Subject to a new law: historicizing rights and resistance in Maya anti-mining activism

ABSTRACT

Since 2004, the Marlin Mine, located in North-west Guatemala, has produced conflict between Goldcorp, the Guatemalan state and the primarily indigenous Mayan communities affected by the mine. This conflict has generated local anti-mining movements that organized community consultations which, grounded in indigenous rights law and Mayan decision-making practices, allow affected communities to decide whether or not to permit mining in the region. While communities resoundingly rejected open-pit mining, and while this decision received international support, the Marlin Mine continues operations. Drawing on field research and new developments in philosophies of rights, this paper makes two related arguments. First, Mayan anti-mining resistance must be situated within a broader colonial history defined by exploitation and primitive accumulation. Second, Mayan activism challenges current conceptions of the relationship between rights, cultural identity and political agency; most significantly, Mayans do not only claim rights on the basis of identity, they enact and politicize the form in which these rights potentially take place.     

A Measure of Justice: The Rabinal Human Rights Movement in Post-War Guatemala

This article explores one region’s struggle for human rights and legal justice in post-war Guatemala. Rabinal—a target of state-directed genocide in the 1980s—suffered one of the highest fatality levels of the war. In the post-war era, Rabinal human rights activists have led the struggle to demand exhumations of mass graves, build memorials, and push for criminal investigations and trials. Despite some important local victories, few of those responsible for the violence have received punishment. But that does not mean this movement is a failure. Instead, this article highlights the cultural, expressive and inprocess benefits of mobilization. Rabinal activists have restored their sense of agency and confirmed their collective identity as fighters for legal justice. Meanwhile, this local mobilization has contributed to Guatemala’s uneven process of democratization.

美国向危地马拉实施"胜利行动"的始末

“胜利行动”是冷战初期美国对危地马拉阿本斯政府开展的一项隐蔽行动。美国打着“反对共产主义”的旗号对危地马拉进行干涉并最终颠覆了拉丁美洲民主政权。行动从策划筹备到具体实施都是在极端保密的情况下进行的,内幕鲜为人知。近年来,随着美国历史档案的不断解密,整个行动的来龙去脉才慢慢呈现在世人面前。“胜利行动”不仅严重阻碍了危地马拉的民主改革进程及社会进步,还为美国中央情报局在拉丁美洲开展隐蔽行动树立了一个模式。     

Gender and Community Context: An Analysis of Husbands’ Household Authority in Rural Guatemala

Drawing on research about womens autonomy, gender, and development, and Latin America, I analyze individual, household, and community-level factors associated with husbands sole authority with regard to four household issues: (1) money management; decision-making about (2) food purchases, (3) medicine purchases, and (4) health providers. The results point to how husbands authority varies across household issues and how the dynamics of authority differ with regard to money management and the other decision-making issues studied. This study found that husbands authority varied not only by individual characteristics but also by community features and thus adds to efforts to represent more fully how context matters to household gender relations.     

Rural-Urban Migration and Reproductive Behavior in Guatemala

Guatemala has the highest fertility of any country in Latin America, and it is also the least urbanized. Projected rural-urban migration will shift more of Guatemala's population from rural areas into towns and cities. This article uses retrospective life-history data collected in migrant origin and destination areas in Guatemala to compare the fertility of rural-urban migrant women to that of rural and urban nonmigrants. Results from discrete-time hazard regression models of union formation, first birth, and third and higher parity births indicate that delayed marriage while still in rural areas, and the rapid adoption of urban fertility practices after migration, result in intermediate migrant fertility that is closer to that of urban natives than rural nonmigrants. If current patterns are any guide to the future, the redistribution of population from high fertility rural areas to towns and cities in Guatemala will accelerate the decline in aggregate fertility beyond what would have resulted from declines in rural and urban fertility alone.     

Civil Society Opposition to Nonferrous Metals Mining in Guatemala

Drawing on a range of fieldwork interviews, this paper discusses the opposition of civil society to nonferrous metals mining in Guatemala. Guatemala’s mineral resources, and government efforts to encourage their extraction, are discussed, as is the emergent civil society of that nation. Guatemalan civil society has opposed mining due to the impacts of its environmental effects upon the poor engaged in subsistence agriculture. This opposition has involved protests, community consultations against mining, and networking with the forces of global civil society. The paper concludes with a discussion of how this opposition to mining is a manifestation of the opposition to neoliberalism currently underway in Latin America.

Fulfilment of basic needs from a subjective point of view in rural Guatemala

Guardiola J, García‐Muñoz T. Fulfilment of basic needs from a subjective point of view in rural Guatemala Int J Soc Welfare 2011: 20: 393–403 © 2010 The Author(s), International Journal of Social Welfare © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. The study of subjective wellbeing in developing countries is a relatively new field of research, but interest is increasing among researchers. A few decades ago, techniques such as the basic needs approach were applied in order to understand development. The basic needs framework has recently been used to define and monitor the Millennium Development Goals. However, it is limited when it comes to defining the content of basic needs and determining to what extent they are being satisfied, which leaves this decision to an external authority other than the individual. In this article, we estimated how certain indicators and assets have influenced the perception of basic needs in a rural area of Guatemala using a data set containing 369 interviews with Mayan households. The results allowed us to identify the characteristics or assets that influence the perception of basic needs, leaving the decision as to the Mayan people themselves as to whether their basic needs are being met.     

战后初期美国对危地马拉的两次秘密行动

冷战初期,美国出于国家安全的考虑,将有民主化进程的危地马拉阿本斯政府视为苏联共产主义势力在该国的扩张,欲将之除去。通过两次秘密行动,采取外交压力和心理战相结合的手段,最终推翻了危地马拉的民选政府,这也成为美国今后在拉丁美洲干涉别国内政的一种模式和手段。     

How crime affects economic performance: The case of Guatemala

The impact of crime on economic growth is obviously substantial, but measuring the degree of its effects on a country's economic performance is subject to a great deal of uncertainty. This paper primarily attempts to close this gap using the economics of crime monitoring model, a new economic instrument that could be used to evaluate the impact of crime on economic performance. Guatemala was used to illustrate the applicability of the model from where analyses provide a coherent evaluation of the degree to which crime can affect a country's economic performance.     

Language loss in Guatemala: A statistical analysis of the 1994 population census

This study examines several approaches linguists have taken to explain native language attrition. Five attitudinal factors linked to ethnolinguistic vitality are examined: minority status, access to, and participation in, institutions and markets, cultural strength, education, and migration. Each factor was quantified into proxy variables using information compiled from the 1994 Guatemalan national population census. After constructing the data set, the author used regression analysis of the proxy variables to determine the significance of each attitudinal factor. Minority status, participation in institutions and markets, education, and migration all showed statistically significant correlations with language attrition among Maya speakers in Guatemala. Cultural strength, however, did not show a statistically significant correlation to language loss in the country.