Anfasep

Article
Exhibiting Conflict: History

and Politics at the Museo
de la Memoria de ANFASEP
in Ayacucho, Peru
Joseph P. Feldman
University of Florida
Abstract
This essay locates the Museo de la Memoria de ANFASEP in Ayacucho,
Peru within transnational discourses of memorialization and the sociopolitical context of post-conflict Peru. I examine ways in which the museums
representations of recent political violence embrace and contest official
historical narratives, how visitors engage with and react to the museum, and
perspectives on the institution among residents of Ayacucho. I conclude by
assessing the museums place in relation to ongoing struggles over history
and recognition in Peru and within local and national heritage industries,
along with the possibilities and limitations of the ANFASEP Museums promotion of a human rights culture and politics of remembrance. [Keywords:
Peru, political violence, museums, public culture, gender]
n February 2009, the Peruvian government refused a two-million dollar

donation from Germany to construct a national museum that would memorialize the history of an internal armed conflict that took place in Peru
during the 1980s and 1990s. Amid national and international uproar over
the decision, government officials defended the administration by claiming that this money would be better spent on development projects and
Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 85, No. 2, p. 487518, ISSN 0003-5491. 2012 by the Institute for
Ethnographic Research (IFER) a part of the George Washington University. All rights reserved.
487
Exhibiting Conflict: History and Politics at the Museo de la Memoria

de ANFASEP in Ayacucho, Peru
a reparations program for the wars victims.1 Many in Peru suspected,

however, that the rejection of the German funds reflected not only the
governments reluctance to address recent political violence in the country, but also President Alan Garcas desire to avoid discussion of state
abuses committed during his first tenure as president (1985-1990). After
weeks of debate in the Peruvian media, the Garca administration reversed
its decision. In an astute political move, the government appointed famed
Peruvian novelist and political conservative Mario Vargas Llosa to head a
commission on the museums creation.2
Virtually absent in the national conversation about whether or not Peru
should establish a permanent space for commemorating the period of
the violence was any mention of a wave of memorialization initiatives that
have been taking place in the Andean department of Ayacucho in recent
years.3 A major institution within this emerging constellation of memory
projectswhich, broadly defined, has included the publication of testimonials and community histories, NGO-sponsored workshops, the establishment of small museums and memorial sites, and the appearance
of war and postwar themes in domains of art, cinema, and popular musichas been the Museo de la Memoria de ANFASEP (ANFASEP Memory
Museum).4 I carried out research on this museum in the summer of 2009,
having read about the national museum controversy and rumblings of a
possible resurgence of guerrilla-state violence in the months preceding
my fieldwork.
This essay locates the Museo de la Memoria de ANFASEP in Ayacucho,
Peru within globalized discourses of memorialization and the sociopolitical context of post-conflict Peru. The past few decades have seen a
worldwide boom in museums and heritage sites that commemorate histories of violence, a phenomenon that has begun to receive significant
scholarly attention (Huyssen 2000, Williams 2007). In Peru, the recentness of war and immediacy of its consequences, along with the countrys
contemporary political landscape, make the depiction of the violence in
public culture a contested and divisive process. Presenting the Museo de
la Memoria de ANFASEP as a case study, I briefly discuss the museums
creation as well as ways in which its representations of the period of violence embrace and contest official narratives of the past. I then examine
how visitors engage with and react to the museums portrayal of the political violence as well as perspectives on the institution among residents of
Ayacucho. In addition to exploring the politics of historical representation,
488
Joseph P. Feldman
I draw on Kimberly Theidons (2007) notion of the economics of memory

to analyze the museums place in relation to ongoing struggles over history and recognition in Peru and within local and national heritage industries.
I conclude by assessing the possibilities and limitations of the ANFASEP
Museums promotion of a human rights culture and politics of remembrance. In examining these themes, I aim to contribute to a growing body
of literature on the work of representing difficult pasts to diverse publics
(Lehrer et al. 2011, Logan and Reeves 2009, White 1997b, Williams 2007)
and the transnational dimensions of war commemoration (Schwenkel
2009, White 1995), along with discussions about violence and memory in
Peru (Bracamonte et al. 2003, Degregori 2003, del Pino 2003, Gonzlez
2011, Jimnez 2009, Kernaghan 2009, Theidon 2004, Vich 2002) and the
politics of memorializing the countrys internal armed conflict (Cnepa
2009, Drinot 2009, Hite 2007, Milton 2011, Milton and Ulfe 2011, Poole
and Rojas-Prez 2011, Rodrigo 2010, Ulfe 2009).
Memorialization and its Discontents

While the German donation story itself revealed the contentious politics
of remembering war in Peru, the amount of coverage the controversy received in international media outlets (Economist 2009) is perhaps indicative of the extent to which the establishment of museums and memory
sites has become a customary practice for nation-states in the aftermath
of violence. The museums conventional mission to preserve the greatest achievements of nations and civilizations remains with us, however
such agendas now exist alongside those of the memorial museum, a globalized institution that invites attention to the worst and most bleak of
these same societies (Williams 2007:183). William Logan and Keir Reeves
(2009) emphasize the relative newness of revering former sites of atrocity
as heritage, explaining the trend in terms of contemporary expansions of
the heritage concept. The authors track these transitions on the level of
UNESCO, noting the significance of the intergovernmental organizations
1978 induction of Senegals Gore Island to its World Heritage List, as well
as the more recent additions of a district in Hiroshima (1996), Auschwitz
(1997), and Robben Island, South Africa (1999) to the prestigious registry.
The mainstreaming of difficult pasts as a genre for exhibition is also apparent in ICOMs creation of the Committee of Memorial Museums, the establishment of non-governmental organizations such as the International
489

Coalition of Sites of Conscience, and the Memory, Memorials, and

Museums program of the International Center for Transitional Justice. In
anthropological terms, it has become quite reasonable to discuss memorial museum and memory site as legitimate ethnological categories.5
Scholars from a variety of disciplines have contributed to a growing
conversation about the cultural origins of what could be termed a transnational discourse of memorialization. In western Europe, one can locate
genealogies of memorialization in World War I memorials, which marked
a significant transition in how European countries commemorated violent
pasts (Gillis 1994:11). According to Paul Williams (2007:3), these initiatives, along with the World War II and Holocaust memorials that would
follow them, laid the foundations for the development of a (now-mobile)
memorial museum concept. For many analysts, however, memory projects themselves have been of less interest than the cultural ideas that
guide their dissemination on a global scale. Attempts to shed historical
light on these phenomena have drawn attention to a culture of memory
(Huyssen 2000) that began to take form during the 1960s and 1970s.6
Andreas Huyssen, in a now seminal essay, critically examines the globalization of Holocaust discourse and rise of a transnational culture of memory (2000:23-24), calling attention to the necessary incongruence these
totalizing frameworks have with local histories and memory struggles. In
a less philosophical vein, one can discuss the global heritage industry as
a powerful force that has contributed to these waves of commemoration
(Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1998). The particular allure of memorial museums
and former sites of atrocity for visitors resides in these attractions power
to elicit meaningful emotional responses (Ashworth 2008:233-234), to
further a sense of moral and pedagogical consumption (Ashworth and
Hartmann 2005:12-14), and, in some cases, to reinforce anxieties about
the modern condition (Lennon and Foley 2000:11).
Embracing memory discourse (Shaw 2007) and promoting critical reflection on the past is, of course, one of several paths that state and civil
society actors may take and post-conflict societies are always characterized by a plurality of memorialization regimes. Anatoly Khazanov (2000:39)
highlights this heterogeneity as he contrasts Soviet-era museums ideological uniformity with the fragmented and contradictory diversity of four
history museums in contemporary Moscow. Consistent with this perspective is Geoffrey Whites (1997a:5) warning against the reproduction of dichotomies of official versus subaltern narratives of history in analyses
490
Joseph P. Feldman
of museums and other sites of public memory-making. The case of Peru

and the ANFASEP Museum is no exception to these complexities and
ambiguities.
Political Violence and Post-Conflict Transitions in Peru

During the 1980s and 1990s, Peru was engaged in an internal armed conflict involving the Peruvian military, Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path)a
Maoist guerrilla movementand other insurgent groups.7 Led by Abimael
Guzmn, a philosophy professor at the Universidad Nacional de San
Cristbal de Huamanga in Ayacucho, Sendero began a brutal campaign
to overthrow the government in 1980. Although Senderos message of
radical social transformation initially resonated in impoverished Andean
communities, the insurgency ultimately failed to garner widespread support due to its violent tactics, top-down structure, and hostility toward
other leftist groups. Many peasants strongly rejected the movement (Starn
1995), forming civil defense committees (eventually known as the rondas
campesinas) that sought to defend rural communities against guerrilla attacks. Beginning in 1982 and continuing during the 1990s, the Peruvian
government pursued aggressive measures to defeat the insurgency. The
state ceded control of emergency zones to the military and perpetrated vast human rights abuses. Levels of violence began to decline in the
mid-1990s following the 1992 capture and imprisonment of Guzmn. In
2001, the government of Peru established the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission (CVR) to investigate the period of the violence. Following the
collection of some 17,000 testimonials, the CVR released its Final Report
in 2003 (CVR 2003). The report concluded that the armed conflict resulted
in over 69,000 deaths, a majority of which (54 percent) were attributed to
Sendero. An additional finding of the CVR Final Report was that 75 percent of those who died in the conflict were native-speakers of Quechua
or other indigenous languages, a figure which powerfully illustrates the
extent to which the epidemiology of suffering during the violence was
racialized (Theidon 2004:19).
The department of Ayacucho, considered an indigenous space in the
racial geography of Peru (Orlove 1993), was the region hardest hit by the
violence, with 40 percent of war-era deaths and disappearances taking
place there (CVR 2003). The conditions of scarcity and government neglect
that contributed to Senderos emergence in the region have persisted in
491

the 21st century. Official estimates place the departments poverty rate at
between 65 and 80 percent (INEI 2008:1454). The city of Ayacucho, a ninehour bus ride from Lima, is imagined as peculiarly hispanic by residents
and Peruvians in general (Leinaweaver 2008:32).8 The elaborate colonial
architecture, modern consumer amenities, and tourist hotels that surround
Ayacuchos central plaza exist alongside visible signs of poverty and underdevelopment in the citys outskirts, which are populated largely by migrants from the countryside and their descendants. The regional capitals
population increased dramatically during the years of the violence as a
result of internal displacement and currently stands at over 120,000.
The Museo de la Memoria de ANFASEP

