NARRATIVES ABOUT PERUVIAN SOCIETY AND NATIONAL IDENTITY IN PERUVIAN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Abstract

The article presents data from four focal groups with college students. Their general conceptions about the dynamics of relation that are established between the diverse social groups in Peru, as well as of their valuations and experiencies over the construction of the national identity. Results show that exist a shared vision about the differences between social groups in the national ingroup and the conflicts related with discrimination and prejudice based on these differences. Participants show a critical position about the situation of inequality that mantains the exclusionary dynamics of certain groups. Even if they identify important changes in the current society related to a broadening of consciousness about this situations, especially in the youngest generations. Regarding national identity, it ́s constructed on a ambivalent represantation which in the speech emerges so much as pride for the cases of success and the international recognition of the peruvian culture, as well as shame and frustration due to the generalization of the corruption, the violence and the inequity. In this context, the level of identification with the national category range between a solid commitment with the nation and its pisitive contents to a search of role models abroad.
Finally, participants think of themselves as belonging to a privileged sector of the peruavian society from wich they would generate changes in the society based on the access to education and technology.