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The Politics of Victimhood in Post-conflict Societies pp 133–158Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

The Politics of Victimhood at the Grassroots Level: Inclusion and Exclusion Among Peruvian Victim Organisations

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Abstract

Literature on transitional justice and victimology show an interest in how courts and laws define victimhood and how such definitions shape victim participation, with hierarchies of suffering as the result. In this chapter, I move beyond the legalistic perspective on the politics of victimhood. I question how organised victims construct victimhood for political and social purposes. I demonstrate that organised victims in Peru constructed a sense of similarity and difference by means of a categorical repertoire based on single victim categories, and by means of an organisational repertoire based on generational issues. I conclude that the inclusion of relationships between social organisations as integrated elements into transitional justice research is important for enhancing the understanding of the successes of civil society and transitional justice mechanisms.

The research for this article has been supported by the Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation (CEDLA) and Social and Cultural Anthropology, the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. I express my gratitude to the many Peruvians who shared their time, experiences and opinions with me, and to the members of Reflexíon, National Association of Family members of Detained and Disappeared persons in Emergency Zones (ANFASEP) and Regional Association of Displaced of Central Peru (ARDCP). I thank Vicky Rojas and Miguel Amaya for their research assistance. I would also like to thank Isabel Coral and Jairo Rivas for their time to explain to me during different occasions the past and present legal norms and political decisions related to the victims of the political violence.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I use pseudonyms throughout this chapter to protect the anonymity of my informants.

  2. 2.

    Multi-sited ethnographic field research (Marcus 1995) has been conducted to include Peru’s social, geographic, economic and political differences in the study. Data were gathered by means of observations and in-depth, semi-structured interviews over a span of 20 months in Peru, between 2008 and 2014. At all three sites, I participated on a daily basis in a wide variety of activities attended by members (e.g., internal meetings of their own members or external meetings between members of their boards and employees of NGOs or governmental entities, public demonstrations, commemorative ceremonies and festive activities). Two types of informants were interviewed: 61 members of the three associations, and 35 non-victims, namely employees of NGOs and governmental organisations that belonged to the network of the associations. Data were analysed with the use of a qualitative data analysis software tool.

  3. 3.

    Exceptions are McEvoy and Lorna McGregor (2008), Strassner (2013), Rombouts (2002).

  4. 4.

    National Association of Family members of Detained and Disappeared persons in Emergency Zones.

  5. 5.

    Regional Association of Displaced of Central Peru.

  6. 6.

    Association Reflection of Liberated Innocents.

  7. 7.

    http://elcomercio.pe/politica/gobierno/promulgan-ley-busqueda-desaparecidos-periodo-1980-2000-noticia-1911195 (accessed 10/07/2017).

  8. 8.

    Apoyo Rural or Educational Services, Promotion and Rural Support.

  9. 9.

    Center for Psychosocial Attention.

  10. 10.

    For instance, ANFASEP received the Salomón Lerner Febres award for Human Rights in 2005, and their founder, Mama Angélica, received the medal of the Ombudsman in 2012 for her efforts in defending human rights and promoting the determination of the fate of those missing and presumed dead.

  11. 11.

    See, for an extensive analysis of the founding and meaning of this museum, Milton and Ulfe (2011).

  12. 12.

    Law No 28223.

  13. 13.

    Decree No 051-2011-PCM.

  14. 14.

    Law No 28592.

  15. 15.

    Law No 30470.

  16. 16.

    Until 2009, Peru was classified as a lower-middle-income country. The status is based on the GDP income per capita, and does not account for inequality in income distribution.

  17. 17.

    International Council of Voluntary Agencies.

  18. 18.

    National Federation of Victim Organisations of Violence of Peru.

  19. 19.

    Reflexión has not integrated a newer generation yet, such as children of Reflexión members. Perhaps this will also never happen, as their children have not been unjustly detained themselves. Still, this does not mean that they did not suffer from what happened to their parents and maybe they also want public acknowledgement for what happened to their parents.

  20. 20.

    Association of Young Orphans of Sociopolitical Violence.

  21. 21.

    03/01/2010 (Ayacucho).

  22. 22.

    01/28/2010 (Ayacucho).

  23. 23.

    Wallerstein demonstrated that concerted organisation among mobilised people belonging to different legal or social categories has been problematic ever since the nineteenth century (2003).

  24. 24.

    Thus, this is another division than the one Sajjad (2016) encountered in her research, as victims in Nepal included and excluded others on the basis of being a victim of violence committed by the same type of perpetrator.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. INTERVICT (International Victimology Institute Tilburg), Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands

    Mijke de Waardt

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  1. Department of Social Sciences, Carlos III University, Getafe, Spain

    Vincent Druliolle

  2. School of International Relations, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, United Kingdom

    Roddy Brett

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de Waardt, M. (2018). The Politics of Victimhood at the Grassroots Level: Inclusion and Exclusion Among Peruvian Victim Organisations. In: Druliolle, V., Brett, R. (eds) The Politics of Victimhood in Post-conflict Societies. St Antony's Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70202-5_6

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