‘The Eye that Cries’: The Politics of Representing Victims in Contemporary Peru

Resumen

“The Eye that Cries” exposes a fraught, uneasy politics in Peru regarding the reaches and limits of understanding the trauma of “the other.” The vast majority of those who lived in terror and with terror were indigenous peasants of the Peruvian highlands, physically and socially quite distanced from the dominant Peruvian metropolis of Lima. In many cases, violence emanating from both the military and Sendero destroyed collective organization, tore families apart, and left communities of widows and orphans. When individuals and families displaced by the violence in the Andes descended to Lima, they were often viewed with suspicion and fear. Drawing from both eastern and western philosophy and spirituality, “The Eye that Cries” seeks compassion for the descendants of those who are foundational to Peruvian identity yet who are structurally marginalized from power.