Memories between Eras: ANFASEP’s Leaders before and after Peru’s Internal Armed Conflict

• Published date: 01 September 2019
• Author: Mercedes Crisóstomo Meza
• Date: 01 September 2019
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X19856901
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X19856901

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 228, Vol. 46 No. 5, September 2019, 128–142

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X19856901

© 2019 Latin American Perspectives

128

Memories between Eras

ANFASEP’s Leaders before and after Peru’s Internal Armed

Conflict

by

Mercedes Crisóstomo Meza

Translated by

Victoria J. Furio

During Peru’s internal armed conflict (1980–2000), many women formed associations

of relatives of victims to demand truth, justice, and reparations. The Asociación Nacional

de Familiares de Secuestrados, Detenidos y Desaparecidos del Perú (National Association

of Relatives of the Kidnapped, Detained, and Disappeared of Peru—ANFASEP) was the

first of these organizations. Accounts by its leaders of their early lives challenge the ste-

reotypes of them employed in previous studies and point to changes in their senses of

identity in the postconflict period. Their memories are part of the development of a self-

narrative in which new rationales emerge and they are led to question the validity of the

characterization of them as poor, illiterate, dependent women unaware of having rights.

Durante el conflicto armado interno (1980–2000) muchas mujeres formaron asociacio-

nes de familiares de víctimas para demandar verdad, justicia y reparación. En el Perú,

ANFASEP fue la primera organización de este tipo. Este artículo presenta narraciones que

las presidentas de esta asociación hacen sobre su infancia, matrimonio y maternidad. Por

un lado, esto permite cuestionar las caracterizaciones y estereotipos que estudios previos

han hecho sobre ellas. Y, por otro lado, aporta elementos teóricos sobre el cambio de sentidos

de identidad en el post- conflicto. Desde una perspectiva cualitativa planteo que las memo-

rias que las presidentas de ANFASEP elaboran sobre sus primeros ciclos de vida, recreadas

o no, se inscriben en una narración y construcción de un auto-relato entre épocas. En este

nuevo contexto, se producen nuevas lógicas de posicionamiento donde sus primeros ciclos

de vida se tornan definitorios y desde donde se cuestionan los estereotipos que se han

elaborado sobre ellas.

Keywords: Gender, ANFASEP, Stereotypes, Memory, Postconflict situations

In May 1980, members of the Partido Comunista del Perú–Sendero Luminoso

(Communist Party of Peru–Shining Path—PCP-SL) burned the ballot boxes

that were to be used in the first general elections in the Chuschi (Ayacucho)

Mercedes Crisóstomo Meza is a Ph.D. student at University College London. An anthropologist

with a Master’s in political science and gender studies, she teaches at the Pontificia Universidad

Católica del Perú. She is the author of Violencia contra las mujeres rurales: Una etnografía del Estado

peruano (2016) and the editor of Género y conflicto armado interno en el Perú: Testimonio y memoria

(2018). She thanks the editors of Latin American Perspectives for their suggestions for improving

this article. Victoria J. Furio is a translator and conference interpreter located in Yonkers, NY.

856901LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X19856901Latin American PerspectivesCrisóstomo / Anfasep Before And After Armed Conict

research-article2019