Resisting Displacement: Leveraging Interpersonal Ties to Remain despite Criminal Violence in Medellín, Colombia

• Author: Jerome F. Marston
• Published date: 01 November 2020
• Date: 01 November 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0010414020912276
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414020912276

Comparative Political Studies

2020, Vol. 53(13) 1995 –2028

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0010414020912276

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Article

Resisting Displacement:

Leveraging Interpersonal

Ties to Remain despite

Criminal Violence in

Medellín, Colombia

Jerome F. Marston Jr.1

Abstract

Although civilians across the globe are fleeing conflict in record numbers,

the reality is that far more remain behind. In addition to traditional wars,

people stay in territories governed by criminal organizations. How might

individuals threatened with displacement by a criminal gang manage to resist?

Drawing on intensive participant observation and interviews in marginal

neighborhoods of Medellín, Colombia, I argue that the urban residents

most likely to remain despite being at risk of displacement are the “well

connected.” Despite threats, they leverage ties to a community figure or

member of the armed group to stay. I test a number of related hypotheses

using an original survey and survey experiment. Unlike other work stressing

that residents are trapped by scant resources or remain only by joining

local associations or belligerents, my theory reveals residents’ agency and

neutrality as they seek safety and security in conditions of state absence.

Keywords

migration, survey design, Latin American politics, conflict processes, trust,

social capital

1Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

Corresponding Author:

Jerome F. Marston Jr., Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies, Watson Institute,

Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA.

Emails: jerome_marston@alumni.brown.edu

912276CPSXXX10.1177/0010414020912276Comparative Political StudiesMarston

research-article2020

1996 Comparative Political Studies 53(13)

Violence and conflict have forced record numbers of civilians from their

homes in recent years. According to the United Nations, there are more refu-

gees now than at any time since World War II (Edwards, 2017). Although

many individuals fleeing violence make it across international borders,

becoming refugees under humanitarian law, many more remain within their

home country and are referred to as internally displaced persons. In fact,

internally displaced persons outnumber refugees two-to-one (Internal

Displacement Monitoring Center [IDMC], 2017). Today, displaced persons

not only flee wars waged by traditional armies, they also leave behind mili-

tias, terrorist groups, and organized crime (Cantor, 2014; IDMC, 2017). And

they not only escape violence in the countryside but also in cities (IDMC,

2017; Lindley, 2010).

In the peripheries of many Latin American cities, criminal organizations

govern over communities, from providing goods and services to regulating

residents’ behaviors, from collecting “taxes” to defending territory (Arias &

Barnes, 2017; Duncan, 2014). Forced displacement is a tool some criminal

organizations wield to achieve these governance aims (Bada & Feldmann,

2019; Cantor, 2014). Despite the violence in these gang-controlled territories,

most people manage to remain in their homes and communities. Oftentimes,

one family flees while neighbors—who share nearly identical histories and

socio-economic traits—remain behind. Remarkably, some people even stay

despite receiving direct threats that they “get out, or else” from a criminal

gang. How? That is the central question of this paper.

I examine this question in the context of Medellín, Colombia. A city of

roughly 2.5 million, Medellín officially registers an average of 5,000 to

15,000 people fleeing each year from one neighborhood to another within the

city (Corporación Region, 2017; Personería, 2015; Sánchez, 2016). Criminal

gangs, and the violence they produce, are responsible for most of the city’s

displacement (Personería, 2015, p. 213; Sánchez, 2016, pp. 95–97). Organized

crime has a long history of regulating communities in the city, as well as

producing (and dampening) violence to achieve its aims (Abello-Colak &

Guarneros-Meza, 2014; Duncan, 2014).

“When I left, it was because they killed my sister . . . ,” a woman who fled

conflict in one of Medellín’s peripheral neighborhoods says.1 In contrast, a

man who endured similar violence in that same neighborhood states, “We had

paid a very high price, the death of my son, there was no longer a reason to

leave.”2 Yet another resident stayed despite receiving direct threats: “They

threatened me many times, and they tried to force me out and take my house,

but . . . this is my house and I am not going to let anyone take it.”3 The aim of

this paper is to explain the variation in responses to similar violence: the first

neighbor fled while the second stayed. This paper addresses how some

Marston 1997

people remain even despite being threatened by an armed group, as the third

resident quoted above illustrates.

Based on extensive field research and participant observation conducted

while living in a displacement-prone neighborhood in Medellín, Colombia, I

theorize that residents leverage their interpersonal connections to remain in

place. The individuals and families who remain, despite being targeted by the

armed group, are not those with the most connections, but rather those with

the right connections—to an important community figure or a member of the

criminal group. This holds even if those connections are weak. Extending

Granovetter’s (1973) foundational work on social ties to the arena of vio-

lence, I theorize that interpersonal connections increase the likelihood a resi-

dent stays through two mechanisms. In the first, an individual given several

hours to leave “or else,” reaches out to an important community figure who

then intervenes on her behalf with the armed group to short-circuit the threat-

ened displacement. The community figure might be the president of a local

association, neighborhood founder, or religious figure. A resident may also

draw on his long-standing ties to a community figure to remain in the neigh-

borhood despite actions—like rights activism or breaking community

norms—that would normally lead to expulsion were he anyone else. These

ties lead the criminal group to refrain from making a threat in the first place,

even though he has the same profile as displaced persons from the area. The

second mechanism works similarly, but the resident at risk of displacement

instead has ties to a member of the criminal group. Either the resident lever-

ages his ties to a gang member (other than the one making the threat) who

shields him from displacement, after the threat was made, or, the criminal

group refrains from making the threat, despite the resident’s norm violations

or rights activism (which would typically provoke expulsion), due to the resi-

dent’s long-standing ties to the gang.

I test hypotheses from this theory using an original survey and survey

experiment conducted in three Medellín neighborhoods. Through these tests,

I demonstrate that the mechanism I propose has an independent effect, yet

one that complements other theories drawn from the literature. In particular,

these tests reveal that one of my hypotheses—that ties to a community figure

may short-circuit displacement after a threat is made—works alongside an

explanation from the civil wars literature: that targeted civilians are more

likely to remain when a local community association intervenes on their

behalf with the armed group (e.g., Kaplan, 2017; Steele, 2017). Rather than

stay only by joining a local association or armed group (e.g., Kalyvas &

Kocher, 2007), or due to limited resources (Bohra-Mishra & Massey, 2011),

as the literature maintains, I show that residents also leverage interpersonal

connections to remain despite violence and targeted threats.