When ‘I’ becomes ‘us’: an analysis of the formation process of FARC

Abstract

With multidisciplinary dialogue as a starting point and relying on the theoretical and methodological support offered by Sociology, this article intends to analyze the process that lead to the transformation of a peasant self-defense group into a guerrilla group. Supported by Colombian historiographical sources, the author describes the social demands that enabled the formulation of a military disciplinary code and a political project that define the characteristic features of this group. Similarly, the reader will note that the emergence of the Colombian guerrilla movement FARC is the result of historic processes where political, economic, communal and military dimensions intersect in a hostile manner with the dreams, utopias and aspirations of singular individuals.