ANFASEP (Asociacin Nacional de Familiares de Secuestrados,
Desaparecidos, y Detenidos del Per) was founded in 1983 by relatives
of war victims to protest state abuses.9 The associations members are
mostly poor, Quechua-speaking women from rural areas, many of whom
fled violence in rural communities during the conflict. ANFASEP was one
of many civil society organizations that emerged in the region during the
violence, including basic needs-oriented associations (e.g., soup kitchens, health programs) as well as other relatives-of-disappeared and human rights groups (Coral 1998, del Pino 1998). Initially holding clandestine
meetings in a climate of repression, ANFASEP organized rallies, vigils,
and peace marches to call attention to the devastating effects of war in
Ayacucho. Forging connections with the international human rights community, the association did much to bring attention to the situation in the
Peruvian highlands within and outside of Peru. As ANFASEP mobilized
against disappearances, unlawful detentions, and other forms of state
violence during the 1980s and 1990s, the governments of Alan Garca and
Alberto Fujimori vilified the groups members as terrorists aligned with
Sendero (Tamayo 2003). For instance, Anglica Mendoza, the organizations iconic founder and long-time president (popularly known as Mama
Anglica), was labeled a Shining Path Ambassador by the government
following her short visit to Europe in 1985 that was sponsored by Amnesty
International (Kirk 2005:381).
ANFASEPs relationship to the Peruvian state had shifted markedly
by the 2000s. The organization received much publicity during the CVR
and its efforts were recognized in the commissions Final Report (CVR
492
Joseph P. Feldman
2003). Today, ANFASEP remains active and is composed of a few hundred members. The association has incorporated a younger generation
of members into its leadership and currently works with the support of
Juventud ANFASEP, the organizations youth wing. In addition to longstanding demands of truth and justice from the Peruvian government,
ANFASEP has expanded its advocacy to include topics such as Perus
slow-moving individual reparations program and recent state violence in
the Amazon.
Through the efforts of ANFASEP and a German development agency,
the Museo de la Memoria de ANFASEP was established in 2005 to depict
the history of the political violence in Ayacucho along with the story of
ANFASEP as an organization. The museum is located on the third floor
of ANFASEPs office building. The structure once housed a cafeteria (on
its first and, at the time, only floor) for the children and young relatives of
ANFASEP members and continues to be the site of the organizations executive committee and general assembly meetings, which now take place
on the buildings second level.10 On the ANFASEP headquarters exterior
walls are murals that graphically illustrate scenes of military and Sendero
violence in the Andean countryside. The site of the museum is a 15 minute
walk from Ayacuchos main plaza.
The ANFASEP Museum displays around 200 photographs and holds
over 500 objects (most of which are in storage) in a space of approximately
80 square meters. The exhibition presents the regional history of the violence in Ayacucho, details human rights abuses committed during the war,
and tells the stories of individuals who were killed or disappeared during the conflict. Information about the political violence is communicated
in diverse forms. The exhibition is largely made up of placards with text
and images but also features sculptures, paintings, and retablos made by
members of Juventud ANFASEP and local artists. Small exhibits include
a reproduction of a torture room at the infamous Los Cabitos detention
center as well as a replica of a mass grave in a section of the exhibition that
draws attention to the findings of recent forensic investigations. Material
artifacts, such as pieces of clothing that belonged to the disappeared
and kitchen utensils from the days of the comedor, are also displayed. The
final hallway of the exhibition has a timeline of ANFASEPs history. Opposite
this chronology is a wall of photographic portraits of ANFASEP members, a
majority of them elderly women wearing felt hats typical of the region.
493

Those involved with the project generally described the creation of the
museum as a collaborative process. In the fall of 2003, as ANFASEP was
preparing to commemorate the release of the CVR Final Report, a member of the association suggested the possibility of establishing a space to
keep the banner and cross that had accompanied the ANFASEP mothers
in their marches for over 20 years. Initially, the proposal was to create a
small display case in the organizations office. In discussions involving
the ANFASEP executive committee, Juventud ANFASEP, local representatives of the German Development Service (Deutscher Entwicklungsdienst,
hereafter DED), and the associations legal adviser, the idea emerged
to create a museum on the newly-constructed third floor of ANFASEPs
headquarters. With the assistance of the organizations legal adviser and
DED workers, ANFASEP applied for and eventually received funding for
the initiative in 2004.11 Though it was necessary for the DED and the executive committee to hold workshops to teach some of the mothers what
a (memorial) museum was, virtually all accounts communicate organization members active participation in the design and implementation of the
museum. As the project progressed, the ANFASEP mothers contributed
personal items of those who were killed or disappeared during the conflict
such as journal notebooks and articles of clothing, which were catalogued
and considered for display. Many who were involved recalled the difficulty
of selecting what should be shown in the exhibition hall. A male member
of Juventud ANFASEP, now in his early 20s, pointed out to me that there
was a preference for stories that were particularly moving, but also an
effort to portray a diversity of experiences: peasants and professionals,
students and older victims, women and men, people who were disappeared by the state and those killed by Sendero. Designs for the exterior
murals of the museum were collaboratively drafted and revised by a team
of Ayacucho artists and ANFASEPs executive committee. Evaluating the
process of creating the museum, the organizations former legal adviser
told me on several occasions that while others facilitated the creation
of the museum, it was the mothers (madres humildes) who founded it,
making it perhaps the only institution of its kind in Latin America. A DED
report claimed that all of the fundamental decisions about the museums
exhibits were always left in the hands of the women (Ketels 2005:14).
Past and current members of ANFASEP executive committee averred in
interviews that they had done much of the work of forming the museum
494
Joseph P. Feldman
and that the original idea was theirsnot, as one long-time ANFASEP
socia (member) reminded me, that of the authorities.
The museum opened October 16, 2005 on the second anniversary of
the release of the CVR Final Report. The museums inauguration was a
major media event. Among the hundreds in attendance were politicians
and government officials, ex-commissioners of the Peruvian Truth and
Reconciliation Commission, and leaders of national human rights organizations. Also attending were representatives from international development agencies, German Embassy workers, and participants in a coinciding, DED-sponsored conference on Historical Memory and the Culture
of Peace who came from various Latin American countries. In a speech
at the event, the German Ambassador to Peru related the two countries
experiences to one another, stating that We too have a past in which we
were responsible for millions of victims in all of Europe during the Second
World War. That collective guilt, not just an individual one, is what Peru
has (Veas 2005).12 A press release for the inauguration publicized that
the museum will be a space of symbolic reparation with the fundamental
intention of creating a culture of peace. In promotional materials (and before them, grant applications), stated objectives of the museum included
preserving the memory of the violence, commemorating the lives of victims of the conflict, telling the history of ANFASEPs struggle, and being a
space for learning about, reflecting on, and raising awareness of the political conflict. The opening of the ANFASEP Museum received significant
coverage in Peruvian newspapers and the international media.
Exhibiting the Political Violence

I have briefly outlined what is in the museum, how the institution was created, and some of the broader aims that guided the project. As an ethnographer, however, I was primarily concerned with examining the museum
as an interactive space (Handler 1993, Handler and Gable 1997) and as
a reference point in discussions about post-conflict Ayacucho and Peru.
The analysis that follows is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in
June and July of 2009 (as well as a brief return visit in June 2010) that included more than 30 interviews with members of ANFASEP and Juventud
ANFASEP, current and former museum workers, government officials, representatives from NGOs, and former CVR investigators. In addition, I reviewed archival materials related to the museum (grant proposals, visitor
495

