The Peasant Family During the Period of Violence. The Example of Paca and Coracora in Ayacucho

The 1980s and early 1990s were one of the most difficult periods for the majority of Ayacuchan peasants as a consequence of political violence. The presence of the military meant repression, kidnappings, disappearances, rape of women, theft, etc.; militants of the PCP Sendero Luminoso, for their part, carried out summary executions or murders of authorities and community members, seizures of towns, voluntary and forced recruitment of young people, rallies, sabotage, etc. This process of violence also produced certain changes that appear to be irreversible; its effects can be observed in a series of variations at the level of the peasant economy — for example, there has been an unusual growth in sharecropping, an intensification of the labor shortage, population growth in intermediate cities, among other phenomena.