Who Counts? The Mathematics of Death and Life after Genocide by Diane M. Nelson (review)

Diane M. Nelson's Who Counts? traces how ideas about numbers and mathematics shaped a centuries-long history of violence and economic exploitation in Guatemala. Luckily, one does not have to be particularly good with numbers to understand and appreciate this book. Nelson urges readers to reconsider how they think about numbers and counting, specifically that numbers are not objective figures that lead us to an unquestionable truth. Rather, they are historically contingent figures that are imbued with power and meaning, and how we count helps us organize our understanding of the world. Perhaps this is not news to post-modernists who strive to take nothing as given and show how notions of truth and objectivity are historically made. But Nelson's analysis of interconnected cases in contemporary Guatemala uncovers how Western mathematics was—and continues to be—an important tool for colonial and neo-colonial projects. Nelson demonstrates how mathematics operates as a proxy for objectivity and reveals significant gender, race, and class disparities in Guatemalan society.

The book is organized in thematic parts and chapters, rather than following a strict chronology (perhaps another strategy to push readers to re-think linear, Western notions of history). Part I, consisting of two chapters cleverly denominated -1 and 0, introduces readers to the theoretical underpinnings of the work and provides relevant background information on the local actors and overarching history that figure in the book. Part II explores the Mayan genocide, specifically how the dead are counted and the effects of reparations in family and community life. Part III deals with Mayans' involvement in a vitamin company structured on a pyramid model, as well as the repercussions of a decade-long Ponzi scheme in the guise of a Mayan development project. Part IV tells the story of indigenous resistance to mountaintop-removal gold mining in the San Marcos province. The final chapter ties together the previous topics with the common thread of counting, while also delving into the role of number in Mayan historical memory.

Chapter three, "Reunion of Broken Parts," provides a fresh take on reparations projects in the aftermath of state terror and genocide. First, Nelson takes readers through the basics of Mayan counting and notions of quantity and how they influence Mayan grammars and, consequently, worldviews. Then, through a series of examples, she outlines the mathematical ideology behind reparations projects and discusses how Guatemalans assign meaning to money the state paid them in compensation for their human losses. Reparations, she explains, are part of a process of settling accounts. The metaphor is eerily close to a literal meaning as human individuals—or the absence of them—are translated into sums of money. She notes that on the one hand, money cannot stand in for an individual. On the other hand, a person's very individuality (or the loss thereof via state violence) deserves recognition and compensation. Nelson points out that while ideally intended to bring families some sense of justice, the reparations process is fundamentally about balancing the books: The offender compensates the victim, and that process erases the offense and brings balance back into the world. Many Guatemalans Nelson interviewed saw the reparations as blood money. They either refused them, accepted them but did not cash the check, or they used the money to give back to their communities. Others used the money for themselves, and it helped them better their lives.

In the following chapter, Nelson shows how Mayans have taken another tack for improving their lives: by selling dietary supplements from the pyramid-model company Omnilife. Former guerillas and activists have acquired significant cash and prizes like cars and vacations by using their friends and other social networks to build their pyramids (i.e., earn points for prizes and percentages of the profits of friends they convince to join Omnilife). Nelson is careful not to paint the Mayans involved in Omnilife [End Page 421...