Everyday Politics and the Absent Presence of the State in Lima, Peru Amy Mortensen A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Anthropology Chapel Hill 2010 Approved by: Marisol de la Cadena Dorothy Holland Don Nonini Arturo Escobar Patricia Sawin Rudi‐Colloredo‐Mansfeld © 2010 Amy Mortensen ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii Abstract Amy Mortensen: Everyday Politics and the Absent Presence of the State In Lima, Peru (Under the direction of Marisol de la Cadena) Everyday Politics and the Absent Presence of the State in Lima, Peru is a theoretical and ethnographic inquiry into the presence of the state in Huaycán, a shantytown on the outskirts of Lima. Through an analysis of state programs (including day‐care centers, police stations, and communal kitchens) and political practices among neighbors in local associations, this dissertation argues that state power influences everyday politics and the lives of citizens in ways that cannot be analyzed through dichotomies. Specifically, I contend that the state is neither simply present nor absent and that citizens’ complex relationships with the state cannot be defined as simply formal or informal. While, on some levels, the state is directly active in the daily life of residents (it provides schooling and medical care, for example,) there are many other realms where the state is markedly marginal in the regulation of daily life for citizens in shantytown communities. This dissertation explores the ways that this fringe effectiveness of state presence in shantytowns compels some NGOs and community members to produce programs and projects that compensate for state ineffectiveness. In this sense, state absence is ultimately productive in places like Huaycán because it iii indirectly shapes and directs the goals of citizens who are excluded or otherwise removed from centers of state power. Based on over twenty‐four months of field research in Huaycán, Everyday Politics and the Absent Presence of the State makes three contributions to scholarship on democracy, the state and contemporary Peru. First, by studying how residents profoundly engaged with and gave substance to different levels of government action in Huaycán, it challenges the dominant analytical approach that separates formal and informal politics. Second, this dissertation contributes to a more nuanced and ethnographically grounded understanding of state power as it reveals the complex consequences that connect marginal subjects of governance to the state. Third, by illuminating the inevitable relationship between the state and people often referred to as second‐class citizens, it demonstrates how inequalities perpetuate in spite of, and at times through, the very governing practices that are meant to redress inequality. iv For Katty, Yesenia and Jimmy Les quiero mucho v Acknowledgments There are many people I need to thank for their support as I completed this project. I would like to extend my greatest appreciation to the members of my dissertation committee for their enthusiasm and their encouragement: Marisol de la Cadena, Dorothy Holland, Don Nonini, Patricia Sawin, Rudi Colloredo‐Mansfeld and Arturo Escobar. I also want to thank Cathy Lutz for her participation on my committee in earlier stages of the project, before she left UNC Chapel Hill. I want to give special thanks to Dottie for being my committee chair after Marisol left UNC Chapel Hill. I also want to give my deepest thanks to Marisol for being such a great and committed advisor and for being so generous with her ideas and her time. I need to acknowledge the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Wenner‐Gren Foundation and the Organization of America States for my dissertation research. The institute of Latin American Studies at UNC Chapel Hill also supported my pre ‐dissertation and dissertation research with Ford Foundation, Foreign Language and Area Studies and Tinker Foundation funding. In Peru I want to thank Norma Neira and Anita Rojas for helping to orient me in Cuzco and Huaycán respectively. Rafael Serrano, Demetrio Laurente and Charo vi Cangalaya were invaluable assistants at different stages of my research and I thank them for all the time they spent with me in Huaycán. Although they may not even recall our specific conversations, I would also like to thank Eduardo Toche, Hortensia Muñoz, Ángel Espinar, Amparo Huamán, Iris Castro, Gladys Galarreta, José López Ricci, Gustavo Marini, Marta Salvatierra, and María Josefina Huamán for the influence they have had on my ideas. From my undergraduate days in Toronto I want to thank my dear friend Cristina Egusquiza for being one of the reasons I decided to do my field research in Peru. For good times and shared insights while I spent my