
The Corner of the Living
Ayacucho on the Eve of the Shining Path Insurgency
Miguel La Serna(Author)
The University of North Carolina Press
Published on 12. March 2012
Book
Paperback/Softback
304 pages
978-0-8078-7219-2 (ISBN)
Description
Peru's indigenous peoples played a key role in the tortured tale of Shining Path guerrillas from the 1960s through the first decade of the 21st century. The villagers of Chuschi and Huaychao, high in the mountains of the department of Ayacucho, have an iconic place in this violent history. Emphasising the years leading up to the peak period of violence from 1980 to 2000, when 69,000 people lost their lives, Miguel La Serna asks why some Andean peasants chose to embrace Shining Path ideology and others did not.
Drawing on archival materials and ethnographic field work, La Serna argues that historically rooted and locally specific power relations, social conflicts, and cultural understandings shaped the responses of indigenous peasants to the insurgency. In Chuschi, the guerrillas found indigenous support for the movement and dreamed of sparking a world wide Maoist revolution. In Huaychao, by contrast, villagers rose up against Shining Path forces, precipitating more violence and feeding an international uproar that took on political significance for Peru during the Cold War. The Corner of the Living illuminates both the stark realities of life for the rural poor everywhere and why they may or may not choose to mobilise around a revolutionary cause.
Drawing on archival materials and ethnographic field work, La Serna argues that historically rooted and locally specific power relations, social conflicts, and cultural understandings shaped the responses of indigenous peasants to the insurgency. In Chuschi, the guerrillas found indigenous support for the movement and dreamed of sparking a world wide Maoist revolution. In Huaychao, by contrast, villagers rose up against Shining Path forces, precipitating more violence and feeding an international uproar that took on political significance for Peru during the Cold War. The Corner of the Living illuminates both the stark realities of life for the rural poor everywhere and why they may or may not choose to mobilise around a revolutionary cause.
More details
Series
Edition
New edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Chapel Hill
United States
Edition type
New edition
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
524 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8078-7219-2 (9780807872192)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Miguel La Serna is assistant professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.