transitional justice model risks becoming a form of magical legalism when it is not supported by territorial security, institutional coordination and effective implementation. Successive governments have not provided the sustained material and political support required to convert legal innovation into durable peace.