Indo-America and the Politics of APRA Exile, 1918-1945

• In Event: Nuevas aproximaciones a la historia del aprismo en el período de entreguerras

Abstract

The American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA), the political movement that first envisioned and theorized Indo-America, emerged in the mid-1920s as a hemispheric anti-imperialist movement that promoted the political and economic unity of Latin American republics. Because of its anti-governmental activities, the APRA was never able to fully and openly participate in Peruvian politics before 1945. During most of the interwar period, its members were either imprisoned in Peru or sent into exile abroad. As a result, these actors began to reflect upon notions of continental nationalism and later developed new forms of continental consciousness as they moved back and forth between the homeland and spaces of exile. How did the lived experience of persecution, both at home and abroad, shape the making of Indo-America? To what extent did the practice of political survival shape the intellectual production of APRA? This presentation discusses some of the major findings of my dissertation (2014) on transnational APRA. It focuses more specifically on the ways in which continuous travels between Peru and places of exile in Europe and across the Americas progressively changed the meaning and nature of the Indo-American project. The persecution against the APRA Party in Peru, combined with APRA’s transnational political strategies, contributed to forging a sense of continental solidarity based on the defense of individual political rights and democratic regimes in Latin America. Indo-America helped the PAP externalize its domestic demands for democracy by universalizing its cause before an international public opinion.

Author

• Geneviève Dorais, Université du Québec à Montréal