Constructed Geographies and Contested Spaces: Violence, Culture and Memory in Peru’s Internal Conflict (and its afterlife) (LASA 2017) (original) (raw)

The Informe Final of Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, published in 2003, highlights a distinct geographical dimension to the violence, and established the idea that internal geographical distances in Peru amount to vast cultural divides, with the result many Peruvians remained ignorant for many years, perhaps wilfully so, of the violence perpetrated against their compatriots. Thus, in the Truth Commission’s interpretation of the conflict, Peru’s uneven socioeconomic geography is not only something which conditions vulnerability to violence, but also a factor which demonstrates the fragility of the Peruvian nation. Yet whilst the CVR’s report represents a pivotal moment in Peru’s truth and reconciliation process, and has been an invaluable source for a wealth of studies on the internal conflict, this geographical dimension to the violence, and the forms of constructed or imagined geography which the CVR highlights, remain understudied. In part, my PhD project seeks to rectify this by applying a spatial analysis to this violent period of Peru’s history.

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