Intimate polarisation: Political divisions within everyday family relationships in Colombia

Political polarisation became a dominant concern in Colombia following the 2016 referendum in which a peace accord signed with the FARC guerrillas was rejected, and subsequent electoral processes in which the referendum identity divides were recycled and evolved. This article explores lived experiences of political divisions within intimate relationships in Colombia, and proposes an anthropological approach to complement the political science-dominated field of polarisation studies. It uses ethnographic storytelling to reveal how political divisions are enmeshed in myriad intersecting divides, including class, race, experiences of armed conflict and interpersonal histories, and draws on the anthropology of politics, ethnographies of the Colombian conflict and feminist scholarship to propose the concept of ‘intimate polarisation’: a political division felt, perceived or otherwise experienced within intimate, everyday relationships. This approach complicates the binary and normative assumptions inherent in the concept of ‘polarisation’ and invites a rethinking of the category and its political effects.