Autonomous cooperation: types of alliances between communities and combatants in civil wars

ABSTRACT Civilian cooperation with armed actors has been widely studied by conflict scholars. However, one aspect remains conceptually overlooked: instances where civilian communities cooperate while retaining their autonomy. This article proposes alliance as the core concept to understand cooperative relationships between communities and armed groups, while communities maintain autonomous self-governance. The article introduces a descriptive typology of alliances and provides a theoretical framework explaining how civilian positions and types of territory shape the various forms that alliances take. Drawing on field-based original empirical material from three rural communities in Colombia, the article illustrates how community-combatant alliances work on the ground.


Introduction
For 30 years, Lisandro, 1 a campesino of the Cesar Department of Colombia, witnessed the arrival, presence, fighting and withdrawal of rebel and paramilitary groups.Lisandro is a member of Vista Hermosa, a campesino community that emerged after a land occupation in the 1980s.At that time, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) arrived in Cesar.While campesinos were searching for land, rebels expanded territorial control.'They went around in groups.When they came here, they stayed the whole day, not in the house but in an isolated place.They asked for water, they talked to the wife and the children' says Lisandro. 2 Years later, in the second half of the 1990s, he saw the advent of paramilitary groups.The United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC- Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia) entered the community area in 1997: 'Then the AUC arrived with terror.They killed two, including the son of a campesino.Then they killed seven more.We left when the fear was big'.
After the peace agreements signed by paramilitary groups in 2006 and rebels in 2016, Lisandro evokes memories of how his community related to the armed groups: 'We served as a bridge for the rebels to control the area.They camped for three or four days, or a week.Sometimes they came to my plot and camped here.Then, at night, they disappeared'.In exchange, rebels helped the campesinos to get access to the public roads through the neighbouring lands.The insurgents and the campesino community interacted sporadically for six years.Campesinos remained autonomous, as Alberto, another campesino of the community explains: 'The rebels came here, but there was no coexistence like we were stigmatized later.They made their appearances, but we did not live under their rules'. 3ear Lisandro and Alberto's community, about 80 kilometres away, the community of Los Altos had a different experience.Although they also witnessed the arrival and expansion of the FARC's 41 front, their interaction involved lower levels of cooperation with the rebels.For instance, sometimes campesinos of Los Altos saw the rebels passing by along the nearby roads and participated in some of the meetings organised by the insurgents but did not provide shelter and food as Lisandro and his community did.In exchange, rebels allowed the community to maintain self-governing rules over their affairs.While remaining autonomous, the communities of Vista Hermosa and Los Altos established different levels of cooperation with the rebels.In this article, I argue that these forms of cooperation take the form of alliances, defined here as agreements between autonomous groups for the exchange of material and strategic benefits.
By considering these interactions as alliances, it acknowledges the agency of both parties to propose, negotiate, and modify the agreement.This article asks: what types of alliances emerge between communities and combatants in war zones and what explains variation?The central objective is to advance the theory of alliances and refine conceptual understanding.
This article contributes to the existing body of literature on the relationship between civilians and combatants in irregular civil wars.Specifically, it focuses on a rural and collective expression of civilian agency in Latin America -campesino communities. 4The word campesino refers to individuals involved in small-scale agricultural activities, often without land ownership but with aspirations to attain it. 5Recent scholarly work has examined the significance of civilians in violent environments, exploring their potential to shape dynamics within civil wars.The literature has revealed the centrality of civilian cooperation for armed groups' survival. 6Moreover, research has found that communities aim to maintain autonomy and respond to the presence of armed groups with different levels of resistance, 7 and community-based initiatives of governance. 8In other cases, civilians choose or are forced to leave their homes. 9These studies have challenged the perception of civilians as passive participants, instead recognizing them as active agents capable of influencing the continuity and transformation of violent contexts.
Despite these important advances, there are expressions of the civiliancombatant relationship that remain underexplored.Conflict scholars have predominantly focused on structural factors and the agency of combatants, overlooking the roles communities can inhabit.Furthermore, studying the civilian side of the civilian-combatant relationship presents significant challenges.Ongoing conflicts impose constraints on how people express their views, making it difficult to gather reliable data. 10n this article, I aim to provide conceptual and empirical grounds for the community-combatant relationship that move beyond the understanding of non-state armed groups (NSAGs) as rulers and communities as ruled.Taking a conceptual approach, it analyses how Lisandro's community and other rural communities developed alliances with combatants.Although alliances between civilians and combatants have been documented in different armed conflicts such as the Mozambican civil war, 11 the Aceh conflict in Indonesia, 12 the rebel domination in northern Cote d'Ivoire, 13 and the Colombian civil war, 14 we lack a systematic understanding of how alliances function and how they vary.Filling this gap, I contend, begins with understanding how alliances work on the ground.
Drawing on the defining characteristics of alliances among states, armed groups, and civilians, such as autonomy, cooperation and informality, the article seeks to clarify and redefine alliances in the context of the communitycombatant relationship.Furthermore, and building on the work of Arjona, 15 this article offers a descriptive typology of alliances that vary in two dimensions: the level of cooperation (low or high) and the duration (short or long).The combination of these two dimensions leads to three different types of alliances: engagement, when cooperation is high and over a long period, opportunism, when cooperation is high and the period is short, and concession, when the level of cooperation is low and the duration is long.The article offers a theoretical framework to explain alliance variation.I argue that the community position (status quo or revisionist) and the type of territory (controlled or contested) shape the forms that alliances take, affecting how alliances' characteristics (cooperation and duration) vary.
To develop the theory of alliances, I conducted fieldwork in war zones in Colombia.I draw on original empirical material from three rural communities that lived in rebel and paramilitary territories to document the behaviours that constitute the different types of alliances, and the driving forces that explain variation.I conducted memory workshops, a participatory and creative method of data co-production.Community members collectively built memories of violent experiences through the elaboration of memory webs, community timelines and collective biographies.In addition, I conducted individual interviews and archival research.While the theory is rooted in the Colombian context, where land ownership shapes community position, it aims to speak to other civil wars where different political, social and economic factors influence the positioning of civilians.
The article proceeds as follows.The first section examines the literature on the community-combatant relationship and proposes alliance as one of the forms of cooperation.The second section offers a conceptualization of alliances and identifies their core attributes.The third section proposes a typology and presents the theory of alliances.The fourth section provides examples of the different types of alliances based on empirical work with the communities of Vista Hermosa, Los Altos and La Palma in Colombia.The final section concludes by highlighting the relevance of understanding community-combatant forms of cooperation for policy development in post-conflict contexts.

