The Negative Impact of Shining Path on Indigenous Mobilization in Peru: An Approach from Political Opportunity and New Social Movements Theories

AuthorMiguel Paradela-López,Alexandra Jima-González
DOI10.1177/0094582X211031920
Date01 November 2021
Published date01 November 2021
Subject MatterOther Articles
https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X211031920
LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 241, Vol. 48 No. 6, November 2021, 194–209
DOI: 10.1177/0094582X211031920
© 2021 Latin American Perspectives
194
The Negative Impact of Shining Path on Indigenous
Mobilization in Peru
An Approach from Political Opportunity and New Social
Movements Theories
by
Alexandra Jima-González and Miguel Paradela-López
The rise of Shining Path in the rural areas of Peru and its revolutionary war between
1980 and 1992 contributed significantly to the weakening of indigenous mobilization in
that country. From the perspective of a combination of political opportunity and new
social movements theories, Shining Path took advantage of a history of rural isolation
and a political vacuum to take control of rural areas and impose extreme repression of
counterrevolutionary mobilization. It systematically pressured the indigenous commu-
nities to collaborate with it and embrace a materialist-based peasant identity. At the same
time, the erratic and disproportionate response of the government negatively affected the
indigenous communities. Merging the two theories allows a better understanding of this
situation.
El ascenso de Sendero Luminoso en las zonas rurales del Perú y su guerra revolucio-
naria entre 1980 y 1992 contribuyeron significativamente al debilitamiento de la movili-
zación indígena en dicho país. Desde la perspectiva combinada de la teoría oportunidades
políticas y nuevas teorías de movimientos sociales, Sendero Luminoso aprovechó una his-
toria de aislamiento rural y un vacío político para tomar el control de las zonas rurales y
llevar a cabo una represión extrema de la movilización contrarrevolucionaria. Presionó
sistemáticamente a las comunidades indígenas para que colaboraran y adoptaran una
identidad campesina de base materialista. Al mismo tiempo, la respuesta errática y despro-
porcionada del gobierno también afectó negativamente a las comunidades indígenas. La
fusión de las dos teorías permite una mejor comprensión de esta situación.
Keywords: Shining Path, Indigenous movements, Peru, New social movements theory,
Political opportunity theory
Even though indigenous people make up a significant percentage of Peru’s
population —2,703 communities representing 44 indigenous peoples (INEE,
2018: 23)—Peru has historically lacked political parties representing these
Alexandra Jima-González is an assistant professor at Yachay Tech University in Ibarra, Ecuador.
Miguel Paradela-López is a lecturer at Antioquia Technological in Medellín, Colombia, and leader
of its International Studies Research Group. Their most recent publications are “Indians in
Pensamiento Gonzalo: The Influence of 20th-Century Peruvian Intelligentsia on Shining Path’s
Ideology” (in Sage Open, 2020) and “The Contradictions Inherent in the Concept of Symmetry in
Michael Walzer’s Counter-intervention Theory: A Case Study of the Yemeni Conflict” (in
Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 2021).
1031920LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X211031920Latin American PerspectivesJima-González and Paradela-López / Shining Path and Indigenous Mobilization
research-article2021
Jima-González and Paradela-López / SHINING PATH AND INDIGENOUS MOBILIZATION 195
communities (Martí i Puig, 2008; Van Cott, 2005). While some writers have
examined emerging indigenous mobilizations (see, e.g., Merino, 2020), there is
no shortage of studies evidencing the low level of politicization of ethnic cleav-
ages in Peru in comparison with its neighbors Ecuador and Bolivia (Degregori,
1998; Paredes, 2008). Researchers have proposed a myriad of explanations of
this phenomenon. For example, Dávila Puño (2005) claims that it was caused
by institutional obstacles and circumstantial influences. Madrid (2011) argues
that the key explanatory factor was the leadership of the Peruvian presidents
Alberto Fujimori, Alejandro Toledo, and Ollanta Humala. Paredes and Došek
(2020) argue that the institution of an indigenous quota—instead of a reserved-
seat system—undermined the consolidation of Peruvian indigenous move-
ments. In an effort to systematize the existing theories, Paredes (2008) divided
them into two main types: those focused on the structural political context and
those focused on cultural processes. Continuing this effort, this research pur-
sues the twofold objective of analyzing the role of the Partido Comunista del
Perú–Sendero Luminoso (Communist Party of Peru–Shining Path) in the weak-
ening of Peruvian indigenous mobilization and highlighting the relevance of
bringing together structural and cultural perspectives in this kind of analysis.
The uprising by Shining Path in 1980 started a civil conflict that lasted for
more than a decade and resulted in more than 70,000 casualties from Shining
Path’s and other groups’ attacks and the government’s response. Although
Shining Path has received considerable academic attention (Degregori, 1988;
Gorriti, 1990; La Serna, 2012), its impact on the consolidation of Peruvian social
movements has often been presented as an obvious consequence of the vio-
lence. This article analyzes Shining Path’s influence on the weakening of indig-
enous mobilization in Peru in both structural and cultural terms. The research
is a two-step analysis using political opportunity theory and new social move-
ments theory. First, using political opportunity theory, we examine the struc-
tural context that benefited the insurgent organization. Shining Path’s rural
guerrillas took advantage of the governmental vacuum in rural areas and the
lack of consistent security to spread over an extensive area and increase their
legitimacy. We go on to show how intense repression in the controlled territory,
combined with a long history of indiscriminate repression by the government,
generated a severely negative political context. Second, using new social move-
ments theory, we analyze how Shining Path radicalized the ideology of the
Peruvian Revolution and of socialist writers such as Mao and Mariátegui to
promote the materialist concept of the peasantry and weaken indigenous iden-
tity. Taking advantage of its rapid spread, it used a combination of co-optation
and repression that confronted Indians with the choice of cooperating with
Shining Path and therefore abandoning indigenous mobilization or experienc-
ing severe repression as counterrevolutionary elements.
We conclude that Shining Path’s impact was crucial for understanding the
weakness of Peruvian indigenous mobilization in that it generated a context of
repression and co-optation that severely compromised any kind of alternative
politics in Peru’s rural areas. In fact, it was only in 2004 that Peru witnessed an
alliance between Andean and Amazonian communities under an “indigenous
slogan” (Greene, 2006), and indigenous resistance has emerged mainly in the
Amazonian areas (Calienes, 2018). In addition, we demonstrate that a mixed

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