Mario R. Cépeda Cáceres

Mario R. Cépeda Cáceres

Mario R. Cépeda Cáceres

Robinson College 
Email: mrmc2@cam.ac.uk 
Supervisor: Dr. Adrián Lerne Patrón 

 

Biography

I am a Peruvian anthropologist specialising in memory studies, transitional justice, and Indigenous rights. I hold a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Anthropology from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP), where I am a researcher with the Grupo Interdisciplinario sobre Memoria y Democracia.

Before beginning my doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge as a Gates Cambridge Scholar (2025 cohort), I served as Senior Researcher at PUCP’s Institute of Democracy and Human Rights (IDEHPUCP) and as Coordinator of Research at both the Academic Directorate for Social Responsibility (DARS-PUCP) and PUCP’s Centre for Sociological, Economic, Political and Anthropological Research (CISEPA). My professional and academic work has focused on processes of remembrance and justice in post-conflict societies, the experiences of relatives of the disappeared, and the intersections between human mobility, Indigenous participation, and environmental governance.

Through my teaching and research, I aim to bridge anthropology, human rights, and public policy, contributing to interdisciplinary dialogues on how societies address the legacies of violence and exclusion.


Research

My PhD project, Andean Spaces of Death: Living with the Traces of the Peruvian Internal Armed Conflict in Rural Communities, explores how rural Andean communities live with the material and affective remnants of the Peruvian internal armed conflict. Drawing on long-term ethnographic research in Ayacucho, I examine how local actors reconstruct social bonds, re-signify landscapes of death, and negotiate justice and mourning amid ongoing uncertainty.

Theoretically, my work engages with phenomenological, sociological, and decolonial frameworks to interrogate the relations between disappearance, embodiment, and place. By foregrounding Indigenous epistemologies and practices of remembrance, I aim to contribute to a situated and plural understanding of transitional justice in Latin America—one that recognises the coexistence of multiple ways of living with loss, violence, and the traces of the dead.


Selected publications

  1. Cépeda Cáceres, M. R. M. (2025). Introducción: Sobre política y desafíos para la población migrante venezolana en el norte del Perú. In Del desplazamiento a la integración: Política y desafíos para la población migrante venezolana en el norte del Perú (pp. 17-36). Lima: PUCP, Instituto de Democracia y Derechos Humanos (IDEHPUCP). https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14657/203523 
  2. Figueroa, I. M., Cépeda Cáceres, M. R. M. (Ed.), & Miñán, A. J. (Ed.). (2025). La fuerza para caminar hasta ahora: Trayectorias de organizaciones de familiares de víctimas del conflicto armado interno en Ayacucho y Huancavelica. Lima: IDEHPUCP. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14657/204101 
  3. Cépeda Cáceres, M. R. M., & Miranda, P. G. (2025). Barreras de acceso y pertinencia en servicios de salud primaria y comunitaria: Un análisis con enfoque interseccional e inclusivo en la región de Piura. Lima: IDEHPUCP. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14657/204105 
  4. Cépeda Cáceres, M. R. M. (2024). Materializando regímenes de verdad: de las Comisiones de la Verdad a la gestión de los Espacios de Memoria en América del Sur. Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Études Andines, 2, 203-234. https://journals.openedition.org/bifea/14675 
  5. Cépeda Cáceres, M. R. M., & Velarde, J. S. (2023). Enseñanza en ciudadanía y derechos humanos en un contexto de emergencia: Herramientas y aprendizajes para la labor docente. Lima: PUCP. https://repositorio.pucp.edu.pe/index/handle/123456789/191434 
  6. Cépeda Cáceres, M. R. M. (2019). Capitalism and culture in Peru’s neoliberal process (1990–2013): Notes from an Ayacucho community. Latin American Perspectives, 46(6), 174–185. https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X19864138  
     

Awards & Honours

  • Gates Cambridge Scholarship, University of Cambridge (2025 cohort).
  • Peace Research Grant, International Peace Research Association Foundation (2022–2023).
  • Teaching Innovation Award, Vice-Rectorate for Academic Affairs, PUCP (2022).
  • Academic Mobility Scholarship, Pacific Alliance (2020).
     

Engagement & Academic Networks

  • Researcher, Grupo Interdisciplinario sobre Memoria y Democracia, PUCP
  • Lecturer, Department of Social Sciences, PUCP
  • Member of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) – Peru Section, serving on its Executive Committee between 2018 and 2022