Donny Meertens
Donny Meertens | |
---|---|
Born | Donalda Jeanine Meertens 1946 (age 77–78) Rotterdam, Netherlands |
Occupation(s) | Academic, policy and development advisor |
Years active | 1979–present |
Donalda Jeanine "Donny" Meertens (born 1946) is a Dutch academic, Colombian policy and development advisor, and a co-founder of the Programa de Estudios de Género, Mujer y Desarrollo (Gender, Women and Development Studies Program) at the National University of Colombia. Educated in the Netherlands, Meertens studied land rights in Colombia becoming interested in how the exploitation of rural peasants increased violence in the country. She moved to Colombia to assist with development programs in the early 1990s and has held a number of posts with United Nations agencies. She also served as the research coordinator for the Comisión Nacional de Reparación y Reconciliación (National Commission for Reparation and Reconciliation). She has worked as a professor at the National University of Colombia and the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. Her work has centered on rural displacement, gender inequalities, and the links between violence and the land.
Early life and education
Donalda Jeanine Meertens was born in 1946 in Rotterdam, Netherlands,[1] to Adriana Alberdina (née Philippus) and Jan Meertens.[2][3] Meertens graduated with a master's degree in social anthropology from the University of Amsterdam. She went on to secure a PhD from the Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen.[4] Her thesis Tierra, violencia y género: hombres y mujeres en la historia rural de Colombia 1930–1990 (Land, Violence and Gender: Men and Women in the Rural History of Colombia 1930–1990) prepared under the advisors Gerrit J. Huizer and Gerrit A. de Bruijne, was published in 1997.[1] The work evaluated how violence began to surge during the 1930s because of the exploitation of tenant farmers who owed labor services in a type of feudalistic peasant system to landowners.[5] Examining policies through the 1960s, the work noted that violence continued to escalate because of the resistance of land owners and a combination of rural banditry and repressive government policies which used violence to suppress unrest.[6] In the third period, Meertens analysis showed that the introduction of reforms and a press toward capitalism from the 1970s, led to a rise in drug trafficking and the development of paramilitary organizations to provide defense to those engaged in the drug trade.[7]
Career
Working at the Center for Study and Documentation of Latin America at the University of Amsterdam, Meertens publishing about land rights and reform in Colombia in 1979.[8] Her study analyzed whether the land reforms and creation of the Asociación Nacional de Usuarios Campesinos (ANUC, National Peasant Association) were effective in improving the living conditions of the poorest rural workers in Colombia.[8] From 1967, when the ANUC was created, the government's goal was to eliminate social unrest caused by the unequal distribution of land, lax regulations governing land ownership and rural poverty.[9][10] She concluded that the partial reforms did not meet the aims intended.[8] Throughout the 1980s, Meertens continued to evaluate violence in Colombia, including studies of the impact of drug trafficking on the social and economic structures of the country.[11] Her influential study with Gonzalo Sánchez, Bandoleros, gamonales y campesinos: el caso de 'la violencia' en Colombia (Bandits, Peasants, and Politics: The Case of 'La Violencia' in Colombia, 1982), examined the rise of rural bandits who were able to usurp the authority of national politicians, become leaders and spokespersons for grievances of the rural population, and control the local economy.[12] By the late 1980s, she began to include gender in her works, analyzing the ways that working and living conditions impact women and spaces.[13]
In the early 1990s,[14] Meertens began working with various agencies on development projects in Colombia. Simultaneously, she worked as an independent researcher and a lecturer at the National University of Colombia.[15] In 1994, she became one of the founders of the women's studies program, Programa de Estudios de Género, Mujer y Desarrollo (PGMD, Gender, Women and Development Studies Program) at the university, along with Juanita Barreto Gama, Guiomar Dueñas Vargas, Florence Thomas, Magdalena León Gómez, María Martínez, Yolanda Puyana Villamizar , María Himelda Ramírez and Ana Rico de Alonso, and Florence Thomas.[15][16] In addition to teaching, she continued with her work in policy and development, serving from 1997 as the Colombian Gender Adviser for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees,[4][17] from 2008 as program officer for the United Nations Development Fund for Women,[4][18] and from 2009 as a research coordinator for the Comisión Nacional de Reparación y Reconciliación (National Commission for Reparation and Reconciliation).[4][14][19] In 2013, she was awarded a fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. That year, she also became am associate professor of political science at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, and a researcher at that university's Alfredo Vázquez Carrizosa Institute of Human Rights and Peacebuilding.[20][21]
Many of Meertens' works focus on the experiences of women who live in areas of conflict.[20] Political scientist, Jenny Pearce, noted that Meertens' work was pioneering in that it not only evaluated how Colombian women lived through and experienced the country's violence, but also because she was one of the first scholars to assess peasant women, a typically under-studied group.[22] Looking at war crimes, Meertens evaluated how displacement from their land impacted married and single mothers, women in informal partnerships, and widows, noting that they often moved multiple times and experienced prolonged periods of a lack of safety. Because of customs which assumed women could not hold land titles and inheritance which favored a birth family over a spouse, reclaiming their land, particularly if their partner had not had a paper title, presented complex obstacles. She went beyond examining experiences and proposed restitution, to evaluating how effective reparations were and whether their implementation transformed systemic biases in later policy proposals.[23] Her ongoing research questions whether land restitution will lead to an increase in socio-economic and political sustainability and stability.[20][24]
Selected works
- Meertens, Donny (1979). Jonkers en boeren: de strijd om het land in Colombia: drie essays over agrarische ontwikkeling, produktiewijzen en boerenstrijd [Land Owners and Farmers: The Battle for the Land in Colombia: Three Essays on Agricultural Development, Modes of Production and Farming Struggle] (in Dutch). Amsterdam, Netherlands: Centrum voor Studie en Documentatie van Latijns-Amerika. ISBN 978-90-70280-22-2.[8]
- Meertens, Donny (1997). Tierra, violencia y género: hombres y mujeres en la historia rural de Colombia 1930-1990 [Land, Violence and Gender: Men and Women in the Rural History of Colombia 1930–1990] (PDF) (PhD) (in Spanish). Nijmegen, Netherlands: Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen, Derde Wereld Centrum Ontwikkelingsstudies. ISBN 978-90-72639-69-1. Archived (PDF) from the original on 28 March 2023.
