The Role of the Peasant Patrols of San Marcos in Enforcing the Supreme Decree Declaring the Health Emergency During the COVID-19 Pandemic (2020–2022)

Abstract

In regions and communities where the state’s capacity to legislate on internal affairs or to democratically represent its citizens is weak or absent, people often seek alternative forms of self-organization. These localities, like all human structures, strive to live under norms and rights that shape everyday life. In Cajamarca, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the rondas campesinas (peasant patrols) played an active role in confronting the emergency, demonstrating leadership and authority in facing an unprecedented global situation. This extreme period revealed the authority and reach of social organization -in the form of rondas campesinas- in regions with a limited state presence.

The ronderos of Cajamarca, whose form of organization is both recent and derived from the modern state, undertook the immense task of filling the gaps left by the state’s limited capacity in order to defend their interests and their vision of the common good. In doing so, they achieved a position within Cajamarca’s social fabric comparable to that of law enforcement agencies and local authorities. However, within these organizations there also exist internal disputes that directly affect their operational capacity in various ways. Studying them is crucial, as they represent a distinctive form of self-government from which social and political leaders emerge actors who continue to shape the contemporary political arena.