Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xfwgj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-05T09:27:46.491Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Violence and Women's Lives in Eastern Guatemala: A Conceptual Framework

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2022

Cecilia Menjívar
Cecilia Menjívar*
Affiliation:
Arizona State University
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In this article, I outline a framework to examine women's lives in eastern Guatemala, how multiple forms of violence coalesce in their everyday lives, and how these become normalized so as to become invisible and “natural.” Women in western Guatemala, mostly indigenous, have received the attention of scholars who are interested in unearthing the brutality of state terror and its gendered expressions in Guatemala. My discussion builds on previous research conducted among indigenous groups in Guatemala and renders a depiction of the broad reach of violence, including expressions that are so commonplace as to become invisible. I argue that an examination of multiple forms of violence in the lives of women in eastern Guatemala, who are nonindigenous, exposes the deep and broad manifestations of living in a society engulfed in violence, thus depicting the long arm of violence.

Resumo

Resumo

En este trabajo la autora presenta un marco para examinar la vida de las mujeres en el este de Guatemala y analizar cómo, en sus vidas cotidianas, múltiples formas de violencia se unen en una sola y se vuelven normales, hasta el punto de convertirse en invisibles y “naturales”. Las mujeres en el oeste de Guatemala, indígenas en su mayoría, han recibido (con justas razones) la atención de académicos interesados en descubrir la brutalidad del terror estatal y sus manifestaciones desde el punto de vista del género. La discusión se basa en investigaciones previas, conducidas entre grupos indígenas en Guatemala, y da cuenta del amplio alcance de la violencia, incluyendo expresiones tan comunes que se vuelven invisibles. Sostiene que un análisis de las múltiples formas de violencia en la vida de las mujeres en el este de Guatemala, quienes no son indígenas, expone las manifestaciones, profundas y amplias, de vivir en una sociedad sumergida en la violencia, lo que evidencia el largo brazo de este fenómeno.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 43 , Issue 3 , 2008 , pp. 109 - 136
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

There are several people and institutions I would like to acknowledge. First and foremost, I would like to thank the women in Guatemala who spoke with me and allowed me a window into their lives. Initial stages of the project were conducted as part of a larger study that Anne Pebley and her colleagues undertook in Guatemala; I thank them for including me in it. Further support for fieldwork came from Arizona State University—from a Faculty Grant in Aid, the Center for Latin American Studies, and the Gender and Women's Studies Program. I also would like to thank the audiences of panels at the American Anthropological Association meetings in 2006 and the Latin American Studies Association in 2007 for their constructive criticism; Gabriela Torres, for thoughtful suggestions; and to the LARR editor and three reviewers for excellent comments. All errors remaining are, of course, mine alone. An earlier version of this article appeared as Working Paper No. 290, WID Working Paper Series, Center for Gender in Global Context, Michigan State University.

