危地马拉的黑暗与光明

正"跟我走,就在前面。"一位危地马拉城的陌生大姐,为了给我指路,已经带我行走了很长一段路。十几分钟前,我拿着地图找这位大姐问路,不会英语的她用手势比划了一下,看我满脸迷茫后,果断拉着我开始去找我想要到的地方,我清楚地记得她原来要去的方向和带我去的方向是相反的。一路上她用西班牙语和手势与我交流,时不时发出爽朗的笑声。我一下子感受到了那种旅行中久违的温暖和快乐。这和我进入到危地马拉时的糟糕情绪完全不一样。或许,这就是危     

危地马拉的黑暗与光明

<正>"跟我走,就在前面。"一位危地马拉城的陌生大姐,为了给我指路,已经带我行走了很长一段路。十几分钟前,我拿着地图找这位大姐问路,不会英语的她用手势比划了一下,看我满脸迷茫后,果断拉着我开始去找我想要到的地方,我清楚地记得她原来要去的方向和带我去的方向是相反的。一路上她用西班牙语和手势与我交流,时不时发出爽朗的笑声。我一下子感受到了那种旅行中久违的温暖和快乐。这和我进入到危地马拉时的糟糕情绪完全不一样。或许,这就是危     

Spatiality,sweatshops and solidarity in Guatemala

Uneven development in Guatemala has been fuelled by international investment flows and a 1984 law that established a patchwork pattern of each factory as its own free-trade zone. The spatial and social flexibility of this form of labour regulation requires workers to be creative in defending their rights. Our paper explores the creative potential of transnational worker/consumer/student alliances, or mixed coalitions as we call them, to influence global production. We analyse one international solidarity campaign (1991-1999) focused on a shirt factory of Phillips-Van Huesen, the world's largest manufacturer of men's shirts. A co-ordinated strategy linking Guatemalan workers with the US-based anti-sweatshop movement led to the approval of the first collective bargaining agreement in the maquila sector in Guatemala, yet long-term results proved illusive. The factory shut down shortly after the contract was signed and production moved to lower-wage maquilas in the same city. The struggle at the Phillips-Van Huesen shirt factory illustrates the importance of critical geographical knowledge for labour organizing and solidarity politics.     

The Persistence of Milpa Agriculture in Highland Guatemala1

In southwestern Guatemala, within the western realms of the basin of Quezaltenango, peasants have maintained the traditional system of milpa agriculture in the face of repeated cultural intrusions. The Spanish conquest resulted in the adoption of a plethora of tools, crops and domesticated animals that modified, but did not alter the basic character of the milpa. The milpa system has evolved more recently to accommodate the production of cash crops, principally wheat and potatoes. Chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and improved varieties of seed have been accepted as necessary adjuncts in the production of these crops. In contradiction of the counsel of well-intentioned advisors, however, the Guatemalan peasants persist in their adherence to the traditional milpa. Many Westerners are inclined to regard this as irrational behavior. Although not capable of articulating fully all of the subtle advantages of milpa agriculture, the majority of the region's peasants perceive the milpa as an economically secure and culturally compatible agricultural system that has evolved on a trial-and-error basis over a long period of time. This is not to suggest that the subsistence-oriented milpa will not ultimately give way to the commercialization of agriculture, as has occurred to a limited degree elsewhere in Guatemala. Given the veneration of maize as embodied in rituals and native religious beliefs, however, agricultural commercialization will likely occur only to the extent that the peasant perceives the potential monetary gain to outweigh the security and cultural good embodied in the traditional customs and practices.     

Ecology,equality and change: Mayan Indians in Guatemala

Douglas E. Brintnall. Revolt against the Dead: The Modernization of a Mayan Community in the Highlands of Guatemala. New York: Gordon and Breach, Science Publishers, Inc., 1979. xxiii + 199 pp. Maps, tables, photographs, appendices and references. $21.00.     

Discovery of Jadeite-Jade in Guatemala Confirmed by Non-Destructive Raman Microscopy

The discovery in 1952 of some river pebbles of jadeite-jade on the North side of the Motagua River Valley (MRV) in Guatemala strongly suggested that at least part of the long-lost geological source of Mesoamerican jade was local. Another river pebble has been discovered, but this new one provides two archaeologically and geologically significant differences: (1) it is the first ever to be found on the South side of the MRV; (2) it presents a new different petrological kind of jade. The confirmation of the mineral species jadeite was achieved with this rough piece of rock without any kind of sample preparation using only a Raman Microscope (RM) which is now a reliable polyvalent non-destructive technique for archaeometry.     

The Roman Catholic Church: committed to the poor in Guatemala

The coexistence of conservative and liberation perspectives within the Roman Catholic Church still causes disagreements. However, since Vatican II, the Catholic Church in Guatemala has established a commitment to act as a church of the poor. There is tension between Guatemala's elite and the Church, which has led to the murders of Church members and the issuance of death threats to others. Although the growth of evangelical movements has caused the Church to lose influence, the Church remains committed to the poor, which places it in sharp contradistinction to neoliberalism.     

