Love in war? The strategic use of intimacy in armed conflict

Abstract

The strategic use of intimacy to achieve concrete objectives during war has not been systematically or comprehensively analysed. This article presents the cases of civilian women in armed conflict situations who acceded to or initiated intimate relationships with armed actors in order to achieve specific objectives. It focuses on ‘strategic intimacy’, analysing it from the perspective of civilian women in areas impacted by Colombia’s armed conflict. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Colombian civilian women who were the intimate partners of armed actors, it demonstrates that in violent contexts where state protection is lacking and armed groups govern large swaths of territory, women civilians may resort to their own devices to achieve objectives that government institutions or other non-state protective entities would have otherwise been responsible for. Due to their status as intimate partners and the subsequent influence they could exert from this positioning, civilian women were able to sway how their armed actor partners behaved as a form of gendered micro-governance: they exerted pressure on them and encouraged them to protect others and to share and gather information.