The fieldwork3

In this work, it is possible to contrast two contexts in which domestic violence is

observed. The first one, within the urban settings (presented in chapter five) in which

it was possible to gather conventional legal data: court cases, judicial and police

records and a wide range of official regulations. Even though this data is approached

from a non conventional legal perspective, the legal formal sources were available to

be studied. The rural context presents a completely different geographical, cultural

and economic reality. Formal legal sources are not produced and justice management,

even though it is carried out through a judicial organ such as the judge of the peace,

holds a different rationality. The following paragraphs explain the fieldwork

performed in this setting. This data was gathered based on qualitative methods of

research (individual interviews, group interviews, informal conversations, observation,

participant research and scrutiny of judges’ records and questionnaires). The

information was collected to understand the ways and reasoning of the people when

facing domestic violence with particular reference to judges of Peace as the main

forum to deal with these cases.

’ 1 have read on research methods since as far back as my first research experiences in Peru From the literature published in the UK I found very useful on a general understanding o f the research process: Allen and Skinner (1991), Blaxter et al (1996), Burgess (1993) and Ragin (1994) Atkinson (1998) was published after my interviews but has confirmed my ideas on how to explore into people’s lives The book edited by Toft (1985) presents various studies approaching the subject o f domestic violence in Papua New Guinea I read it avidly when planning my fieldwork as well as Paliwala (1986)

In the last decade there has been an effort to move forward from this approach when

analysing gender in Andean culture looking at other sources of gender identities and

hiearchisation. Studies such as those from Cadena (1991) and the compilation of

Arnold (1997) are examples of this new trend. Despite these efforts, domestic

violence is still an unexplored subject. In understanding the relationship of gender and

domestic violence in Andean groups this work has paid particular attention to

Moore’s (1994:142) ideas:

‘...cultures do not have a single model of gender or a single gender system, but rather a multiplicity of discourses of gender which can vary both contextually and biographically. These different discourses on gender are frequently contradictory and conflicting’.

Overcoming the myth of a coherent set of gender sources, this work interrogates the

contradiction and paradox of domestic violence with the important place that Andean

women have in their societies and the Andean egalitarian practises.

it) Not one but many laws?

Within traditional law schools we learned that law is exclusively produced and

managed by the state and its institutions. Law, as a discipline, is a closed corpus

knowledge with self-regulating principles. This way of thinking about law masks the

difficulties that people face when dealing with the legal system and the inappropriate

nature of law as a means to achieve justice. It masks as well other social arenas that

perform regulatory functions and particularly operate when certain conflicts arise. As

was mentioned in chapter two, legal anthropology and sociology of law have been

interested in this phenomena and have assigned the status o f ‘law’ to other regulatory

devices. But how much is it possible ‘to read law’ from other normative bodies? Is

researchers to hold similar characteristic to those of the legal system? Santos (1995)

proposed certain criteria to understand regulatory devices as 'law out of the state’:

normative standards and justiciahility. This means, customs, values or any other

social norm just handled within the learning and socialisation process are not law

(despite the impact that this can have on women’s lives). Forums of intervention

without the capacity o f enforcing any kind of coercion of their agreements are not

producing law.

This work provides evidence that there is not necessarily a dichotomy between state

law and the 'law out o f the state’ when investigating the role of the no letrado (rural)

judge of the peace. These judges are a state jurisdictional organ that due to a historical

process hold a different rationality than the rest of the judicial pyramid This is not a

native or a ‘traditional’ institution. Their characteristics, however, make them closer

to the Santos concept o f ‘justiciable bodies' than to state judicial officers. On the

other hand, not necessarily communal-based societies such as Andean communities

are producing ‘law’ or assuming their capacity to manage certain conflicts.

Sometimes the fact of being small social groups results in them not looking with

sympathy at any other commoner adjudicating in a conflict. In these cases, judges of

the peace have been accommodated to perform a social function not fulfilled within

Andean communities: the justice management. This is important when analysing the

relationship of women with law because while in other societies informed with legal

pluralism, women acting outside customary law risk losing social support In the case

of Andean women to attend a judge of the peace is not perceived by the rest of the

social group as an aggression, since it is an acceptable forum of intervention to

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