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Transcending Race? Schoolteachers and Political Militancy in Andean Peru, 1970–2000*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 November 2007

FIONA WILSON
FIONA WILSON
Affiliation:
Fiona Wilson is Professor of International Development Studies at Roskilde University, Denmark.
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Abstract

Using accounts by militant schoolteachers from a province in the central sierra of Peru, this article attempts to show how and why concepts of race and political commitment among teachers changed at three critical moments in Peruvian history: agrarian reform, mass unionisation, and Maoist insurgency. The article explores how binary representations of race as mestizo or Indian, mestizo or cholo, were both formed and challenged by the everyday experience of teachers as well as their political action. Their reactions to, and negotiation of, racial ascription are framed within three fields of power: racialised social identities, processes of state formation, and opportunities and repertoire of contestatory politics.

Resumen

Por medio de testimonios de maestros de escuela de una provincia en la sierra central del Perú, este artículo intenta mostrar cómo y por qué los conceptos de raza y de compromiso político cambiaron entre los docentes durante tres momentos críticos de la historia peruana: la reforma agraria, la sindicalización masiva y la insurgencia maoísta. El artículo explora cómo las representaciones binarias de raza como mestizo o indio o, mestizo o cholo, se formaron y también fueron desafiadas por la experiencia cotidiana de los maestros y por su acción política. Sus reacciones y negociaciones alrededor de la adscripción racial se enmarcan en tres campos de poder: las identidades sociales racializadas, los procesos de formación estatal y las posibilidades existentes para las políticas contestatarias.

Palabras clave: Andes peruanos, maestros, sindicatos, racismo, Sendero Luminoso

Resumo

Utilizando relatos de professores escolares militantes de uma província na serra central peruana, este artigo tenta demonstrar como e por que conceitos de raça e comprometimento político entre professores mudaram em três momentos críticos da história peruana – a reforma agrária, a sindicalização em massa e a insurreição maoista. O artigo aborda como experiências cotidianas dos professores e como sua ação política formou e desafiou representações binárias de raça, como por exemplo, mestiço ou índio, ou mestiço ou cholo. Suas reações e negociações a respeito de declarações raciais são armadas em três campos de poder: identidades sociais racializadas; processos de formação de estado; oportunidades e reportório de políticas contestatórias.

Keywords

Peruvian AndesschoolteachersmilitancyunionsracismSendero Luminoso
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , November 2007 , pp. 719 - 746
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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References

1 Mary Kay Vaughan, Cultural Politics in Revolution: Teachers, Peasants and Schools in Mexico, 1930–1940 (Tucson, 1997), p. 4.

2 Carlos Contreras, Maestros, mistis y campesinos en el Perú rural del siglo XX (Lima, 1996).

3 Mario C. Vázquez, Educación rural en el Callejón de Huaylas. El caso de Vicos: un punto de vista antropológica (Lima, 1965), p. 133.

4 Peter Gose, Deathly Waters and Hungry Mountains: Agrarian Ritual and Class Formation in an Andean Town (Toronto, 1994), pp. 70–1.

5 Degregori, Carlos Ivan, ‘How Difficult It Is to Be God: Ideology and Political Violence in Sendero Luminoso’, Critique of Anthropology, vol. 11, no. 3 (1991), p. 238CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 George Primov, ‘The political role of mestizo schoolteachers in Indian communities’, in Benjamin S. Orlove and Glynn Custred (eds.), Land and Power in Latin America (New York and London, 1980), p. 155.

7 Virginia Zavala (Des)Encuentros con la escritura: escuela y comunidad en los Andes peruanos (Lima, 2002), p. 121.

8 Juan Ansión, La escuela en la comunidad campesina (Lima, 1989), p. 67.

9 Patricia Oliart, ‘Leer y escribir en un mundo sin letras: reflecciones sobre la globalización y la educación en la Sierra rural’, in Carlos Ivan Degregori and Gonzalo Portocarrero (eds.), Cultura y globalización (Lima, 1999), p. 218.