Social Capital and Community Strategies: Neighbourhood Development in Guatemala City

This article uses a social capital framework to analyse the strategies employed by two low–income communities in Guatemala City to improve their physical and social environment. The case studies provide examples of poor communities, without access to any form of insurance or welfare benefits, struggling to achieve neighbourhood development. They also demonstrate the way in which strategies can be defined by the issue of land tenure. Key strategies for development were found to be mobilization through community organization, informal links (including clientelistic relations) with powerful groups, and protest. The author concludes that social capital (within communities and between stakeholders) and some degree of security (land tenure) are critical ingredients for communities to develop effective strategies for neighbourhood development with other stakeholders.     

Liberation theology and the voice of the indigenous other in Guatemala

The legacy of the liberation theology in Guatemala is complex. Although it mobilized progressive Catholic forces at times, it has not overcome reactionary and conservative church elements. Most importantly, it has not proven entirely capable of rising above elitism, nor has it moved beyond paternalism toward Maya culture.     

International accompaniment,reflexivity and the intelligibility of power in post-conflict Guatemala

ABSTRACT

‘International accompaniers’ use their physical presence as a form of peaceful intervention to deter political violence against local human rights defenders. Threatened members of Guatemala’s civil society have relied on accompaniment as part of their security strategy since the early 1980s. Approximately one thousand volunteers from a dozen countries have accompanied in Guatemala. International accompaniment has been a key component of the effort to prosecute former military general and president Efraín Ríos Montt and other perpetrators of mass human rights violations in Guatemala. Victim witnesses and their legal counsel have included accompaniment as part of their protection strategy since 2000. Important questions have nonetheless been raised with respect to accompaniment’s effectiveness as a tool for witness protection and the possibility that it reinforces power inequalities. This article builds on Gada Mahrouse’s critique of accompaniment and draws on Michel Foucault’s understanding of reflexivity and power. The authors use insights from two case studies to support the argument that accompaniment’s usefulness as a tool for witness protection depends on its ability to accommodate the witnesses’ position within webs of interconnected power dynamics and the multiple ways in which they conceive of security. It also depends on how intelligible these different power dynamics are to accompaniers. This argument is used to highlight how accompaniment in Guatemala is relevant for other situations where the prosecution of human rights atrocities is long term and depends on witness testimony.     

From heaven to hell in ten days: the genocide trial in Guatemala

ABSTRACT

Latin America leads the world in efforts to prosecute perpetrators of gross violations of human rights in domestic courts. Domestic justice offers a number of advantages to international and hybrid tribunals: proceedings take place in close proximity to the site of the atrocities, facilitating victim participation; they are directed by domestic prosecutors and judges, thus contributing to local buy-in; and they can strengthen rule of law and legitimize fragile transitional democracies. The case of Guatemala appears to contradict such arguments, however, given the overturning of the landmark conviction of former dictator José Efraín Ríos Montt on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity and the ongoing impasse of the proceedings. Drawing on the author’s work as an international observer to the genocide trial, interviews with those directly involved in the case, and comparative research on human rights trials in Latin America, this article suggests an alternative reading. By situating the genocide trial in relation to the broader transitional justice process in Guatemala and in the region more broadly, it argues that current setbacks should be viewed as a backlash to initial transitional justice success that is neither unexpected nor fatal to the accountability process. Second, the article argues that the genocide case is illustrative of a victim-centred approach to human rights prosecutions that hold important lessons for transitional justice theory and practice, and examines the way in which victims of sexual violence were incorporated into prosecutorial strategies and helped to prove that a genocide had taken place in Guatemala. Finally, the article argues that despite the undoing of the genocide verdict, the very fact that the trial took place is historically and politically significant, both for survivors and for the construction of collective memory in Guatemala and Latin America as a whole.     

The U.S. Intervention in Guatemala: The Documentary Record

U.S. Department of State . Foreign Relations of the United States , 1952 – 1954 : Guatemala . Washington, DC : U.S. Government Printing Office , 2003 . 461 pp. $ (hardcover).     

Intimate Indulgences: Salvation and Local Religion in Eighteenth-Century Santiago de Guatemala

Most studies of pious foundations in colonial Spanish America examine an elite spiritual economy that was headed primarily by noble patriarchs whose substantial endowments sponsored the ecclesiastical careers of descendants and reinforced ties between elite families and the clergy. This analysis takes a different approach and examines modest perpetual mass foundations funded by a broader array of benefactors. These perpetual mass foundations illuminate an alternative spiritual economy in eighteenth-century Santiago de Guatemala marked by the active participation of sacred images and spaces, priests and monastic communities, and single and widowed laywomen. This analysis offers a new lens onto local religion in a colonial Spanish American urban center and reveals the complex web of relationships that framed death and salvation.     

