Intimate Enemies. Kimberly Theidon
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Investigadora de los Sucesos de Uchuraccay, the authors begin by reviewing material on the history and ethnography of the Iquichanos, an ethnic group allegedly comprising the villages of Carhuahurán, Huaychao, Iquicha, and Uchuraccay, among others.17 As they summarize, “This history [of the ethnic group Iquichanos] is characterized by long periods of almost total isolation and by unseasonable warlike eruptions by these communities in the events of the region or the nation.”18 The belligerence of the Iquichanos forms a central component of the history presented, as does the notion of a violent “ethnic latency.” The Vargas Llosa commission’s report offered a “hierarchy of causes” (truths?) that revolved around two key explanatory factors: the primitiveness of the highlanders, who allegedly lived as they had since the time of the conquest, and the intrinsically violent nature of the “Indians.”19 In the widely circulated Informe, the commission suggests that one could not really blame the villagers—they were just doing what came naturally. The commission grounded its findings in the assertion that two irreconcilable worlds coexist in Peru: modern/civilized/coastal Peru, with Lima as its center, and the traditional/savage/archaic Peru, mapped onto the highland communities, particularly Ayacucho. Somehow, in a perverse twist on John Murra’s concept of pisos ecológicos (ecological niches), civilization had never found a way to scale up the steep mountain slopes of Peru’s interior.20
In a subsequent interview with the journal Caretas, Vargas Llosa elaborated on the notion of “the two Perus” consisting of “men who participate in the 20th century and men such as these villagers of Uchuraccay who live in the 19th century, or perhaps even the 18th. The enormous distance that exists between the two Perus is what lies behind this tragedy.” As such, these highland villages were akin to museum exhibits, frozen in time and placed outside history, resulting in an “Andean world that is so backwards and so violent.”21
As one might imagine, the ensuing debates were vociferous. In response to the endemic violence arguments, a more indigenista perspective was elaborated, particularly by academics on the political left. This view insisted upon the harmonious nature of the villagers and the peaceful quality of lo andino—a cultural essence that imbued the lives of the villagers and subsumed individuality to the greater good.22 From this perspective, if indeed the villagers had killed the journalists, certainly it was due to being engañados—tricked or duped—by the military.
In an insightful article regarding the Informe and the subsequent debates, Enrique Mayer notes, “the result was an anthropological text rather than a fact-finding report. Anthropological input into the Commission thus lent an aura of legitimate expertise concerning indigenous affairs.”23 However, although it produced an anthropological text in tone, the commission did so without utilizing the key components of anthropological methodologies—prolonged fieldwork and the embodied experiences of the people with whom we conduct our research.
Several years later, in the novel Adiós, Ayacucho, Julio Ortega provided a thinly veiled political commentary on these same events, suggesting that anthropology as a discipline was one of the fatalities in the aftermath of Uchuraccay.24 As he suggests, if all anthropologists can do is offer up a mirror in which the “primitive’s savagery” is reflected back to them, then it would be best to count anthropology among the dead at Uchuraccay.
These debates formed the backdrop for my early research. I decided to focus on the highlands of Huanta, the province of Ayacucho that encompasses Uchuraccay, Huaychao, and Carhuahurán.25 I was convinced the answers to my questions about violence and its legacies did not lie in the distant colonial past—violence “then” does not explain violence “now”—or in primordial ethnic latencies. I wanted to explore how villagers understand the political violence of the 1980s and 1990s, the decision to kill that arose within the context of the war, and the communal processes employed to reclaim those who had “fallen out of humanity” and came around pleading for a way back in.
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In a wonderful toss-away line, Luise White reminds us that history is different in different places.26 So true! Over the years I have followed ideas, people, hunches, rumors, and the occasional consulting gig throughout Ayacucho. This movement in both time and space generated an abiding appreciation for the irreducible complexities of postwar social worlds, as well as the importance of local specificity. If I wanted to understand what motivated the revolution, this meant including communities that had been militant Shining Path bases. My work with the PTRC made that possible.
In 2002 my research team and I began working with the communities of Accomarca, Cayara, Hualla, and Tiquihua, all located in central-southern Ayacucho, the region Shining Path considered its “Principal Committee.”27 Here the Shining Path cadres had begun their political work a decade before launching the armed phase of the revolution with their 1980 attack on Chuschi. Sendero had much deeper roots in this region than in the highlands of Huanta, and this made for different memories, different truths.28
Importantly, the cadres were frequently lugareños—local people. While the revolutionary spark in the northern provinces was externally lit, the revolution burned from within these southern communities. In interviews with former militants, I sought to understand what motivated people to join or sympathize with Shining Path, how they view their participation now, and how they interact within these communities as well as with the state.
However, while insisting on the need to listen to the life histories of these former militants to understand their complex motivations for waging war, I do not lose sight of those who feel deeply aggrieved by “those people” (huk kuna, referring to the former militants). Daily conversations resonated with local moral idioms—detailed discussions of responsibility, degrees of guilt, and processes of redress. This is “justice talk” in another register, likely to involve references to aching hearts, lacerating ulcers, masks, faces and foreheads held shamelessly high. Local moral discourse is embodied, leading me to think in terms of a phenomenology of justice and injustice, as well as the complicated alchemy of remembering and forgetting that characterizes postwar social worlds. This local moral idiom is one of condemnation and transformation and provides great insight into how people conceptualize their elusive search for justice.
Terror’s Talk: Some Notes on Fieldwork, Witches, and War
What is involved in conducting research on political violence? We ask people to speak about life and death, about pain and how it etches the heart. If and when they decide to speak with us, there is no turning back without also turning away. To paraphrase Stanley Cavell, “The utterance ‘I am in pain’ is my acknowledgment of pain,” and it is our research participant’s claim upon us. We are “forced to respond, either to acknowledge it in return or to avoid it,” and any sort of shared future between the narrator and her listener is at stake.29 In that encounter, the possibility of distance and impartiality must be surrendered.
Frankly, there is no “observation” when people are at war and you arrive asking them about it. You are, whether you wish to be or not, a participant. When terror weaves its way through a community, words are no longer mere information. Words become weapons and posing a question must mean you plan to do something with the response. How does one conduct fieldwork amid terror’s talk?
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It was 1997 and I had been in the village of Carhuahurán for a few weeks when I finally met Michael, the commando of Los Tigres—a special self-defense unit that was paid to stand watch each night. I was interested in why the villagers had added this additional unit and expense to the preexisting ronda campesina (armed peasant patrol). I approached Michael with my hand extended, commenting on how happy I was to meet him and eager to talk with him. His feet shifted into a broad stance, his rifle was hoisted more firmly over his shoulder, and he looked me straight in the eyes: “Why do you want to talk to me?”
I began to explain, feeling more nervous with each awkward word that came out of my mouth. I had been introduced by the village president at a general assembly sometime before—certainly he remembered? I tried to explain my research and why I was there. I told him I was interested in the history of the villages, how