Forced sterilization as harm-in-ayllu: the cultural impact of Fujimori’s "Programa Nacional"

• In Event: Esterilización forzada en el Perú 20 años después: secuelas, movimientos y búsqueda de justicia

Abstract

The works of Viveiros de Castro (1998), Blaser (2010), and de la Cadena (2010) and others have obliged us to reconceptualized conflicts between pueblos originarios and Western institutions. These authors argue these are often conflicts between differently worlded worlds, or systems of being-knowing (onto-epistemics) rather than simply different ways of viewing the same world. Between 1996 and 2000 tens of thousands of indigenous women in Peru were sterilized under A. Fujimori’s National Program. In a legal framework, forced sterilization is the state-sponsored violation of an individual’s bodily autonomy. Ballón (2014), Cuentas (2016), affected women and allies like co-author, Hilaria Supa Huamán argue, however, that forced sterilization is as much a sociocultural-spiritual harm as a legal violation. Fertility and reproduction play important roles in both the biological and symbolic lives of Andean peoples and their ayllus. Upon being sterilized, affected women were no longer able to reproduce; many were disabled by the surgery, rendering them incapable of working in their fields and partaking in other important cultural activities (such as weaving); many were left by partners, ostracized by their communities, and/or forced into silence. These cultural and social stressors have also lead to long-term physical, psychological, and spiritual illnesses among affected women. What does healing look like for these women and their communities now coping with their “lost generation”. This presentation argues that forced sterilization not only violated indigenous women’s legal rights but also imperiled their and their communities’ continued material and cultural existence.

Authors

• Hilaria Supa Huamán

• Lucia I Stavig, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC)