Beyond Reintegration: War Veteranship in Mozambique and El Salvador

Abstract

This article proposes the concept of ‘war veteranship’ to better understand war veterans’ positioning in and engagement with post‐war societies and state‐building processes. The study is based on ethnographic research with former insurgent movements, specifically the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO) in Mozambique and the Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN) in El Salvador. The concept of war veteranship allows for the exploration of trajectories of former combatants not necessarily, and certainly not exclusively, in terms of reintegration, but rather in relation to the manifold ways in which the status and connections associated with armed group participation may hold currency in the veterans’ lives, and particularly in relation to political processes. The article argues that war veteranship is best understood as a distinct type of post‐war citizenship. Integral to the political accommodations that shape post‐war societies, war veteranship involves the construction, negotiation and contestation of the societal status of different categories of war veterans. Drawing on the analyses of political struggles of war veterans in RENAMO and FMLN over two decades, this study's findings underscore the longue‐durée socio‐political relevance of war veteranship, extending above and beyond reintegration efforts.