Anfasep Mujeres

Exhibiting Conflict: History and Politics at the Museo de la Memoria de ANFASEP in
Ayacucho, Peru
Author(s): Joseph P. Feldman
Source: Anthropological Quarterly , Spring 2012, Vol. 85, No. 2 (Spring 2012), pp. 487-
518
Published by: The George Washington University Institute for Ethnographic Research
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ARTICLE
Exh
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 sociopoliti-
cal context of post-conflict Peru. I examine ways in which the museum's
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 museum's 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 Museum's pro-
motion of a "human rights culture" and politics of remembrance. [Keywords:
Peru, political violence, museums, public culture, gender]
In donation from Germany

February to construct
from 2009, Germanya national museum
the Peruvian that wouldgovernment
to construct me- a national refused museum a two-million that would dollar me-
morialize 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 claim-
ing that this money would be better spent on development projects and
Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 85, No. 2, p. 487-518, ISSN 0003-5491 . © 2012 by the Institute for
Ethnographic Research (IFER) a part of the George Washington University. All rights reserved.
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Exhibiting Conflict: History and Politics at the Museo de la Memoria
de ANFASEP in Ayacucho, Peru
a reparations program for the war's victims.1 Many in Peru suspected,

however, that the rejection of the German funds reflected not only the
government's reluctance to address recent political violence in the coun-
try, but also President Alan Garcia's 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 Garcia 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 museum's 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
projects- which, broadly defined, has included the publication of testi-
monials and community histories, NGO-sponsored workshops, the es-
tablishment of small museums and memorial sites, and the appearance
of war and postwar themes in domains of art, cinema, and popular mu-
sic-has 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 sociopo-
litical context of post-conflict Peru. The past few decades have seen a
worldwide boom in museums and heritage sites that commemorate his-
tories of violence, a phenomenon that has begun to receive significant
scholarly attention (Huyssen 2000, Williams 2007). In Peru, the recent-
ness of war and immediacy of its consequences, along with the country's
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 museum's
creation as well as ways in which its representations of the period of vio-
lence embrace and contest "official" narratives of the past. I then examine
how visitors engage with and react to the museum's portrayal of the politi-
cal violence as well as perspectives on the institution among residents of
Ayacucho. In addition to exploring the politics of historical representation,
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JOSEPH P. FELDMAN
I draw on Kimberly Theidon's (2007) notion of "the economics of memory"

to analyze the museum's place in relation to ongoing struggles over histo-
ry and recognition in Peru and within local and national heritage industries.
I conclude by assessing the possibilities and limitations of the ANFASEP
Museum's promotion of a "human rights culture" and politics of remem-
brance. 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. 201 1 , 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, González
201 1 , Jiménez 2009, Kernaghan 2009, Theidon 2004, Vich 2002) and the
politics of memorializing the country's internal armed conflict (Cánepa
2009, Drinot 2009, Hite 2007, Milton 201 1 , Milton and Ulfe 201 1 , Poole
and Rojas-Pérez 201 1 , Rodrigo 201 0, Ulfe 2009).
Memorialization and its Discontents