books, newspaper articles), administered questionnaires to visitors with

the assistance of museum staff, and solicited informal and semi-structured
conversations with dozens of Ayacuchanos from diverse backgrounds
about their awareness of and perspectives on the ANFASEP Museum.
Visitors to the ANFASEP Museum spend varying amounts of time viewing the texts and objects of the exhibition, but their exposure to the museums content is most often mediated by an ANFASEP guide. Since the museums creation, guides have largely been Juventud ANFASEP members,
all of whom were directly affected by the violence in some way. Recognizing
that there is a diversity of approaches to presenting the museum to visitors,
I summarize some of the representational practices I identified.13
The particularities of Ayacuchos historical experience are usually discussed in association with more universal themes. A well-educated guide
in her 30s, for instance, stated that she and other guides acknowledged
that there is something universal about the war and its consequences
even if most of the information they presented related to national or regional events. In a separate conversation, the same worker expressed
to me her concern that some guides, especially younger members of
Juventud ANFASEP, might lack a basic knowledge of international affairs
that would permit them to discuss comparisons of the situation in Peru
with those of Bosnia, Israel, or the Hutus and the Tutsis in Africa in an
educated way. When asked what meanings and ideas the museum conveys, others discussed the displays overarching message as being one of
non-violence, anti-racism, and reconciliation. The museums subtitle, so
that its not repeated (Museo de la Memoria de ANFASEP Para que no
se repita) also appeared frequently in these responses. A young student
activist cited the examples of Germany and Japan as nations where initiatives like museums helped further processes of national reconciliation.
The museums content places much emphasis on abuses committed
by the state and armed forces during the violence. Some guides discuss
Sendero and other major actors as they situate the conflict historically, but
some do not. Close examination reveals a balance in terms of the portrayal of victims of both Sendero and the armed forces, however there is little
information about Sendero as a political movement or Abimael Guzmn
presented in the exhibition. The museums focus has to do in part with the
historical experience of ANFASEP as an organization. A majority of the
associations members had relatives who were killed or disappeared by
the armed forces and many do not believe that Sendero was responsible
496
Joseph P. Feldman
for more deaths than the state, as the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation
Commission Final Report (CVR 2003) concluded. One ANFASEP member
used this as the basis for describing the museum as more real than
the CVR. Further, an Ayacucho resident who provided external assistance
to the museum project told me that he felt ANFASEPs executive committee wished to accentuate the militarys participation in the conflict.14
At least some of the museums emphasis, however, relates to early attempts to construct the institution as a space for documenting abuses
and social suffering rather than detailing a highly divisive recent history.
For example, in training sessions organized by DED workerswhich included information on museum maintenance, ANFASEPs history, and the
CVR Final Report, strategies for presenting the museums contentthe
agencys consultants, along with a local professional who served as an
adviser for ANFASEP, cautioned prospective guides against discussing
Sendero at length and overtly addressing political themes. Further, unlike
many memorial museums, the ANFASEP Museum offers few attempts to
blur categories of victim and perpetrator in its depiction of state atrocities
(Williams 2007:134, 138).15
The museums alleged biases (discussed further below) exist alongside discourses of neutrality and a powerful desire among members of
ANFASEP and Juventud ANFASEP to provide the facts of what occurred
during the war. On a more general level, these tensions are not specific to
the ANFASEP museum. Memorial museums, as institutions that blend the
authoritative, objective quality of museums with the symbolic and affective
features of memorials (White 1997b:9, Williams 2007:8), often struggle to
balance competing demands of commemoration and historical documentation. Several ANFASEP leaders I spoke with, likely aware that I had been
exposed to the critique that the museum focuses too much on the armed
forces, underlined that the exhibition showed atrocities committed by
Sendero as well as those of the state in interviews. One claimed that such
criticism was based on a bad interpretation of the museum. Speaking
about the planning stages of the museum, a former member of Juventud
ANFASEP indicated that there was some controversy as to whether
the museum should focus more on violence perpetrated by the state or
Sendero atrocities; however, in the end, the actors involved opted to strike
a balance. The challenge became, he suggested, to show the real facts of
what happened. Other ANFASEP activists also cited the museums importance in telling the truth and documenting what isnt written. A founding
497

member of the organization talked about the museum as a way to prove to

foreigners and Peruvians from other regions that these events happened.
She mentioned that sights such as mass graves, torture rooms, and the
rope used to tie the hands of a prisoner had a greater impact than words.
The competing demands of objective representation and a commitment to
share the realities of the war were recurring themes in my interviews with
museum guides. A few expressed that it was sometimes difficult to stay
neutral given their own life histories. Some guides discuss their personal
experiences of the conflict while giving tours, others consciously avoid doing so. Certain interviewees described to me how they willfully overcame
the pain of narrating the history of the violence in order to further the goals
of the museum and ANFASEP.16 For one guide, a sense of responsibility
to tell the entire history of the war meant breaking with a de facto policy
of avoiding discussion of Sendero. She asked me, How do you not talk
about politics when the violence was of a political nature?
Oppositional elements of the ANFASEP Museum are not limited to its
emphasis on state violence. I recall a conversation I had with a Peruvian
academic at a restaurant by the Plaza de Armas. After discussing what
he viewed to be some interesting facets of the museum, the scholar expressed puzzlement at the portraits of the ANFASEP mothers that appear
in the last section of the exhibition. What is that supposed to mean? he
asked, The heroes? I did not think of it at the timewe went on to talk
about the ways in which such displays might limit the museums appeal to
wider Ayacuchano and Peruvian audiencesbut his observation cogently
illustrated what I take to be two oppositional features of the museum as
a cultural production: its critique of an ideology of masculine heroism
(Theidon 2003:81) that is pervasive in narratives of war in Ayacucho and
Peru and its insistence on recognizing legacies of the violence in the present.17 The exhibitions attention to women is explicit in some places (e.g.,
placards on the effects of mass displacement on women and families,
profiles of female war victims), but is also embedded in a general emphasis on the experience of losing children and spouses, and the burden
of social reproduction in a time of war.18 Although, the museums focus
on ANFASEPs struggle is perhaps limiting in certain ways, the portrayal
of the associations heroes nevertheless unsettles a pattern of locating wartime protagonism exclusively in masculinized domains (e.g., the
rondas campesinas) (Theidon 2003). It is also relevant that (most of) the
women shown in the photos live on in the present. To view the museum,
498
Joseph P. Feldman
patrons must pass ANFASEPs second-floor office on their way up the

stairs. As visitors enter and leave, they may see an ANFASEP socia receiving legal assistance, catch a glimpse of a general assembly meeting, or
overhear casual conversations in Quechua among association members.
In the exhibition hall itself, they might hear references to former president
Alberto Fujimoris conviction on human rights crimes, the June 2009 massacre in Bagua, or free trade agreements. These sights and sounds disturb illusions of a past that is compartmentalized upstairs above the office.
The ANFASEP Museum and Communities

Whatever the messages of the ANFASEP Museum may be, visitors do
not come to the museum as cultural blanks and are not passive and
empty receivers of the information and the narratives they encounter
(Appadurai and Breckenridge 1992:50). On a typical day, there are between five and ten visitors to the museum. A majority of those who come
are international tourists, a category that comprises mostly Europeans
and North Americans, but also includes travelers from Latin American
countries and places like South Africa, Israel, and Japan. A guide who has
worked at the museum for a few years estimated that between 60 and 70
percent of visitors are foreigners. Peruvian museumgoers are most often
domestic travelers visiting Ayacucho from Lima and other coastal cities.
Many international tourists learn of the museum through the tourism information office in downtown Ayacucho, government and private-sector
promotional materials, and, to a lesser extent, travel guidebooks. Peruvian
visitors are more likely than their international counterparts to have heard
of the museum through word-of-mouth or national news coverage of the
institutions opening. In general, few Ayacuchanos visit the ANFASEP
Museum, however the museum does host university students and groups
from local schools with some regularity.
In conceptualizing how these diverse actors interact with the ANFASEP
Museum, I find it useful to follow James Cliffords suggestion that analysts
consider museums as contact zones. Clifford (1997) draws on the terminology of Mary Louise Pratt, who defines contact zones as social spaces
where disparate cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in
highly asymmetrical relations of domination and subordination (2008:7).
Whereas Pratt is concerned with travel writing and representation in the
context of imperial expansion, Cliffords discussion of museums expands
499

contact zones to include encounters among actors separated by vast

social distance who may live within the same society (1997:204). In the
case of the ANFASEP Museum, one can track differences of race, class,
and geographical origin as well as those related to individual and collective
experiences, memories, and historical visions of the recent war in Peru.
International Visitors
International visitors familiarity with the history of the political violence
varies considerably; some know nothing about Sendero or the civil conflict, while some are very knowledgeable of the subject. Foreigners who
come to the museum with little knowledge of the war sometimes react
emotionally upon learning about it and, as one guide put it, take pity on
Ayacuchanos. Some express surprise at the magnitude and recentness of
the conflict (a British visitor writes in the museums guestbook: its scary
to think that that type of violence took place so recently). It is common
for those who are familiar with Perus recent history to express a sense
of having obtained a heightened understanding of the conflict through
the visceral experiences of visiting Ayacucho and the museum. Although
international visitors occasionally provide suggestions and critiques, expressions of solidarity (solidarizar) for victims of the violence, ANFASEP as
an organization, and the people of Ayacucho or Peru are far more typical
reactions. Some promise to share what they have learned with friends and
family members when they return to their home countries.
Further, international visitors often relate depictions of violence in
Ayacucho to global themes or other historical settings, interpreting the
exhibitions content in terms of its larger-than-local significance. Entries
in the guestbook written by international tourists allude to the Vietnam
War, the treatment of Euzkadi peoples in Spain, and the history of colonialism in New Zealand. European travelers are especially likely to make
allusions to the Holocaust and World War II. An English-language entry, for
instance, describes the events depicted in the museum as representing
the Holocaust of Peru. Renditions of George Santayanas famous quote
on the need to remember history to avoid its repetition are ubiquitous (in
Spanish and English.) In addition, one can detect a theme of pan-Latin
American solidarity in the responses of some visitors from other countries in the region. A traveler from El Salvador, for example, discusses the
museum as presenting the experience of all of Latin America. Similar to
500
Joseph P. Feldman
this reaction is an Argentine visitors assertion that the history of political violence, of oppression and exploitation of the people is the history
that unites all of our Latin America. A Colombian expresses hope that
someday his/her country will have its own museo de la memoria when
violence in Colombia is nothing more than a memory.
Peruvian Visitors
Many Peruvian visitors also express solidarity for ANFASEP and victims of
the war, and convey their approval for the museum as a project. Visitors
from Lima and other regions of Peru, perhaps unsurprisingly, interpret
the museum as (privileged) subjects within the imagined community of
the nation-state (Anderson 2006). Some express alarm at the severity of
the conflict, stating that they did not realize the extent of the atrocities.
Articulations of coastal and middle-class complicity in the conflicts escalation and racialized neglect of the sierrathemes that permeate the
conclusions of the CVR Final Reportare also prevalent in Peruvians
responses. Many entries begin with the phrasing As a Peruvian and
there are repeated calls in the guestbook for all Peruvians to visit the
ANFASEP Museum. Visiting the museum prompted some to write statements like Peru is not just Lima and ask forgiveness for our indifference. One museumgoer reflectively writes, Where was I? Why didnt I
do something? These respondents envision remembering as a painful
yet necessary exerciseeven a patriotic dutyin order to avoid the violences repetition. Some entries written by Peruvians encourage ANFASEP
to continue its struggle and highlight the importance of the government
following through on its commitment to provide reparations to victims.
The experience of visiting the museum can present a distinct set of
meanings for Peruvian travelers who have family origins or spent part of
their childhood in Ayacucho. These individuals may recall relatives lost in
the conflict or the experience of having to flee their home communities. It
is not unusual for such visitors, who are sometimes engaging in a kind of
post-conflict roots or identity travel, to ask museum guides about what
Ayacucho is currently like. For others, the museum evokes a sense of narrowly escaping a violent life trajectory. A woman visiting from Lima who
describes herself as an ayacuchana writes in the museum guestbook
about the fortunate occurrence of her parents taking her to the capital
when she was five or six years old. Viewing the exhibition caused her to
501

