The article concerns the wartime history of Peru and examines both topdown and bottom-up practices of accounting for the internal conflict of 1980–2000, which were initiated in the background of the warfare. The aim of the article is to discuss the connections I observed between the phenomena referred to in the title: return migrations of the inhabitants of the central-southern province, their search for the victims of forced disappearances, as well as the exhumation challenges emerging since the beginning of the war. In other words, the text constitutes an attempt to contextualise the above-mentioned issues given competing versions of memory about political violence in the Andes, with particular focus on their top-down determinants in the Fujimorism era.
MICRO CONTEXTS OF VIOLENCE IN THE CIVIL WAR: ON THE ARMED CONFLICT, LOCAL ANTAGONISMS AND PEASANT FORCES IN PERU
The article discusses the mechanisms of the Peruvian internal conflict development (1980‑2000), with particular emphasis on the beginning of military operations in the central‑southern province and the circumstances of the peasants’ involvement. In the text, I decolonize the image of comuneros as passive victims of political violence. I assume that they were generally involved in the armed conflict but they responded primarily not to the macro‑ but the micro‑conditions of the processes of violence (i.e. inter‑ and intra‑village antagonisms instead of the political competition of the irregular forces with the state that arose outside their community). The article looks, therefore, at the mechanisms of the Peruvian conflict before the beginning of village self‑defense forces and identifies the sources of civilian terror in the province as well as its impact on the further course of the war. The text is based on the existing sources describing the participation of the peasants in the struggles, confronted with the results of my fieldwork in Peru in 2005‑2010 and their update from 2015‑2019.
El tema del artículo es la investigación de Ponciano del Pino sobre las actitudes de la población andina en el conflicto armado peruano de 1980-2000, con particular énfasis en la perspectiva utilizada por el investigador en el estudio de caso titulado "En nombre del gobierno". El objetivo del texto es mostrar el influjo que pueda ejercer el interés de P. del Pino por los microcontextos de guerra, en forma de rivalidades inter e intraaldeanas, sobre los logros alcanzados en la investigación acerca del terror en los Andes y, por ende, el tratamiento de los actos de la violencia política como resultado de procesos históricos. En el artículo asumo que el método de reconstrucción de los hechos bélicos utilizado por el investigador permite conocer uno de los mecanismos más tabuizados del conflicto peruano, es decir, el terror de los civiles contra los civiles.
Artykuł jest próbą zmierzenia się z wybranymi wyzwaniami towarzyszącymi pracy badawczej na styku antropologii i nauk politycznych. Zaprezentowane refleksje powstały na podstawie doświadczeń z badań terenowych prowadzonych w latach 2005–2019 w Andach Peruwiańskich i, od 2022 roku, w Kolumbii. Zasadniczą część tekstu stanowi przegląd ewolucji moich wyobrażeń na temat podejmowanych problemów badawczych przed i po ich skonfrontowaniu z wiedzą terenową, czyli usytuowaniu w kontekstach życia z badanymi. W zakończeniu podejmuję próbę odpowiedzi na pytanie, na czym może polegać i do czego prowadzić poszukiwanie porozumienia między reprezentowanymi w tekście dyscyplinami.
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