While the German donation story itself revealed the contentious poli
of remembering war in Peru, the amount of coverage the controversy
ceived in international media outlets ( Economist 2009) is perhaps ind
tive of the extent to which the establishment of museums and memo
sites has become a customary practice for nation-states in the afterm
of violence. The museum's conventional mission to preserve the great
est achievements of nations and civilizations remains with us, however
such agendas now exist alongside those of the memorial museum, a g
balized 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 organization's
1 978 induction of Senegal's Gorée 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 ap-
parent in ICOM's creation of the Committee of Memorial Museums, the es-
tablishment of non-governmental organizations such as the International
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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 memo-
rial 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 trans-
national 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 initia-
tives, 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 proj-
ects 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 "global-
ization of Holocaust discourse" and rise of a transnational "culture of mem-
ory" (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 2000:1 1).
Embracing memory discourse (Shaw 2007) and promoting critical re-
flection on the past is, of course, one of several paths that state and civil
society actors may take and post-conflict societies are always character-
ized by a plurality of memorialization regimes. Anatoly Khazanov (2000:39)
highlights this heterogeneity as he contrasts Soviet-era museums' ideo-
logical uniformity with the "fragmented and contradictory" diversity of four
history museums in contemporary Moscow. Consistent with this perspec-
tive is Geoffrey White's (1997a:5) warning against the reproduction of di-
chotomies of "official" versus subaltern narratives of history in analyses
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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 co
flict involving the Peruvian military, Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path)-
Maoist guerrilla movement- and other insurgent groups.7 Led by Abim
Guzmán, a philosophy professor at the Universidad Nacional de Sa
Cristóbal de Huamanga in Ayacucho, Sendero began a brutal campai
to overthrow the government in 1980. Although Sendero 's message o
radical social transformation initially resonated in impoverished Ande
communities, the insurgency ultimately failed to garner widespread su
port due to its violent tactics, top-down structure, and hostility towa
other leftist groups. Many peasants strongly rejected the movement (St
1995), forming civil defense committees (eventually known as the rond
campesinas) that sought to defend rural communities against guerrilla a
tacks. Beginning in 1982 and continuing during the 1990s, the Peruvia
government pursued aggressive measures to defeat the insurgency. Th
state ceded control of "emergency zones" to the military and perpetr
ed vast human rights abuses. Levels of violence began to decline in th
mid-1990s following the 1992 capture and imprisonment of Guzmán.
2001 , the government of Peru established the Truth and Reconciliatio
Commission (CVR) to investigate the period of the violence. Following t
collection of some 1 7,000 testimonials, the CVR released its Final Rep
in 2003 (CVR 2003). The report concluded that the armed conflict resul
in over 69,000 deaths, a majority of which (54 percent) were attributed
Sendero. An additional finding of the CVR Final Report was that 75 p
cent of those who died in the conflict were native-speakers of Quechu
or other indigenous languages, a figure which powerfully illustrates t
extent to which the "epidemiology" of suffering during the violence w
racialized (Theidon 2004:19).
The department of Ayacucho, considered an "indigenous" space in th
racial geography of Peru (Orlove 1993), was the region hardest hit by t
violence, with 40 percent of war-era deaths and disappearances tak
place there (CVR 2003). The conditions of scarcity and government neg
that contributed to Sendero's emergence in the region have persisted
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the 21 st century. Official estimates place the department's poverty rate at

between 65 and 80 percent (INEI 2008:1454). The city of Ayacucho, a nine-
hour 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
Ayacucho's central plaza exist alongside visible signs of poverty and un-
derdevelopment in the city's outskirts, which are populated largely by mi-
grants from the countryside and their descendants. The regional capital's
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 (Asociación Nacional de Familiares de Secuestrados,
Desaparecidos, y Detenidos del Perú) was founded in 1983 by relatives
of war victims to protest state abuses.9 The association's 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 kitch-
ens, health programs) as well as other relatives-of-disappeared and hu-
man 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 com-
munity, 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 1 980s and 1 990s, the governments of Alan Garcia and
Alberto Fujimori vilified the group's members as "terrorists" aligned with
Sendero (Tamayo 2003). For instance, Angélica Mendoza, the organiza-
tion's iconic founder and long-time president (popularly known as "Mama
Angélica"), was labeled a "Shining Path Ambassador" by the government
following her short visit to Europe in 1 985 that was sponsored by Amnesty
International (Kirk 2005:381).
ANFASEP's 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 commission's Final Report (CVR
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JOSEPH P. FELDMAN
2003). Today, ANFASEP remains active and is composed of a few hun-

