Censorships in the defense of memory: The desterruqueo of the Piraq Causa (“Who Is Still to Blame”) paintings in postwar Peru

In postwar Peru, the censorship of artwork addressing memories of the war remains a persistent reality, ranging from silencing to the application of the Law of Defense of Terrorism, and further intensified through terruqueo—a stigmatizing practice used by conservative politicians to label dissenting voices as terrorists. Drawing on the 2017 accusation of alleged “defense of terrorism” against the art collection Piraq Causa (Who Is Still to Blame?), I argue that censorship extended beyond terruqueo to include the very strategies employed in the artists’ defense—what I term desterruqueo—which themselves enacted forms of silencing. These acts of censorship were shaped by the privileging of specific discourses: the historical reductionism that cast Andean peasants as passive victims caught in the crossfire between the Shining Path and the armed forces, and the recognition of Sarhua art as both intangible cultural heritage and contemporary art. As a result, these dynamics inadvertently fostered self-censorship, constraining more nuanced representations of the war and contributing to the depoliticization of Piraq Causa. Interestingly, the recent work of contemporary Sarhua artists demonstrates that their art continues to serve as a platform for social denunciation and collective action that resists depoliticization.