Beyond Counterinsurgency: Peasant Militias and Wartime Social Order in Peru’s Civil War

In much of the academic literature on contemporary militias, the focus is typically on their destructive anti-rebel character.  By contrast, the perspective of militias as agents of local governance, social reconstruction, and positive transformations is one that to date has been under-researched.  Taking a “relational” perspective, this article examines how peasant militias in Ayacucho Department, although initially formed for the purpose of violently opposing Shining Path rebels, became engaged in governing their own “wartime social order” in which they organised, coordinated, regulated, and signified activities and behaviour for the collective good of their local communities.  From it we might gain insight into how these peasant militias were able to avoid permanently becoming the predatory sort of militia that much of the academic literature warns about. Resumen: Mas alla de la contrainsurgencia: milicias campesinas  y el orden social de guerra en la guerra civil de Peru Gran parte de la literatura academica sobre las milicias contemporaneas ha centrado su atencion en su caracter destructivo anti-rebelde. Sin embargo, la perspectiva de las milicias como agentes de la gobernanza local, la reconstruccion social y las transformaciones positivas, hasta la fecha ha sido poco investigada. Tomando una perspectiva "relacional", este articulo examina como las milicias campesinas en el departamento de Ayacucho, que inicialmente se formaron con el objetivo de oponerse violentamente a los rebeldes de Sendero Luminoso, se comprometieron a gobernar su propio "orden social de guerra" en el que organizaban, coordinaban, regulaban, y manifestaban actividades y comportamiento para el bien colectivo de sus comunidades locales. A partir de esto, podriamos obtener una idea de como estas milicias campesinas pudieron evitar convertirse permanentemente en el tipo de milicia predatoria que advierte gran parte de la literatura academica.