dred members. The association has incorporated a younger generation
of members into its leadership and currently works with the support of
Juventud ANFASEP, the organization's youth wing. In addition to long-
standing demands of truth and justice from the Peruvian government,
ANFASEP has expanded its advocacy to include topics such as Peru's
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 ANFASEP's 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 organization's ex-
ecutive committee and general assembly meetings, which now take place
on the building's 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 1 5 minute
walk from Ayacucho's 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 vio-
lence in Ayacucho, details human rights abuses committed during the war,
and tells the stories of individuals who were killed or "disappeared" dur-
ing 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 ANFASEP's 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.
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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 mem-
ber 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 organization's office. In discussions involving
the ANFASEP executive committee, Juventud ANFASEP, local representa-
tives of the German Development Service (Deutscher Entwicklungsdienst,
hereafter DED), and the association's legal adviser, the idea emerged
to create a museum on the newly-constructed third floor of ANFASEP's
headquarters. With the assistance of the organization's 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 ex-
ecutive committee to hold workshops to teach some of the mothers what
a (memorial) museum was, virtually all accounts communicate organiza-
tion 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 "disap-
peared" 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 ANFASEP's executive committee. Evaluating the
process of creating the museum, the organization's 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 museum's
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
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JOSEPH P. FELDMAN
and that the original idea was theirs- not, as one long-time ANFASEP
socia (member) reminded me, that of the authorities.
The museum opened October 1 6, 2005 on the second anniversary of
the release of the CVR Final Report. The museum's 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 organi-
zations. Also attending were representatives from international develop-
ment agencies, German Embassy workers, and participants in a coincid-
ing, 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 be-
fore them, grant applications), stated objectives of the museum included
preserving the memory of the violence, commemorating the lives of vic-
tims of the conflict, telling the history of ANFASEP's struggle, and being a
space for learning about, reflecting on, and raising awareness of the po-
litical 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 cre-
ated, and some of the broader aims that guided the project. As an ethnog-
rapher, 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 in-
cluded more than 30 interviews with members of ANFASEP and Juventud
ANFASEP, current and former museum workers, government officials, rep-

resentatives from NGOs, and former CVR investigators. In addition, I re-
viewed archival materials related to the museum (grant proposals, visitor
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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 view-
ing the texts and objects of the exhibition, but their exposure to the muse-
um's content is most often mediated by an ANFASEP guide. Since the mu-
seum's 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 Ayacucho's historical experience are usually dis-
cussed 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 re-
gional 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 con-
veys, others discussed the display's overarching message as being one of
non-violence, anti-racism, and reconciliation. The museum's subtitle, "so
that it's 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 initia-
tives like museums helped further processes of national reconciliation.
The museum's 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 portray-
al of victims of both Sendero and the armed forces, however there is little
information about Sendero as a political movement or Abimael Guzmán
presented in the exhibition. The museum's focus has to do in part with the
historical experience of ANFASEP as an organization. A majority of the
association's members had relatives who were killed or "disappeared" by
the armed forces and many do not believe that Sendero was responsible
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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 ANFASEP's executive com-
mittee wished to accentuate the military's participation in the conflict.14
At least some of the museum's emphasis, however, relates to early at-
tempts 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 workers- which in-
cluded information on museum maintenance, ANFASEP's history, and the
CVR Final Report, strategies for presenting the museum's content- the
agency's 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 museum's alleged biases (discussed further below) exist along-
side 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 documen-
tation. 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 museum's impor-
tance in "telling the truth" and documenting "what isn't written." A founding
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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 do-
ing 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 ex-
pressed 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 time- we went on to talk
about the ways in which such displays might limit the museum's appeal to
wider Ayacuchano and Peruvian audiences- but 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 pres-
ent.17 The exhibition's 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 em-
phasis on the experience of losing children and spouses, and the burden
of social reproduction in a time of war.18 Although, the museum's focus
on ANFASEP's struggle is perhaps limiting in certain ways, the portrayal
of the association's "heroes" nevertheless unsettles a pattern of locat-
ing 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,
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JOSEPH P. FELDMAN
patrons must pass ANFASEP's second-floor office on their way up the

stairs. As visitors enter and leave, they may see an ANFASEP socia receiv-
ing 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 Fujimori's conviction on human rights crimes, the June 2009 mas-
sacre in Bagua, or free trade agreements. These sights and sounds dis-
turb 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 an
empty receivers" of the information and the narratives they encounter
(Appadurai and Breckenridge 1992:50). On a typical day, there are be
tween five and ten visitors to the museum. A majority of those who com
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 in-
formation 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
institution's 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 Clifford's suggestion that analysts
consider museums as "contact zones." Clifford (1 997) draws on the termi-
nology 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, Clifford's discussion of museums expands
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"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 con-
flict, 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 museum's guestbook: "it's scary
to think that that type of violence took place so recently"). It is common
for those who are familiar with Peru's 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, ex-
pressions of solidarity ( solidarizai ) 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
exhibition's 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 colo-
nialism 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 Santayana's 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 coun-
tries in the region. A traveler from El Salvador, for example, discusses the
museum as presenting the experience of "all of Latin America." Similar to
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JOSEPH P. FELDMAN
this reaction is an Argentine visitor's assertion that the "history of politi-

