Ch'orti' Campesin@ Struggles in Guatemala's Eastern Highlands by Je
Unthinkable Rebellion and the Praxis of the Possible: Ch’orti’ Campesin@ Struggles in Guatemala’s Eastern Highlands by Jennifer Jean Casolo A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Geography in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Gillian P. Hart, Chair Professor Jean Lave Professor Louise Fortmann Fall 2011 Unthinkable Rebellion and the Praxis of the Possible: Ch’orti’ Campesin@ Struggles in Guatemala’s Eastern Highlands © 2011 by Jennifer Jean Casolo Abstract Unthinkable Rebellion and the Praxis of the Possible: Ch’orti’ Campesin@ Struggles in Guatemala’s Eastern Highlands by Jennifer Jean Casolo Doctor of Philosophy in Geography University of California, Berkeley Professor Gillian P. Hart, Chair This dissertation examines the production of rural struggle in Guatemala’ indigenous eastern highlands, a place where after decades of silence, 36 years of civil war and two centuries of marginalization, the seemingly unthinkable—organized resistance and alternative proposals— became palpable. In the face of crisis, attempts to turn rural producers, into neoliberal subjects of credit resurrected the historical specter of dispossession and catalyzed an unlikely alliance to oppose unjust agrarian debt that transformed into a vibrant movement for defense of Maya- Ch’orti’ territory. Yet, the contours of that alliance, its limits, and possibilities, its concrete splits and expansion are deeply linked to both place-based histories and memories of racialized dispossession, specific reworkings of 1990s discourses and practices of development and “peace”-making, and the concrete practice of starting from common sense. I sieve a total of 26 months of participant action research that spanned over four years with this nascent organization through a Lefebvrian method of re reading the past through the light of the present.
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