References

International, Amnesty 2004 “Guatemala” (accessed December 2005, at http://web.amnesty.org/report2004/gtm-summary-eng).Google Scholar
International, Amnesty 2005 “No Protection, No Justice: Killings of Women in Guatemala” (accessed December 2005, at http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR340172005).Google Scholar
Ball, Patrick, Kobrak, Paul, and Spirer, Herbert F. 1999 State Violence in Guatemala, 1960–1996: A Quantitative Reflection. Washington, DC: International Center for Human Rights Research, American Association for the Advancement of Science.Google Scholar
Binford, Leigh 2004 “An Alternative Anthropology: Exercising the Preferential Option for the Poor.” In Violence in War and Peace, edited by Scheper-Hughes, Nancy and Bourgois, Philippe, 420–424. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Blackburn, Susan 1999 “Gender Violence and the Indonesian Political Transition.” Asian Studies Review 23 (4): 433–448.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre 2004 “Gender and Symbolic Violence.” In Violence in War and Peace, edited by Scheper-Hughes, Nancy and Bourgois, Philippe, 339–342. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre, and Wacquant, Loïc 2004 “Symbolic Violence.” In Violence in War and Peace, edited by Scheper-Hughes, Nancy and Bourgois, Philippe, 272–274. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Bourgois, Philippe 2001 “The Power of Violence in War and Peace: Post-Cold War Lessons from El Salvador.” Ethnography 2 (1): 5–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourgois, Philippe 2004a “The Continuum of Violence in War and Peace: Post-Cold War Lessons from El Salvador.” In Violence in War and Peace, edited by Scheper-Hughes, Nancy and Bourgois, Philippe, 425–434. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Bourgois, Philippe 2004b “U.S. Inner-City Apartheid: The Contours of Structural and Interpersonal Violence.” In Violence in War and Peace, edited by Scheper-Hughes, Nancy and Bourgois, Philippe, 301–308. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
CEH (Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico) 1999 Las violaciones de derechos humanos y los hechos de violencia. Vol. 2 of Memoria del silencio. Guatemala City: American Association for the Advancement of Science.Google Scholar
Chacon, Richard J., and Mendoza, Rubén G., eds. 2007 Latin American Indigenous Warfare and Ritual Violence. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Cueva Perus, Marcos 2006 Violencia en América Latina y el Caribe: Contextos y orígenes culturales. Mexico City: Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales, Universidad Autónoma de México.Google Scholar
Das, Veena 1997 “Sufferings, Theodicies, Disciplinary Practices, Appropriations.” International Social Science Journal 49 (154): 563–572.Google Scholar
Enloe, Cynthia 2000 Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women's Lives. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Escoto, Jorge, Aguilar, Ana Leticia, Hernández, Julieta, and Marroquín, Manfredo 1993 El acceso de la mujer a la tierra en Guatemala. Guatemala City: Fundación Arias para la Paz y el Progreso Humano, Agrupación de Mujeres Tierra Viva.Google Scholar
Falla, Ricardo 1994 Massacres in the Jungle: Ixcán, Guatemala, 1975–1982. Boulder, CO: West view Press.Google Scholar
Farmer, Paul 2003 Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Farmer, Paul 2004a “An Anthropology of Structural Violence.” Current Anthropology 45 (3): 305–325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farmer, Paul 2004b “On Suffering and Structural Violence: A View from Below.” In Violence in War and Peace, edited by Scheper-Hughes, Nancy and Bourgois, Philippe, 281–289. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Forster, Cindy 1999 “Violent and Violated Women: Justice and Gender in Rural Guatemala, 1936–1956.” Journal of 'Women's History 11 (3): 55–77.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Galtung, Johan 1990 “Cultural Violence.” Journal of Peace Research 27 (3): 291–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galtung, Johan 1969 “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research.” Journal of Peace Research 6 (2): 167–191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gil, D. G. 1986 “Sociocultural Aspects of Domestic Violence.” In Violence in the Home: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Lystad, Mary, 124–149. New York: Brunner/Mazel.Google Scholar
Godoy Snodgrass, Angela 2005 “La muchacha respondona: Reflections on the Razor's Edge between Crime and Human Rights.” Human Rights Quarterly 27 (2): 597–624.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grandin, Greg 2000 The Blood of Guatemala: A History of Race and Nation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Green, Linda 2004 “Living in a State of Fear.” In Violence in War and Peace, edited by Scheper-Hughes, Nancy and Bourgois, Philippe, 186–195. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Haas, Steven A. 2007 “The Long-Term Effects of Poor Childhood Health: An Assessment and Application of Retrospective Reports.” Demography 44 (1): 113–135.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hammar, Lawrence 1999 “Caught between Structure and Agency: The Gender Violence of Violence and Prostitution in Papua New Guinea.” Transforming Anthropology 8 (1–2): 77–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herbert, Bob 2006 “Why Aren't We Shocked?” New York Times, opinion, October 16.Google Scholar