days in Lima I want to thank my fellow graduate student friends and colleagues: Leigh Campoamor, Kairos Marquardt, Caroline Yezer, Margarita Huayhua, Victoria Castillo, Cristina Alcalde, Tamara Feinstein, Rossio Motta, Tiffiny Tung, Rocio Trinidad and Sarah Taylor. From Chapel Hill I also want to thank fellow graduate students Ana Araujo, Min Eom, Karie Morgan and Jennie Burnet for feedback on parts of the dissertation and writing advice. I owe a special thanks to Karie for being my writing partner despite the miles between Pittsburgh and Carrboro. In Huaycán confidentially bars me from naming the people who contributed specifically in my field research. In general terms I want to thank the many local leaders who graciously shared their experiences with me, as well as the staff at Radio Emmanuel, the staff at Warmi Huasi, and Mary Neylon and Lara Devries. I would also like to thank the women in the Wawa Wasis where I conducted field research and the women in the comedores where I ate lunch and conducted interviews, as well as the vii business owners in the parque industrial who chatted with me and let me spend a few evenings helping to make shirts on an assembly line. I will give special and explicit thanks to the Allcca, Cangalaya and Altamirano families. I will always be indebted to your kindness and friendship. My father Finn Holm Mortensen has a lot to do with why I love Lima and I wish he could have spent time with me there. I need to thank my brother Michael for making the visit even though I couldn’t get him to eat more than chicken sandwiches with mustard most of the trip through. I also want to thank the Marcone Flores family, especially my mother in‐law Betsy, for all their help and support. Finally, I need to acknowledge my own little family. Thank you Lucille and Giancarlo for putting up with my distractedness and bearing the brunt of this kind of work. I love you both so much. viii Table of Contents Dedication…………………………………………………………………………………………….………………….….v Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………..…………..………vi Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………..…….………………..…1 Changes in the Urban Landscape of Lima……………………….…….….……………………..…2 The Global Nature of Urban Poverty and Shantytowns………….……………………………6 Aligning the Terms of Difference: Deep Verticalities in Lima’s Sprawl..…………….11 Trajectories Forward for Lima’s Informal Side…………………………………………………..21 Huaycán: Planning for the 15 de Julio…….………………………………………………………...24 Everyday Politics: Formal and Informal in the Everyday Lives of Residents……………...……………………………………………………………………………….….…..…27 The Symbiotics of Government and State……………………………………………….…..…...29 Outline of the Chapters………………………………………………………………………………….…33 Lima’s Barriadas: On Hillsides, from Esteras and with Politics………..…………….…..35 Chapter 1: Giving Substance to Rights and Citizenship From Below Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………….…………..38 Different Awareness of an Absence: The Relationship between the Police and Community Residents in Huaycán………………….……………..…………………..……………..42 Local Tactics to Fill State Absences in the Everyday……….………………………………..…51 Indirect Influences that are Productive of Everyday Huaycán………………………….…54 Layers of Different Ambiguities in the Presence of the State…………………………..…62 Local Substance to Categories: Giving Citizenship Rights Meaning in Huaycán…………………………………………………………………………..…….………………….………67 ix Non‐Governmental Organizations: Complimenting Government and Elaborating Citizenship in Huaycán.…………..………………………….………………….……….70 Beyond Familiar Circles: Citizenship Parameters Outside of Local Networks….….77 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….………………………..84 Chapter 2: Directions of Administration that De‐center the State: the Adoption of Local Models for National Programs Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………..………..88 The Multi‐functionality of a Childcare Program….………………………………….……..…90 How These Roles Figure in the State’s Logic of the Program………………….…………93 Parallel but Different: Organizaciones Sociales de Base and Local State Programs…………….……………………………………………………………………………………………96 Modeling the Grassroots: Trying to Reproduce the Motivation Inherent In Community Organizations……………………………………………………………….….……….98 Reconfiguring Absence: Reiterating Distances in the New Regime……….…….…105 Evita for a Day: Dressing‐up the Program for Distinguished Guests………….….…111 Layers of Distance between Residents and the State……………………………….….…117 Mining for Meaning: Concursos to Distill Program Successes for the Madres Cuidadoras………………………………………………………………….……………………………..…..120 Delineated Spaces in Local Accountability…….………………………..………………..….…127 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………..……………..…….131