Observing Stigmatization Attitudes Towards Ex-Combatants in Colombia's Postconflict

Abstract

The authors propose a working definition of stigmatization towards ex-combatants from organized armed groups outside the law in Colombia's internal conflict and empirically validate a questionnaire to assess stigmatization. First, they offer a brief review of different concepts of stigmatization, mainly stemming from psychology and sociology. Second, based on the previous review, they will offer a specific definition of stigmatization directed towards ex-combatants in the Colombian internal conflict. This definition encompasses social distance, label attribution, and emotional reactions towards the stigmatized group. Further, they present the validated scale to measure these attitudes in a non-representative sample of 289 people in 34 Colombian counties. Finally, they describe the psychometric properties of this scale as a way to measure stigmatization against ex-combatants in the Colombian internal conflict to be used in interventions aimed at attenuating this stigmatization and favoring their return to civilian society.