Fieldwork
My research is data-driven and grounded in fieldwork. I combine original datasets with interviews and participant observation in Latin America and the Middle East to understand how armed groups reorganize after war and why security outcomes vary across regions.
A core empirical insight runs through my work on post-conflict armed organization: structures, bonds, and norms created during war do not disappear after demobilization. They reconfigure through horizontal ties among local networks and vertical ties that connect leaders, political representatives, and ex-combatants in the field. Interviews with political and institutional actors inform how I conceptualize these post-conflict networks and their consequences for security.
In Colombia, I interviewed 130 ex-combatants of the FARC to reconstruct how demobilization and reintegration unfolded on the ground, identify the sources of post-accord insecurity, and trace how organizational ties and local threats shape compliance, remobilization risks, and trust in state protection. In a recent paper, I explain why in some areas, ex-combatants acquired high levels of trust in state security forces - often through everyday interactions like Sunday football matches - and how these ties shaped both attacks against ex-combatants and broader patterns of post-conflict homicide.
- https://doi.org/10.1080/03050629.2026.2625722 (When Reintegration of Ex-Combatants Turns Deadly: The State’s Role in Preventing Post-Conflict Homicides)
- https://doi.org/10.1080/13533312.2022.2128337 (Can the Rebel Body Function without its Visible Heads? The Role of Mid-Level Commanders in Peacebuilding)
- https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2021.2017895 (How Wartime Bonds Affect Ex-Combatant Political Attitudes: A Natural Experiment with the FARC)
I have also conducted fieldwork to explain empirical puzzles in peacebuilding: why does selective violence surges after war ends? How do local actors adopt national agendas when implementing peacebuilding? Why does civil war recur unevenly across the national territory? Across Catatumbo, Pacífico nariñense, and Urabá, I held focus-group discussions with social and community leaders, including Indigenous and Afro-Colombian authorities within Indigenous territories. I also interviewed local government officials and United Nations representatives.
Across Colombia, I visited cites for territorial peacebuilding (PDET projects). This research is important because it shows how “peace on paper” becomes governance in practice: when responsibilities are delegated to civilians in contested territories, their visibility, leverage, and exposure to violence can change. Based on field observations, interview materials, and large-N data I collected, I explain subnational variation in the postwar period in outcomes such as assassinations and governance by armed groups.
- https://doi.org/10.1177/07388942251336643 (Delegative Peacebuilding: Explaining Post-Conflict Selective Violence)
- Why do Civil Wars Recur Unevenly? Landed Elites and Counterinsurgency in Colombia (manuscript under review)