reflect on how she could have been one of the disappeared or survivors
shown in the museum.
In addition to reacting to the museum in a more intimate and national
fashion than international tourists, Peruvian visitors are far more likely to
criticize aspects of the ANFASEP Museum. Some Peruvian nationals convey their disapproval of the museum in a manner that is, on its surface,
apolitical. This genre of responses includes claims that remembering is
reliving (recordar es volver a vivir) or warnings about reopening wounds,
which question the assumption that memorialization promotes social
healing. Other visitors express their overall support for the initiative, but
note that there should be more focus placed on Sendero. A significant
number of Peruvians, however, react by expressing perspectives on the
violence that are in stark opposition to those presented at the museum.
Nearly all of the guides with whom I spoke, including individuals who
had only worked at the museum for a brief time, could share stories with
me about police officers, ex-soldiers, or apristas (supporters of APRA, the
political party of President Alan Garca) who contested depictions of the
violence at the museum. Most of these accounts involved subtle forms of
resistance rather than open confrontation. Guides suggested to me that
they could often determine the politics of Peruvian visitors by the way
they carried themselves throughout the exhibit or by the facial expressions, body language, and overall look of visitors at various moments of
the tour. When I asked a long-time guide for an example of this behavior,
she presented the situation of her attempts to describe atrocities committed under a particular administration being met with sighs and eye-rolling,
gestures she acted out in a humorous, exaggerated fashion. Some visitors are more overtly combative. During one guides tour, a former military
serviceman interjected, the military, the military, the militarywhy nothing about the senderistas? He claimed that members of the military were
just as much the victims of the conflict as any other sector of society,
and complained that they werent recognized as heroes. Speaking of the
abuses, he told the (female) guide, it had to be this way. Additionally,
visitors who were Fujimori-supporters and apristas would occasionally tell
guides that the brutality of the states campaign to eliminate Sendero was
necessary in order to pacify Ayacucho and contest the veracity of the
exhibition, making comments like this is an exaggeration or it wasnt
like this. Some of these patrons would claim that communism was to
blame for the violence rather than figures like President Garca who were
502
Joseph P. Feldman
merely trying to protect democracy. A mild-mannered guide in his 20s

recalled his mortification at a male visitors suggestion that abuses committed by the armed forces were necessary. The guides sense of outrage
prompted him to abandon his usual tact and tell the man that had he lived
in Ayacucho or lost a relative during the war, his perspective would be very
different. Such interactions are elaborated upon by cartographies of race
and class in Peru. They call us cholos and automatically think that we
arent as educated as they are, a university-educated woman told me of
some museum visitors from the coast. It is also relevant that the kinds of
encounters I have presented here often take place between male visitors
and female guides. Questions of funding and institutional agenda aside, it
is likely that the ANFASEP Museums geographical location and chola/o
guides alone would undermine any attempt to fashion the museum as an
authoritative temple for some Limeo consumers (Cameron 1971).
Divergent experiences and clashing historical visions do not always
lead to confrontational interactions between guides and Peruvian visitors,
however. Sometimes museum patrons present their grievances in a polite
and respectful manner. In certain cases, one worker asserted, figures like
ex-soldiers are sensitized by the experience of visiting the museum.19 It
is also true that, at times, guides are mistaken in their initial readings of
visitors. A female guide in her 30s fondly recalled her surprise at the sincere interest in the museum displayed by a young couple who came from
Trujillo, known as an APRA stronghold.
Ayacuchanos
Ayacucho residents certainly go to the museum as Peruvian visitors, but
the number who do so is small in comparison to tourists from elsewhere
in Peru and abroad. Within this category, it is extremely rare for peasants
(campesinos) from rural districts or Ayacuchanos in indigenous dress to
come to the ANFASEP building for the purpose of visiting the museum.20
NGO workers, intellectuals, and other members of Ayacuchos professional class would often be eager to share their thoughts and insights
on the ANFASEP Museum upon learning about my project. On the opposite end of the spectrum, it is very uncommon for residents who are
outside of these circles and have no affiliation with ANFASEP to have visited the museum.21 In interviews and conversations, lack of awareness
was a predominant response to my queries about Ayacucho residents
503

relationship to the museum. Although ANFASEP and collaborators made

efforts to advertise the institution to Ayacuchanos in flyers distributed to
local businesses and radio spots following its inauguration, current promotion of the museum is mostly limited to materials provided by travel
agencies and state tourism bodies. Partially as a consequence of this,
many Ayacuchanos do not know of the museums existence. An example
given to me by numerous people I spoke with was that if I were to ask a
mototaxista to give me a ride to the Museo de la Memoria, he would be
clueless as to what I was referring to.22 Some interlocutors who knew of
the museum thought of it as something for the tourists or primarily a
tourist attraction.
Ayacucho residents level of engagement with the ANFASEP Museum
reflects the museums relatively recent creation and a lack of resources for its promotion, but also relates to the image of the institution and
Ayacuchanos mixed attitudes toward memory initiatives. Most residents
I spoke with, even if they had not been to the museum, expressed a positive view toward ANFASEPs project or were amenable to the idea of a
museum that dealt with themes of the political violence. Some cited the
importance of preserving memories of the past and transmitting knowledge of what happened from older generations to young people. Others
expressed qualified approval, such as an NGO worker who stated that the
museum could do more to bring in alternative experiences of the violence
(e.g., police officers, Sendero militants). He and others suggested to me
that the museum is, in many ways, a Museum of ANFASEP rather than a
Museum of Memory. Additionally, several who appreciated the museum
as an overall project criticized its exterior murals vivid portrayal of terror in a public space, which, in the view of one commentator, provokes
indignation rather than reflection.
Some in Ayacucho express outright opposition to the museum. A few
residents I spoke with described the ANFASEP Museum and similar initiatives as painful and not healthy. As a senior male member of ANFASEP
put it, some Ayacuchanos would rather be left in peace than contemplate the history that the museum displays. A topic that recurred frequently
in my conversations with those who were involved with the museum was
the phenomenon of some Ayacuchanosoften dismissed as supporters of APRA by intervieweesreferring to the Museo de la Memoria de
ANFASEP as the museum of terrorists or the senderista house. The invocation of these terms illustrates the extent to which war-era discourses
504
Joseph P. Feldman
have continued to follow ANFASEP, along with other left political actors
and human rights organizations, in post-conflict Peru.23 ANFASEP members and museum workers are aware of these and other views held by
Ayacuchanos about the museum. Individuals told me, for instance, that
the museum remains marginal and that there is much indifference
about the institution in Ayacucho. Several indicated that perceptions of
the museum were improving, citing involvement with local schools and
government agencies, as well as the fact that they rarely hear the museum of terrorists tag anymore.
The Economics of Memorialization

Assessing the relations between the ANFASEP Museum and these various communities invites attention to what Kimberly Theidon (2007) has
referred to as the economics of memory. Theidon uses the term to shed
light on ways in which individual and collective narratives in CVR memory projects in Ayacucho could be informed by victims expectations of
economic compensation. Avoiding a kind of materialist reductionism, she
suggests that among the conditions of possibility for the emergence of
new memories are changing economic circumstances and motivations
(2007:459), and that these factors influence the production of stories and
silences about war in rural communities. Although war victims who gave
testimonials for the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission were
not guaranteed reparations for doing so, the Commission in many ways
defined itself in opposition to the spiritual reconciliation of the South
African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which privileged symbolic healing over matters of political economy (Laplante and Theidon
2007:236). National legislation on the rights of documented victims to receive individual reparations resulted in the creation of the National Victims
Registry (Registro nico de Victimas) in 2005, a procedure called for in
the CVR Final Report. There have been advances in the administration
of collective reparations to affected communities since the CVR, but the
process of registering individual victims has been slow and there has been
much uncertainty and skepticism about the programs execution.
Commemorative activities in Peru can be situated within a range of
transitional justice initiatives, including projects like the National Victims
Registry, along with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and efforts
to prosecute wartime human rights violations, as struggles over meaning
505

