Gender, mental health and resilience in armed conflict: Listening to Life stories of internally displaced women in Colombia

Abstract

For over 60 years, Colombia has endured violent civil conflict forcibly displacing more than 7 million people. Recent efforts have begun to explore mental health consequences of these contexts, with an emphasis on national surveys. To date few Colombian studies explore mental health and wellbeing from a lived experience perspective. Those that do, overlook processes that enable survival. In response to this gap, we conducted a life history study of seven internally displaced Colombian women in the Cundinamarca department, analysing 18 interview sessions and 36 hours of transcripts. A thematic network analysis informed by Latin-American perspectives on gender and frameworks on resilience from the global south, explored women’s coping strategies in response to conflict driven hardships related to mental wellbeing. Analysis illuminated that: 1) the gendered impacts of the armed conflict on women´s emotional wellbeing works through exacerbating historical gendered violence and inequality, often intensifying existing emotional health challenges, and 2) coping strategies reflect women's ability to mobilise cognitive, bodied, social, material, and symbolic power. Our findings highlight that the socio-political contexts of women’s lives are inseparable from efforts to achieve mental wellbeing, and the value of deep narrative and historical work to capturing the complexity of women’s experiences within conflict settings. We suggest the importance of social interventions to supporting the mental health of women in conflict settings, to centre the social and political contexts faced by marginalised groups within efforts to improve mental health.

Ethical spaces in imperfect global health collaborations. A commentary on Keynejad’s research, education and capacity building initiative to address gender-based violence in the Global South

“…Gender-Based Violence (GBV) is one way in which violence manifests itself in the everyday. It is considered a clear marker of deep-rooted gender inequality and discrimination, with women everywhere facing high risks of sexual abuse and Intimate Partner Violence in their lifetime [3]. It is recognised to be an important determinant of health, and various United Nation bodies are calling to prioritise its prevention, and to address its physical and mental health impacts.…”