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Political Children This page intentionally left blank Political Children Violence, Labor, and Rights in Peru Mikaela Luttrell- Rowland STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Stanford, California Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 2023 by Mikaela Luttrell- Rowland. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid- free, archival- quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Luttrell- Rowland, Mikaela, author. Title: Political children : violence, labor, and rights in Peru / Mikaela Luttrell- Rowland. Description: Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022014930 (print) | LCCN 2022014931 (ebook) | ISBN 9781503633360 (cloth) | ISBN 9781503634022 (paperback) | ISBN 9781503634039 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Children—Political activity—Peru—Lima. | Children— Peru—Lima—Social conditions. | Teenagers—Political activity— Peru—Lima. | Teenagers—Peru—Lima—Social conditions. | Child labor—Peru—Lima. | Children’s rights—Peru—Lima. Classification: LCC HQ792.P4 L88 2023 (print) | LCC HQ792.P4 (ebook) | DDC 305.230985/255—dc23/eng/20220404 LC record available at https:/ / lccn. loc .gov / 2022014930 LC ebook record available at https: / / lccn .loc .gov / 2022014931 Cover photo: Mural in Lima, Peru. Photo by author. Cover design: Rob Ehle Typeset by Elliott Beard in Adobe Caslon Pro 10/14.5 For Jacob This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction Learning How to Describe the State 1 The Everyday Lives of Young People in Lima PART I 1 Listening Between Generations 23 Past and Present Violence in Lomas 2 Deferred Promises 51 How Young People Describe Injustice in Lomas 3 Stories of a Visual Landscape 77 Murals, Slogans, and Margins in Lomas PART II 4 Young People Together 107 Children, Protagonism, and Organized Labor 5 Child Workers and Child Citizens 137 Rights, Recognition, and the Language of Equality viii Contents PART III 6 Looking for the State 165 The Politics of Children’s Participation in Peru Afterword 185 Notes 189 Works Cited 219 Index 237 Acknowledgments I began research for this book in 2007. Writing a book over such a long period of time necessitates a lot of help, starts and stops, and profound indebtedness. This project truly is a layered one, a collective conversation, an expansive testimony to so many people’s generosity, sharing, and gener- ative insights. It is not mine alone, but rather represents years of relational listening and critical engagements. The young people featured in this book, both in Lomas de Carabayllo and with Movimiento de Adolescentes y Niños Trabajadores Hijos de Obre- ros Cristianos (MANTHOC), shared their time, their trust, their wisdom. I don’t identify them by individual name here for safety and confidentiality, but this book is written to honor their critical interventions for these times. With the children of Lomas de Carabayllo, many were quite young when I first met them and their families. Staying in touch with them over such a long stretch of years and hearing how their observations have changed, as have mine, has been deeply moving. My first and most enormous thanks goes to each of these groups of young people. In Lima, I owe a debt of thanks to a wide circle of colleagues and friends, only some of whom I can name, who opened up their homes, made ix