Peasant politics and power beyond the state: Archives of the Peruvian Rondas Campesinas

In 1976, a group of peasants from a small rural settlement in Chota, a province of Cajamarca in the northern Peruvian Andes, organized the first Ronda Campesina, marking the genesis of one of the most significant rural movements in twentieth-century Latin America. The Rondas Campesinas emerged as village-level committees with a primary objective: safeguarding the community’s territory during the night and thwarting criminal activities. Currently, a Rondas committee can be found in nearly every peasant community across the Peruvian Andes. In Chota, a living archive of this organization’s history is safeguarded by The Federación Provincial de Rondas Campesinas, encompassing a variety of materials, including correspondence, meeting minutes recorded during internal assemblies and public congresses, drafts of public messages; cases of customary-law disputes, and more.