GLaD researcher Alejandra Zuluaga has successfully completed her PhD in human rights and drug policy. Her thesis, ‘Coca, gender and the ontopolitics of human rights in the Colombian peace process’, was accepted without amendments. It received exceptionally positive examiner feedback, with one of the examiners recommending it for consideration for the Nancy Millis Medal, which recognises outstanding PhD theses based on examiners’ reports. She was supervised by Professor Kate Seear and Dr Renae Fomiatti.
Alejandra’s thesis examined the incorporation of ‘human rights’ and ‘gender-based’ approaches within the drug policy reforms introduced under the 2016 Colombian Peace Agreement. It explored how human rights and gender were understood in the peace process that led to the Agreement, and how they are interpreted and practised by policymakers, coca growers, and other actors involved in its implementation.
As Alejandra explains:
A central argument in my thesis is that human rights, often assumed to have a fixed meaning, are fluid, open to interpretation, and sometimes contested, with approaches varying across legal and socio-political contexts.
Alejandra shows how disciplinary and even violent measures in coca-growing areas are often justified through human rights frameworks rather than despite them.
Her research also reveals that gender, sexuality, land, and identities are central to the ontopolitical dynamics of human rights in the peace process. She finds that the rights of coca growers are often conceptualised by stakeholders through ethnic lenses, often deeming them as less legitimate than those in urban areas.
Alejandra’s thesis also makes an important contribution to the literature on gender and coca growing. Her work shows that women’s roles in the coca economy are often overlooked in policy and research on coca growing due to male-centric definitions, which in turn materialise exclusionary practices.
Alejandra’s thesis has already generated two publications, which you can find here, and more will be forthcoming. It is an important, rigorous and groundbreaking piece of research, bringing together insights from critical drug studies including Science and Technology Studies, with Latina Feminisms and decolonsing theories and methodologies. We congratulate Alejandra for her achievement, including the fieldwork she undertook in Colombia, which sits at the heart of the thesis.