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Reviewed by:
  • Mayas in Postwar Guatemala: Harvest of Violence Revisited
  • Anna Belinda Sandoval Girón
Mayas in Postwar Guatemala: Harvest of Violence Revisited. Edited by Walter E. Little and Timothy J. Smith. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2009. Pp. vi, 219. Illustrations. References. Index. Cloth $49.75.

This volume brings together a group of scholars who analyze the social, economic, and political conditions faced by Mayas today from a cultural anthropology perspective. While conditions in the last two decades have changed, like the original Harvest of Violence (1988), the focus here is on the everyday experiences of Mayas. The volume addresses a continuing lack of scholarly and popular attention to how Mayas respond constructively to contemporary violence in Guatemala by bringing together an impressive group of scholars.

The chapters in this book focus on issues that arose after the 1996 peace treaties, such as the impact of neoliberal economic reforms and nongovernmental organizations. The contributors to this volume address a variety of factors that Maya communities in Guatemala face. Several important contributions come out of this volume. First, Mayas in Postwar Guatemala shows the diversity of responses to violence, the internal conflict in seeking solutions to violence, and the power struggles that different Maya interests create. Second, the volume shows how Maya responses are not always nonviolent, and individuals and communities are both victims and victimizers. Third, this allows for a picture [End Page 416] of Maya life that is complex, just as the people are, without romanticizing Maya lives and responses to violence. Instead it shows that responses to violence and politics in Maya communities are not uniform.

Several chapters are of particular note. Abigail E. Adams documents the internal conflict within the Maya Spirituality Movement. This conflict shows the complexities of spiritual and religious experiences of Mayas in Guatemala that can be applied to indigenous people elsewhere. In addition, two of the original contributors to Harvest of Violence appear in this volume. Robert M. Carmack contributes the conclusion and points to the similarities and differences between the two volumes. The chapter by David Stoll asks some tough questions: to what extent did the guerrillas represent the interests of the Maya majority and other repressed groups in Guatemala? What role does solidarity work have in creating an essentialist view of Guatemalans, particularly Mayas? Stoll argues that much of the solidarity and scholarship in Guatemala utilizes an army versus the people paradigm that is simplistic and reductionist. This paradigm does not allow for an analysis of the present complexity of the many involvements and loyalties that Guatemalans hold. The issue, as Stoll points out, is that Mayas become the source of moral authority and help comes only in the ways that U.S. and European intellectuals deem appropriate. This type of thinking deems other intellectuals, such as ladino/a race theorists, as unfit and effectively pushes them away from knowledge creation.

The weaknesses of the collection center around two issues. First, the editors frame this book as activist-oriented scholarship but offer few suggestions on how to move from analysis to action, thus leaving the reader wondering how to engage with solutions to violence as a participant in the solidarity movement. Second, the authors do not address indigenous/ladino relations. This gap is explained by the editors as reflective of the changes at the local level in which the relations within indigenous communities are increasingly important. Nonetheless the influence that the ladino elite continues to hold is an important aspect for understanding Guatemala as a whole. Finally, the editors address the obvious absence of Maya scholars in this volume by explaining that these scholars have other venues in which to publish their work and that this project had the blessing of the scholars themselves. This is not a good enough explanation, particularly when the volume seeks to give voice to Mayas themselves.

Anna Belinda Sandoval Girón
Simmons College
Boston, Massachusetts
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