Publications

(2019) McFee, Erin K. and Angelika Rettberg (eds.). Excombatants and the Peace Accord with the FARC-EP in Colombia: Balance of the Early Phase. (Spanish) UniAndes Social Sciences: Bogotá, Colombia. 

Co-authored chapters within the volume include the following:

McFee, Erin K. and Angelika Rettberg “Introduction: Context of early implementation challenges in Colombia,” (Spanish)

McFee, Erin K, Johnson, Kyle, and Mateo Adarve. “Learning to be in a post-accord Colombia: Intergroup relations among the ex-guerrillas of the FARC, the UN, and the communities,” (Spanish) 

• This volume is an interdisciplinary investigation into the early phase (2016-2017) of implementation of the reintegration component of the Colombia Peace Accord. It draws from the humanities, and social, political, and organizational sciences in order to provide a robust empirical contribution to reintegration policy makers both in Colombia and worldwide. It also presents novel theory useful for scholars of peace and conflict, demobilization, disarmament, and reintegration (DDR), development, international, group, and area studies. Preview available for download here.

(2016) “The Contested Promise of Peace: Social Representations of Peace and the Posacuerdo Citizen-Subject in Colombia,” Psychology & Society, 8(2), 8-26.

• This paper draws on social representations theory and fieldwork conducted during the Colombian Peace Process in Caquetá, Colombia (2014-2015) to argue that competing discourses on the significance of "peace" for the country are a key site of contestation for setting the terms of the "post-accord" citizen-subject.

(2016). The Double Bind of “Playing Double”: Passing and Identity among Ex-Combatants in Colombia. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 22(1), 52-59.

• This work analyzes field work conducted through the Colombian state agency for reintegration (of former combatants from illegal armed groups) together with Goffman's theories of passing and stigma to illuminate the double bind experienced by those transitioning out of these groups and into to civilian life in Barranquilla and Cúcuta, Colombia. They must ¨play double,¨at once performing an idealized type of ex'combatant in order to obtain state services and hiding their identities as such in their everyday interactions in order to avoid the damaging and potentially harmful effects of social stigma. 

(2012) Kim, T., McFee, E., Olguin, D., Waber, B., and Petland, A, “Sociometric Badges: Using Sensor Technology to Keep Pace with New Forms of Collaboration.” Journal of Organizational Behavior, Winter Special Issue, 33(3), 412-427.

• In this paper, the authors introduce a technologically-mediated methodological innovation in the area of groups and teams studies. Sociometric badges capture novel data: accurate fine-scale speech patterns and body movements among groups of individuals. Such an approach complements existing data collection methods and better enables researchers to study the changing ecology of team structures and new modes of collaboration.

(2011) Warren, B., Sampson, S., and McFee, E., “Business Schools: Ethics, Assurance of Learning and the Future.” Organization Management Journal, Spring, Volume 8(1), 41-58.

• This paper draws from semi-structured interviews with Deans, Associate/Assistant Deans, Directors and faculty from 70 different business schools on their pedagogical approaches to teaching ethics and assessing learning in this domain. It uses frequency, cross tabs, and chi-square analysis and advances findings in terms of ethics curriculum content and assessment of learning practices in the sample.

(2021) McFee, Erin K., and Cecilia Dedios Sanguineti. 2021. ‘Masculinity and Moral Sonhood among Former Non-State Armed Group (NSAG) Members in Mexico and Colombia’. In Public Health, Mental Health, and Mass Atrocity Prevention, eds. Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum, Caitlin O. Mahoney, Amy E. Meade, and Arlan F. Fuller. Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 157–76.

• This chapter presents the results from fieldwork conducted among community members of a cartel-controlled community in Sinaloa, Mexico in 2019 and builds on prior field experience in Colombia.  Public, private, and third-sector actors posit a “lack of values” and “dysfunctional families” as the root cause for men’s involvement in non-state armed groups (NSAGs) in these contexts.  Leveraging an abductive study design, we took these emic claims seriously and investigated gendered understandings of family roles among former members of NSAGs and their family members, as well as explored the relationship of these understandings to decisions to participate in these groups.  This work develops the concept of moral sonhood to nuance our understandings of alternative drivers for young men's participation in organized violence.

(2010) Gardner, H.K. and E. McFee. “Utilizing Team Member Expertise under Pressure,” in Black, L. W. (Ed.). Group communication: Cases for analysis, appreciation, and application: 143-148. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing.

• This book chapter presents novel findings from research conducted among knowledge worker teams in professional service firms. It examines the role of performance pressure in mediating the relationship between team task characteristics, team design, and team processes and the extent to which members effectively use one another's expertise. We provide a theoretical framework and set of recommended practices for supporting teams are best able to take full advantage of member diversity along a variety of axes.

(2020) "Introduction to Bureaucracy, Justice, and the State in a Post-Accord Colombia." In Erin K. McFee & Jennifer Curtis (Eds.) Emergent Conversations: Bureaucracy, Justice and the State in a Post-Accord Colombia. Political and Legal Anthropology Review. 

(2020) "'Making a Presence': Reconciliation and the State in Colombia." In Erin K. McFee & Jennifer Curtis (Eds.) Emergent Conversations: Bureaucracy, Justice and the State in a Post-Accord Colombia. Political and Legal Anthropology Review. 

• This essay collection commemorates the Fourth Anniversary of the signing of the Havana Peace Accord, which formally ended more than a half century of internal armed conflict in Colombia. In this collection, the authors reflect on the politics of implementing that accord and the many entanglements of implicated actors. My essay focuses on state discourses of "making a presence" as a part of contributing to reconciliation during this protracted time of transition. I examine what these discourses do and do not accomplish and argue for a more accommodating approach to thinking about state presence and absence that allows for the multiple, competing, and often convoluted ways in which these ideas and practices manifest.