The community-combatants relationship
The relationship between communities and combatants in irregular civil wars is characterized by its multifaceted and evolving nature. 16To understand this relationship, I propose an analytical framework consisting of three interconnected components (see Figure 1): the actors involved, the forms the relationship takes, and the variation within one of those forms (the typology of alliances).
The community-combatant alliances that I theorize in this article take place in the context of irregular civil wars, 18 which are fought mostly in Figure 1.The community-combatant relationship. 17ural areas.Rural populations, therefore, are a fundamental factor in the dynamics of the war.Although I encountered stories of alliances between individuals and armed groups, here I focus on the collective expression of rural civilians: campesino communities. 19On the other side of alliances are the NSAGs, which are collective organisations that use a name, and implement structures of decision-making, command, control and allocation of resources, including insurgent and paramilitary groups.
Scholarly perspectives on the civilian-combatant relationship have centred around three main approaches: a combatant-led approach, a civilian agencyled approach, and institutional-led developments.The combatant-led approach examines the coercive and consensual behaviour of combatants towards civilians.The literature has established the centrality of civilians for armed groups' survival and achievement of their general and localized goals. 20Gaining civilian cooperation based on the ability to generate consent among local populations is a key element from the combatant perspective.
The civilian-led perspective shifted the locus of agency to the local populations.Civilians, even in violent settings, make choices and have emotional and economic complementarities that trigger interaction and associational ties influencing continuity and change in given circumstances. 21The literature identifies three civilian responses to the presence of armed groups: cooperation, non-cooperation and flight. 22Cooperation involves providing benefits to armed groups through acts such as supplying information and resources. 23Non-cooperation encompasses acts of disobedience, resistance and defection, 24 ranging from hidden non-cooperation to opposition. 25The third response is fleeing, driven by adverse conditions and the hope for better ones. 26he institutional-led perspective contends that the relationship between local populations and combatants is embedded in the administration of civilian affairs by combatants, a phenomenon understood as rebel governance. 27Rather than viewing war zones as anarchic, localized civil war territories can exhibit social orders with defined institutions and ways in which locals and combatants interact. 28Armed groups create systems of governance to reinforce civilian cooperation and avoid defection.While territorial control has been considered crucial for rebel governance 29reflecting the armed group's capacity to secure an area and navigate it safely -recent studies challenge this assumption.They reveal that governance can extend beyond controlled territories through social embeddedness, state influence, and media penetration. 30rjona identifies two forms of rebel governance based on the level of armed group intervention.Rebelocracy refers to broad intervention in civilian affairs encompassing justice, education, goods, security, and taxation, among others.Aliocracy, on the other hand, involves narrow intervention, limited to security and a taxation system. 31This variation is attributed to combatants' time horizon and the quality of civilian institutions.Combatants´ short-term interests, internal indiscipline, or ongoing peace negotiations favour minimal governance.Long-term interests in a territory lead to a social contract with the locals.However, the extent of intervention, whether rebelocracy or aliocracy, depends on the ability of civilians to resist rebel rule.Legitimate and effective institutions enable civilians to oppose rulers by uniting and exercising collective action. 32ccording to Mampilly, rebel governance extends beyond the provision of goods and includes the use of cultural symbols.Armed groups, as carriers of shared meanings, transform and implement beliefs and practices within the populations they aim to govern.The exchange and visualization of symbols influence the scope of governance. 33Waterman shows how in the absence of territorial control, the India's United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) utilized social networks, co-optation of state structures and media publicity to provide services and implement moral policing and a tax system over their core constituents. 34hese accounts suggest that any project of rebel governance, being based on the edification of institutions, network infiltration and the establishment of cultural symbols, requires the formation of a civilian collective that is distinct from the broader population outside of the combatants' rule. 35The civilian collective and its boundaries become the subject of protection, bureaucratic administration and the source and receiver of symbolic and material elements.
Gowrinathan and Mampilly emphasize that recognizing the existence of a collective constituency shaped by rebel governance in turn allows for a disaggregation of the different types of civilians in war zones.Within controlled areas, they identify four types of civilian residents: constituents, who willingly accept and follow rebel governance, traitors, who resist subscribing to rebel rules, enemies, who identify with rival armed groups and may face targeting or displacement, and victims, who remain in the area but do not benefit from the rebels' social contract. 36espite the progress made in studying the civilian-combatant relationship, some instances have not received sufficient theoretical and empirical exploration.First, there are scenarios of cooperation between combatants and autonomous communities outside of rebel-governed territories and thereby outside of a civilian collective constituency.I propose expanding Gowrinathan and Mampilly's categorization to include autonomous civilians, who neither are ruled nor are deemed traitors.These civilians maintain autonomy while establishing cooperation, setting them apart from constituents, enemies, and traitors.
Second, the minimal intervention of combatants in rebel governance involves security provision and taxation systems.However, there are forms of civilian-combatant interchange that do not involve a taxation system but still represent a form of cooperative relationship.A taxation system implies minimal rules that ensure the material contribution of civilians to the armed group, allowing regularity in income and closer monitoring of civilian economic activities. 37A taxation system is understood as a 'technology of governance'. 38For instance, armed groups in Colombia have demanded contributions and obedience to minimal rules in different areas of the country. 39Similarly, in some villages in the Philippines, the New People's Army imposed 'revolutionary taxes' on autonomous communities to enhance the monitoring of local economic activities. 40The instances in which a system of taxation is imposed over the community fall outside of the scope of alliances and are understood as cases of rebel governance.
In some circumstances, armed groups choose not to implement a taxation system on civilians.For instance, when combatants need to consolidate civilian support, they might refrain from taxing local populations, as reported by Wickham-Crowley for rebel groups in Latin America. 41In addition, if armed groups have access to other sources of income such as taxation on the extraction of natural resources, narcotics or large-land owners, a taxation system on local communities can be unnecessary and can result in the emergence of civilian resistance. 42o address these gaps, I propose the concept of alliance to capture cooperative relationships between civilians and combatants that extend beyond the minimum rebel governance intervention, specifically focusing on autonomous communities outside of the combatant-governed civilian collective.While existing literature acknowledges the existence of alliances as transactions in which both civilians and combatants derive benefits, there has been limited attention given to how these alliances operate and whether they exhibit variation.This article aims to shed light on these conceptual gaps.

