The Rosenberg video: testimonio,theatricality and baroque politics in contemporary Guatemala

This article focuses on the assassination of Guatemalan lawyer, Rodrigo Rosenberg, on 10 May 2009 and his videotaped accusation of the Colom administration, broadcast after his death. Rosenberg’s self-produced video testimony, and the ‘staging’ of his own death, opens up questions about the role of testimonio and theatricality as modes of political address. I argue that the spectacular politics of the Rosenberg video, while drawing from the testimonio genre and incorporating electronic media, mark a return to a baroque conception of politics.