The article analyzes the Rondas campesinas as a self-defense institution created by indigenous and Mestizo peasant communities of highland Peru. The case study is the Rondas of the rural highland community of La Toma, located in Cajamarca, northern Peru. Rondas campesinas were created during the 1970s to prevent aggressions both from the State and from private landowners to communal lands and other property in a context of the agrarian reform in force then. In addition, the Rondas served as a powerful institution during the internal war against Sendero Luminoso from 1980 through the 1990s. In such processes, the Rondas of La Toma proved to be a really representative institution of the rights of its community and this is the hypothesis this article demonstrate.

Ihe general features of instirution known as la ronda campesina are prcscnrcd in rhc "tesen! rcxt - irs origin, irs hisrory, its distriburion and irs characrerisrics. Bur argllmenrs are furrhercd in favor of disri nguishing rhc di ffett!nt types of rondas campesinas, as rhey possess very different social ami cultural dynamics. Four [ypes of rondas campesinas are brought forward: rhc original rondas campesinas rhar were born in various northcrn rcgions, wherc rhe land reform had bcen eHicknl and rhe pcasanrs wcrc srnallholdcrs, rhc rondas campesinas in pcasanr communitics wirh communal landholdiug, rhc rondas campesinas in rhe Amazon jungle, and finally rhe socallcd comírés do: aurodefensa, crcared from abovc, by [he govcrnmcnr.

The article begins with an exploration of sociology´s historical development, always in close connection with the sister discipline of anthropology, rst in the proto sociologists and protoanthropologists, thereafter in the founding fathers, Émile Durkheim, Max Weber and Karl Marx, who are at the same time sociologists and anthropologists. Next comes another scientic triangle: the romantics or neokantians, the scientic functionalists and the Marxists, who curiously coincide in sociology and anthropology as well. Before reaching the conclusion, that suggests that the separation of sociology and anthropology is a separation with an extremely frail foundation, we make two excursions: to an invention that was made at the same time in sociology and anthropology, in the rst discipline named “ethnomethodology”, and in the second “cognitive anthropology”, and the shortlived fashion of p...

The article analyzes the Rondas campesinas as a self-defense institution created by indigenous and Mestizo peasant communities of highland Peru. The case study is the Rondas of the rural highland community of La Toma, located in Cajamarca, northern Peru. Rondas campesinas were created during the 1970s to prevent aggressions both from the State and from private landowners to communal lands and other property in a context of the agrarian reform in force then. In addition, the Rondas served as a powerful institution during the internal war against Sendero Luminoso from 1980 through the 1990s. In such processes, the Rondas of La Toma proved to be a really representative institution of the rights of its community and this is the hypothesis this article demonstrate.

Ihe general features of instirution known as la ronda campesina are prcscnrcd in rhc "tesen! rcxt - irs origin, irs hisrory, its distriburion and irs characrerisrics. Bur argllmenrs are furrhercd in favor of disri nguishing rhc di ffett!nt types of rondas campesinas, as rhey possess very different social ami cultural dynamics. Four [ypes of rondas campesinas are brought forward: rhc original rondas campesinas rhar were born in various northcrn rcgions, wherc rhe land reform had bcen eHicknl and rhe pcasanrs wcrc srnallholdcrs, rhc rondas campesinas in pcasanr communitics wirh communal landholdiug, rhc rondas campesinas in rhe Amazon jungle, and finally rhe socallcd comírés do: aurodefensa, crcared from abovc, by [he govcrnmcnr.

The article begins with an exploration of sociology´s historical development, always in close connection with the sister discipline of anthropology, rst in the proto sociologists and protoanthropologists, thereafter in the founding fathers, Émile Durkheim, Max Weber and Karl Marx, who are at the same time sociologists and anthropologists. Next comes another scientic triangle: the romantics or neokantians, the scientic functionalists and the Marxists, who curiously coincide in sociology and anthropology as well. Before reaching the conclusion, that suggests that the separation of sociology and anthropology is a separation with an extremely frail foundation, we make two excursions: to an invention that was made at the same time in sociology and anthropology, in the rst discipline named “ethnomethodology”, and in the second “cognitive anthropology”, and the shortlived fashion of p...