- Sánchez G., Gonzalo; Meertens, Donny (2001). Bandits, Peasants, and Politics: The Case of "La Violencia" in Colombia. Translated by Hynds, Alan (1st English ed.). Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-77758-3.[4][12]
- Meertens, Donny (April 2010). "Forced Displacement and Women's Security in Colombia". Disasters. 34 (2). Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell: 147–164. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7717.2010.01151.x. ISSN 0361-3666. OCLC 613406049. PMID 20132270.[4]
- Meertens, Donny; Zambrano, Margarita (July 2010). "Citizenship Deferred: The Politics of Victimhood, Land Restitution and Gender Justice in the Colombian (Post?) Conflict". International Journal of Transitional Justice. 4 (2). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press: 189–206. doi:10.1093/ijtj/ijq009. ISSN 1752-7716. OCLC 681648835.[4]
- Meertens, Donny (2019). Elusive Justice: Women, Land Rights, and Colombia's Transition to Peace. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-299-32560-2.
References
Citations
- ^ a b Meertens 1997, p. unnumbered (pdf 6).
- ^ Het Parool 1968, p. 14.
- ^ Het Vrije Volk 1946, p. 7.
- ^ a b c d e f g Wilson Center 2014.
- ^ Kay 2003, p. 228.
- ^ Kay 2003, p. 229.
- ^ Kay 2003, p. 230.
- ^ a b c d de Volkskrant 1979, p. 35.
- ^ Zamosc 1986, p. 3.
- ^ Albertus & Kaplan 2013, pp. 199, 203–204.
- ^ Engbers 1989, p. 2.
- ^ a b Sanders 2002, pp. 390–391.
- ^ Trouw 1987, p. 6.
- ^ a b Acuña 2012.
- ^ a b Barrig & Wehkamp 1994, p. 164.
- ^ Arango Gaviria 2018, p. 17.
- ^ Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children 1999, p. 22.
- ^ Women's Watch 2007, p. 1.
- ^ Quiroz 2010.
- ^ University of Wisconsin Press 2019.
- ^ Pearce 2021, pp. 890–891.
- ^ Pearce 2021, p. 891.
- ^ Oldenburg 2020, p. 2.
Bibliography
- Acuña, Mari (24 August 2012). "'Memorias en clave femenina': Donny Meertens" ['Memories in a Feminine Key': Donny Meertens]. El Espectador (in Spanish). Bogotá, Colombia. Archived from the original on 14 April 2023. Retrieved 14 April 2023.
- Albertus, Michael; Kaplan, Oliver (April 2013). "Land Reform as a Counterinsurgency Policy: Evidence from Colombia". Journal of Conflict Resolution. 57 (2). Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publishing: 198–231. doi:10.1177/0022002712446130. ISSN 0022-0027. JSTOR 23415226. OCLC 7021643211. S2CID 158599996. Retrieved 13 April 2023.
- Arango Gaviria, Luz Gabriela (2018). "Un proyecto académico feminista en mutación: la Escuela de Estudios de Género de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia [A Feminist Academic Project in Mutation: The School of Gender Studies of the National University of Colombia]". In Gil Hernández, Franklin; Pérez-Bustos, Tania (eds.). Feminismos y estudios de género en Colombia: un campo académico y político en movimiento [Feminisms and Gender Studies in Colombia: An Academic Field and Political Movement] (PDF) (in Spanish) (Primeraición ed.). Bogotá, Colombia: National University of Colombia Press. pp. 17–38. ISBN 978-958-783-334-8.
- Barrig, Maruja; Wehkamp, Andy (1994). Engendering Development: Experiences in Gender and Development Planning. The Hague, Netherlands: NOVIB. p. 164. OCLC 474774935.
