Listening to Breakdown: Infrastructural Disruption and the Public Perception of Danger in Peru’s Internal Armed Conflict (1980–2000)

During the 1980s and 1990s, Peru experienced the most violent period in its republican history. Amid political violence, media control, territorial fragmentation, and fragile communication channels, infrastructure became a key site of struggle between insurgent groups and state forces. Blackouts, bombings, radio sabotage, curfews, and transmission failures became signs of threat, and of shifting control and contested authority, altering what civilians could hear and know in everyday life.

The project asks how disruptions to electricity, radio, and telecommunications reshaped the auditory and social conditions through which danger became perceptible, inferable, and communicable. Drawing on press and human rights archives, emergency regulations, and contextual interviews, it traces infrastructural disruption across Lima, Ayacucho, and Puno, comparing the distinct media ecologies of these regions. It argues that listening can be understood as an inferential practice for navigating semantic uncertainty, assessing threat, and making sense of shifting forms of vulnerability and control.

Alejandra holds a BSc and an MA in Philosophy from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Alongside her academic work, she develops an artistic practice focused on listening and obsolete telecommunication systems.