and representation are never far removed from formal legal measures
(Jelin 2002, 2007). I was reminded of the materiality of war narratives on
a regular basis as I interacted with ANFASEP members who came to the
organizations headquarters to receive assistance with their reparations
cases, spoke to victims and legal experts about the process, and attended
public events marking advances in the implementation of the registry. As
such, following Theidon, I aim to briefly address the economics of memorialization, broadly conceived, by sketching some ways in which the
ANFASEP Museum is shaped by and acts within post-conflict economies
of memory in Ayacucho and Peru.
In my conversations with members of ANFASEP and Juventud
ANFASEP about their thoughts on the museums significance, I noted
that many viewed the Museo de la Memoria as an institution that helps
ANFASEP (and, by extension, other victims of the violence) achieve greater social and political recognition. For instance, a female college student
who had experience working as a museum guide told me that the museum
was a way to disseminate the history of the violence and the message of
ANFASEP as an organization. In the same line of thought, she explained
that many victims are not recognized and that this has implications in the
project of distributing individual reparations, invoking, as many reparations
advocates do, the poignant image of an elderly woman dying in poverty
without receiving any government compensation for her suffering during
the war. Several others discussed the museum as a means of sensitizing
(sensibilizar) the local authorities and the national government to the effects of the political violence. That is not to say that all of the organizations
members and allies discuss these factors as the museums main benefits.
Interlocutors would also point out that the museum is the closest thing
some of the mothers have to a gravesite for their deceased loved ones.
They described scenes of ANFASEP mothers reverentially taking off their
hats as they entered the exhibition space or stated that members appreciated the museum because they wished to share the history of their struggle with their children and grandchildren. In addition, ANFASEP members
responses pointed to ways in which the museum could help raise international awareness about the violence and contribute to the dissemination
of a more complex rendering of Peru and its history on a global scale.
Some viewed the museum as a useful venue for bringing awareness of the
conflict and its aftermath to educated and potentially influential outsiders. As a newly arrived researcher, my proposal to conduct a study of the
506
Joseph P. Feldman
museum was accepted by ANFASEPs executive committee members, in

part, because they anticipated that I would help promote awareness of
ANFASEP and the museum in North America through my presentations
at conferences and research publications. Further, the cultural economy
of tourism also, at times, figured into some individuals estimations of the
museums political utility. A member of Juventud ANFASEP in her 20s, for
example, expressed her view that the violence should be part of Perus
tourism product. Were more than Machu Picchuand this needs to be
part of the (tourist) circuit, she told me as we chatted on a park bench in
one of Ayacuchos well-to-do districts. This sentiment is reflected only to
a minimal extent in Ayacuchos tourism industry.
There is a limited degree of recognition of the ANFASEP Museum as a
cultural institution and tourism site in Ayacucho, and even less on a national level. The museum now appears in some of the tourism brochures
and information booklets that are distributed by tour operators and government offices in downtown Ayacucho, which represents a change from
the institutions relative invisibility in the period following its opening (Babb
2011). The National Cultural Institute (INC) provided representatives for
a museum maintenance training session early on in the project and the
agencys office in Ayacucho includes the ANFASEP Museum in a brochure
that advertises the handful of museums in Ayacucho, but the institute has
not added the museum to its national registry of museums. An ally of
ANFASEP who was involved in efforts to establish such an affiliation described the INC as being indifferent to ANFASEPs museum and themes
related to the political violence, more generally.24
Although the museum has become more visible as a tourist site in
Ayacucho, there are worries among some in the industry that the ANFASEP
Museum and initiatives like it contribute to the bad image of Ayacucho,
as one government official put it.25 Some of the many international tourists who pass through Ayacucho for a couple of days on their way to more
prominent destinations like Cuzco, Lima, or Huaraz might have a vague
understanding of the citys place in recent Peruvian history, but the majority of tourists are Peruvians who are keenly aware of the regions association with terrorism and danger in the national imagination. Themes
of political violence and post-conflict transitions are not prevalent in the
marketing strategies of state and private tourism agencies, as they are in
places like South Africa, Rwanda, Cambodia (Ledgerwood 1997), and to
a lesser extent in Northern Ireland (McDowell 2008). Tourism promotion
507

efforts instead tend to focus on the citys colonial center and famed 33
churches, festivals like Holy Week (Semana Santa) and Carnival and surrounding destinations such as Quinua (a town known for its vibrant handicraft industry and home to a monument commemorating the 1824 Battle
of Ayacucho, the definitive victory in the Peruvian War of Independence) as
well as several Wari and Inca archaeological sites. Tourism officials I spoke
with expressed varying degrees of optimism and anxiety when discussing
the incorporation of the history of the political violence into Ayacuchos
industry. None of these individuals, however, identified so-called dark
tourism or trauma tourism as something that they anticipated emerging as a central feature of the regional industry. On the whole, concerns
about more tangible issues such as poor roads and tourism infrastructure
seemed to outweigh those for Ayacuchos alleged image problems.26
Despite the ANFASEP Museums low profile among Ayacuchanos and
relatively minor place in Ayacuchos tourism industry, a number of residents shared with me what they took to be the positive or negative effects of the museums marketing of postwar Ayacucho. A 38-year-old
engineer who had lived in Ayacucho all his life expressed his approval for
the museum, asserting that the violence is part of our culture and that
the museum shows outsiders that problems existed in the region but have
been overcome. Others were less sanguine about these aspects of the
museum and felt that the image of the region would be damaged by focusing attention on themes of the political violence rather than Ayacuchos
cultural traditions, historic buildings, or archaeological heritage.
Questions of the economic also appeared to frame ANFASEP members perceptions of the museum in a variety of ways. In the later weeks
of my research, several interlocutors informed me that some ANFASEP
mothers felt that the museum was a waste of money or, alternatively, the
institution generated revenue from tourists but these funds were being
siphoned off by a select few in the organization. A female guide, for instance, discussed the conflicts that emerged as foreign tourists offered
tips to individual workers at the museum (a practice that is not commonplace in Peru).27 Other members are more restrained in their language, but
nonetheless see little benefit of having a museum. A point of frustration
that is closely tied to conditions of economic scarcity relates to the museums portrayal of a limited number of individual and family experiences.
Almost all ANFASEP mothers donated items for the museum project, but
due to lack of funds the organization has not been able to realize original
508
Joseph P. Feldman
goals of instituting rotating exhibits. As such, the exhibition has changed

very little since the 2005 inauguration ceremony, which marked the first
and only instance that many of the mothers spent significant time visiting
the museum. One addition that improved some members impression of
the museum was the establishment of a small gift shop featuring handicrafts made by ANFASEP members. Guides encourage visitors to browse
at the conclusion of their tour, with the proceeds from all purchases going
directly to the individual artists.
At the same time, most ANFASEP members familiar with the day-today workings of the museum recognized its dismal economic situation
and were aware of the institutions precarious future. Many who had been
involved with the museum expressed their disappointment at the fact
that the exhibition had not been changed or updated since the museums
opening, and some talked of the museums deterioration and need for
maintenance. In articulating these concerns, several museum workers,
ANFASEP leaders, and local allies somberly mentioned the once-vibrant
exterior mural of the museum and how its colors have faded dramatically
in a relatively short period of time. ANFASEP as an organization has faced
financial difficulties over the past few yearsin comparison to the time of
the CVR when the organization received higher levels of national and international supportand, justifiably, the museum has not been prioritized
in a climate where paying phone bills and replacing printer ink cartridges
can be challenging ordeals.
Initially, there were funds allotted for paying museum workers and there
was no admission fee, but now the few who work at the museum do so
as volunteers and all visitors pay two nuevos soles (US $.70) to enter the
museum.28 Most of the Juventud ANFASEP members who once worked
as guides are now attending university, working full-time, or taking care of
their own families. As there is a limited pool of available workers, a sickness or family commitment can sometimes result in the museum being
closed for the day. When I asked interlocutors about the museums future,
their responses revealed much doubt as to whether the museum could be
sustained in its present form. Two respondents, one a museum guide and
the other a founding member of the organization, lamented in separate
conversations that the museum was going to collapse. The reasons they
gave for this prediction centered on the organizations perceived inability to effectively manage and promote the institution. Several ANFASEP
leaders who voiced concern about the museums future discussed the
509

prospect of establishing institutional affiliations with the university, the local government, the INC, and national human rights organizations to help
sustain the museumall arrangements that would doubtless present their
own complexities.
Conclusion
Memorial museums and difficult heritage sites are not without their critics. As institutions, these sites and museums generally self-identify with
goals of furthering social justice and reconciliation. Scholars in heritage
studies have cautioned against uncritical acceptance of public memory
projects, noting that despite these initiatives association with peace and
solidarity, relatively little is known about their social effects (Ashworth and
Hartmann 2005:12-14, Jenkins 2007). Williams (2007:22) echoes these
concerns, observing the persistence of little-criticized precepts about
memorial museums in popular and scholarly discourse. A second, more
nuanced line of critique draws attention to intersections of memory, power,
and nation. James Young, in his study of Holocaust memorials, observes
that memorials tend to concretize particular historical interpretations
(1993:2) and turn pliant memory to stone (1993:13). This concretization
frequently takes place on the level of the nation-state, as memory discourses most often posit national experiences (Huyssen 2000:26) and
museums in particular tend to encourage personal connection with the
past within the bounds of a national identity (Weissberg 1999:12-13).29
It is fair to suggest that governments commonly draw on memorial museums as technologies for compartmentalizing past conflicts and animosities. Here, the performative qualities of museums (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
1998) work in concert with truth commissions and other transitional productions in constructing violence (or its public commemoration) as a liminal experience (Grandin 2005:48, Wilson 2001:19), consigning histories
of conflict to a visitable past (Ashworth and Hartmann 2005:261), and
fashioning a national present and future.
The ANFASEP Museum must be understood within an emerging memorialization industry in Peru that will include, but certainly not be limited
to, a museum in Lima. In this national context, we might consider the
Museo de la Memoria to be an oppositional museum, even as it currently
has few center institutions against which it can define itself and presents
narratives of the war in Peru that overlap with those of official histories.30
510
Joseph P. Feldman
I say this largely to underscore the museums conscious partialityembracing the terms dual-meaning of incompleteness and the condition of
certain elements being privileged over othersand its implications. For a
variety of reasonsANFASEPs history as an activist organization, DED
memory discourses, ideologies of race and geography in Peru, lack of exhibition spacethe ANFASEP Museum almost certainly could never have
performed itself as an authoritative, objective, and national institution. This
is true in spite of ANFASEP discourses on truth and neutrality.
In other words, I see little risk of ANFASEP concretizing memory or institutionalizing a particular vision of history in a hegemonic way.
Nevertheless, the histories and experiences communicated by the museums content, guides, and overall effects do work to unsettle certain
dominant modes of thinking about war and its aftermath in Peru. As I articulate in my discussion of the economics of memorialization, these symbolic struggles are closely tied to the political (and material) recognition
of collectivities within the contemporary Peruvian state. Where Clifford
observes that cultural museums are increasingly useful for groups in a
time when collective identity is tied to transnational notions of having a
culture (1997:218, see also Handler 1988), the ANFASEP Museum may
be useful in a post-conflict situation in which collective recognition is tied
to having an experience in the national arena. At the same time, when
considering the Museo de la Memoria de ANFASEPs relationship to its
surrounding communities, including local and national government agencies, one cannot dismiss the possibility that the museums oppositional
elements might ultimately threaten its survival as an institution. This realization is perhaps reason to be less than optimistic about the possibility of
a growing number of NGO and civil society-initiated memorial museums
worldwide serving as a viable counterweight to statist projects (Williams
2007:110-111). If the ANFASEP Museum continues to exist, it will provide
a small venue that gives voice to a distinctive collection of experiences
amid a national cacophony of memories, a power dynamic that plays itself
out in the exhibition hall on a day-to-day basis.
Finally, I feel it necessary to address the matter of the Museo de la
Memoria de ANFASEPs effectiveness in furthering the promotion of peace,
reconciliation, and respect for human rightsthe oft-cited raison dtre of
memorial museums (Duffy 2001). A cynic can point to a lack of engagement with and opposition to the museum among Ayacuchanos, the exhibitions emphasis on atrocities themselves rather than the humanization
511