cal 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 conflict's es-
calation and racialized neglect of the sierra- themes that permeate the
conclusions of the CVR Final Report- are 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 state-
ments like "Peru is not just Lima" and ask forgiveness for "our indiffer-
ence." One museumgoer reflectively writes, "Where was I? Why didn't I
do something?" These respondents envision remembering as a painful
yet necessary exercise- even a patriotic duty- in order to avoid the vio-
lence's 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 nar-
rowly 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
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de AN FAS EP in Ayacucho, Peru
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 con-
vey their disapproval of the museum in a manner that is, on its surface,
apolitical. This genre of responses includes claims that "remembering is
reliving" (recordares volvera 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 Garcia) 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 expres-
sions, 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 commit-
ted under a particular administration being met with sighs and eye-rolling,
gestures she acted out in a humorous, exaggerated fashion. Some visi-
tors are more overtly combative. During one guide's tour, a former military
serviceman interjected, "the military, the military, the military... why noth-
ing 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 weren't 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 state's 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 wasn't
like this." Some of these patrons would claim that communism was to
blame for the violence rather than figures like President Garcia who were
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JOSEPH P. FELDMAN
merely trying to "protect democracy." A mild-mannered guide in his 20s

recalled his "mortification" at a male visitor's suggestion that abuses com-
mitted by the armed forces were necessary. The guide's 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
aren't 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 Museum's geographical location and "chola/o"
guides alone would undermine any attempt to fashion the museum as an
authoritative "temple" for some Limeño 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 sin-
cere 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 Ayacucho's "profes-
sional" class would often be eager to share their thoughts and insights
on the ANFASEP Museum upon learning about my project. On the op-
posite end of the spectrum, it is very uncommon for residents who are
outside of these circles and have no affiliation with ANFASEP to have vis-
ited the museum.21 In interviews and conversations, lack of awareness
was a predominant response to my queries about Ayacucho residents'
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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 pro-
motion 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 museum's 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 museum's relatively recent creation and a lack of resourc-
es 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 posi-
tive view toward ANFASEP's 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 knowl-
edge 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 "ter-
ror" 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 initia-
tives as "painful" and "not healthy." As a senior male member of ANFASEP
put it, some Ayacuchanos would rather "be left in peace" than contem-
plate 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 Ayacuchanos- often dismissed as support-
ers of APRA by interviewees- referring to the Museo de la Memoria de
ANFASEP as the "museum of terrorists" or the "senderista house." The in-
vocation of these terms illustrates the extent to which war-era discourses
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JOSEPH P. FELDMAN
have continued to follow ANFASEP, along with other left political actors
and human rights organizations, in post-conflict Peru.23 ANFASEP mem-
bers 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 "mu-
seum of terrorists" tag anymore.
The Economics of Memorialization

