Community, Insurgency, and the State: Crafting School Governance within Colombia's Armed Conflict

Public schools are rarely treated as central political institutions in contexts of armed conflict. Community, Insurgency, and the State challenges this assumption by showing how a rural school in Arauca, Colombia, operates as a pivotal site where authority is negotiated and social order is sustained during periods of protracted violence. Rather than depicting schools as passive victims of war, this book reveals them to be dynamic arenas where state actors, insurgent groups, and civilian communities participate in the ongoing work of governance.

Community, Insurgency, and the State shows that forms of authority within the school do not simply compete for control. Instead, they coexist, collide, and at times reinforce one another, producing a layered political order that challenges state-centric understandings of power. By repositioning the school as a core site of governance rather than a peripheral social institution, this study demonstrates how governance is lived through everyday school routines, regulations, and collective strategies. Community, Insurgency, and the State reshapes how scholars understand authority, collective life, and institutional endurance amidst armed conflict.