Seeing Like a Security State: The Political and Social Construction of Indigenous “Danger” in the Andes

Examining the language of national security officials and “organic defense intellectuals” in both the United States and Peru, this paper examines the rhetorical strategies and cultural representations which frame indigenous politics in the Andean region as dangerous, subversive, or threatening to national security and economic development. Paying particular attention to the language of US security discourses that link indigenous people to radical populism and Islamist extremism, and the claims of Peruvian authorities regarding indigenous peoples as obstacles to national development and expressions of political extremism, this paper provides a critical examination of the strategies and consequence of national security discourses in the Americas.