Thematic Collection: Peru
This virtual special issue, published to coincide with the conference of the Latin American Studies Association to be held in Lima on 29 April-1 May 2017, brings together articles published in the Journal of Latin American Studies on Peru in the last decade. The articles selected provide a limited though revealing vista onto recent social science scholarship on Peru.
In terms of disciplines, there is a strong political science contingent. In an influential article, de la Madrid examines ‘ethnic voting’ to show how, despite the absence of indigenous parties in Peru, voting behaviour has been shaped by presidential candidates’ use of ethnicity-based appeals to the electorate. In an article that reflects ongoing preoccupations with the quality of Peru’s democratic institutions, Dargent considers judicial independence through an examination of Peru’s Constitutional Tribunal. Reflecting a similar concern with the health of democratic institutions, Pegram accounts for the qualified success of Peru’s human right’s ombudsman.
Two articles focus on women’s movements in Peru, though one adopts a transnational comparative perspective. Jenkins considers the factors that have shaped the apparent depoliticisation of women’s grassroots movements and challenges the idea that neoliberalism alone can account for the process. Rousseau and Morales Hudon’s article examines indigenous women’s movements in Mexico, Bolivia and Peru and assess the conditions that lead, in each case, to the development of autonomous indigenous women’s mobilisation. The Peruvian case offers a dual situation with some women gaining autonomy within mixed-gender indigenous organisations and others forming independent organisations that act autonomously from mixed-gender organisations.
Political economy perspectives are covered in two articles that deal with mining, and more generally extractive industries, a sector of the Peruvian economy that has received increased attention in the last few decades as a consequence of its important growth and impact on society and environment. Reflecting similar concerns with institution-building as evident in the political science articles discussed above, Orihuela compares environmental protection policies related to mining in Peru and Chile. Schilling-Vacaflor and Flemmer similarly consider the issue of institutional strength in assessing the conditions in which the Peruvian prior-consultation law can function effectively.
History, though usually constituting up to half of the articles submitted to the journal, is relatively under-represented in the sample. In a pioneering article, Anna Cant explores the visual economy of the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces, and provides an insightful analysis of the ideas the Velasco regime sought to convey through its agrarian reform poster campaign. In a review essay, meanwhile, Paul Gootenberg revisits a field of scholarship, on the history of state making and development policy, that he helped to shape, in order to survey recent scholarly contributions, noting the shift away from structuralist and dependency perspectives to a more ‘political turn’.
Whether general conclusions can be drawn from this small sample of articles on Peru published in the journal is unclear. Perhaps the apparent high representation of political science and lower than normal representation of history is a reflection of recent developments in Peruvian academia, which has seen an expansion in political science scholarship. The focus on institution building and the quality of democratic institutions in several articles is certainly consonant with dominant concerns of Peruvianist scholarship in recent years, as political scientists and others attempt to make sense of both the internal armed conflict of the 1980s and 1990s and the authoritarian turn under Fujimori.
The very first issue of the Journal of Latin American Studies, published in May 1969, included a now classic seminal article on peasant uprisings in La Convención, in Cuzco department, by Eric Hobsbawm. As this special issue shows, JLAS continues to publish groundbreaking scholarship on Peru that reflects new, as well as older and still relevant, themes and approaches. As editors, we hope that such articles will help those who attend the LASA conference in Lima, and indeed, those who do not, to gain a better understanding of Peru and, as historian Jorge Basadre famously put it, of its problems and possibilities.
Research Article
‘Land for Those Who Work It’: A Visual Analysis of Agrarian Reform Posters in Velasco's Peru
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- Journal of Latin American Studies / Volume 44 / Issue 1 / 2012
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 13 February 2012, pp. 1-37
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Paths towards Autonomy in Indigenous Women's Movements: Mexico, Peru, Bolivia
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- Journal of Latin American Studies / Volume 48 / Issue 1 / 2016
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- 15 July 2015, pp. 33-60
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Accountability in Hostile Times: the Case of the Peruvian Human Rights Ombudsman 1996–2001*
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- Journal of Latin American Studies / Volume 40 / Issue 1 / 2008
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- 01 February 2008, pp. 51-82
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Commentary
Fishing for Leviathans? Shifting Views on the Liberal State and Development in Peruvian History
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- Journal of Latin American Studies / Volume 45 / Issue 1 / 2013
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- 06 March 2013, pp. 121-141
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Research Article
The Environmental Rules of Economic Development: Governing Air Pollution from Smelters in Chuquicamata and La Oroya
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- Journal of Latin American Studies / Volume 46 / Issue 1 / February 2014
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- 19 February 2014, pp. 151-183
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Determinants of Judicial Independence: Lessons from Three ‘Cases’ of Constitutional Courts in Peru (1982–2007)*
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- Journal of Latin American Studies / Volume 41 / Issue 2 / 2009
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- 23 June 2009, pp. 251-278
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Ethnic Proximity and Ethnic Voting in Peru
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- Journal of Latin American Studies / Volume 43 / Issue 2 / May 2011
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- 04 July 2011, pp. 267-297
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Depoliticisation and the Changing Trajectories of Grassroots Women's Leadership in Peru: From Empowerment to Service Delivery?
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- Journal of Latin American Studies / Volume 43 / Issue 2 / May 2011
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- 04 July 2011, pp. 299-326
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Godparents and Trading Partners: Social and Economic Relations in Peruvian Amazonia*
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- Journal of Latin American Studies / Volume 40 / Issue 2 / May 2008
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- 29 April 2008, pp. 303-328
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Tactics of the Governed: Figures of Abandonment in Andean Peru
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- Journal of Latin American Studies / Volume 49 / Issue 2 / 2017
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- 24 October 2016, pp. 327-353
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Cocaine Flows and the State in Peru's Amazonian Borderlands
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- Journal of Latin American Studies / Volume 48 / Issue 3 / August 2016
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- 09 June 2016, pp. 509-535
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Conflict Transformation through Prior Consultation? Lessons from Peru
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- Journal of Latin American Studies / Volume 47 / Issue 4 / November 2015
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- 30 July 2015, pp. 811-839
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