of violent actors, or the relatively small amount of knowledge one can

obtain during the course of a half-hour museum visit. With some hesitation, I subscribe to a more optimistic view. Students learning about the
darker side of their nations recent past, Peruvians becoming aware of
less-articulated wartime experiences, and international tourists exposing
themselves to a Peru that is more than Machu Picchu do not strike me as
bad things. In some cases, these practices may even be transformative. If
we can refer to impacts that museums and memory initiatives have on
individuals and societies, we must understand them as multilayered and
exceedingly complex. As such, there are major problems with simple assertions that never again doesnt work. First, these statements presuppose the answer to a vaguely-defined hypothesis that cannot be tested in
our contemporary world. Second, and perhaps more worrisome, they risk
diverting attention away from how memorialization discourses become
localized and transformed in specific places and historical moments. n
Acknowledgments:
This research was supported by a Carter Field Research Grant from the University of Florida Center for
Latin American Studies. I am grateful to ANFASEPs executive committee and the organizations president,
Adelina Garca, along with the many Peruvians who shared their time and insights with me, for making this
research possible. In addition, I wish to thank Feliciano Carbajal, an anthropology student at UNSCH, for
his work as a research assistant. Florence Babb has been a critical source of intellectual support during
all stages of this work. Faye Harrison, Jack Kugelmass, and Eric Carbajal provided thoughtful readings of
drafts of this essay and I thank them for their feedback. I am also appreciative of the suggestions made
by two anonymous AQ reviewers and Roy Richard Grinker. Any shortcomings, of course, remain my own.
Endnotes:
1Perhaps
the most prominent expression of this sentiment came from Minister of Defense ntero FloresAroz (RPP 2009). For an overview of the controversy, see Rodrigo (2010).
2Vargas
Llosa is a polarizing figure in Peru not only for his politics, but also his reputation for espousing
Eurocentric views and controversial involvement in the investigation of the so-called Uchuraccay massacre (del Pino 2003, Mayer 1991). In September 2010, Vargas Llosa resigned from the museum commission in response to the Garca administrations attempt to push through a de facto amnesty law for
military personnel.
3In
the winter of 2003, the CVR museum exhibition Yuyanapaq (To Remember) opened (Poole and
Rojas-Prez 2011). The traveling exhibit has found a temporary home in the Museo de la Nacin in Lima
in recent years. Debates over the Ojo Que Llora (Eye That Cries) monument in Limas Campo de Marte
(see Hite 2007, Drinot 2009, Milton 2011) anticipated the German donation controversy. There is a growing literature on the national museum, which is now referred to as the Lugar de la Memoria and slated to
open in 2012 (Cnepa 2009, Rodrigo 2010). In a thoughtful essay, Mara Eugenia Ulfe (2009:24-25) also
notes the marginality of existing memory projects in the central Andes within national conversations
about the museum.
4Although the recommendations of the Final Report of the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation (CVR 2003)
included a call for symbolic reparations, these initiatives have mostly taken place under the auspices of
NGOs and civil society actors rather than the state (Milton 2007). See Ulfe (2005) for an examination of art
512
Joseph P. Feldman
and memory in Ayacucho. Ritters (2006) dissertation explores war themes in music. Edilberto Jimnez
(2009), a distinguished retablo artist and anthropologist, has written an innovative community history of
Chungui that combines testimonials with interpretive artwork.
5When
I use memorialization in this article, I am referring more to public culture initiatives that seek to
promote solemn reflection on violent pasts than sites that aim to celebrate the triumphant victories or
noble defeats of nations in (international) wars.
6Historian
Saul Friedlnder (2000:6-7) traces the contemporary concern with memory in western society
to student movements of the late 1960s that unsettled conventional representations of World War II.
Andreas Huyssen (2000:22) similarly discusses the emergence of memory discourses in this period, noting their relation to waves of decolonization in the Third World and social movements in the global North.
Along with Friedlnder (2000:6-7), Huyssen (2000:22) highlights the role of NBCs Holocaust miniseries,
which aired in 1978-1979, in making violent pasts and questions of memory central to contemporary
discussions of history.
7Genealogies
of the movement can be traced to 1960s divisions within the Peruvian Communist Party.
The full title of the group was Partido Communista del Peru-Sendero Luminoso (PCP-SL), however
Sendero did not participate in elections and adopted insurgency strategies rather than engagement with
Perus political system. Sendero was not the only guerrilla movement that was active during Perus internal
armed conflict. For instance, the MRTA (Movimiento Revolucionario Tpac Amaru), a leftist group that
was smaller and less influential than Sendero, also used violence to further a revolutionary agenda. The
Senderology literature is vast (e.g., Degregori 1990, Palmer 1992, Gorriti 1999). On the history and social
dimensions of the political violence, see Sterns (1998) excellent volume.
8Ayacucho
and Huamanga are used interchangeably to describe the capital city of the department of
Ayacucho.
9ANFASEP
also condemned Sendero violence; for a detailed discussion of the organizations history see
Tamayo (2003) and Soto (2007).
10The
organization currently rents out the first floor of the building to a small restaurant.
11Most
of the financial support for the project came from the German Embassy, however ANFASEP also
received funding from several German development agencies and Peruvian NGOs. The only Peruvian
government body to donate money for the museum was the Ministry of Women and Social Development
(MIMDES).
12In an interview for a Peruvian newspaper about the museum at the time of its inauguration, a major
contributor to the project stated that a museum is important to keep the memory (of the violence) alive
(Castillo 2005). Another DED representative in a report by the organization stated that the agencys relatively small financial contribution to build the museum has undoubtedly had a positive impact on the
promotion of peace (Ketels 2005:14).
13In order to maintain the anonymity of those who worked at the museum during my study, I refer to all
current and former guides I spoke with in the present tense.
14It
is reasonable to argue, as Cynthia Milton and Mara Eugenia Ulfe (2011) do, that the aspects of the
ANFASEP museum represent a critique of the CVR. As Milton (2007) has illustrated elsewhere, many in
Ayacucho and Peru also voiced opposition to the CVRs perceived emphasis on state violence as opposed to that of Sendero.
15The military, for instance, is rarely disaggregated into individual actors in the exhibition itself. An exception to this is the display of a small pot accompanied by a caption that is handwritten by a former inmate
at the Los Cabitos detention center. The note recounts the story of a guard who offered the prisoner the
small, worn pot out of his humanity, a gift that enabled the inmate and his peers to collect enough food
to survive.
16Not all individuals I spoke with emphasized the emotional difficulty of working as a guideone young
man described it as a form of therapyand the position certainly has other challenges (e.g., language
barriers, difficult visitors). Virtually all of the guides with whom I spoke, however, indicated that they considered their work at the museum to be a valuable experience.
17Theidon (2003:81) describes the way that popular accounts of the war celebrating the rondas campesinas role in defending rural Andean villages from Sendero attacks reproduce an ideology of masculine
heroism, in which male ronderos are lionized as saviours of Peruvian nationhood and democracy. These
rondero-centered narratives, she suggests, have the effect of positioning men as more proximal to the
national, obscuring Andean womens contributions to the defense of their communities, and limiting
space for the articulation of womens less dramatic struggles during the violence. On gender exclusion
513

in the rondas campesinas, see Starn (1995:564). For discussion of the gendered politics of national memory initiatives, see Gillis (1994:12) and Jager (2002).
18I do not mean to essentialize womens experience of the war as being limited to these domains. Space
does not permit a more complex rendering that would include womens active participation in violence
(see Coral 1998, del Pino 1998). A majority of those killed in the civil conflict were men.
19A
poignant, anonymous entry in the guestbook addresses a male guide by name, telling him At one
time I was a military serviceman and I lament the excesses the war brought. Without a doubt, armed
conflicts bring out the worst in mankind. But they also bring out the best: the organization, ANFASEP, is
proof of this.
20I
can recall an instance during my fieldwork when a young, female professional visiting Ayacucho from
Lima brought her Quechua-speaking mother from the countryside to see the museum. The older woman
had a very emotional reaction upon viewing the exhibition, but both visitors expressed their overall approval of the museum as a project. Also, a few younger people involved with the organization told me that
some of the ANFASEP mothers who visited the museum at its inauguration cried and had to leave the
exhibition space.
21To assess Ayacuchano perspectives on the museum, I conducted an informal survey with the assistance
of an anthropology student from the Universidad Nacional de San Cristbal de Huamanga who served as
a research assistant and Quechua translator. We visited three neighborhoods that were selected to recruit
participants from a diversity of socioeconomic backgrounds and carried out guided conversations with
a total of 42 residents. In addition, I regularly asked about Ayacuchanos perceptions of the museum in
interviews and informal conversations.
22Moto-taxis are small, three-wheeled vehicles that are ubiquitous in Ayacucho and serve as a convenient,
if sometimes precarious, form of urban transportation.

