Different Resources, Different Conflicts?

This book explores some of the risks associated with sustainable peace in Colombia. The book intentionally steers away from the emphasis on the drug trade as the main resource fueling Colombian conflicts and violence, a topic that has dominated scholarty attention. Instead, it focuses in the links that have been configured over decades of armed conflict between legal resouces (such as bananas, coffee, coal, flowers, gold, ferronickel, emeralds, and oil), conflict dynamics, and crime in several regions, of Colombia. The book thus contributes to a growing trend in the academic literature focusing on the subnational level of armed conflict behavior. It also illustrated how the social and economic context of these resources can operate as deterrents or as drivers of violence. The book thus provides important lessons for policymakers and scholars alike: Just as reources have been linked to outbreaks and transformations of violence, peacebuilding too need to take into account their impacts, legacies, and ponential.