Community-combatants alliances, core attributes and definition
To propose a definition that allows theoretical development and expansion of empirical observations, I map previous definitions of alliances in the context of violence to identify shared attributes across different contexts and actors. 43Moreover, these definitions help clarify the attributes of alliances specific to irregular civil wars and the relationship between rural communities and combatants.
From the macro-perspective, the concept of alliance has centred on security cooperation between sovereign states.As a baseline, Walt defines alliances as a 'formal or informal arrangement for security cooperation between two or more sovereign states'. 44In a similar vein, Bergsmann defines alliance as 'an explicit agreement among states in the realm of national security in which the partners promise mutual assistance in the form of a substantial contribution of resources in the case of a certain contingency the arising of which is uncertain'. 45Snyder proposes alliances as 'formal associations of states for the use (or nonuse) of military force, in specified circumstances against states outside their own membership'. 46Masala and Corvaja refer to alliances as a 'formal or informal relationship of security cooperation between at least two sovereign states'. 47hese definitions highlight three central attributes of alliances at the interstate level.First, alliances involve autonomous actors.This autonomy implies that actors maintain their independence, although power imbalances may exist within the alliance.Second, alliances can be either formal or informal, depending on the context and agreements made between states.Finally, cooperation is a core attribute of inter-state alliances, with states collaborating to achieve mutual security objectives through the exchange of resources and security-related cooperation.
At the meso-level, alliances are established between armed groups.Christia defines alliances as 'a formal or informal relationship of security cooperation between two or more groups, which involves commitment and exchange of benefits for both sides as well as a form of cost if the agreement is breached'. 48In the context of the civil war in Afghanistan, tactical considerations for victory and post-conflict power-sharing arrangements primarily influenced these alliances. 49The actors involved are fundamentally victory-seekers and other motivations such as religion or identity are not determinants of alliance formation.This definition exhibits similar attributes to inter-state alliances: both formal and informal agreements, autonomous actors, and cooperation seeking military victory. 50t the micro-level, alliances are established between combatants and civilians.Kalyvas defines alliances as 'a transaction between supralocal and local actors, whereby the former supply the latter with external muscle, thus allowing them to win decisive local advantage, in exchange, supralocal actors recruit and motivate supporters at the local level'. 51While civilians offer the provision of resources, combatants, too, might offer security and organisational support.Besides the core attribute of cooperation, this definition indicates that alliances can be established between two different sets of actors: those fighting the war and the locals immersed in the geographies of confrontations.While combatants aim to control territories and fight the war, civilians have private and localized interests.In this sense, alliances work as a channel that allows multiple actors and diverse interests to converge. 52apping the definitions of alliances reveals three core attributes relevant to alliances between rural communities and combatants in irregular civil wars: cooperation, autonomy and informality.First, cooperation lies at the heart of alliances, serving as a tool to maintain a strategic position and an opportunity to obtain one.The outcomes are not necessarily related to the end and victory of the war but rather to local dynamics such as combatants' territorial control and communities' strategic position within their localities.Consequently, alliances between locals and combatants are driven by a mutual need for cooperation, as both parties seek to advance their interests within the landscape of conflict.
Second, autonomy denotes community self-administration, which originates from different sources including indigenous traditions, 53 local institutions, 54 social capital, 55 NGOs support, 56 and mobilisation for land access. 57Communities living in war zones navigate intricate webs of relationships, involving friendship, kinship ties, networks and associational bonds that emerge from their interactions and family lives. 58These bonds are fueled by emotional and economic complementarities, fostering interactions and agreements to achieve common objectives and establish alliances collectively and autonomously. 59aplan refers to community autonomy as independence for 'decisionmaking power over outcomes for the community within the community, without influence from outside armed groups'. 60He finds that autonomy facilitates resistance to armed groups' rule. 61However, while autonomy can indeed enable civilian resistance, it can also foster cooperation with armed groups. 62Combatants can embrace civilian autonomy when it translates into a source of goods and reliable information. 63The concept of alliance helps to capture communities' autonomy while engaging in cooperation with armed groups.
Third, alliances between communities and combatants diverge from formal written agreements.They adopt an unwritten, informal nature that is socially shared among involved actors. 64These alliances are marked by interrelated behaviours and situations, 65 shaping cooperative interactions between locals and combatants.
Drawing upon these attributes, I propose a definition of alliances between communities and combatants in irregular civil wars as informal agreements between autonomous actors for the exchange of material and strategic benefits.This proposed definition leaves room for the study of informal cooperation agreements both in and out of rebel-held territory, including communities that are not part of a given civilian constituency as well as combatants controlling or contesting a territory.

A typology of alliances between communities and combatants
In this section, I offer a typology that illustrates the characteristics of the community-combatant alliances.The typology is descriptive in that it offers defining attributes of a classificatory dimension of alliances.I build upon the work of Arjona 66 to propose a typology based on two dimensions: whether the level of cooperation between locals and combatants is low or high, and whether the duration of the alliance is short or long.The combination of these two dimensions leads to three types of alliances: engagement, opportunism and concession (see Figure 2).

Levels of cooperation
Scholars recognize different observable instances of civilian cooperation.Wickham-Crowley identifies different degrees of civilian cooperation, ranging from minor to major. 67In a similar vein, Petersen identifies three levels of individual civilian cooperation ranging from 0 to 3: where zero represents neutrality, one symbolizes participation as civilians, and three represents joining the armed group as a combatant. 68I elaborate on the understanding of cooperation as a spectrum where acts of cooperation range from low to high.As Figure 3 shows, low levels of community cooperation are expressed, for example, through attendance at meetings organised by the armed groups and not interfering with combatants' sporadic transit over communities' land.High levels of community cooperation are manifested, for instance, through the provision of local information, goods and shelter.
Armed groups, in turn, provide different levels of cooperation towards communities.Low levels of cooperation are limited to the socialization of  ideas, sporadic security or inaction towards the autonomy of locals.Combatants might organise meetings for the socialization of political ideas but abstain from implementing a governance system.On the other hand, high levels of cooperation are observed as acts that allow civilians to obtain concrete benefits.For instance, support for community acquisition of formal land tenure.In some cases, high levels of cooperation may involve joint production of violence between civilians and combatants, benefiting a specific community in a particular area. 69

Alliance duration
Community-combatant alliances might last for a short or a long period, independently of the level of cooperation.Some alliances are contingent on changes in territorial control and last for a short time, and others endure during periods of control.Armed groups establish these alliances to obtain information and resources and prevent civilians from becoming informants of rival groups.In turn, when locals have a clearer expectation about combatants' behaviour, they might be more willing to cooperate in the long run.Armed groups with long time horizons are more inclined to establish lasting cooperation, contingent on territorial control. 70Higher control over a territory increases the chances of engaging in long-term alliances.
A different situation occurs when armed groups are competing for territorial control.The presence of armed enemies modifies the expectations over time as uncertainty increases.In contexts of territorial contestation, combatants have incentives to use violence against suspicious civilians to avoid the provision of information to the enemy.At the same time, locals in a disadvantageous position might form short-term opportunistic alliances with conquering groups.Whether alliances are established in the context of contestation depends on the capacity of combatants to identify potential local allies.From the combatant point of view, finding civilians to ally with becomes a useful option for conquering territory as alliances provide access to information about rivals and suspected local collaborators.

Explaining alliances between communities and combatants
I argue that the community position -status quo or revisionist-and the type of territory-controlled or contested-shape the forms that alliances take, affecting how its characteristics-cooperation and duration-vary.In doing so, I explain two central explanatory factors of alliances: (1) how the position of communities as status quo or revisionist affects the type of alliances they establish with combatants, and (2) how the type of territory shapes combatants' approach to establishing alliances (see Figure 4).
The first dimension shaping alliance variation is the community position, which can be related to economic capacity, ethnicity, political participation and, as in the case of rural Colombia, formal land tenure.A community position concerns how favourable or disadvantageous a situation is.Favourable positions entail advantages like market access, affiliation with a dominant ethnic group, political engagement, or formal land ownership.In contrast, disadvantageous situations arise from limited economic opportunities, denial of political rights, or landlessness.
The role of frustrating or advantageous positions in shaping community identity and driving collective action has been observed for ethnic status hierarchy in the civil wars in Eastern Europe. 71In El Salvador, Wood illustrates how state repression catalysed emotional and moral campesino collective action to change a frustrating position and construct their dignity beyond the land struggles.Despite having access to land, campesinos supported the Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN) and occupied properties because it provided a positive collective experience of making history more just-a phenomenon Wood describes as the pleasure of agency. 72n the study cases analysed in this article, the observable implication of status quo or revisionist positions is formal land tenure.Campesinos occupy  public or abandoned land for years (informal land tenure) to obtain property rights (formal land tenure).Status quo communities, benefiting from favourable land ownership conditions, aim to maintain the existing situation.In contrast, revisionists, perceiving themselves as disadvantaged, strive to change their position.Those with informal land tenure remain as revisionist civilians, seeking to transition to formal land ownership (see Figure 5).Over time, rural communities in Colombia have experienced shifting positions due to the historical development of land ownership, moving between formal and informal land tenure arrangements. 73he second dimension shaping alliance variation is whether combatants control the territory or are fighting to control it.By establishing control, armed groups are able to fight the war, combat state forces, pressure governments, and enlist new members.In irregular civil wars, armed groups aim to establish territorial control for geographical expansion, open new routes of operation and reinforce long-term civilian cooperation. 74In contrast, contested territories involve competition among armed groups.In this context, uncertainty prevails, and combatants face the challenge of identifying civilians who may provide information to rival groups. 75Information is in the hands of locals, including the location of camps, transit routes, potential disloyal communities as well as shelter and resources.Alliances are a channel for obtaining information and strategic advantages.
Communities also face a different situation in contested territory.The atmosphere is marked by uncertainty and vulnerability compared to controlled territories.Suspicions, rumours and gossip arise, leading to accusations among campesinos of cooperation with other armed groups.Expectations about the future become limited to everyday prospects, and trust among rural civilians deteriorates.
Taking into account these dimensions of civilian position and territorial control, three types of alliances between civilians and combatants can be identified.First, combatants controlling a territory and interacting with revisionist communities enable high levels of cooperation over time, resulting in alliances of engagement.While controlling territories, combatants can offer incentives and cooperate with communities on issues that require long engagement for the achievement of future outcomes.In rural areas, revisionists have incentives to ally with armed groups that offer support for land possession and posterior ownership.While retaining autonomy, locals provide resources, goods, shelter, and information to combatants.Combatants provide sporadic security and support for the internal organisation and objectives of the community.
Second, controlled territories also give rise to alliances of concession, characterized by long-term expectations and low levels of cooperation.Communities who have obtained formal land tenure are less inclined to engage in high levels of cooperation with combatants, as they have achieved the fundamental goal of land ownership.For status quo communities, the focus is on maintaining the existing conditions to avoid fleeing the territory or the imposition of combatants' governance system.Instead, they establish alliances that enable them to maintain their material and strategic conditions while permitting armed groups to sporadically transit the territory.These alliances are driven by a cautionary approach between the two sets of actors.
Third, in alliances of opportunism, civilians and combatants establish an informal agreement with high levels of cooperation.However, they do so with expectations for present rather than future outcomes.Alliances of opportunism are common in a context where territories are contested by different armed sides, where a peace deal is taking place, or where there are changes in the value of territories.The presence of more than one armed group allows revisionist civilians to benefit from the rivalry between armed groups and establish alliances of opportunism for material and strategic gains.The duration of the alliance is short because of the contingency of contested territories.Alliances of opportunism may involve a joint production of violence between opportunist civilians and combatants by locating and targeting suspected disloyal communities or civilians' local rivals.
Low or inexistent levels of cooperation during a short period do not meet the criteria of an alliance.The fourth category of the typology is denoted as 'none' because exchanges between communities and combatants at low levels of cooperation and over a short period are understood simply as favours or advantages granted by one or the other rather than as alliances.

Exploring alliances between communities and combatants in Colombia
To explore alliances between communities and combatants, I conducted field-based research with campesino communities in rural northern Colombia.I selected the communities of Los Altos, La Palma and Vista Hermosa, formed during different periods between 1983 and 1995.These communities experienced rebel territorial control and paramilitary conquest.The case selection was based on two criteria: a theoretical focus on cases that exhibit changes in control and land tenure-the observable implication of community position, and cases that allowed access to field visits.
In 2016, I established a dialogue with 12 communities, approximately 800 households that abandoned an estimated 24,000 hectares of land (240 km2) when paramilitary groups entered Cesar in 1996.Over 10 months of fieldwork spread from 2016 to 2019, I conducted 62 interviews with campesinos, local officials, NGO agents and journalists and collected documents from state institutions, newspapers and private archives preserved by campesinos.Furthermore, I stayed with three campesino communities in Cesar's lowlands.I participated in the communities' daily lives, fostering extended interaction and socialization, which allowed the co-production of six memory workshops, the primary source that supports the propositions of this article.
The memory workshop is a participatory and creative method of data coproduction where participants built collectively events of the past. 76The workshops have been implemented by memory institutions in the aftermath of war in countries like Colombia, South Africa and Ireland, to open spaces for marginalized voices and contribute to the narrative of the conflict.Methodologically, it facilitates communities to express their agency and build past experiences using creative methods. 77orkshops were hosted in the rural homes of campesinos and attended by eight to twelve participants, including men and women spanning ages from 32 to 80. Participants, all with a campesino background as land occupants, were selected based on their availability, given that wartime displacement had scattered community members across Colombia.The workshops were structured into three sections, each incorporating a different participatory and creative method including memory webs, community timeline drawing, community biography discussion, and map of emotions.
Although memory workshops can provide a platform for participants to express their perspectives and experiences, it is not exempt from a complex set of local power relations, giving rise to ethical challenges related to safety and consent, the connections between researchers and participants, and the ramifications of conducting memory workshops for both researchers and participants.For this research, I combined a top-down approach following the guidelines of an ethical committee for measures of consent and safety of participants with a bottom-up and context-dependent approach in which ethical considerations are discussed by community members. 78he process of recollecting events often proved to be ambiguous and contested.However, accuracy and truth are not the primary goals of this methodology, but rather to treat it as a collective repository of shared meanings and interpretations.The communities drew the changes on land tenure and periods of control and contestation by armed groups on timelines, mapped associated emotions and built community biographies.These accounts were helpful to observe the positions of communities over time, as well as information on levels of cooperation and ultimately the type of relationships they established with combatants.

Campesino communities in the Cesar region
The stories of several campesino communities in Cesar (see Figure 6) started in the 1970s with the peak of large-scale cotton production, attracting thousands of workers from other regions.Studies estimate that annually between 150,000 and 200.000 cotton pickers migrated to Cesar. 79However, in 1978, a 30% drop in international cotton prices led to major production losses.Landholders, facing bankruptcy, abandoned haciendas, reducing the cultivated area from 125,000 to 25,000 hectares by 1985. 80housands of landless campesinos lost their jobs.Some left the region, while others opted to occupy the abandoned lands. 81The history of settlements in Colombia shows that occupying land and even obtaining property rights does not guarantee its possession over time. 82Disputes with land buyers, large landowners and armed groups have excluded campesinos from the formalization of land tenure.Estimates indicate that 40% of land ownership remains informal. 83Figure 7 shows the risky nature of land occupation, involving different stages of formalization and civilian positions.As a result, campesinos traditionally pursued land occupation collectively rather than individually, supported by the National Peasant Association (ANUC -Asociación Nacional de Usuarios Campesinos), providing organisation and guidance towards land ownership.The ANUC was a grassroots initiative supported by the state, facilitating campesino participation in agrarian reform at the national level.'The government itself encouraged the peasants to demand their due' 84 and in 1988 issued Law 30, a legal basis for the provision of state-owned land or the purchase of private land to be distributed among campesinos.In Cesar, different communities emerged through land occupation and the pursuit of formalization, including the communities of Los Altos, La Palma and Vista Hermosa.
Los Altos is a settlement with an area of 700 hectares (7 km 2 ) established in the early 1970s, before the insurgent groups' presence in the territory.Campesinos engaged in the practice of reclaiming and cultivating previously unused land, a process known as agricultural frontier expansion. 85Subsequently, they initiated the process of land legalization, and in 1983 the Colombian Institute for Agrarian Reform (INCORA -Instituto Colombiano de la Reforma Agraria) declared Los Altos as public land, granting land property rights to the occupants.Each household was allocated 22.5 hectares of land and campesinos formally registered their community council (JAC -Junta de Acción Comunal) in the local municipality. 86The JACs are a state-led initiative that emerged under Law 14 of 1958. 87Over time, they became the model for rural organisation, acting as the central platform for the creation and coordination of selfgoverning rules. 88With the acquisition of property rights and the formalization of the community council, Los Altos transitioned into a status quo position.
La Palma community was established in 1988 an area of about 1,000 hectares (10 km 2 ) when a group of campesinos occupied the land.This was also the case of the Vista Hermosa community which settled in an area of 550 hectares (5.5 km 2 ) in 1994.Campesinos of these communities gathered the necessary resources and information to initiate the occupation and established their community council but did not achieve formal land tenure, holding a revisionist position.
All communities faced the arrival and expansion of rebel and paramilitary groups.The insurgent FARC arrived during the second half of the 1980s, at the juncture of the cotton bankruptcy and the emergence of campesino communities seeking formal land.The FARC attempted to gain civilian cooperation by providing security for land occupants and pressuring owners of abandoned lands to sell their lands to the INCORA. 89In 1996, paramilitary groups contested the territory, specifically targeting campesino communities formed through land occupations in the 1980s and early 1990s, repopulating the territories with new settlers.This resulted in forced displacement and land dispossession for approximately 7,000 campesinos in Cesar, as documented in official reports. 90

Campesino-insurgent alliance of concession
The relationship between the community of Los Altos and the FARC insurgents is a clear example of an alliance of concession.Despite the presence of the FARC in the area, cooperation between Los Altos and the insurgents was low.The FARC allowed the campesinos to remain on their land and run their local community council without involvement in their political or land occupation meetings. 91This concession was given in exchange for the sporadic provision of water and free transit through the campesinos' land, representing low levels of cooperation.During the memory workshop, campesinos recall how relationships with combatants worked: R2: There was no direct relationship with the guerrillas.We knew about them because the fishermen told us that the guerrillas were around.Sometimes we were fixing a fence and we would see them passing by.But they never lived on one's land.They went into the mountains, very secretive, sometimes we didn't even notice them.
R3: There was never any violence, never.I have never heard a campesino say that he was pressured.If it happened, I haven't heard about it. 92bels did not engage in meetings of political socialization as they did with other communities.They did not interfere in community life, nor did they implement a taxation system.Rebels limited their activities to occasional transit through the community area. 93Campesinos and combatants established an alliance of concession, where both sides allowed the presence and transit of each other for about seven years without engaging in high levels of cooperation.The FARC's presence was visible, but cooperation remained low, as Francisco, a member of the community recalls: They passed by, but they never messed with us.Even though they said they supported us.We had a community council that we ran ourselves.We managed the decisions as a community. 94is type of relationship explains that the formal tenure of land, and therefore the position as status quo, was a factor that shaped the interaction with rebels.While the deciding factor in rebels' interaction with other communities was the wish to acquire land property rights, in the case of Los Altos, campesinos already had formal land tenure and therefore the content of the alliance with rebels was of transit rather than engagement in high levels of cooperation.

