Author: Laura Bunt-MacRury, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow - Academia.edu, ORCID, ResearchGate

Abstract: »The life of Mercedes Ccorimanya Lavilla renders a telling portrait of the pursuit of justice in Cuzco, Peru, revealing how courts of law can be key sites in the production and negotiation of racial and gender taxonomies. Mercedes (who was gang-raped as a young woman) illustrates the near-heroic efforts necessary to mount and pursue rape charges in Peruvian courts, where rape victims largely manage the construction of evidence in lieu of the state. In the following article, I reconstruct the social circumstances and legal institutional setting surrounding the rape trial of Mercedes Ccorimanya Lavilla through the use of historical and ethnographic materials. In arguing that race mutually defines women’s sexuality in rural Peru, I show how (in order to achieve a conviction) Mercedes had to develop a strategy in which she instrumentally employed the languages of race to distance herself from her own indigeneity, as well as that of her alleged attackers.« (Source: PolAR)

Contents:

	The Call to Justice (p. 287)
	On the Road to Oral Trial: The Moral Triad, the State, and the Plaintiff (p. 290)
	Gatekeepers of Justice: The Police and State Agents (p. 291)
	The Point of No Return and the Superior Court of Cuzco (p. 297)
	The Road Back to Chocco (p. 298)
	Conclusion (p. 299)
	Notes (p. 300)
	References Cited (p. 301)

Wikipedia: History of the Americas: History of Peru / History of Peru (1980–2000) | Sex and the law: Rape / Gang rape