HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLYHuman Rights Quarterly 31 (2009) 1–34 © 2009 by The Johns Hopkins University PressReconstructing Masculinities: The Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration of Former Combatants in ColombiaKimberly Theidon*AbSTRACTA key component of peace processes and post-conflict reconstruction is the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) of ex-combatants. I argue that DDR programs imply multiple transitions: from the combatants who lay down their weapons, to the governments that seek an end to armed conflict, to the communities that receive—or reject—these demobilized * Kimberly Theidon is a medical anthropologist focusing on Latin America. Her research interests include political violence, forms and theories of subjectivity, transitional justice, and human rights. From 2001–2003 she directed a research project on community mental health, reparations, and the micro-politics of reconciliation with the Ayacuchan office of the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. A book based upon this research, Intimate Enemies: Violence and Reconciliation in Peru, is forthcoming with Stanford University Press. Dr. Theidon is currently conducting research in Colombia and Ecuador on two interrelated themes: the causes and consequences of populations in displacement, refuge, and return, with a particular interest in the role of humanitarian organizations in zones of armed con-flict, and the demobilization and reintegration process in Colombia. She is the director of Praxis: An Institute for Social Justice and is an assistant professor of Anthropology at Harvard University. I thank the John D. and Catherine T. Macarthur Foundation, the International Center for Transitional Justice, and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs for the funding that has made possible my research in Colombia. I benefited from comments I received on a draft of this article during the “Transitional Justice and DDR” meeting hosted by the ICTJ, 22–23 May 2007. I particularly thank Marcelo Fabre, Ana Patel, and Pablo de Grieff for their insightful suggestions. Additionally, I thank my colleagues Gonzalo Sanchez, Catherine Lutz, Kedron Thomas, Andrew Canessa, Winifred Tate, and Melanie Adrian for their comments. I am grateful to Paola Andrea Betancourt for her research assistance in Colombia. Finally, my deepest gratitude goes to the many Colombians who have shared their time and experiences with me and with whom I share a tenacious optimism regarding the possibility of peace with justice.Vol. 312 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLYfighters. At each level, these transitions imply a complex equation between the demands of peace and the clamor for justice. However, traditional ap-proaches to DDR have focused on military and security objectives, which have resulted in these programs being developed in relative isolation from the field of transitional justice and its concerns with historical clarifica-tion, justice, reparations, and reconciliation. Drawing upon my research with former combatants in Colombia, I argue that successful reintegration not only requires fusing the processes and goals of DDR programs with transitional justice measures, but that both DDR and transitional justice require a gendered analysis that includes an examination of the salient links between weapons, masculinities, and violence. Constructing certain forms of masculinity is not incidental to militarism: rather, it is essential to its maintenance. What might it mean to “add gender” to DDR and transitional justice processes if one defined gender to include men and masculinities, thus making these forms of identity visible and a focus of research and intervention? I explore how one might “add gender” to the DDR program in Colombia as one step toward successful reintegration, peace-building, and sustainable social change.I always dreamed of holding a gun. I wanted to know what it felt like—what it would feel like in my hands. To feel like a man. —Oscar, 25 years old, former combatant of the ELN, shelter in BogotáIn explanations of atrocities, one particular form of social identity—masculinity—has frequently been ignored.1 I. INTRoDUCTIoNA key component of peace processes and post-conflict reconstruction is the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) of ex-combatants. According to the World Bank, in 2005, over one million former combatants were participating in DDR programs in some twenty countries around the world. The average cost per person enrolled in a DDR program is equivalent to 4.7 times the average income of inhabitants of those respective countries, reflecting the fact that the majority of DDR programs are implemented in conditions of chronic poverty. DDR is big business, and it is serious busi-ness: both livelihoods and lives are at stake. 1. Don Foster, What Makes a Perpetrator? An Attempt to Understand, in Lo o k i n g Ba c k , Re a c h i n g Fo R w a R d : Re F L e c t i o n s o n t h e tR u t h a n d Re c o n c i L i a t i o n co m m i s s i o n o F so u t h aF R i c a 219, 223 (Charles Villa-Vicencio & Wilhelm Verwoerd eds., 2000). Foster notes that the South African TRC’s Final Report acknowledged that the Commission had neglected to study masculinity and violence, which prompts him to pose a series of interesting questions: “What is it about masculinity that under certain circumstances renders such an identity form so noxious? What are the circumstances? All of this awaits research.” Id. at 227.2009 Reconstructing Masculinities 3Elsewhere, I have argued that DDR programs imply multiple transitions: from the combatants who lay down their weapons, to the governments that seek an end to armed conflict, to the communities that receive—or reject—these demobilized fighters.2 At each level, these transitions imply a complex and dynamic equation between the demands of peace and the clamor for justice. Yet, traditional approaches to DDR have focused almost exclusively on military and security objectives, which has resulted in these programs being developed in relative isolation from the growing field of transitional justice and its concerns with historical clarification, justice, reparations, and reconciliation. Similarly, evaluations of DDR programs have tended to be technocratic exercises concerned with tallying the number of weapons collected and