10 Degregori, ‘How Difficult It Is to Be God’, p. 214.

11 Linda J. Seligmann, Between Reform and Revolution: Political Struggles in the Peruvian Andes, 1969–1991 (Stanford, 1995), pp. 199–200.

12 Cholo is an ambiguous, though generally derogatory, term used to describe newly urbanised, newly educated migrants whose families came from the indigenous countryside, see Aníbal Quijano, Dominación y cultura: lo cholo y el conflicto cultural en el Peru (Lima, 1980).

13 Wilson, ‘Representing the State’, pp. 8–10.

14 Deborah Poole, Vision, Race and Modernity: A Visual Economy of the Andean Image World (Princeton, 1997), p. 216.

15 Weismantel, Mary and Eisenman, Stephen, ‘Race in the Andes: global movements and popular ontologies’, Bulletin of Latin American Research, vol. 17, no. 2 (1998), p. 121CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Ibid., p. 122.

17 de la Cadena, Marisol, ‘Are mestizos Hybrids? The Conceptual Politics of Andean Identities’, Journal of Latin American Studies’, vol. 37, no. 2 (2005), pp. 262–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Ibid., p. 266.

19 Contreras, Maestros, mistis y campesinos.

20 Nelson Manrique, ‘Modernity and alternative development in the Andes’, in Vivian Schelling (ed.), Through the Kaleidoscope: The Experience of Modernity in Latin America (London and New York, 2000), p. 235.

21 Wade, Peter, ‘Rethinking mestizaje: Ideology and Lived Experience’, Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 37, no. 2 (2005), p. 239CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Ibid., pp. 249–50.

23 Veena Das and Deborah Poole, ‘State and its Margins: Comparative Ethnographies’, in Veena Das and Deborah Poole (eds.), Anthropology in the Margins of the State (Santa Fe and Oxford, 2004), p. 8.

24 Deborah Poole, ‘Between Threat and Guarantee: Justice and Community in the Margins of the Peruvian State’, in Das and Poole (eds.), Anthropology in the Margins, p. 38.

25 Ibid., pp. 43–4.

26 For overviews see Contreras, Maestros, mistis y campesinos, and Francesca Uccelli, ‘Docentes en las calles, SUTEP y el reto de los aprendizajes’, in Carmen Montero (ed.), Escuela y participación en el Peru, temas y dilemas (Lima, 2006). For teachers and the APRA party, see Patricia Heilman, Jaymie, ‘“We Shall No Longer Be Servile”: Aprismo in 1930's Ayacucho’, Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 38, no. 3 (2006), pp. 491–518Google Scholar.

27 See Joe Foweraker and Todd Landman, Citizenship Rights and Social Movements: A Comparative and Statistical Analysis (Oxford, 1997).

28 Sidney G. Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics (Cambridge, 1994), p. 46.

29 James Payne, Labor and Politics in Peru: The System of Political Bargaining (New Haven and London, 1965), pp. 237–8.

30 Ibid., pp. 241–51.

31 Iván Hinojosa, ‘On Poor Relations and the Nouveau Riche: Shining Path and the Peruvian Left’, in Steve Stern (ed.), On Shining and Other Paths: War and Society in Peru, 1980–1995 (Durham, 1998); Uccelli, ‘Docentes en las calles’, p. 250.

32 Angell, Alan, ‘Classroom Maoists: The Politics of Peruvian Schoolteachers under Military Government’, Bulletin of Latin American Research, vol. 1, no. 2 (1982), p. 7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Robert Drysdale and Robert Myers, ‘Continuity and Change: Peruvian Education’, in Abraham Lowenthal (ed.), The Peruvian Experiment: Continuity and Change under Military Rule (Princeton, 1975), pp. 254–301.