Donny Meertens graduated in anthropology at the University of Amsterdam, Holland. She has worked in Colombia as an independent researcher and to development projects ... At present, she is preparing the Post-graduate Studies Program on Gender, Woman and Development, at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
- Engbers, Alex (30 November 1989). "Hoger Onderwijs: Drugs en geweld in Colombia" [Higher Education: Drugs and Violence in Colombia]. Het Parool (in Dutch). Amsterdam, Netherlands. p. 2. Retrieved 14 April 2023 – via Delpher.
- Kay, Cristóbal (July–December 2003). "Estructura agraria y violencia rural en América Latina". Sociologias (in Spanish). 5 (10). Porto Alegre, Brazil: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul: 220–248. doi:10.1590/S1517-45222003000200008. ISSN 1517-4522. Archived from the original on 17 June 2022. Retrieved 15 April 2023.
- Navarrete, Steven (8 June 2016). "'El conflicto armado exacerba el machismo': Donny Meertens" ['Armed conflict exacerbates machismo': Donny Meertens]. El Espectador (in Spanish). Bogotá, Colombia. Archived from the original on 26 March 2022. Retrieved 15 April 2023.
- Oldenburg, Silke (January–June 2020). "Book Review – 'Elusive Justice. Women, Land Rights, and Colombia's Transition to Peace, by Donny Meertens, The University of Wisconsin Press, 2019". European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies (109). Amsterdam, Netherlands: Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation. doi:10.32992/erlacs.10657. ISSN 0924-0608. JSTOR 26936916. S2CID 219453707. Retrieved 15 April 2023.
- Pearce, Jenny (October 2021). "Review: 'Elusive Justice, Women, Land Rights, and Colombia's Transition to Peace'. Edited by Donny Meertens, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 2019. pp. 224. $79.95 (hb). ISBN 978029932560". Journal of Agrarian Change. 21 (4). New York, New York: Wiley: 890–893. doi:10.1111/joac.12397. ISSN 1471-0358. OCLC 9270584332. S2CID 225154565. EBSCOhost 152442941.
- Quiroz, Edith (23 November 2010). "Predominan varias formas de despojo de las tierras" [Various Forms of Land Dispossession Predominate]. El Universal (in Spanish). Cartagena, Colombia. Archived from the original on 12 April 2023. Retrieved 15 April 2023.
- Sanders, James E. (May 2002). "Bandits, Peasants, and Politics: The Case of "La Violencia" in Colombia (review)". The Hispanic American Historical Review. 82 (2). Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press: 390–391. doi:10.1215/00182168-82-2-390. ISSN 0018-2168. OCLC 703527153. S2CID 144711723. Retrieved 15 April 2023. – via Project MUSE (subscription required)
- Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children (May 1999). La Farsa de la Preocupacion: El Abandono de la Poblacion Desplazada por la Violencia en Colombia [The Farce of Concern: The Abandonment of the Population Displaced by Violence in Colombia] (PDF) (Report) (in Spanish). Translated by Vinuesa, José Luis. New York, New York: Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children. Archived (PDF) from the original on 14 April 2023. Retrieved 14 April 2023.
- Zamosc, Léon (1986). The Agrarian Question and the Peasant Movement in Colombia: Struggles of the National Peasant Association, 1967–1981. Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-32010-8.
- 2008 - 2009 UN System-Wide Action Plan on Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) on Women, Peace and Security (PDF) (Report). New York, New York: Women's Watch, UNIFEM. 2007. Archived (PDF) from the original on 19 January 2022. Retrieved 14 April 2023.
- "Colombia". de Volkskrant (in Dutch). Amsterdam, Netherlands. 20 October 1979. p. 35. Retrieved 13 April 2023 – via Delpher.
- "Donny Meertens". Wilson Center. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. 2014. Archived from the original on 1 October 2022. Retrieved 13 April 2023.
- "Elusive Justice". University of Wisconsin Press. Madison, Wisconsin. Fall 2019. Archived from the original on 23 March 2021. Retrieved 15 April 2023.</ref>
- "Familieberichten" [Family Notices]. Het Parool (in Dutch). Rotterdam, Netherlands. 30 September 1946. p. 7. Retrieved 12 April 2023 – via Delpher.
- "Familieberichten" [Family Notices]. Het Parool (in Dutch). Amsterdam, Netherlands. 16 December 1968. p. 14. Retrieved 12 April 2023 – via Delpher.
- "Krot zelf bouwen: Vrouwen maken volkswijken derde wereld leefbaar" [Build It Yourself: Women Make Third World Neighborhoods Livable]. Trouw (in Dutch). Amsterdam, Netherlands. 1 December 1987. p. 6. Retrieved 14 April 2023 – via Delpher.
- 1946 births
- Living people
- People from Rotterdam
- University of Amsterdam alumni
- Radboud University Nijmegen alumni
- Academic staff of the University of Amsterdam
- Academic staff of the National University of Colombia
- Pontifical Xavierian University people
- Colombian anthropologists
- Dutch anthropologists
- Women's studies academics
- 20th-century Colombian women writers
- 21st-century Colombian women writers