Assessing the relations between the ANFASEP Museum and these v
ous "communities" invites attention to what Kimberly Theidon (2007) h
referred to as the "economics of memory." Theidon uses the term to s
light on ways in which individual and collective narratives in CVR m
ory projects in Ayacucho could be informed by victims' expectations
economic compensation. Avoiding a kind of materialist reductionism,
suggests that "among the conditions of possibility for the emergence
'new memories' are changing economic circumstances and motivation
(2007:459), and that these factors influence the production of stories
silences about war in rural communities. Although war victims who
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 sym-
bolic healing over matters of political economy (Laplante and Theidon
2007:236). National legislation on the rights of documented victims to re-
ceive individual reparations resulted in the creation of the National Victims
Registry (Registro Único 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 program's 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
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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
organization's 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 me-
morialization," 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 museum's 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 great-
er 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 ef-
fects of the political violence. That is not to say that all of the organization's
members and allies discuss these factors as the museum's 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 appreci-
ated the museum because they wished to share the history of their strug-
gle with their children and grandchildren. In addition, ANFASEP members'
responses pointed to ways in which the museum could help raise interna-
tional 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 outsid-
ers. As a newly arrived researcher, my proposal to conduct a study of the
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JOSEPH P. FELDMAN
museum was accepted by ANFASEP's 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
museum's political utility. A member of Juventud ANFASEP in her 20s, for
example, expressed her view that the violence should be part of Peru's
tourism product. "We're more than Machu Picchu...and this needs to be
part of the (tourist) circuit," she told me as we chatted on a park bench in
one of Ayacucho's well-to-do districts. This sentiment is reflected only to
a minimal extent in Ayacucho's 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 na-
tional level. The museum now appears in some of the tourism brochures
and information booklets that are distributed by tour operators and gov-
ernment offices in downtown Ayacucho, which represents a change from
the institution's 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
agency's 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 de-
scribed the INC as being "indifferent" to ANFASEP's 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 tour-
ists 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 city's place in recent Peruvian history, but the major-
ity of tourists are Peruvians who are keenly aware of the region's asso-
ciation 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
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efforts instead tend to focus on the city's colonial center and famed 33
churches, festivals like Holy Week (Semana Santa) and Carnival and sur-
rounding destinations such as Quinua (a town known for its vibrant handi-
craft 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 Ayacucho's
industry. None of these individuals, however, identified so-called dark
tourism or "trauma tourism" as something that they anticipated emerg-
ing 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 Ayacucho's alleged image problems.26
Despite the ANFASEP Museum's low profile among Ayacuchanos and
relatively minor place in Ayacucho's tourism industry, a number of resi-
dents shared with me what they took to be the positive or negative ef-
fects of the museum's "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 fo-
cusing attention on themes of the political violence rather than Ayacucho's
cultural traditions, historic buildings, or archaeological heritage.
Questions of "the economic" also appeared to frame ANFASEP mem-
bers' 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 in-
stance, discussed the conflicts that emerged as foreign tourists offered
tips to individual workers at the museum (a practice that is not common-
place 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 mu-
seum's 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
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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 handi-
crafts 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-to-
day workings of the museum recognized its dismal economic situation
and were aware of the institution's 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 museum's
opening, and some talked of the museum's "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 years- in comparison to the time of
the CVR when the organization received higher levels of national and in-
ternational support- and, 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 sick-
ness or family commitment can sometimes result in the museum being
closed for the day. When I asked interlocutors about the museum's 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 organization's perceived inabil-
ity to effectively manage and promote the institution. Several ANFASEP
leaders who voiced concern about the museum's future discussed the
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prospect of establishing institutional affiliations with the university, the lo-

cal government, the INC, and national human rights organizations to help
sustain the museum -all arrangements that would doubtless present their
own complexities.
Conclusion
Memorial museums and "difficult" heritage sites are not without their crit
ics. As institutions, these sites and museums generally self-identify w
goals of furthering social justice and reconciliation. Scholars in herit
studies have cautioned against uncritical acceptance of public mem
projects, noting that despite these initiatives' association with peace a
solidarity, relatively little is known about their social effects (Ashworth an
Hartmann 2005:12-14, Jenkins 2007). Williams (2007:22) echoes th
concerns, observing the persistence of "little-criticized precepts" abo
memorial museums in popular and scholarly discourse. A second, mor
nuanced line of critique draws attention to intersections of memory, power
and nation. James Young, in his study of Holocaust memorials, obser
that "memorials tend to concretize particular historical interpretatio
(1993:2) and "turn pliant memory to stone" (1993:13). This concretizat
frequently takes place on the level of the nation-state, as memory di
courses most often posit national "experiences" (Huyssen 2000:26)
museums in particular tend to encourage personal connection with th
past "within the bounds of a national identity" (Weissberg 1999:1 2-1 3
It is fair to suggest that governments commonly draw on memorial m
ums as technologies for compartmentalizing past conflicts and animo
ties. Here, the performative qualities of museums (Kirshenblatt-Gimbl
1998) work in concert with truth commissions and other transitional p
ductions in constructing violence (or its public commemoration) as a li
inal experience (Grandin 2005:48, Wilson 2001:19), consigning historie
of conflict to "a visitable past" (Ashworth and Hartmann 2005:261), a
fashioning a national present and future.
The ANFASEP Museum must be understood within an emerging me
morialization industry in Peru that will include, but certainly not be limite
to, a museum in Lima. In this national context, we might consider th
Museo de la Memoria to be an oppositional museum, even as it curren
has few "center" institutions against which it can define itself and pres
narratives of the war in Peru that overlap with those of "official" histories
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JOSEPH P. FELDMAN
I say this largely to underscore the museum's conscious partiality- em-

