Guerrilla Auditors: The Politics of Transparency in Neoliberal Paraguay

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments I’ve accrued many debts writing this book, some of which I may someday have the opportunity to repay in kind, most of which are part of complex and ongoing relationships. Some have been dropped in the fog, and still others left hanging under circumstances that I wish were otherwise. It’s impossible to conceive of doing research like this without the generosity and openness of incredibly varied interlocutors who contribute to the project at different points and at different registers. Let’s start with money, and get it out of the way. The research for this volume was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Hemi­­­­ spheric Institute of the Americas at the University of California , Davis, the Organization of American States, the Wenner Gren Foundation, and the Catherine Newcombe Foundation . I received institutional support from the University of California, Davis, the Centro de Estudios Rurales Interdisciplinarios in Asunci—n, the University of Toronto, and Dalhousie University. Then there’s the legal stuff. Parts of chapter 3 originally appeared in American Ethnologist (Hetherington 2009) and parts of chapter 5 were first published in the Journal of Legal Anthropology (Hetherington 2008). Permission to use sev­ eral of the pictures was generously granted by Editorial “El Foro” in Asunci—n, òltima Hora, and abc Color newspapers. x Acknowledgments Permission to reprint the song in chapter 3 was generously granted by the author , Cecilio Mareco. The backbone of this research, as will be clear from the text, was made possible by the original trust shown to me by Antonio and Jorge Galeano and their families, especially Irene, Derlis, Sonia, Cand’, Marisa, Demesia, Leticia, David , Cintia, Romina, and Iv‡n. Similarly, dozens of families in six towns near Vaquer’a took me in for periods from one night to three weeks, and many more showed me far more trust and compassion than I was due. This is particularly true of Catalo, Eleuterio, Francisco, Franco, Maidana, Mariano, Neri, Ortega, Juan, Juan Antonio, Gilda, Nicol‡s, Joel, Constancia, CŽzar, Herminio, Aristides , Miriam, Silvio, Felicita, Gregorio, and their families. And I never would have even considered Paraguay as a field site if it hadn’t been for the generosity of Miguel, Sonia, and Naza. In Asunci—n, my work depended on the timely help and friendship of Fabricio V‡squez, Ram—n F—gel, Ramona Fischer, Tom‡s Palau, Juan Bautista Gavil‡n, Isa Olmedo, AndrŽs Olmedo, Liliana Vera, and JosŽ Nicol‡s Mor’nigo. It was also done with the great patience and often active support of dozens of people in the Instituto de Desarrollo Rural y de la Tierra, the Registro Pœblico, Servicio Nacional de Catastro, Ministerio de Agricultura and the Senate, not to mention the Centro de Documentaci—n y Estudio, the MusŽo de la Memoria, the Comisi—n de Derechos Humanos. Marcial Riquelme, Antonio Vicente Castillo , and Noni Florencio all took me in during the harder parts of this journey and treated me like family. Mom and Dad, beyond the rather integral role they had in making me capable of this work, were also extraordinarily supportive at just the right moments during the years of this project and afterward. Along the way I met fellow travelers in Javiera Rulli, An Maeyens, Reto Sondeggren , Carolina Castillo, John Thiels, Albert Berry, Gustavo Setrini, Christine Folch, and Carlos Pastore Olmedo, all of whom commented on what I thought I was doing. Marco Castillo and Lawrence Morroni, in particular, became excellent interlocutors and advisors. Hovering in the background of my words are many teachers, at the very least these: David Boyd, Don Donham, Tom Holloway, Alan Klima, Donald Moore, Ben Orlove, Roger Rouse, Suzana Sawyer, Carol Smith, Janet Shibamoto Smith, and Aram Yengoyan. Julie Cottle, Alex Ferry, Chris Kortright, Robyn Krock, Chris Krupa, Fabiana Li, Kristina Lyons, Rossio Motta, Ayesha Nibbe, Gowoon Noh, Patricia Pinho, Michelle Stewart, and Ellen Woodall all made student and Acknowledgments xi intellectual life in general bearable during my dissertation, and all had a hand in the way the project came together. In the later phases, after another border crossing, colleagues at the University of Toronto, Trent, Dalhousie, and St. Mary’s have all encouraged me and had their say. There were listeners in abundance, too many to name, who participated in workshops or as audiences where parts of this book were presented, including the University of Toronto Anthropology Department...