Terror in the Highlands: Communicative Violence and Sendero Luminoso

Abstract

My dissertation focuses on a subset of non-lethal violence, particularly the maiming and lasting scars of what I term “communicative violence.” I define communicative violence as non-lethal violence that leaves physical and visible marks with lasting legacy effects (i.e., scars or physical ailments that can serve as signals until the victim’s death). This project builds a theory of communicative violence and offers empirical evidence from 15 months of field research conducted in Peru on the internal armed conflict with Sendero Luminoso from 1980-2000. I argue that a combination of cultural differences, lack of state capacity, and rugged terrain helps to explain the prevalence of communicative violence. A recent development in the study of civil wars is the explosion of micro-level research, which makes an empirical move toward subnational research designs. One of these developments revolves around the conceptual disaggregation of violence and conflict. While this vein of research is primarily focused on the patterns of homicidal violence, as distinct from the logic of conflict in general, the specific issue of communicative violence has gone largely unnoticed in the discipline. Thus, my project seeks to fill that void.