The Electoral Breakfast as a Site of Family Politicization: Representations and Reactions in Peru’s 2021 Presidential Election
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46476/ra.v7i1.254Keywords:
politicization of family, electoral breakfast, campaigns, family representations, social media, PeruAbstract
This article examines the representation of the Peruvian family during the 2021 presidential campaign, focusing on candidates Pedro Castillo and Keiko Fujimori. Drawing on the concept of the politicization of family—defined as the strategic use of family narratives in political debates—it explores how this process unfolded through the electoral breakfast, a Peruvian political tradition in which presidential candidates publicly interact with their family members and close associates in an effort to influence undecided voters on election day. Adopting an exploratory research design, the study employs a predominantly qualitative methodology based on the analysis of YouTube videos of the event published by news media outlets and 315 associated user comments. The findings suggest that, although both candidates projected egalitarian representations of the family, their discourse continued to reproduce the breadwinner traditional family model. At the same time, a substantial proportion of users interpreted these representations through three main lenses: ethnicity, with references ranging from national authenticity to foreignness; perceptions of situational mismatch, particularly when candidates and their families appeared out of place in popular social settings; and the extended family, which served as a resource for evaluating or contesting personal attributes linked to the candidates’ political trajectories.Downloads
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