Quechua Women: Agency in the Testimonies of the CVR—Peru Public Hearings

Following Peru’s long conflict between the state and Shining Path, the interim government created the Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación (CVR—Truth and Reconciliation Commission). The CVR organised public hearings to receive oral testimonials from victims of the conflict and, thus, it created a unique democratic space in the country. This chapter analyses the agency of six Quechua women who reinterpreted the hegemonic story of the conflict, projecting their identity and representing others in their oral testimonials. This chapter closely analyses the testimony of the six women, examining their speech strategies, social roles, representation of others, the representation of the story of the conflict, the search for recognition and demands to the government. This analysis reveals that Quechua women acted in view of the opportunity given to them by the CVR to tell stories that go beyond the description of the rapes suffered to challenge narratives of victimhood and show Quechua women’s strategies of resistance. The democratic institutional framework in Peru has limited opportunities for participation of indigenous women; these public hearings proved to be a space of active citizenship that opened up, though momentarily, for Quechua women.