Rechercher

In the after math of civil conflict and a truth commission into twenty years of violence (19802000), Peru is presently engaged in the difficult task of establishing overarching narratives that provide frameworks for organizing personal and collective memories in the few public spaces available for the discussion of this recent past. This article looks at two public spaces, a series of performative events in Ayacucho duringthe submission of the truth commission's Final Report, and Lima's memorysite, The Eye that Cries. One contentious memory is over who are appropriate victims and heroes to remember.

This book analyzes the diverse understandings of poverty in a multiracial colonial society, eighteenth-century Quito. It shows that in a colonial world both a pauper and a landowner could lay claim to assistance as the "deserving poor" while the vast majority of the impoverished Andean population did not share the same avenues of poor relief. The Many Meanings of Poverty asks how colonialism shaped arguments about poverty—such as the categories of "deserving" and "undeserving" poor—in multiracial Quito, and forwards three central observations: poverty as a social construct (based on gender, age, and ethnoracial categories); the importance of these arguments in the creation of governing legitimacy; and the presence of the "social" and "economic" poor. An examination of poverty illustrates changing social and religious attitudes and practices towards poverty and the evolution of the colonial state during the eighteenth-century Bourbon reforms.

In the first weeks of May 1785, several friends and long-term acquaintances came before the royal courts of Quito to testify on behalf of Don Josef Quiñones y Cienfuegos.1 They described in rich detail the wealth Quiñones once enjoyed: several businesses, homes, haciendas, mines near Barbacoas, slaves to work them and to serve his large family, and a gold-trimmed cloak. However, after many years of litigation over his enterprises, and afflicted with ailments, Don Josef now only had the benefit of a small house of little value, two slaves who were part of his wife’s dowry, and no employment. “In sum,” a witness said, “one can understand him as the poorest fellow among noble people [el sujeto más pobre entre gente noble].” In light of his present legal predicaments, coupled with his insolvency, Quiñones and his witnesses worried that justice might be beyond his reach. The crown attorney (fiscal) adjudicating this case agreed, reasoning that pobres were not only beggars with “absolutely nothing” but also those individuals who lacked the means to pursue justice and, because of their poverty, might lose their rights. As such, the courts declared Quiñones “pobre de solemnidad,” solemn poor, so that he might take up his legal cases free of charge. Don Josef Quiñones y Cienfuegos successfully demonstrated his need and his merit as a deserving member of the solemn poor.

This dissertation seeks to understand better colonial society's perceptions of the poor, the social constructions of poverty, and how they changed over the course of the eighteenth century in the city of Quito, capital of the Audiencia of Quito (present-day Ecuador). This study draws from diverse sources from Quito and Spain: ecclesiastical and state records, institutional reports, poverty petitions, and pension requests. Ongoing negotiations between the colonial government and subjects over cultural arguments of poverty and implicit rights and obligations form the central narrative of this study. Two sets of “poor” people emerge as the central protagonists: the economic and the social poor. According to colonial logic, the “wretched,” or miserables—peoples of Amerindian and African descent—were the expected economic poor of labourers and tributaries. Their poverty as such did not contravene the principles underpinning the colonial social structure. The presence of poor Spaniards (in particular American-born creoles), however, contradicted social and normative precepts. One means to fortify failing social structure that gave rise to poor creoles was to offer poor whites institutional and legal assistance not available to other socio-racial groups. Thus, while poverty nipped at the heels of all socio-racial groups, it did not affect all equally. Poverty and classification as “deserving” or “undeserving” of assistance was contingent upon generational, racial, gender, and class considerations. Three overall transformations weakened the colonial compacts regarding poverty. First, the transition from looser Habsburg governance to the administrative centralization of the Bourbon reforms undid tacit accords between the monarch and subject and between the wealthy and the poor. Second, the erosion of the racially defined social hierarchy along with widespread immiseration blurred the boundaries of poverty categories. Third, beneficencia (state-led welfare) superseded charity as state authorities encroached upon church participation in poor relief and the public sphere in general. This dissertation calls for a closer analysis of diversity within the category of “the poor.” Furthermore, this study challenges social control approach to poverty and welfare institutions by considering poor relief in a colonial context and the role of the poor themselves in shaping the many meanings of poverty.

The Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) acquired over 1,200 material submissions through the gifts it received at its events. Though other TRCs mention objects in their records, the gift-giving practice that became central to TRC events in Canada was unprecedented, and so is its large collection of TRC-gifted objects today. The Canadian TRC is thus unique and faces the challenges of categorizing, preserving, displaying and honouring these material artefacts. What has been the post-TRC life of these objects and art pieces? What is their role in creating a collective memory of residential schools and how might they promote reconciliation? This article shows that the post-TRC life of the objects opens up new museological spaces and practices through the ways the objects are curated (or not) for remembering and learning about residential schools according to Indigenous protocols and ways of thinking and feeling.

What happens when concepts of "truth," "memory," and "human rights" are taken up and adapted by former perpetrators of violence? Peru has moved from the 1980s–90s conflict between its armed forces and Shining Path militants into an era of open democracy, transitional justice, and truth and reconciliation commissions. Cynthia Milton reveals how Peru's military has engaged in a tactical cultural campaign—via books, films, museums—to shift public opinion, debate, and memories about the nation's violent recent past and its part in it. Milton calls attention to fabrications of our post-truth era but goes further to deeply explore the ways members of the Peruvian military see their past, how they actively commemorate and curate it in the present, and why they do so. Her nuanced approach upends frameworks of memory studies that reduce military and ex-military to a predictable role of outright denial.

One of the foundational stories in the discipline of art history is that of the Corinthian Maid. 1 According to the tale, as told around 77 AD by the Roman natural philosopher Pliny the Elder, a Corinthian potter’s daughter traced on the wall her lover’s shadow, cast by candlelight. The soldier was about to leave for war and his future was uncertain. Moved by the sadness of his daughter upon the soldier’s departure, the father made a sculpture of the young man, based on the drawing that she had done. In art, this technique is that of the trace or indexical sign of what once was present. In Latin America, after the decades of Cold War, civil wars, military incursions and dictatorships, this trace is known as the silhouette, the outline of a loved one disappeared, in most cases, by the state, which grew into the siluetazo, a movement to demand their return. 2 Yet, while similar in technique, the meaning of the act of tracing differs slightly. The Corinthian woman made a reproduction of her lover in anticipation of longing, and possibly in anticipation of the profound sorrow upon his loss. As art historian Lisa Saltzman notes, this story is of “a daughter

Ten years have passed since the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación) published their findings on the conflict that claimed over 69,000 lives from 1980 to 2000. While the Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación placed primary responsibility for deaths and disappearances (54%) on the insurrectionary group Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso), it also named armed state actors as having systematically committed acts of violence. Publicly shamed for their collusion in the corrupt Fujimori government, state security forces initially lent their support to the Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación and to the transition to democracy. Yet, over the last decade, armed state actors have appropriated the language, imagery and mechanisms of human rights memory entrepreneurs to advance their own versions of Peru’s recent past which oppose the Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación’s findings while highlighting state actors’ heroism. This article examines two such endeavors to reframe this past, the National Police Terrorism Unit (DINCOTE) museum and the Armed Forces Monument to the Heroes of Chavín de Huántar.

Este artículo analiza las corrientes opositoras a la memoria colectiva de la sangrienta guerra interna del Perú (1980-2000) a través de un análisis de los actos de vandalismo perpetrados contra uno de los pocos sitios dedicados a la memoria en este país, El ojo que llora, ubicado en Lima. ‘Vandalismo’, en este artículo, es entendido como una forma de escritura (aunque violenta) de una visión distinta del pasado. Originalmente concebido como un espacio para recordar y rendir homenaje a las víctimas del conflicto armado, el sitio se ha convertido en un lugar para la confrontación de formas distintas de asumir el pasado. Como sitio de recuerdo y reivindicación de derechos humanos, y sobre todo como blanco de intentos de desfiguración permanente, El ojo que llora se ha convertido en un escenario en el que la presencia perdurable del pasado —con sus conflictivas tensiones— se hace visible para el público nacional e internacional. Así, se niega el cierre mismo que las narrativas del gobierno quisieran imponer y, por lo tanto, se mantiene el compromiso público con el pasado. Los conflictos en curso sobre el pasado se hacen visibles en este punto en las luchas por establecer una memoria general y, en este proceso, el significado mismo de ‘víctima’ se ve implicado.

