#PerúPaísDeVioladores: a hashtag constellation against sexual violence

In October 2017, in parallel to the viralization of the #MeToo hashtag, feminist movements in Peru flooded social media using another hashtag to confront rape culture. #PerúPaísDeVioladores–#PeruCountryOfRapists, in English–worked as a cry of outrage after a third case of sexual violence broke the news in the same month. This case study explores the role of the hashtag #PerúPaísDeVioladores in challenging hegemonic discourses on sexual violence and articulating asynchronous and multisited actions. By analysing Twitter posts and reviewing news and opinion columns associated with this social media campaign in three key moments in 2017 and 2020, I contend that the hashtag establishes an alternative interpretive framework that not only makes legible a range of cases as expressions of rape culture but also confronts dominant narratives that re-victimize survivors and conceal the systemic roots of sexual violence. Acting as a means of (dis)organization and overflowing of information, this hashtag creates a constellation in which digital content, in situ performances, and civil mobilizations integrate to denounce systemic violence against feminized bodies in Peru.