Peruvian Grassroots Organizations in Times of Violence and Peace. Between Economic Solidarity, Participatory Democracy, and Feminism

The new millennium has meant a new start for Peruvian society. After decades of political violence, economic crisis, and an internal war, democracy was restored, and economic growth resumed. The many grassroots organizations that had been established to address the economic and political crisis seem to have lost their initial raison d’être. Still, they have remained in operation to this very day. In this article, we analyze the history and continued presence of two types of urban grassroots organizations: the communal kitchens and the victim-survivor organizations. Our leading question is: what is the present-day rationale sustaining these grassroots organizations that originated as responses to the political and economic turmoil from the previous decades? As we will argue, insight into the values of economic solidarity, participatory democracy, and gender equality is important to better understand the organization’s continuity. They shed light on the organizations’ changing roles and diverging meanings that their members attribute to them. Nowadays, members see the organizations as a platform for self-expression.