bracing the term's dual-meaning of incompleteness and the condition of
certain elements being privileged over others- and its implications. For a
variety of reasons- ANFASEP's history as an activist organization, DED
memory discourses, ideologies of race and geography in Peru, lack of ex-
hibition space- the 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" memo-
ry or institutionalizing a particular vision of history in a hegemonic way.
Nevertheless, the histories and experiences communicated by the mu-
seum's content, guides, and overall "effects" do work to unsettle certain
dominant modes of thinking about war and its aftermath in Peru. As I ar-
ticulate in my discussion of the economics of memorialization, these sym-
bolic 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 ANFASEP's relationship to its
surrounding communities, including local and national government agen-
cies, one cannot dismiss the possibility that the museum's oppositional
elements might ultimately threaten its survival as an institution. This real-
ization 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
2007:1 10-111). 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 ANFASEP's effectiveness in furthering the promotion of peace,
reconciliation, and respect for human rights- the oft-cited raison d'être of
memorial museums (Duffy 2001). A cynic can point to a lack of engage-
ment with and opposition to the museum among Ayacuchanos, the exhi-
bition's emphasis on atrocities themselves rather than the humanization
511

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

obtain during the course of a half-hour museum visit. With some hesita-
tion, I subscribe to a more optimistic view. Students learning about the
darker side of their nation's 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 as-
sertions that "never again doesn't work." First, these statements presup-
pose 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. ■
Acknowledgments:
This research was supported by a Carter Field Research Grant from the University of Florida
Latin American Studies. I am grateful to ANFASEP's executive committee and the organization'
Adelina García, along with the many Peruvians who shared their time and insights with me, for
research possible. In addition, I wish to thank Feliciano Carbajal, an anthropology student a
his work as a research assistant. Florence Babb has been a critical source of intellectual sup
all stages of this work. Faye Harrison, Jack Kugelmass, and Eric Carbajal provided thoughtful
drafts of this essay and I thank them for their feedback. I am also appreciative of the sugg
by two anonymous AQ reviewers and Roy Richard Grinker. Any shortcomings, of course, rem
Endnotes:
1 Perhaps the most prominent expression of this sentiment came from Minis
Aráoz (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
Eurocentric views and controversial involvement in the investigation of t
sacre (del Pino 2003, Mayer 1991). In September 2010, Vargas Llosa resign
mission in response to the Garcia administration's attempt to push throug
military personnel.
3ln the winter of 2003, the CVR museum exhibition Yuyanapaq ("To R
Rojas-Pérez 201 1). The traveling exhibit has found a temporary home in t
in recent years. Debates over the Ojo Que Llora ("Eye That Cries") monum
(see Hite 2007, Drinot 2009, Milton 201 1) anticipated the German donation co
ing literature on the national museum, which is now referred to as the Luga
open in 2012 (Cánepa 2009, Rodrigo 2010). In a thoughtful essay, Maria E
notes the marginality of existing memory projects in the central Andes w
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

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JOSEPH P. FELDMAN
and memory in Ayacucho. Ritter's (2006) dissertation explores war themes in music. Edilberto Jiménez
(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 Friedländer (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, not-
ing their relation to waves of decolonization in the Third World and social movements in the global North.
Along with Friedländer (2000:6-7), Huyssen (2000:22) highlights the role of NBC's "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
Peru's political system. Sendero was not the only guerrilla movement that was active during Peru's internal
armed conflict. For instance, the MRTA ( Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac 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 1 990, Palmer 1 992, Gorriti 1 999). On the history and social
dimensions of the political violence, see Stern's (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 organization's history see
Tamayo (2003) and Soto (2007).
10The organization currently rents out the first floor of the building to a small restaurant.
11 Most 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).
12ln 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 agency's rela-
tively small financial contribution to build the museum "has undoubtedly had a positive impact on the
promotion of peace" (Ketels 2005:14).
13ln 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.
14lt is reasonable to argue, as Cynthia Milton and Maria 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 CVR's perceived emphasis on state violence as op-
posed to that of Sendero.
15The military, for instance, is rarely disaggregated into individual actors in the exhibition itself. An excep-
tion 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 guide- one young
man described it as a "form of therapy"- and 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 con-
sidered 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 campesi-
nas' 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 women's contributions to the defense of their communities, and limiting
space for the articulation of women's "less dramatic" struggles during the violence. On gender exclusion
513

