Armed conflict and its effects on inhabitants’ quality of life in Yacopí

Abstract

The following article accounts for research conducted in 2005 in order to be eligible for the title of Social Worker. Its perspective is hermeneutic-historical, since its purpose was to understand the armed conflict from contextual and historical relationships in the municipality of Yacopí, Cundinamarca. It has also allowed to recognize and to value subjectivity in the process of knowledge development; and to make emphasis in qualitative and critical analysis. From this perspective, the respect for common sense is also recognised and valued over quality of life in the municipality as starting point for the knowledge construction. The importance of singularity and particular contexts to understand the relationships and the historical dimension is also shown. To gather the information 9 exploratory interviews were developed in the first place with the purpose of having contact and a first approach to the population. Bearing in mind the distance to the capital and the difficult situation of local public order; a documental review of 4 plans of municipal development was also made. Besides, two workshops with seventy youngsters from the municipality aged 14-22 were carried out allowing for discussion and building of perception within the team. Finally, some oral stories were finished by 6 characters of the municipality (community leaders, teaching representatives and people reinserted into civilian life from Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, aged 20-79) to gather people’s perceptions who have experienced the armed conflict there. The research process allowed continuing in new knowledge development on the following areas: quality of life as a key concept in Yacopí as a territorial unit; description of the armed conflict from perceptions and experiences from municipality’s inhabitants; and characteristic of population’s current quality of life. All this is done to overcome a tendency to understand social reality only in fragments, as usual for some disciplines, including the profession of the social worker. The research is a depiction of social reality in Yacopí, Cundinamarca, dealing in depth with experiences, current interactions, beliefs and thoughts in a specific situation that means the quality of life being affected by the armed conflict and the forms of expression by means of language and the involved characters.