VIOLENCE, MARGINALITY AND MAYAN IDENTITY: The aftermath of “La Violencia “Those who confront violence with resistance— whether it be cultural or political—do not escape unscathed from the terror and oppression they rise up against. The challenge of ethnography then, is to check the impulse to sanitize, and instead to clarify the chains of causality that link structural, political, and symbolic violence that buttresses unequal power relations and distorts efforts at resistance” (Bourgois 2004).

La Violencia: The violence

“as a historical and political economic process…” (Green 7).

Focus The impact of la violencia on Maya communities (i.e. women, men and children) The internalization of violence in indigenous communities, such as chronic killing and death squads) in the context of La violencia. Mayan identity transformations in relation to La violencia

Anthropological questions What was the role of la violencia in the internalization of violence in Mayan communities? How did la violencia affect social relations at the local level and also at the national level? What was the impact of la violencia in the relationship between the Mayas and the Guatemalan state?

Anthropologists’ Work Carmack (1988) “Harvest of Violence” -Impact of violence in rural communities Stoll (1993) “ Between Two Armies” -Tactical neutrality “ Certainly the guerrillas appealed to Ixil grievances against Ladinos, but there is no sign that the grievances would have led to rebellion without the polarizing effect of guerrilla and army counterblows (Stoll, 1993: 308). Warren (1998) “Indigenous Movements and Their Critics” --Mayan identity in the Pan-Mayan movement Green (1999) “Fear as a Way of Life” --Impact of violence on Widows

At the national level her study is an examination of the complex relation between the Mayan people and the Guatemalan state from the perspective of rural Mayan widows

For Green Structural violence is multidimensional and includes exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, random acts of violence, humiliation and fear. Structural violence is embedded in national as well as in local social institutions and cultural perceptions

: Reveals patterns in the killings --metaphor of conquest -- “it is the same when they killed Tecum Uman”

Reveals the social character of intracommunity violence and the social characteristics of the perpetrators of the violence “ The policy remains the same: to dismantle existing forms of community organization, to drive a wedge between people and place; to force families to live not where they wish but where they are told, in nucleated centers where movements are scrutinized…” ( 65). Repression Words and language “… can also be used to dehumanise human beings and to “justify” their suppression and even their extermination” (Bosmajian, 2004: 9).

As an “vocative act” As an “ideological and physical embodiment of history”

… encompassing all forms of “controlling processes that assault basic human freedoms and individuals and collective survival” (Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois 2004: 21)

“…are based on and nourished by silence and myth… by means of rumor and fantasy woven in a dense web of magic realism”(Taussig 2004)

“scopic regime” “as an ensemble of practices and discourses that establish truth claims” (Feldman 2000).

Stuart Hall: “ dominant regimes of repression” (11).

In considering these following questions pay attention to: changes in community identity; coping mechanisms of survivors; cultural ideologies of the military; survivor’s memory and testimony. What happens to communities victimized by state terror? How are people’s responses to terror shaped by their cultural history as well as their economic and political situations? How do perpetrators justify their violence? What role does gender play in the perpetration of, and reaction to, state violence? What theories and methods anthropologists use in studying the personal and communal effects of state violence?