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in the rondas campesinas, see Starn (1995:564). For discussion of the gendered politics of national mem-
ory initiatives, see Gillis (1994:12) and Jager (2002).
18l do not mean to essentialize "women's experience" of the war as being limited to these domains. Space
does not permit a more complex rendering that would include women's 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."
20l 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 ap-
proval 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.
21 To assess Ayacuchano perspectives on the museum, I conducted an informal survey with the assistance
of an anthropology student from the Universidad Nacional de San Cristóbal 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 organization's 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 Museum's 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 Museum's 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 Museum's 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 201 1 :69-70).
26l 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 tour-
ists 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 ronderò interlocutors in Carhuahurán
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 du
compensation.
28The admission is obviously quite low when compared to museums in the global North or those of Lim
and Cuzco. Attending the museum would nonetheless amount to a significant expenditure of money and
time for a working-class Ayacuchano.
29lvan 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 als
Steiner's (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" insti-
tution 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

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JOSEPH P. FELDMAN
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Foreign language translations:

Exhibiting Conflict: History and Politics at the Museo de la Memoria de ANFASEP in Ayacu
Keywords: Peru, political violence, museums, public culture, gender
Exponiendo el conflicto: La historia y la política en el Museo de la Memoria de ANFASEP en

Palabras clave: Perú, violencia política, museos, cultura pública, género
(ANFASEP) " #ŤISi5lZtÍ
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fleMOHCTpaMUfl KOH(J>jinKTa: McTopua n no/inTMKa b
K/iioneBbie cnoBa: llepy, no/ii/mmecKoe HacwiMe, My
Exibindo Conflicto: Historia e Politica no Museo de la

Palavras chaves: Peru, violencia politica, museus, cul
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34.192.2.131 on Wed, 16 Sep 2020 00:16:03 UTC

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

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41857251

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This essay locates the Museo de la Memoria de ANFASEP in Ayacucho,

In donation from Germany

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a reparations program for the war's victims.1 Many in Peru suspected,

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I draw on Kimberly Theidon's (2007) notion of "the economics of memory"

Memorialization and its Discontents

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

guide their dissemination on a global scale. Attempts to shed historical

ory" (2000:23-24), calling attention to the necessary incongruence these

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

Political Violence and Post-Conflict Transitions in Peru

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the 21 st century. Official estimates place the department's poverty rate at

The Museo de la Memoria de ANFASEP

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2003). Today, ANFASEP remains active and is composed of a few hun-

Through the efforts of ANFASEP and a German development agency,

a reproduction of a torture room at the infamous Los Cabitos detention

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Exhibiting the Political Violence

ANFASEP, current and former museum workers, government officials, rep-

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books, newspaper articles), administered questionnaires to visitors with

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

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patrons must pass ANFASEP's second-floor office on their way up the

The ANFASEP Museum and Communities

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"contact zones" to include encounters among actors separated by vast

International visitors' familiarity with the history of the political violence

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this reaction is an Argentine visitor's assertion that the "history of politi-

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In addition to reacting to the museum in a more intimate and "national"

resistance rather than open confrontation. Guides suggested to me that

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

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relationship to the museum. Although ANFASEP and collaborators made

Ayacucho residents' level of engagement with the ANFASEP Museum

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The Economics of Memorialization

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of a more complex rendering of Peru and its history on a global scale.

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museum was accepted by ANFASEP's executive committee members, in

scribed the INC as being "indifferent" to ANFASEP's museum and themes

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

as guides are now attending university, working full-time, or taking care of

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prospect of establishing institutional affiliations with the university, the lo-

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