Being a real displaced person: Naturalization of the condition of victim through legal post-conflict intervention in Colombia

After almost fifteen years of the development of reparation policies carried out by the State (as well as the continuous work of some NGO and other institutions), the displaced population of Nueva Venecia (Magdalena-Colombia) has not overcome but rather naturalized the condition of forced displacement. This has happened, paradoxically, to the extent they have been the target of legal instruments theoretically designed for facing such a condition. This paper discusses how these legal instruments have been settled as an expert system (using the concept of Anthony Giddens), which have come to define when a person is a real victim, not due to his past traumatic experiences but because of successfully going through the process of registration and permanence within the system itself. The strengthening of post-conflictinterventions through these expert systems, is the heart of a mutual stillness of victims and institutions. For the victims, because from this position they obtain some basic attention with which, for better or worse, they manage to get by; and for the State and institutions, because they do not have to worry about providing anything else but those minimal basics.