Shipibos displaced in Lima: insurgent Citizens as authorized Indians in Peru

ABSTRACT

After years of settlement on a landfill in Lima’s shanty-town Cantagallo, more than 300 families of the Shipibo-Konibo Amazonian indigenous group faced displacement by a public–private project to transform the area into a riverside park. Instead of resisting, Shipibos utilized spaces that neoliberal multiculturalism opens up for them, adopting entrepreneurial ways that conform to the status of the ‘indio permitido,’ or authorized Indian, and taking advantage of rewards offered to such Indians by the Peruvian state. Yet, the tactics of Shipibos demonstrate that the authorized Indian is often mutually constituted by its insurrectionary Other. Shipibos exercise both ways of being as they become fluent in the dominant sphere and problematize the types of citizenship they can attain. This article investigates the ways in which the Peruvian government promotes indigenous exclusivity by rewarding the authorized Indian and placing limits on the attainment of full citizenship status by all Indians. It also explores the possibility that the use of state tactics that try to fit the neoliberal multiculturalist mold – like practices of ‘prior consultation’ – could open spaces for indigenous groups, authorized or not, to attain citizenship.

KEYWORDS:

• Peru
• Shipibo
• authorized Indian
• insurgent citizenship
• neoliberal multiculturalism
• prior consultation

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Karina Pacaya and Jonas Pinedo and their extended families for supporting me in this endeavor, and all Cantagallo Shipibos. I would also like to thank my friends Maria del Pilar Medina and Tito for introducing me to the Shipibo community in Lima many years ago, as well as my friend Floriza Portella for hosting me countless times during my projects in Lima. I would also like to thank the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University. I have deep gratitude toward professors Katherine Smith and Edgardo Perez-Morales, whose constant support and editing help saw me through this project. I also extend special thanks to the Tinker Foundation for granting me a Tinker Field Research Grant.

Notes

1. For an overview of the Vía Parque Rimac plan, see http://www.lamsac.com.pe/.

2. Most research on Shipibos is dated and related to linguistics, polygyny, and fertility, and focused on Shipibos in the Amazon (Hern 1992; Lucas 1971; Valenzuela 2010). One study addresses Amazonian contingencies that induced Shipibos to migrate, emphasizing that the disruption of traditional subsistence systems led to dependence on a market economy based on the unequal distribution of resources (Putsche 2000).

3. The 1993 ‘Constitucion Politica Del Peru’ is available online through the Organization of American States, see http://www.oas.org/juridico/spanish/per_res17.pdf.

4. This statement was made in a widely covered press conference, see Peru TV news coverage at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He41YLgm28k.

5. Unless otherwise indicated, English translations are those of the author.

6. More information on the Macha de los Cuatros Suyos can be found at Human Rights Watch, 2000, ‘La Marcha de los Cuatro Suyos,’ 28 July, https://www.hrw. org/es/news/2000/07/28/la-marcha-de-los-cuatro-suyos.

7. Such an emphasis on property is similar to what Holston (2008) has documented in urban peripheries of São Paulo, Brazil, which he suggests serves as a central site of residents’ mobilizations and contestations around citizenship.

8. For more information on GPIP, see http://www.munlima.gob.pe/gerencia-de-promocion-de-la-inversion-privada.

9. For more information on Invermet, see http://www.munlima.gob.pe/invermet.

10. The word ‘indio’ is intentionally used in this article to call attention to its pejorative use, following how Mr. Agustín also used the term and to highlight ongoing discrimination that may be masked with the more acceptable category of ‘indigenous’ (see also Canessa 2012b).

11. Paneton is a sweet bread with dried fruits typically eaten at Christmas in Peru. State programs always include the item in food baskets for the poor at Christmas time.

12. For more on AIDESEP’s programs, see http://www.aidesep.org.pe/.

13. For more on the legal precedents to Lima’s Consultation Law in international conventions, see Maclennan, George, 2011, ‘Peru’s Consultation Law: A Victory for Indigenous Peoples?’, Amazon Watch, September 22, available at http://amazonwatch.org/news/2011/0922-Perus-consultation-law-a-victory-for-indigenous-peoples.ew.

14. For more on the legal conceptual framework of free, prior, and informed consent, see United Nations (2005).

Additional information

Funding

The author thanks the Tinker Foundation for granting the Tinker Field Research Grant.