Violent dispossessions: understanding the configuration of lived territories in two Ashaninka communities in the Peruvian central Amazon region

Ulfe M.E.; Trelles A.; Vergara R.; Jave I.; Luna A.; Gárate A.; Sánchez R. · Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies (2026) · DOI: 10.1080/08263663.2026.2707099

Resumen

Working on the history of Asháninka communities in Peru, we encountered constant references to their territories. Given that territory is a living part of the communities, of their experiences and the space where their collective histories unfold, this article explores, through the accounts of comuneros, the intimate relationship between, on the one hand, the slow, persistent and interlinked violences that communities have faced throughout their history, and, on the other, dispossession and envelopment. We adopt an ethnographic approach and a qualitative and comparative methodology based on participant observation, in-depth interviews and social mapping carried out between 2023 and 2024 in the Asháninka communities of San Jerónimo and Shankivironi in the central Peruvian Amazonia, specifically in the Junín region. Drawing from the collaboratively worked accounts, we identify the experiences of violence in these communities, the transformations they bring about and the ways in which they are shaping their territories. We conclude that, in reconstructing the histories of these Asháninka communities, violence has been and remains constitutive of their collective history and is fundamental to understanding the configuration of their territories.

Instituciones: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú