Regulating Mobility in the Peruvian Andes: Road Safety, Social Hierarchies and Governmentality in Cusco's Rural Provinces

• Published in: Ethnos Vol. 81; no. 2; pp. 238 - 261
• Main Author: Orr, David M.R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Stockholm Routledge 14-03-2016; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Ambivalence; Attitudes; Class society; Ethnicity; Ethnography; Fatalities; Governance; Governmentality; hierarchy; Mobility; Passengers; Peru; Provinces; Public transportation; Regulation; Reinforcement; Resistance; Road safety; Roads; Roads & highways; Rural areas; Rural communities; Safety regulations; transport; Peru
• ISSN: 0014-1844; 1469-588X
• DOI: 10.1080/00141844.2014.923013

Significant developments in road safety regulation have taken place in Peru during recent years, reflecting international efforts to reduce worldwide fatalities and injuries. A series of measures has sought to bring about transformations in governmentality among passengers on public transport. Seen ethnographically, these have had uneven success on the ground. In rural provinces of Cusco, situated histories and sociologies of mobility have sometimes led to ambivalence, unobtrusive resistance or reinforcement of discriminatory attitudes. This article explores how reception of the regulations has been refracted through class, ethnic and geographical divisions within Peruvian society, and argues for both the applied and theoretical utility of anthropological study of road safety governance.