Hoffman, Kelly, and Centeno, Miguel Angel 2003 “The Lopsided Continent: Inequality in Latin America.” Annual Review of Sociology 29:363–390.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoffmann, W., and McKendrick, B. W. 1990 “The Nature of Violence.” In People and Violence in South Africa, edited by McKendrick, Brian and Hoffmann, Wilma, 2–35. Cape Town, South Africa: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jonas, Susanne 2000 Of Centaurs and Doves: Guatemala's Peace Process. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Kent, George 2006 “Children as Victims of Structural Violence.” Societies without Borders 1:53–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kil, Sang, and Menjívar, Cecilia 2006 “The ‘War on the Border’: The Criminalization of Immigrants and the Militarization of the U.S.-Mexico Border.” In Immigration and Crime: Ethnicity, Race and Violence, edited by Martinez, Ramiro Jr. and Valenzuela, Abel Jr., 164–188. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Malkki, Liisa H. 2004 “From Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory, and National Cosmology among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania.” In Violence in War and Peace, edited by Scheper-Hughes, Nancy and Bourgois, Philippe, 129–135. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Manz, Beatriz 2004 Paradise in Ashes: A Guatemalan Journey of Courage, Terror and Hope. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Martín-Baró, Ignacio 1991a “From Dirty War to Psychological War.” In Towards a Society that Serves Its People: The Intellectual Contributions of El Salvador's Murdered Jesuits, edited by Hassett, John and Lacey, Hugh, 306–318. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Martín-Baró, Ignacio 1991b “Violence in Central America: A Social Psychological Perspective.” In Towards a Society that Serves Its People: The Intellectual Contributions of El Salvador's Murdered Jesuits, edited by Hassett, John and Lacey, Hugh, 333–346. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Martín-Baró, Ignacio 1994 Writings for a Liberation Psychology, translated by Aron, A. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Menjívar, Cecilia 2006 Enduring Violence: Guatemalan Women's Lives in Eastern Guatemala. Unpublished manuscript, Arizona State University.Google Scholar
Menjívar, Cecilia, and Rodríguez, Néstor 2005 “State Terror in the U.S.-Latin American Interstate Regime. In When States Kill: Terror in the U.S.-Latin American Interstate Regime, edited by Menjívar, Cecilia and Rodríguez, Néstor, 3–27. Austin: University of Texas Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, Diane M. 1999 A Finger in the Wound: Body Politics in Quincentennial Guatemala. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Nordstrom, Carolyn 1997 A Different Kind of War Story. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Paz Antolín, María José, and Orozco, Amaia Pérez 2001 “El empleo femenino en la maquiladora textil en Guatemala y las transformaciones en las relaciones de género.” Anuario de Estudios Centroamericanos 27 (2): 35–55.Google Scholar
Portes, Alejandro, and Roberts, Bryan R. 2005 “The Free-Market City: Latin American Urbanization in the Years of the Neoliberal Experiment.” Studies in Comparative International Development 40 (1): 43–82.Google Scholar
Proyecto Interdiocesano Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica 1998 Guatemala: Nunca más. Guatemala City: Oficina de Derechos Humanos del Arzobispado de Guatemala.Google Scholar
Quesada, James 2004 “Suffering Child: An Embodiment of War and Its Aftermath in Post-Sandinista Nicaragua.” In Violence in War and Peace, edited by Scheper-Hughes, Nancy and Bourgois, Philippe, 290–296. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Tina 1991 Children of Cain: Violence and the Violent in Latin America. New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy 1992 Death without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy 1997 “Specificities: Peace-Times Crimes.” Social Identities 3 (3): 471–497.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy, and Bourgois, Philippe 2004 “Introduction: Making Sense of Violence.” In Violence in War and Peace, edited by Scheper-Hughes, Nancy and Bourgois, Philippe, 1–31. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Sluka, Jeffrey, ed. 2000 Death Squad: The Anthropology of State Terror. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sosa Elízaga, Raquel, comp. 2004 Sujetos, víctimas y territorios de la violencia en América Latina. Mexico City: Universidad de la Ciudad de México.Google Scholar
Torres, Gabriela 2005 “Bloody Deeds/Hechos sangrientos: Reading Guatemala's Record of Political Violence in Cadaver Reports.” In When States Kill: Terror in the U.S.-Latin American Interstate Regime, edited by Menjívar, Cecilia and Rodríguez, Néstor, 143–169. Austin: University of Texas Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Torres-Rivas, Edelberto 1998 “Sobre el terror y la violencia política en América Latina.” In Violencia en una sociedad en transición, 46–59. San Salvador, El Salvador: UNDP.Google Scholar
UN Secretary-General 2006 Study on Violence against Children (accessed July 2007, at http://www.violencestudy.org/r25).Google Scholar
UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) 2003 Human Development Indicators, Human Development Reports (accessed July 2007, at http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2003/indicator/indic_196_l_l.html).Google Scholar
UNICEF-UNIFEM-OPS/OMS-FNUAP 1993 Estudio exploratorio: Violencia intrafamiliar hacia la mujer en Guatemala. Guatemala City: Ministerio de Salud Pública y Asistencia Social, Programa Mujer, Salud y Desarrollo.Google Scholar
Vite Pérez, Miguel Ángel 2005 “La urbanización popular mexicana y la globalización económica.” Sistema 187:95–110.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, Daniel 2004 Silence on the Mountain: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
World Bank 2006 World Development Indicators (People Section Tables 2.7 and 2.8) (accessed October 2, 2006 at http://devdata.worldbank.org/wdi2006/contents/Home.htm).Google Scholar