Public Emotions and Variations of Violence: Evidence from Colombia

In 2010 Colombia experienced an unexpected surge in acid attacks against women, and from 2010-2014, it had more acid attacks per capita than any other country in the world. No other form of violent crime in the country demonstrated such a spike. What explains this unusual variation in violence? I argue that this unique pattern of violence was made sensible by the 2005-2011 nation-building campaign Colombia is Passion that redefined the enduring violence plaguing the country as men’s misunderstood passion for beautiful women. By valorizing violence toward women and making women’s membership in the nation contingent upon their beauty, the campaign created an affective economy under which acid attacks became both intelligible and effective in producing social death and national ostracization. This paper presents a unique dataset of violence against women in Colombia and an interpretive analysis of the evolution of Colombian national identity that identifies the mechanisms by which nation-branding efforts led to changes in public sentiment and made new forms of violence against women sensible. This paper denaturalizes violence against women and suggests that political scientists might do more to explain important variations of violence outside of armed conflict. Finally, this study demonstrates the explanatory power of interpretive studies of political culture, national identity, and public emotion in structuring the meaning and patterns of violence.