Quispe, Carlos

This presentation shares the results of the fieldwork carried out in the upper part of the Ene River basin (inland Peru), within the area known as VRAEM, which is immediately associated by the social imaginary with illicit crops, illegal drug planes, and terrorism. However, the dominant narratives lose sight of how the violence that occurred between the 1980s and 2000s has reconfigured the local dynamics of the Asháninka communities. Although they have resisted the onslaught of subversive groups through their Self-Defense Committees, they currently face new threats related to the advance of illicit economies on their territories. Also, the state's apathy is part of a "past that does not pass" because they remind them that their future is conditioned with impacts that are already notorious from expressions such as "there is no longer shimaa (fish) or sajino (animal) as before the kityonkari (Shining Path)" to "I am not going there. There are 'the uncles' (remnants of Sendero linked to drug trafficking)." Their thing is a past that does not pass.