Early Maya geometric planning conventions at El Palmar,Guatemala

Archeology of complex societies has long focused on the actors behind the planning and engineering of architecture in monumental centers. However, the motivations for and conventions used in ancient planning are often lost to modern scholars without the aid of texts of the builders. This is especially true with the early ancient Maya, where large centers with evidence of extensive planning existed as early the Late Preclassic period (ca. 300 BC–250 AD). The current Focus article addresses site planning of monumental Late Preclassic settlements with a case study at El Palmar, Guatemala. Results suggest that apart from cardinal alignments based on solar movement, conventions of planar geometry formed a large part of the planning toolkit. The discussion argues that the dimensions of repeating similar rectangles probably related to the ideal size of ancient Maya agricultural spaces.     

Ancient soil resources of the Usumacinta River Region,Guatemala

In this study we present the results of a combination of methods used to identify possible agricultural activity of the ancient Maya in the Usumacinta River Basin in Guatemala. These methods included stable carbon isotope analysis of bulk soil organic matter, soil profile investigations and a spatial model of gentle slopes and well-drained soils to identify favorable agricultural conditions. Stable carbon isotope analysis of bulk soil organic matter in particular offers potentially direct evidence of agricultural activity. The δ¹³C results suggest that there is a strong signature of C₄ plants, such as maize and tropical grasses, throughout the study area. Further, the current soil conditions and extent of relatively gently sloped areas are favorable to agriculture. Overall, the results are supportive of the hypothesis that the area, located between the polities of Piedras Negras and Yaxchilán, was agriculturally important to surrounding areas.     

The reconciliation trap: disputing genocide and the land issue in postwar Guatemala

ABSTRACT

Guatemala’s reconciliation debate is as much about the present and the future as it is about history. In order to highlight its political dimension, I propose to read this controversy through the lens of hegemony theory. It is precisely because of the entwinement of specific political economic interests, centuries-old ethnic conflict and structural racism in Guatemala that charging genocide constitutes a key moment in a fight over power—a fight in which controversies about the politics of history are also expressions of struggle over economic resources and political hegemony. In this light, reconciliation does not appear to be a solution but a trap, set by those who defend their interests against the changes that the Peace Accords and the recommendations of the Historical Clarification Commission demanded. In the first section, I show that one crucial motive for these elites to deny the Guatemalan genocide, besides obvious reasons of historical shame and responsibility, is economic issues, among them the century-old land question. In the following sections I present two seemingly contrary arguments from the political and academic left. One takes apart, from a poststructural perspective, simplifying binary logics of class and ethnic conflict and thus delegitimizes the indigenous and peasant struggle for economic reform in the process. The other proposes a form of universal guilt that also ends up depoliticizing the history of the civil war.     

Maya archaeology and the political and cultural identity of contemporary Maya in Guatemala

La colonización dejó en una posición desigual a las personas de ascendencia Maya comparada con las personas ladinas en los aspectos sociales, políticos, y culturales en Guatemala. Esta experiencia no es diferente de la de otras naciones indígenas en América Latina. Los personas Maya, así como otras naciones indígenas, tienen una historia de resistencia que ha continuado desarrollándose a medida que cada generación crea nuevas estrategias para superar su posición de desventaja. La arqueología puede ser usada para escribir una historia que provee beneficios esenciales o atribuye estereotipos perjudiciales a las comunidades Maya. Los/as arqueólogos/as que trabajan en Guatemala tienen el compromiso de ser más éticos/as con las comunidades en las que trabajan, particularmente en el campo de la interpretación y creación de teorías sobre la historia maya. Los Maya han sido afectados por los estudios realizados en arqueología y tienen und derecho inherente de forjar su propia identidad a través de la historia.

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Résumé Comparée aux hispanophones, la colonisation a laissé les Mayas dans une position inégale dans les domaines économiques, sociaux, politiques et culturels au Guatemala. Cette expérience n'est pas différente de celle des autres autochtones en Amérique latine. Comme ces autres groupes, les Mayas ont une histoire de résistance qui a poursuivi son développement alors que chaque génération a créé de nouvelles stratégies pour surpasser sa position désavantageuse. L'archéologie peut être utilisée pour écrire l'histoire procurant des bénéfices essentiels ou des stéréotypes négatifs des communautés mayas. Les archéologues qui pratiquent au Guatemala sont appelés à être plus éthiques à l'égard des descendants des communautés avec qui ils travaillent, en particulier dans le domaine de l'interprétation et de la création de théories au sujet de l'histoire maya. Les Mayas sont affectés par les connaissances produites en archéologie et ont le droit inhérent de forger leur propre identité à travers leur histoire.