Reasons of Blood. Approaches to Political Violence

In the first part of the book the emphasis is on analyzing discourses about violence. It begins by presenting the direct protagonists: Sendero Luminoso and the Armed Forces. It then continues with the explanations of the Senderista insurrection that circulate in the media and that influence people and the very development of the conflict. The text goes on to review some contributions from the Social Sciences and Literature toward an understanding of the Senderista phenomenon. Finally, the author attempts to sketch the profile of Sendero Luminoso within the horizon of the Peruvian left. In the second part of the book, the lives of several young people are reconstructed and commented on from the perspective of identifying the factors that predispose them to be seduced by the Senderista discourse or, in any case, to resist it. The aim is to trace, within the concrete framework of a biography, the vicissitudes of aggressive impulses — especially their interplay with discourses about violence — and the consequent formation of a set of attitudes.