Campesino-insurgent alliance of engagement
Different are the cases of La Palma and Vista Hermosa communities.Campesinos of La Palma had a revisionist position when they faced the presence of the insurgent FARC.They aimed to obtain formal land tenure over the occupied land and therefore levels of cooperation were high and with a long-time horizon.In the memory workshop, campesinos recalled the content of the cooperation with combatants: while locals provided shelter and information, combatants offered security and support with the process of land tenure formalization: R2: The guerrillas entered into the affairs of land negotiation.The guerrillas brought the mayor to buy and legalize the land we were occupying.R3: They even brought the mayor to buy the land from García [pseudonym], the owner.The guerrillas created a meeting with those people.They came in their cars, and we held a meeting.R4: They negotiated the sale of the land so the INCORA could distribute it among us. 95hrough the alliance of engagement, the campesinos of La Palma had the possibility of obtaining formal land tenure over the occupied land due to pressure exerted by insurgents on the owner.In turn, combatants sporadically transited the lands of La Palma and requested local information.The community retained autonomy in the management of their internal matters through their local council and organisational support provided by the ANUC.Campesinos led the search, occupation and internal organisation of La Palma, as highlighted by Matilde, a community member: We searched for the land along with the ANUC.They helped us with the legal part and to contact the owner.We made all the decisions. 96e desire and mobilization to obtain land ownership, combined with the support of the ANUC, served as the driving force behind the cooperation and organisation among campesinos and the basis for their autonomy.In 1995, La Palma was divided into household parcels, campesinos built huts and a central communal house.By 1996, they registered the community council. 97Similarly, Vista Hermosa campesinos distributed the occupied land, established a council, applied for land legalization, and patiently awaited ownership. 98They allowed the sporadic transit of combatants and political socialization meetings.
Consistent with an alliance of engagement, cooperation with campesinos also took the form of protection without imposing a taxation system.Those subject to taxation were the neighbouring large landowners of the 500 hectares in Vista Hermosa.Studies highlight Cesar as the region experiencing the highest rebel taxation rates against large landowners and mining companies in the early 1990s. 99Neighbours complied with the payment of taxes (known as vacunas) and opposed the occupation of abandoned lands by campesino communities. 100nsurgents intervened, as campesinos recalled during the memory workshop: R3: The guerrillas came in when the surrounding landowners were pressuring us by blockading the road system.We had no way out of the land.All the paths had to cross neighbours' lands.We went through their pastures, but we had a problem with the landowners around.The guerrillas helped us. 101is exchange of strategic benefits lasted for one year, when the paramilitaries entered Cesar and challenged insurgent control in 1996.That year, the paramilitary groups initiated a strategy of expansion in different regions of Colombia under the umbrella of the Peasant Self-Defence Forces of Córdoba and Urabá (ACCU-Autodefensas Unidas de Córdoba y Urabá, later AUC).