33 Lewis Taylor, Maoism in the Andes: Sendero Luminoso and the Contemporary Guerrilla Movement in Peru (Liverpool, 1983), p. 9; see also, L. Taylor, Shining Path: guerrilla war in Peru's northern highlands (Liverpool, 2006).

34 Carlos Iván Degregori, Ayacucho 1969–1979: el surgimiento de Sendero Luminoso (Lima, 1990), p. 198. For other insightful histories of Sendero and the education sector; Carlos Iván Degregori, ‘How Difficult It Is to Be God’; Juan Ansión et al., La escuela en tiempos de guerra: una mirada a la educación desde la crisis y la violencia (Lima, 1993); Stern (ed.), Shining and Other Paths; Gustavo Gorriti Ellenbogen, The Shining Path: A History of the Millenarian War in Peru (Chapel Hill, 1999), originally published in Spanish in 1990.

35 Poole, Deborah and Rénique, Gerardo, ‘The New Chroniclers of Peru: US Scholars and their ‘Shining Path’ of Peasant Rebellion’, Bulletin of Latin American Research, vol. 10, no. 2 (1991), pp. 133–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 This figure was given by Gloria Helfer, when Minister of Education, quoted by Cynthia McClintock, Revolutionary Movements in Latin America: El Salvador's FMLN and Peru's Shining Path (Washington, 1998), p. 273.

37 Fumerton, Mario, ‘Rondas campesinas in the Peruvian Civil War: Peasant Self Defence Organisations in Ayacucho’, Bulletin of Latin American Research, vol. 20, no. 4 (2001), p. 481CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Ansión et al., La escuela en tiempos de guerra, p. 23.

39 McClintock, Revolutionary Movements, pp. 80–1.

40 Ansión, La escuela en la comunidad, p. 159.

41 Seligmann, Between Reform and Revolution, p. 181.

42 Ibid.

43 All the names of the teachers have been changed.

44 Howard-Malverde, Rosaleen and Canessa, Andrew, ‘The School in the Quechua and Aymara Communities of Highland Bolivia’, Journal of Educational Development, vol. 15, no. 3 (1995), p. 234Google Scholar.

45 Gonzalo Portocarrero Maisch and Patricia Oliart, El Perú desde la escuela (Lima, 1989), pp. 104–18.

46 Angell, ‘Classroom Maoists’, p. 3.

47 Seligmann, From Reform to Revolution, p. 185.

48 Degregori, ‘How Difficult It Is to Be God’, p. 239.

49 Edith Lagos Sáez was accused of being a Sendero militant when arrested in 1980. Killed by the police in 1982, at least 10,000 people (some estimates say 30,000) attended her funeral, at which the Bishop of Ayacucho officiated. After her death she became an icon for the revolutionary young.

50 A version of this narrative was presented in Wilson, ‘Representing the State.’

51 This reflects Degregori's discussion of education as signalling freedom from trickery and deceit: Degregori, ‘How Difficult It Is to be God’, p. 237.

52 Labour struggle on Maco had been intense in the 1940s when APRA-dominated unions were formed, strikes organised and Aprista lawyers and teachers supported maqueňos trying to buy the property: see Juan Martinez Alier, Los huacchilleros del Perú (Lima, 1973); Fiona, Wilson, ‘Conflict on a Peruvian Hacienda’, Bulletin of Latin American Research, vol. 5, no. 1 (1986), pp. 65–94Google Scholar.

53 Deborah Yashar, Contesting Citizenship in Latin America. The Rise of Indigenous Movements and the Post-Liberal Challenge (Cambridge, 2005).

54 The Final Report is available on www.cverdad.org.pe

55 Paulo Drinot, ‘Nation-Building, Racism and Inequality: Institutional Development in Peru in Historical Perspective’, in John Crabtree (ed.), Making Institutions Work: Democracy, Development and Institutions since 1980 (London, 2006), p. 9.

56 Final Report of the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, ‘El sistema educativo y el magisterio,’ tomo 3, capítulo 3 (Lima, 2003), pp. 585–6.