23The
organizations opponents sometimes referred to ANFASEP members as the mothers of terrorists

or the mothers of senderistas during the years of the civil conflict.
24Khazanov
(2000:54-60) writes admiringly about the Sakharov Museums critical, human rights-focused
depiction of modern Russian history but notes that the institution receives no financial support from the
government and sustains itself on a modest budget. Ciraj Rassool (2006:293-294) discusses the District
Six Museums exclusion from an official network of South African museums that was established by the
post-apartheid government. Lacking this recognition (and the government subsidies that come with it),
the community museum relies almost entirely on international donors. See below for discussion of the
ANFASEP Museums economic situation.
25This
logic is similar to that of a Fujimori-era government campaign to broadcast a safe Peru image to
international tourists (Brooke 1990 as cited in Babb 2011:69-70).
26I
do not mean to present a unidimensional view of what a desirable image might be for countries and
regions that seek to attract tourism and other forms of capital accumulation following periods of violence.
There is certainly a tendency for state and private actors to bracket war as a thing of the past (war tourists notwithstanding), but symbolic and economic capital can also be acquired through demonstrating a
modern willingness to confront difficult pasts.
27Researchers
have documented tensions surrounding war stories (perceived) commodification in other

settings in Ayacucho. Theidon (2003:82) reports that some of her rondero interlocutors in Carhuahurn
believed that their war narratives had value in the global marketplace and that Theidon was going to profit
by selling the stories she tape-recorded to foreign radio stations. Caroline Yezer (2008) observes that
residents of a northern Ayacucho village feared they were being tricked by CVR commissioners and that
their labors of remembering and storytelling were being extracted for coastal consumption without due
compensation.
28The
admission is obviously quite low when compared to museums in the global North or those of Lima
and Cuzco. Attending the museum would nonetheless amount to a significant expenditure of money and
time for a working-class Ayacuchano.
29Ivan
Karp (1992:6-7) describes museums as key institutions in the production of social ideas in many
nations. Benedict Anderson (2006:163-186) includes museums within his triumvirate of institutions
(Census, Map, Museum) that have been central in the mapping and delimiting of nations. See also
Steiners (1995) special issue on Museums and the Politics of Nationalism in Museum Anthropology.
30This
assertion is not without irony, as the ANFASEP Museum has become something of a center institution within the department of Ayacucho. Its establishment has inspired the creation of small memorial
museums in places like the town of Huanta and the rural district of Huamanquiquia.
514
Joseph P. Feldman
References:
Anderson, Benedict. 2006. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism.
New York: Verso.
Appadurai, Arjun and Carol A. Breckenridge. 1992. Museums are Good to Think: Heritage on View in
India. In Ivan Karp, Mullen Kreamer, and Steven D. Lavine, eds. Museums and Communities: The
Politics of Public Culture, 34-55. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Ashworth, G. J. 2008. The Memorialization of Violence and Tragedy: Human Trauma as Heritage. In Brian
Graham and Peter Howard, eds. The Ashgate Research Companion to Heritage and Identity, 231-244.
Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd.
Ashworth, Gregory and Rudi Hartmann, eds. 2005. Horror and Human Tragedy Revisited: The Management
of Sites of Atrocities for Tourism. New York: Cognizant Communication Corporation.
Babb, Florence E. 2011. The Tourism Encounter: Fashioning Latin American Nations and Histories.
Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Bracamonte, Jorge, Beatriz Duda, and Gonzalo Portocarrero, eds. 2003. Para no olvidar: Testimonios
sobre la violencia poltica en el Per. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.
Cameron, Duncan F. 1971. The Museum, a Temple or the Forum. Curator 14(1):11-24.
Cnepa, Gisela. 2009. Esfera pblica y derechos culturales: La cultura como accin. Memoria 5:27-38.
Castillo, Mara Elena. 2005. Para que no lo olvidemos. La Repblica, October 17, p. 14.
Clifford, James. 1997. Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.
Comisin de la Verdad y Reconciliacin (CVR). 2003. Informe Final. Lima: Peru.
Coral Cordero, Isabel. 1998. Women in War: Impact and Responses. In Steve J. Stern, ed. Shining and
Other Paths, 345-374. Durham: Duke University Press.
Degregori, Carlos Ivn. 1990. El surgimiento de Sendero Luminoso: Ayacucho 1969-1979. Lima: Instituto
de Estudios Peruanos.
Degregori, Carlos Ivn, ed. 2003. Jams tan cerca arremeti lo lejos: Memoria y violencia en el Per. Lima:
Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.
del Pino, Ponciano. 1998. Family, Culture, and Revolution: Everyday Life with Sendero Luminoso. In
Steve J. Stern, ed. Shining and Other Paths, 158-192. Durham: Duke University Press.
____________. 2003. Uchuraccay: Memoria y representacin de la violencia poltica en los Andes. In
Carlos Ivn Degregori, ed. Jams tan cerca arremeti lo lejos: Memoria y violencia en el Per, 49-94.
Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.
Drinot, Paulo. 2009. For Whom the Eye Cries: Memory, Monumentality, and the Ontologies of Violence in
Peru. Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 18(1):15-32.
Duffy, Terrence M. 2001. Museums of Human Suffering and the Struggle for Human Rights. Museum
International 53(1):10-16.
Economist. 2009. Dont Look Back: Arguing over a Museum of Memory. March 14:42.
Friedlnder, Saul. 2000. History, Memory, and the Historian: Dilemmas and Responsibilities. New
German Critique 80:3-15.
Gillis, John R., ed. 1994. Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Gonzlez, Olga M. 2011. Unveiling Secrets of War in the Peruvian Andes. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Gorriti, Gustavo. 1999. The Shining Path: A History of the Millenarian War in Peru. Robin Kirk, trans. Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Grandin, Greg. 2005. The Instruction of Great Catastrophe: Truth Commissions, National History, and
State Formation in Argentina, Chile, and Guatemala. American Historical Review 110(1):46-67.
Handler, Richard. 1988. Nationalism and the Politics of Culture in Quebec. Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press.
515