Civilian-paramilitary alliances of opportunism
The entry of paramilitaries introduced a new phase of contested territory and the emergence of alliances of opportunism.Revisionists established cooperation agreements with the conquering group providing information in exchange for land.Several communities of land occupants, including those examined in this article, were forcibly displaced during the period of contestation.Paramilitaries targeted campesinos collectively, 102 based on processes of land occupation and their suspected relationship with rebel groups.In other regions, paramilitaries obtained information about civilians' cooperation from sources such as local elections. 103In Cesar, this information came from land occupation processes during the rebel control period.
During the memory workshop, Los Altos campesinos pointed out that their neighbours were the ones who provided information to the paramilitary groups regarding the community's location and the names of its leaders.Large landowners and landless campesinos working as tenants and land keepers were among the informants.The campesinos recognized that their land was the primary motivation for other rural civilians: R2: They were friends with some of the locals.They even recruited some boys.R6: People gave information to the paramilitaries.[. ..].There are small discrepancies with other people who always try to make a mess to get you out of the way [. ..].The one who sees things badly is still a Judas.There were many Judases there.R5: It was the Judas who gave the information to the paramilitary leaders.If we had disagreed in the past, then he would say 'Now it's time for me to take revenge on this one'.He would go and get you involved in guerrilla matters.R7: The Judas won the land and the perks. 104e displacement of the Los Altos campesinos and the land's subsequent repopulation is a consequence of the alliance of opportunism between revisionists and paramilitaries.These alliances in contested territories involve a joint production of violence between revisionists and combatants by locating and targeting suspected disloyal communities or civilians' local rivals.The term 'Judas' used by campesinos of Los Altos exposes the shared awareness of local revisionists cooperating with paramilitaries.Following the biblical character, the term 'Judas' is used to refer to those who 'betrayed' those occupying the land-their neighbours-by providing information and allying with the conquering group.
Los Altos campesinos, having abandoned their homes, were approached by new occupants who sought to purchase their land titles.Offers ranged between 3 and 8 million Colombian pesos (1,000-3,000 euros) for each parcel, which ranged between 22 to 30 hectares, as shared in the workshops: R1: A man came here to buy the land from us.But we told him that we wouldn't sell it because we loved that land [. ..]The third time he came, he told us that they were going to take over the plot.He offered us 8 million pesos.We accepted because of what else we were going to do.R5: There were people who sought me out to sell the title when the paramilitaries were strong.I consulted with a brother-in-law who is a lawyer, and he told me to sell it because I had the titles. 105demobilised middle-level paramilitary commander in Cesar revealed that the selective killing of leaders and the displacement of communities aimed to facilitate land acquisition by other campesinos at very low prices, 106 a process known as land dispossession: the coercive and planned transfer of land from one individual to another. 107Emiliano, a member of Los Altos, echoed this event: They were able to buy one hectare for 150,000 pesos (€30), but the real value was much higher.They paid below the true price. 108 La Palma, the paramilitaries arrived in 1997.They threatened the community council leaders and told residents to leave their homes.Seventeen of the forty-two families left their land within the year.Twenty-five families stayed put and invited relatives to occupy the abandoned plots to continue with the process of acquiring land ownership.In 2001, the paramilitaries returned.In the memory workshop, La Palma campesinos recounted the events: R2: At that time there was a man interested in the land, he wanted the land to be sold to him.His nickname was 'El Navegante'.He contacted the paramilitaries.He worked in crop spraying.He was the bridge.R5: He wanted the land.Now we realize that there is coal under the ground.R7: The neighbour knew well who the leaders of the council were.That is where the information for the paramilitaries and the threats came from. 109e land occupied by Vista Hermosa campesinos in 1994 was later occupied by the neighbouring large landowner during the paramilitary challenge.Combatants killed community council members and campesinos settled in different localities in Cesar and other regions. 110Paramilitaries employed different methods for the dispossession of displaced communities' land, including notary transactions that legalized the land transaction titles at very low prices, as seen in Los Altos.Other tactics included appropriating land grants from the INCORA, and the disappearance and falsification of land documents. 111In a judicial statement, a campesino highlighted: Those (the paramilitaries) came and took me away.I left the land behind and had to sell it.As the INCORA authorized us to sell it.I left the land and had no money, I had nothing because I left everything.Ramiro told me that he was buying it.I asked him for 7 million (2,000 euros) and he told me that 7 million was not possible.The man gave me only 2 million (600 euros), a bottle of rum and a pack of cigarettes. 112essure by paramilitaries forced campesinos not only to flee their homes but also to sell their land.An estimate indicates that between 1996 and 2003, paramilitaries dispossessed more than 540 campesino families over 180 km 2 in Cesar. 113Some areas were occupied by new settlers and large portions of land were purchased by multinational coal companies. 114n 2006, 600 paramilitary combatants were demobilised in Cesar under a government deal.Campesinos of the study areas attempted to return to their land, many found new occupants.In 2011, the Victims and Land Restitution Law (Ley 1448) aimed to restore land to dispossessed campesinos.From 2011 to 2023, the Restitution Unit received more than 162,000 restitution requests at the national level.Cesar ranks fifth in restitution requests, with more than 9.000 cases. 115The cases examined in this article have become a focal point for legal disputes among campesinos who occupied the land during various timeframes and embedded in alliances with different armed groups.These disputes revolve around questions of land ownership and have emerged as a central source of community conflicts in the postagreement era.

Conclusion
The term alliance, as a concept for understanding one of the forms of the civilian-combatant relationship, has been used by conflict scholars and campesinos describing their experiences: 'Our neighbours allied themselves with the paramilitaries', said a campesina during a memory workshop.This article contributed theoretically and conceptually to the understanding of alliances as the core concept that defines agreements between autonomous communities and armed groups for the exchange of material and strategic benefits.
I developed a descriptive typology of alliances based on cooperation level (low or high) and duration (short or long), resulting in three types of alliances: engagement (high cooperation, long duration), opportunism (high cooperation, short duration), and concession (low cooperation, long duration).Furthermore, I presented a theoretical framework explaining alliance variation arguing that community position (status quo or revisionist) and territorial control (or contested) shape alliance forms, influencing the levels of cooperation and duration.The empirically informed theory contributes to our understanding of community-combatant relationships and the interactions among civilians in war zones.In the Cesar Department of Colombia, cases revealed that wartime alliances between communities and armed groups caused changes in land tenure and population, leading to post-conflict conflicts among civilians.
Understanding alliances can inform agrarian policies that could alleviate civilian conflicts.The current policy on land restitution for the victims of the Colombian civil war focuses on the legal character of the land and whether campesinos have the right to reclaim land or to maintain plots acquired during wartime.However, the policy ignores the relationships between civilians and combatants and the alliances established to change or maintain civilian positions regarding land tenure.A broader understanding of how land tenure changes could alleviate rather than aggravate the disputes among civilians.Integrating alliances as a factor in research and policymaking could foster stability and promote a fairer land redistribution among historically marginalised groups who have struggled to obtain it.

Figure 6 .
Figure 6.Map of the Cesar Department, Colombia.