ORBIT-OnlineRepository ofBirkbeckInstitutionalTheses Enabling Open Access to Birkbeck’s Research Degree output (Re)reading the boundaries and bodies of femicide : exploring articulations within the discursive economy of gendered violence in ’post war’ Guatemala https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/40187/ Version: Full Version Citation: Fuentes, Lorena (2016) (Re)reading the boundaries and bod- ies of femicide : exploring articulations within the discursive economy of gendered violence in ’post war’ Guatemala. [Thesis] (Unpublished) c 2020 The Author(s) All material available through ORBIT is protected by intellectual property law, including copy- right law. Any use made of the contents should comply with the relevant law. Deposit Guide Contact: email (Re)Reading the Boundaries and Bodies of Femicide: Exploring Articulations within the Discursive Economy of Gendered Violence in 'Post War' Guatemala Lorena Fuentes Department of Geography, Environment and Development Studies School of Social Sciences, History and Philosophy Birkbeck, University of London A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, April 2016 1 I declare that the work presented in this thesis is my genuine and original work. The final word count of this thesis is 104,653 (excluding Bibliography and Appendices). 2 Acknowledgments I want to begin by thanking my supervisors Jasmine Gideon and Silvia Posocco. It is difficult to overstate how much my ability to develop this research project, and to write the final thesis herein, hinges on the guidance and support that they provided for the past 3.5 years. They showed nothing but patience along the way, and provided helpful insight whenever I would veer off course. Before beginning my PhD, I had been told that students with strong and supportive supervision are able to endure even the most difficult of times. Standing on the tail end of this journey, I can say that this is absolutely true. I also wish to express my gratitude to Gabriela Alvarez Minte and Marianna Vargas de Freitas Cruz Leite, for their friendship during these past years at Birkbeck. The final version of this thesis would not have been possible without the thoughtful readings provided by Polly Wilding and Jelke Boesten. The Viva exam they conducted was an intellectually invigorating experience, and, furthermore, it provided helpful insight and constructive criticism for which I am deeply grateful. I wish to thank the School of Social Sciences, History and Philosophy at Birkbeck for awarding me with funding to pursue this degree. Birkbeck is an institution that I deeply admire: working in an environment with such a rich history of critical thinking has provided me with constant inspiration, and this has strengthened my determination to pursue academic research that has broader social reach. I am also grateful to the Society for Latin America Studies for providing financial assistance, which went towards funding my travel to Guatemala. I also wish to express my sincerest gratitude to the incredible individuals who gave me their time and energy for interviews and meetings during fieldwork: many of these people I have come to form deep solidarity ties with, and I hope that the work herein can somehow be of value to their social justice endeavours. Some of the subjects that emerge in this thesis represent themes that first came to matter to me in earlier years of study at the University of British Columbia, where I completed a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology, and at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where I completed a Masters degree in Human Rights. In particular, Dr. Dawn Currie, my Honours Thesis supervisor at UBC, helped me sow many of the seeds of critical thought that came into fruition in this thesis. She also encouraged me to move to London, England to undertake studies at the LSE: predicting—rightly so—that the intellectual and political environment overseas would suit me. It is of course impossible to list all of the individuals whose support and friendship I have leaned upon these past few years. There is, however, something to be said about working through the arduous journey of the PhD alongside others. In this vein, I have to single out Priya Kumar and Lindsay Kobayashi—two fiercely intelligent women who provided laughter and love during the difficult moments. I am also grateful to my many dear friends scattered across the globe, like Rachel Gotuzzo, Mari Bevanger, Martice Milton, and Yegee Lee, who cheer-led me from afar, and were incredibly patient with my lack of contact in these final months. Finally, and most importantly, I want to thank my big, diverse, dispersed, wonderful family in Vancouver, New York, Guatemala, and Paris, without whom this thesis would genuinely not have been possible. I am an incredibly lucky person to be 3 surrounded and supported by so many people, and although I cannot thank them all here, there are some that I must mention. I want to start by thanking the Dasté family: Alain, Claire, and Olivia, who have rooted for me every step of the way. I was so lucky to stay with my wonderful aunt, Ligia García and her partner, Harald Johannessen, during my fieldwork in Guatemala— perhaps more than anyone else, they know the place that Guatemala holds in my heart. I also have to thank my amazing brother, Alexander, for always looking out for my well being during this stressful period. I am also grateful for my stepfather Ricardo, sister, Michelle, brother-in-law, Alfonso, and so many other family members from the Fuentes and Castañeda clan. My fiancé, Raphael, was my rock throughout this process, just as he is in every aspect of my life. His constant love, encouragement, and, when it was most needed, laughter, kept me from drowning in the stress. I am so incredibly grateful for his friendship and partnership—he never ceased in his support of me, or this project. I want to acknowledge three extraordinary women in my life. Kristina Fuentes-Aiello, is, quite literally, the brightest, funniest, and, as the final months of my write-up proved, the most supportive sister anyone could ask for. My grandmother, Shirley Fuentes Knight, has always been a source of inspiration for me, showing her enthusiasm through every endeavour. Perhaps more than anyone else, I want to single out the woman who continues to be the guidepost in my life: my mother, Ana Lucia Fuentes. I hope that I make her proud with this work, which, by no coincidence, covers the home country that she loves, and, I know, misses. Finally, I wish to dedicate this thesis to my grandfather, Alberto Fuentes Mohr, who I sadly never came to know. I end these acknowledgments with his words, and in his memory: “La injusticia no está únicamente en la impunidad sino en el olvido". 4 Abstract This thesis explores gendered violence in ‘post war’ Guatemala and critically examines the responses to this phenomenon. I argue that the discourses that respond to, and attempt to account for, the paradox of ‘peacetime’ violence, and, more specifically, for the bodies of that violence, represent key sites through which ideological struggles get articulated. One such expression of this ‘post war’ violence in Guatemala is femicide. Starting from the position that femicide is a discursively- constituted object, in the Foucauldian and Butlerian sense, this thesis approaches violence at the level of representation. The empirical chapters examine the political terrain of gendered violence during the Patriot Party administration (2012 – 2015). Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Guatemala, and which included interviews and analysis of speeches, policy documents, and visual and textual materials from mainstream media sources, I identify three frameworks; through an examination of the performative staging of femicide cases that emerge across a range of contextual (temporal, spatial, and subjectivity) ‘coordinates’, I consider how those frameworks help to regulate the terms of femicide’s contemporary visibility and recognition. The first framework pertains to the ostensibly ‘private’ forms of ‘domestic’ and ‘family violence’, while the second pertains to so-called new forms of ‘public insecurity’. Within these frameworks, femicide (and at times specific victims) mobilises political and societal responses, but these responses, I argue, constitute misrecognised and instrumentalised approaches to gendered violence. The final empirical chapter considers recent trials pertaining to state-sponsored genocide and sexual violence. Here, the significance of the framework that I identify lies in the practices of denial and occlusion that disarticulate historical gendered violence from the discursive economy of contemporary femicidal visibility and recognition. This thesis thus offers a ‘rereading’ of the discursive economy of gendered violence— highlighting the racialised, classed, and gendered boundaries that stratify life and death in ‘post war’ Guatemala. 5 Table of Contents Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................ 3 Abstract ................................................................................................................................ 5 Chapter 1 – Introduction ................................................................................................ 9 “Femicide”: Tying Down a Nebulous Concept ................................................................. 11 Femicide/Feminicide in the Literature .............................................................................