Peruvian thanatoscape and posthumous biographies of prisoners: dispersion and re-appropriation of undesirable corpses

Abstract

This article examines the necropolitical significance of the posthumous biographies of the inmates who were executed in the repression of the Santa Barbara, Lurigancho, and El Frontón prison riots of 1986 in Lima. Of the estimated 250 victims, only 22 have been handed over to their families. The path taken by the bodies is traced, along with the means employed by state agents to conceal them. We then analyze the modalities of their recovery, identification, and return (or otherwise), beginning in the 2000s. We coin the concept of “thanatoscape” to evoke the places and dynamics of a landscape in flux, encompassing the physical circulation of the deceased and the associated imaginary. The material dimension of the body is considered, along with how it is created symbolically by society and power relations. We discuss the means used to justify and legitimize whether these mortal remains deserved to be properly mourned or would remain missing and deprived of the opportunity to receive funeral rites. The management of these undesirable bodies can be better understood by studying the process of “de-citizenization” to which prisoners held for terrorism-related offenses were subjected, and which also extends to their families.