____________. 1993. An Anthropological Definition of the Museum and its Purpose. Museum
Anthropology 17(1):33-36.
Handler, Richard and Eric Gable. 1997. The New History in an Old Museum: Creating the Past At Colonial
Williamsburg. Durham: Duke University Press.
Hite, Katherine. 2007. The Eye that Cries: The Politics of Representing Victims in Contemporary Peru.
Contra Corriente 5(1):108-134.
Huyssen, Andreas. 2000. Present Pasts: Media, Politics, Amnesia. Public Culture 12(1):21-38.
Instituto Nacional De Estadstica e Informtica (INEI). 2008. Ayacucho: Compendio Estadstico 20072009. Ayacucho: INEI.
Jager, Sheila Miyoshi. 2002. Monumental Histories: Manliness, the Military, and the War Memorial.
Public Culture 4(2):387-409.
Jelin, Elizabeth. 2002. Los trabajos de la memoria. Madrid: Siglo XXI.
____________. 2007. Public Memorialization in Perspective: Truth, Justice and Memory of Past Repression
in the Southern Cone of South America. The International Journal of Transitional Justice 1(1):138-156.
Jenkins, Tiffany. 2007. Victims Remembered. In Sheila Watson, ed. Museums and Their Communities,
448-451. New York: Routledge.
Jimnez, Edilberto. 2009. Chungui: Violencia y trazos de memoria. 2nd edition. Lima: Instituto de Estudios
Peruanos.
Karp, Ivan. 1992. Introduction: Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture. In Ivan
Karp, Mullen Kreamer, and Steven D. Lavine, eds. Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public
Culture, 1-17. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Kernaghan, Richard. 2009. Cocas Gone: Of Might and Right in the Huallaga Post-Boom. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
Ketels, Sabine. 2005. An Historical Encounter in AyacuchoA Turning Point in the Countrys History?
In Six Days in October 2005. Technical Report, 12-14. Lima: Deutscher Entwicklungsdienst (DED).
Khazanov, Anatoly M. 2000. Selecting the Past: The Politics of Memory in Moscows History Museums.
City and Society 12(2):35-62.
Kirk, Robin. 2005. Chaqwa. In Orin Starn, Carlos Ivn Degregori, and Robin Kirk, eds. The Peru Reader:
History, Culture, Politics, 370-383. Durham: Duke University Press.
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. 1998. Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Laplante, Lisa J. and Kimberly Theidon. 2007. Truth with Consequences: Justice and Reparations in
Post-Truth Commission Peru. Human Rights Quarterly 29:228-250.
Ledgerwood, Judy. 1997. The Cambodian Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocidal Times: National Narrative.
Museum Anthropology 21(1):82-98.
Lehrer, Erica, Cynthia E. Milton, and Monica Eileen Patterson, eds. 2011. Curating Difficult Knowledge:
Violent Pasts in Public Places. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Leinaweaver, Jessaca. 2008. The Circulation of Children: Kinship, Adoption, and Morality in Andean Peru.
Durham: Duke University Press.
Lennon, John and Malcolm Foley. 2000. Dark Tourism: The Attraction of Death and Disaster. London:
Cengage Learning.
Llosa, Vargas. 2009. El Per no necesita museos. El Comercio, March 8. Accessed from http://elcomercio.pe/impresa/notas/peru-no-necesita-museos/20090308/256015 on Nov 15, 2009.
Logan, William and Keir Reeves, eds. 2009. Places of Pain and Shame: Dealing with Difficult Heritage.
New York: Routledge.
Mayer, Enrique. 1991. Peru in Deep Trouble: Mario Vargas Llosas Inquest in the Andes Reexamined.
Cultural Anthropology 6(4):466-504.
McDowell, Sara. 2008. Selling Conflict Heritage through Tourism in Peacetime Northern Ireland:
Transforming Conflict or Exacerbating Difference? International Journal of Heritage Studies
14(5):405-421.
516
Joseph P. Feldman
Milton, Cynthia E. 2007. At the Edge of the Peruvian Truth Commission: Alternative Paths to Recounting
the Past. Radical History Review 98:3-33.
____________. 2011. Defacing Memory: (Un)tying Perus Memory Knots. Memory Studies 4(2):190-205.
Milton, Cynthia E. and Maria Eugenia Ulfe. 2011. Promoting Peru: Tourism and Post-conflict Memory. In
Ksenija Bilbija and Leigh Payne, eds. Accounting for Violence: The Memory Market in Latin America,
207-234. Durham: Duke University Press.
Orlove, Benjamin S. 1993. Putting Race in Its Place: Order in Colonial and Postcolonial Peruvian
Geography. Social Research 60(2):301-336.
Palmer, David Scott, ed. 1992. The Shining Path of Peru. New York: St. Martins Press.
Poole, Deborah and Isaas Rojas-Prez. 2011. Memories of Reconciliation: Photography and Memory in
Postwar Peru. e-misfrica 7(2). Accessed from http://hemi.nyu.edu/hemi/en/e-misferica-72/poolerojas on Feb 24, 2012.
Pratt, Mary Louise. 2008. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. 2nd edition. New York:
Routledge.
Radio Programas del Per (RPP). 2009. Flores Aroz: Crear Museo de la Memoria no es prioridad para el
Per. February 26. Accessed from http://radio.rpp.com.pe/ampliaciondenoticias/flores-araoz-crearmuseo-de-la-memoria-no-es-prioridad-para-el-peru/ on Sept 10, 2010.
Rassool, Ciraj. 2006. Community Museums, Memory Politics, and Social Transformation in South
Africa. In Ivan Karp, Corrine A. Kratz, Lynn Szwaja, and Toms Ybarra-Frausto, eds., with Gustavo
Buntinx, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, and Ciraj Rassool. Museum Frictions: Public Cultures/Global
Transformations, 286-321. Durham: Duke University Press.
Ritter, Jonathan. 2006. A River of Blood: Music, Memory, and Violence in Ayacucho, Peru. Ph.D.
Dissertation, Department of Ethnomusicology, University of California, Los Angeles.
Rodrigo Gonzales, Paloma. 2010. El Lugar de la Memoria: The Peruvian Debate on Memory, Violence,
and Representation. M.A. Thesis, Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies, University of
California, San Diego.
Schwenkel, Christina. 2009. The American War in Contemporary Vietnam: Transnational Remembrance
and Representation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Shaw, Rosalind. 2007. Memory Frictions: Localizing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Sierra
Leone. International Journal of Transitional Justice 1(2):183-207.
Soto, Heeder, ed. 2007. Hasta cuando tu silencio? Testimonios de dolor y coraje. Ayacucho: ANFASEP.
Starn, Orin. 1995. To Revolt against the Revolution: War and Resistance in Perus Andes. Cultural
Steiner, Christopher B., ed. 1995. Museums and the Politics of Nationalism. Museum Anthropology
19(2).
Stern, Steve J., ed. 1998. Shining and Other Paths: War and Society in Peru, 1980-1995. Durham: Duke
University Press.
Tamayo, Ana Mara. 2003. ANFASEP y la lucha por la memoria de sus desaparecidos (1983-2000). In
Carlos Ivn Degregori, ed. Jams tan cerca arremeti lo lejos: Memoria y violencia poltica en el Per,
95-134. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.
Theidon, Kimberly. 2003. Disarming the Subject: Remembering War and Imagining Citizenship in Peru.
Cultural Critique 54:67-87.
____________. 2004. Entre Prjimos: El conflicto armado interno y la poltica de la reconciliacin en el Per.
Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.
____________. 2007. Gender and Transition: Common Sense, Women, and War. Journal of Human
Rights 6:453-478.
Ulfe, Mara Eugenia. 2005. Representations of Memory in Peruvian Retablos. Ph.D. Dissertation,
Department of Human Sciences, The George Washington University.
____________. 2009. Tantas veces Lima: El Museo de la Memoria. Coyuntura 5(26):23-27.
Veas, Alejandra. 2005. Lagrima viva: En Ayacucho el Museo de la Memoria apela a la razn y el corazn.
Caretas, November 3, pp. 49-50.
517

Vich, Victor. 2002. El canbal es el otro: Violencia y cultura en el Peru contemporneo. Lima: Instituto de
Estudios Peruanos.
Weissberg, Liliane. 1999. Introduction. In Dan Ben-Amos and Liliane Weissberg, eds. Cultural Memory
and the Construction of Identity, 7-26. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
White, Geoffrey M. 1995. Remembering Guadalcanal: National Identity and Transnational MemoryMaking. Public Culture 7:529-555.
____________. 1997a. Introduction: Public History and National Narrative. Museum Anthropology
21(3):3-7.
____________. 1997b. Museum/Memorial/Shrine: National Narrative in National Spaces. Museum
Williams, Paul. 2007. Memorial Museums: The Global Rush to Commemorate Atrocities. Oxford: Berg.
Wilson, Richard A. 2001. The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: Legitimizing the PostApartheid State. New York: Cambridge University Press.
____________. 2003. Anthropological Studies of National Reconciliation Processes. Anthropological
Theory 3(3):367-387.
Yezer, Caroline. 2008. Who Wants to Know? Rumors, Suspicions, and Opposition to Truth-telling in
Ayacucho. Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies 3(3):271-289.
Young, James E. 1993. The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
Foreign language translations:
Exhibiting Conflict: History and Politics at the Museo de la Memoria de ANFASEP in Ayacucho, Peru
Keywords: Peru, political violence, museums, public culture, gender
Exponiendo el conflicto: La historia y la poltica en el Museo de la Memoria de ANFASEP en Ayacucho, Per
Palabras clave: Per, violencia poltica, museos, cultura pblica, gnero
: ANFASEP
: , , , ,
: Museo de la memoria de ANFASEP ()

: , , , ,
Exibindo Conflicto: Histria e Politica no Museo de la Memoria da ANFASEP no Ayacucho, Peru
Palavras chaves: Peru, violencia politica, museus, cultura pblica, genro
:
:
518
Copyright of Anthropological Quarterly is the property of George Washington Institute for Ethnographic
Research and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the
copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for
individual use.

Anfasep

Загружено:

Сведения о документе

Оригинальное название

Авторское право

Доступные форматы

Поделиться этим документом

Поделиться или встроить документ

Параметры публикации

Этот документ был вам полезен?

Это неприемлемый материал?

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

Anfasep

Загружено:

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

Article

Exhibiting Conflict: History

n February 2009, the Peruvian government refused a two-million dollar

Exhibiting Conflict: History and Politics at the Museo de la Memoria

a reparations program for the wars victims.1 Many in Peru suspected,

I draw on Kimberly Theidons (2007) notion of the economics of memory

Memorialization and its Discontents

Exhibiting Conflict: History and Politics at the Museo de la Memoria

Coalition of Sites of Conscience, and the Memory, Memorials, and

of museums and other sites of public memory-making. The case of Peru

Political Violence and Post-Conflict Transitions in Peru

Exhibiting Conflict: History and Politics at the Museo de la Memoria

The Museo de la Memoria de ANFASEP

Exhibiting Conflict: History and Politics at the Museo de la Memoria

Exhibiting the Political Violence

Exhibiting Conflict: History and Politics at the Museo de la Memoria

books, newspaper articles), administered questionnaires to visitors with

Exhibiting Conflict: History and Politics at the Museo de la Memoria

member of the organization talked about the museum as a way to prove to

patrons must pass ANFASEPs second-floor office on their way up the

The ANFASEP Museum and Communities

Exhibiting Conflict: History and Politics at the Museo de la Memoria

contact zones to include encounters among actors separated by vast

Exhibiting Conflict: History and Politics at the Museo de la Memoria

merely trying to protect democracy. A mild-mannered guide in his 20s

Exhibiting Conflict: History and Politics at the Museo de la Memoria

relationship to the museum. Although ANFASEP and collaborators made

The Economics of Memorialization

Exhibiting Conflict: History and Politics at the Museo de la Memoria

museum was accepted by ANFASEPs executive committee members, in

Exhibiting Conflict: History and Politics at the Museo de la Memoria

goals of instituting rotating exhibits. As such, the exhibition has changed

Exhibiting Conflict: History and Politics at the Museo de la Memoria

Exhibiting Conflict: History and Politics at the Museo de la Memoria

of violent actors, or the relatively small amount of knowledge one can

Exhibiting Conflict: History and Politics at the Museo de la Memoria

if sometimes precarious, form of urban transportation.

organizations opponents sometimes referred to ANFASEP members as the mothers of terrorists

have documented tensions surrounding war stories (perceived) commodification in other

Exhibiting Conflict: History and Politics at the Museo de la Memoria

Exhibiting Conflict: History and Politics at the Museo de la Memoria

: Museo de la memoria de ANFASEP ()

Вам также может понравиться