Joint work with Zsuzsanna Dancso and Vivek Shende. The non-abelian hodge correspondence identifies local systems on a smooth curve with higgs bundles on the same curve. According to the P=W conjecture, this correspondence sends the weight filtration on the moduli of local systems to the perverse filtration on the higgs moduli. I will formulate an analogous conjecture for nodal curves with rational components, in rank one. Time permitting, I will sketch a proof.