Places, History and Memories: The Role of Rooting in the Processes of Ethnic Self-Identification in Peru

Castro-Pérez R.; Benavides M.; Moreno M. · SAGE Open (2025) · DOI: 10.1177/21582440251403305

Resumen

The main question of this study asks about to what extent people’s identification with an ethno-racial category—in the case of Peru, Quechua, Aymara, Amazonian ethnic group, or Afro-descendant—is conditioned by “living” memory practises that are present in their daily routines and lives and are associated with historical characteristics linked to their places of birth, a process we have called rooting. To discuss it, we have used information from official Peruvian national surveys database and historical administrative data. We find an association between ethnic self-identification and characteristics of people’s districts of birth, such as presence of archaeological monuments, or existence of resettlements existed, or long-time presence of Afro-descendant populations. These results should open new research topics related to how the collective experiences of places of birth are reproduced over time to continue shaping the cultural practices of citizens. © The Author(s) 2025. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

Instituciones: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú; Universidad Científica del Sur