In the hot morning sun on August 29, 2003, the central plaza of Huamanga (Ayacucho) began to fill with Peruvians from many parts of the country, awaiting a report that would tell them about what they had lived through. As midday approached, the heat was sweltering and there was hardly any room to move. Vendors sold ice cream and bottles of water to keep cool the fairly peaceful crowd. Then the commissioners filed onto a stage, symbolically shaped like the local art form of a retablo. The president of the truth commission, Dr. Salómon Lerner, began his speech evoking reciprocity, stating that the truth commissioners had listened to Peruvians for the last two years about the preceding twenty years of violence, and now it was time for them, the commissioners, to return to the audience what they had heard (Lerner Febres 2004, 163–4).

Lika Mutal, the artist behind one of Peru’s only monuments that attempts an encompassing homage to the victims of their internal war (1980–2000), invited me to walk through the Ojo que llora (The Eye that Cries) (see Figure 9.1) in Lima in March 2008. Some 32,000 stones collected from the Chancay sea on Peru’s central coastline—of which 26,000 bear the name, age, and year of death or date of disappearance of a victim—mark a river-like pathway that spirals in toward an obelisk-shaped rock with an embedded smaller sacred stone (the “eye”) that continuously sheds “tears.” This central rock—intended to represent “the core inside of each person”—holds special significance: it represents “Mother Earth (Pachamama or Madre Tierra) who cries for what has happened to her children” (Cárdenas, 2006). The serpentine paths are meant to resemble the meanderings of rivers; in particular, the artist had in mind the River Huallaga in the Amazon basin and the thousands of victims disappeared in it (ibid.). The quietness of the monument in the otherwise bustling city and the solemnity of the names and ages of victims weighs heavily. Reflection is paramount. To leave, one must wind one’s way back through the paths of names, and thus continue contemplation. The design forces one to walk slowly; one cannot rush through this memorial site.

Travel advertisements invite youthful backpackers or the wealthy older set who can travel in comfort to explore the Andes and the highland peoples: guidebooks and documentaries portray images of llamas chewing in highland pastures, rural folk wearing ponchos, majestic ancient civilizations and remaining ruins, all in the scenic setting of jagged, snow-capped mountain peaks.¹ Year after year, hundreds of thousands of tourists visit Peru in search of an Andean experience and adventure. For most, this means visiting Cusco and the newly named, in 2007, world wonder Machu Picchu, walking a few days on the Inca Trail, and spending a brief

People who have lived through authoritarian rule have stories to tell. They want to tell their truths: truths that have been silenced, truths that have been censored, truths that are still uncomfortable. But how do individuals begin to speak about a political past that was too horrible for words, especially when the words only came in torrents of pabulum, snake oil, and venom? How are versions of events that have slipped outside of official narratives best voiced in a society moving out of authoritarianism? This generously illustrated volume examines the art of truth-telling and the creation of stories, accounts, images, songs, street theater, paintings, urban designs, and ideas that pay witness to authoritarian pasts. This comprehensive collection, with contributions by scholars, activists, and artists from around the world, explores this theme across a range of national experiences, each featuring its own unique set of historical, institutional, and cultural conditions. This book is bold, creative in form and content, and unlike any other treatment of authoritarian transitions, with the editors and contributors daringly staking a place for cross-disciplinary conversations on modern history, creative art, politics, and social meaning. By examining the truths--both official and unofficial--about the past, we can learn how to avoid repeating atrocities in the future.