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CULTURE, TRAUMA, AND WELL-BEING: SOCIAL SUFFERING IN RURAL GUATEMALA By BRIAN PATRICK TYLER A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2017 © 2017 Brian Patrick Tyler To the kind and generous people of San Jose El Tesoro and to Kitty & Joe Tyler ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Preparing this dissertation research project – from the development of my research topic, to the preparation of grant proposals, the ethnographic fieldwork, and the years I took to finish the writing of this dissertation – was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. Many people helped me get to the finish line, and far more helped me to find the joy in life. I must acknowledge the important insights and constructive critiques of faculty members at the University of Florida who helped me along the way, including Drs. Alba Burns, Peter Collings, Shawn Kneipp, and Alyson Young. My dissertation committee – Drs. Sharon Abramowitz, Chris McCarty, and Suzanna Smith – helped me to reconsider many of my intellectual positions, and have given me the most important critiques, and the encouragement, that will drive my thinking as I continue writing and researching the topics covered in this dissertation. Most important to me, personally and professionally, has been the encouragement and support of my mentor and dissertation chair – Dr. Clarence Gravlee – who brought me to Florida and who has been the most influential person in my academic training. I owe any success, now and in my future career, to him and I am eternally grateful for his belief in me. I also am grateful for financial support I received from the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at the University of Florida, the Department of Anthropology, and the National Science Foundation, all of whom provided research funds that allowed me to develop and complete this research project. I thank my academic “siblings” at the University of Florida, whose own research was a regular inspiration to me: Yasemin Akdas, Jessica-Jean Casler, June Carrington, Meredith Marten, Douglas Monroe, and Alan Schultz. Jon Carter, Francois Dengah, 4 Katy Groves, and Sarah Szurek have remained important colleagues and, more important, friends to me throughout the completion of this work. Thomas Stuart has been an important friend and brother to me, providing both support and a touchstone outside of the academic world to help keep me grounded. My family, however, has been the most important factor in my life – before, during, and after the completion of this dissertation. The Lambs – Kevin, Kathryn, and Patrick – are among my favorite people in the entire world, and they continue to provide me so much happiness. Melissa Pewitt and Mark Tyler are actually my favorite people in the whole wide world, and my best friends, and their place in my life has been, on many occasions, legitimately the only thing that kept me from giving up. My parents – Joe and Kitty Tyler – aside from being the reason I am here on this planet at all – are the main reasons I have developed into who I am and who I might become, and they are the two single most important people in my life. I love them more than I can possibly articulate, and I hope I can do a better job of letting them know that. Finally, I must thank the people of San Jose El Tesoro. This community was so kind to me – with their time, their homes, their care and friendship – and there is no way I can possibly begin to thank everyone who made my time there so rewarding. My time in San Jose is one of the best, and most difficult, experiences in my life, and I think about the people there every day. Many people there, as I first thought upon my first visit, may have difficult lives in comparison to the privileged life that I, and most residents of the United States, are lucky to enjoy. But the people there are also filled with a wellspring of positivity and love that is remarkable, and which is lacking in the United States that I know and understand. They make a beautiful community, and I 5 hope my future writings about San Jose will reflect just how generous, resilient, and strong its residents are in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles and just how much they believe that love and hard work are the foundations of all good things that may come in life. They changed my life – they changed me for the better – and there is no way I can ever repay that debt. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................ 4 LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................... 10 LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................. 11 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ..................................................................................... 12 ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................. 15 CHAPTER 1 OUTLINING THE DISSERTATION ................................................................... 17 Theoretical Orientation of Dissertation .............................................................. 21 Research Setting .............................................................................................. 23 Research Design .............................................................................................. 25 Structure of Dissertation ................................................................................... 27 2 A THEORY FRAMEWORK FOR THE STUDY OF POST-CONFLICT SUFFERING ..................................................................................................... 31 Stress, Trauma, and Suffering in the Health Sciences ...................................... 32 The Biology of the Stress Response .......................................................... 36 The Psychology of the Stress Response .................................................... 37 The Sociology of the Stress Response ...................................................... 41 Anthropological Social Theory in a Post-Conflict State ..................................... 46 Reconceptualizing Violence ....................................................................... 47 Toward an Anthropology of the State .......................................................... 55 Embodiment ............................................................................................... 65 Social Suffering .......................................................................................... 70 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 73 3 A METHODOLOGY FOR THE STUDY OF POST-CONFLICT SUFFERING .... 75 Studying Culture ............................................................................................... 76 A Tale of Two Newspapers and Learning (How to Fail at) Fieldnotes ......... 79 Building Rapport and Getting Settled ......................................................... 82 Phase One: Semistructured Interviews and Exploring Narratives ..................... 88 Considering Narratives of Health, Suffering, and Society ........................... 90 Illness narratives: meditations and models .......................................... 91 Idioms of distress ................................................................................. 98 Phase Two: Structured Interviews and Cultural Models .................................. 102 Cognitive Anthropology and the Study of Cultural Models ........................ 103 7 The development of cognitive anthropology....................................... 105 Cultural models .................................................................................. 109 Cultural Consensus ............................................................................ 113 Criticisms of Narrative Methods and Cultural Model Approaches ................... 116 Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 121 4 GUATEMALA: A HISTORY OF MARGINALIZATION ...................................... 125 The Land of Eternal Spring ............................................................................. 126 Early Historical Context................................................................................... 129 The Colonial Period (1540-1800) ............................................................. 130 Guatemalan Independence: The Early Liberal Period .............................. 135 The Carrera Government ......................................................................... 139 Liberalism and the Plantation Era ............................................................. 141 Guatemala in the Modern Era ......................................................................... 146 The “Guatemalan Revolution” .................................................................. 147 The Development of a National Security State ......................................... 150 The 1960s: The Rise of a Guerilla Movement .......................................... 153 The 1970s: Grassroots Populism and Government Repression ............... 155 The 1980s: La Violencia and Genocide .................................................... 159 The First Steps on the Road To Peace ..................................................... 163 Negotiating