The Colombian Civil War was marked by high levels of civilian victimisation, particularly inflicted by government-aligned paramilitaries against perceived guerrilla sympathisers in the name of counterinsurgency. It is in this landscape that the violent victimisation of LGBT populations produces a puzzle.

LGBT populations were not affiliated with a specific ideology, nor were they inherently tied to any specific cleavage of the conflict. Yet many, if not all, paramilitary groups specifically targeted them in a brutal manner. The ubiquity of their targeting proved to be unique in the broader landscape of civilian victimisation by paramilitaries. Thus, while the form of this violence varied, its occurrence did not. In such a contested landscape, why would paramilitaries expend time, energy, and resources to target a social minority with no clear ties to the conflict? Why did this violence vary in its characteristics? And why did it utilise so much brutality?

This paper presents a theory of wartime anti-LGBT violence through an exploration of Colombia paramilitary violence. To develop this theory, I conduct a comparative analysis of two paramilitary groups. In doing so, I explore the logics underlying wartime anti-LGBT violence and how they shape the repertoires through which this violence is enacted. Ultimately, I argue that variation in anti-LGBT violence resulted from divergent paramilitary social transformation efforts in the communities in which they embedded. In developing a theory of anti-LGBT violence during war, I contribute to existing efforts to document wartime social processes that exceed clear political objectives, reinforcing the importance of diverse perspectives in studies of contentious politics.

Biography:
Samuel Ritholtz is post-doctoral research fellow in politics at All Souls College. They are an associate researcher with the Department of Politics and International Relations as well as the Latin American Centre at the University of Oxford. They are co-author of The Way Out: Justice in the Queer Search for Refugee (University of California Press, 2026) and co-editor of Queer Conflict Research (Bristol University Press, 2024). Together with Jeffrey Checkel and Lisa Wedeen, they edit Qualitative and Multi-Method Research.

Please join either in person or online. For in-person attendees, the talk will be preceded by a light lunch at 12.15pm. Please email comms@sociology.ox.ac.uk with any questions.