Reimagining National Belonging: Post-Civil War El Salvador in a Global Context

Introduction: Nation Out of War

1 Introduction Nation Out of War how any nation-state recovers from civil war is a topic of vital interest and importance to the contemporary world. From the formal political arrangements and institutional reforms that return a society to peace, to the reconstruction of social ties, postconflict nationbuilding involves many actors and processes. This book is a study of how El Salvador emerged from a twelve-year civil war (1980–1992) and grappled with this monumental task. By examining a series of simultaneous strategies for redefining the meaning of national belonging in El Salvador, I explore how postwar nation-building is resulting in a more just and inclusive definition of national belonging. This ethnographic research presents many of the actors involved in the complex process of reimagining the nation, not only from the perspective of the aftermath of civil war, but also in its contemporary global context, wherein nation-building is not just an intimate project involving a national state and its citizens, but a project engaging international actors and responding to external factors and influences . My intention is not to record a single snapshot in time of El Salvador, but to allow the reader to follow along as I illustrate certain fundamental aspects of the ongoing project of nation-building. El Salvador emerged from civil war just as the international Cold War was ending. The global transition transformed political boundaries as well as social worlds. For example, the former Soviet bloc reimagining national belonging 2 fragmented into a multitude of independent nation-states. Then, as now, nation-building continued apace. In Africa, Sudan recently split into two nation-states, one in the north and one in the south. The ongoing plight of Israel and Palestine suggests that creating a Palestine nation-state may be necessary to resolve the current political strife. It remains to be seen if the democratization movements of the Arab Spring 2011 will re-make state and society relations that underpin national identities and nationalisms in the region. Whether nation-building accompanies new state and territory formations, or whether it is about the ongoing maintenance of existing nationstates , the process involves the consolidating of collective identity, accentuating uniqueness, and defining what it means to belong to the nation. It is my contention that the technologies and discourses of nation-building that this book describes for El Salvador, including the global context that influences these practices, are instructive for comparing other emerging and ongoing projects around the globe. At the end of its brutal civil war, the government of El Salvador and key social actors within and outside the country were left with the challenge of mending the social fabric of this nation. There is a substantial body of new scholarship that explores the recent history of El Salvador from a variety of angles. My research is in conversation with a number of scholars writing from a variety of academic disciplines who examine postwar El Salvador through specific topics such as indigenous identity (Ching and Tilley 1998; B. Peterson 2006; Tilley 2005); social memory and history (Gould and LauriaSantiago 2008; Lindo-Fuentes, Ching, and Lara Martínez 2007); migration and diaspora (Baker-Cristales 2004; Coutin 2007, 2010; Hayden 2003; Menjivar 2000; Pedersen 2004; Rivas 2007; Rodriguez 2005); postwar violence and gangs (Cruz 2007; Hume 2009; Moodie 2010; Wade 2003; Zilberg 2004, 2007); social movements and democracy including the struggle for health rights (Almeida 2008; Smith-Nonini 2010; Wade 2003; Wood 2003); and gender and revolutionary organizing (Silber 2011). A 2010 special issue of the journal Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural Systems and World Development featured new research on migrants from El Salvador and their diasporic and transnational ties. Thanks to this scholarly attention , a multifaceted view of contemporary Salvadoran state and society in a global context is now readily available. The present book, Introduction 3 while complementing the scholarship listed above, fills a unique niche by documenting the sites, practices, and process of postwar nation-building. The civil war had at least garnered worldwide attention, solidarity , and sympathy for the people of El Salvador. International actors, though, had also supported and prolonged the conflict, notably the USgovernment,whichgavefinancialsupporttothethen-government of El Salvador and its military. Yet the international community also played a key role in the negotiations and peacemaking processes that finally ended the civil hostilities. In fact, it marked the first time that the United Nations (UN) sent peacekeeping troops to intervene in...