Indigenous Interpreters’ Agency, State-led initiatives, and Human Rights: The Crisis of January 2023 in Peru

Abstract

In the field of language policy and translation policy, the agency of translators and interpreters is often studied as a set of “bottom-up” initiatives aimed at social justice and the defense of citizens’ rights. These actions are frequently conceived in stark opposition to state-led initiatives and structures. Drawing on a Peruvian case of self-managed action in a context of political crisis, we propose that the dichotomy between “bottom-up” initiatives and “top-down” policies fails to capture the complex entanglements that arise between these dimensions during times of crisis. The case we examine focuses on the swift response in January 2023 by a group of Quechua and Aymara translators and interpreters during the citizen protests that followed Pedro Castillo’s failed self-coup and the subsequent violent response from Dina Boluarte’s new government. In this context, Quechua and Aymara speakers—many of whom had traveled from rural southern regions to protest in the capital, Lima—were arbitrarily detained. A close review of eight interviews with translators and interpreters who supported these detainees, supplemented by additional documentation, reveals that they acted in coordination with representatives of state agencies who likely remained behind the scenes due to political caution. This case invites us to develop a more integrated understanding of public policy—one attentive to the fluid interplay between citizen agency and the multicultural opportunities now being offered by the state.