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UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title VIGILANTE: Violence and Security in Postwar Guatemala Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0p78b6vf Author Sharp, Ellen Jane Publication Date 2014 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles VIGILANTE: Violence and Security in Postwar Guatemala A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology by Ellen Jane Sharp 2014 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION VIGILANTE: Violence and Security in Postwar Guatemala by Ellen Jane Sharp Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology University of California, Los Angeles, 2014 Professor Sherry B. Ortner, Chair This monograph documents the rise and fall of a vigilante justice movement in order to understand the conditions that enable and hinder collective action in postwar Guatemala. Collective efforts to create a more equitable Guatemala were brutally repressed during its 36 year-long civil war (1960-1996). In the aftermath of this genocidal conflict, most Guatemalans seek better futures through individual projects such as education and migration. Security represents one domain where efforts at collective organizing remain strong. Guatemala City boasts one of the highest homicide rates in the region and less than 5% of crimes are prosecuted. Communities throughout the country have responded to this security crisis by organizing extralegal security patrols. These organizations resemble the civil patrols that Maya men were forced to join during the civil war. Adult men take turns patrolling the streets, apprehending wrongdoers, holding court and meting out punishment. Unlike their wartime incarnation, control is now entirely in local hands and “gangsters” have replaced “communists” as the targets of ii disciplinary action. This study is based on a total of two years of participant observation and interviewing in Todos Santos Cuchumatán, a predominantly Mam-Maya community in rural Huehuetenango. While the influence of wartime paramilitarism is profoundly felt, I argue that efforts to make and contest security involve the creative recombination of a wide range of discourses, including human rights, capitalist commonsense, zero-tolerance policing, Marxism, and Maya conceptions of personhood. Delineating and historicizing these multiple strands is essential for understanding the proliferation of violence in postwar Guatemala. Chapter one looks at what makes lynching possible. Chapter two explores vigilante leaders’ justifications for their actions. Chapter three recounts the experiences of accused gangsters. Chapter four uses the exile of one “gangster” to explore how exclusion creates community. Chapter five focuses on debates over the legality of alcohol to understand the ambiguous legal position of the rights of indigenous people. While Guatemala represents an extreme case, many of the trends on display here, including the privatization of security, the economic obsolescence of young men, the forging of communal identities through violent exclusions, and moral panics about mind-altering substances, reverberate elsewhere. iii The dissertation of Ellen Jane Sharp is approved. Carole H. Browner Jessica R. Cattelino Lauren Derby Akhil Gupta Sherry B. Ortner, Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2014 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction…………………………………………………………………..……………………1 Chapter One: Death…....................................................................................................................41 Chapter Two: Vigilantes…………………………………………………………………………74 Chapter Three: Gangs…………………………………………………………………………..112 Chapter Four: Lizard……………………………………………………………………………153 Chapter Five: Alcohol…………………………………………………………………….…….184 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………...220 References………………………………………………………………………………………226 v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First of all, I would like to thank the people of Todos Santos, both in Guatemala and California, who fed me, housed me, befriended me, humored me, and shared parts of their lives with me over the past decade: chontja tey! Thank you especially to the wonderful women I met in this process, including Adela, Antonia, Cruza, Delfina, Elena, Luisa, Mirna, Ofelia, Rosa, Rosalia, Maria, Maria Teresa, Teresa and Yolanda. At UCLA, I’m grateful for the enthusiasm and support of my dissertation committee, Carole Browner, Jessica Cattelino, Robin Derby, Akhil Gupta and Sherry Ortner. Special thanks to Sherry and Akhil for nominating me for the Young Award, which is supporting me as I write this, and to Jessica for always incisive feedback on my writing. I am especially grateful to Sherry for her support and confidence in me over the last seven plus years. This work would not have been possible without generous financial support for my fieldwork. The UCLA Chancellor’s Prize supported two summers of research in Todos Santos, a graduate division summer research mentorship made a third possible, while a mini-grant from UCLA’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment allowed me to conduct research in Oakland, California. While there, the folks at the Eastbay Sanctuary Covenant provided me with considerable logistical and emotional support and an entrée into the Todosantero community there, for which I am deeply grateful. The bulk of this research was made possible by a dissertation fellowship from the Inter- American Foundation for Grassroots Development, which supported my fieldwork in Guatemala 2010−2011. Thank you to Paula Derby for her enthusiasm for my writing and to Christiana Kasner for her efficiency and tireless organizational efforts, as well as to my IAF cohort, vi especially Rebecca Dirkson, Joe Wiltberger, Jelena Radovic Fanta, Jennifer Vogt, and Amy Offner. Additional fieldwork in 2012 was made possible by support from the Drugs, Security and Democracy Fellowship Program, administered by the Social Science Research Council and the Universidad de Los Andes in cooperation with and with funds provided by the Open Society Foundations and the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada. I am indebted to this fellowship for introducing me to a lively group of violence-ologists, including Winifred Tate, Denis Martinez, Froylan Enciso, the Killable Subjects crew, and the best roommates ever, Susan Brewer and Ana Villarreal. I would like to acknowledge and thank everyone who read and commented on chapter drafts. Rebecca Clouser, Katherine Fultz, Hanna Garth, Lisa Munro, and Colleen Supanich, gave helpful feedback on earlier incarnations of chapters one, four and five. Advice from Katja Antoine and Anthony Fontes sharpened the arguments in chapter three. Chapter four was greatly improved after input from participants in the Killable Subjects workshop: thank you to Diane Davis, Graham Denyer Willis, Alex Fattal, Anthony Fontes, Rosemary Gartner, Daniel Goldstein, David Holiday, Kevin O’Neill, Erica James, Robert Samet, Finn Stepputat, and Kimberly Theidon. Chapter five took a new direction after thoughtful feedback from Jessica Cattelino. Additionally, I would like to thank the Guatemala Scholars network for introducing me to such a collegial group of colleagues, including Jennifer Casolo, Monica DeHart, Patricia Foxen, Ginny Garrard Burnett, Todd Little Siebold, Judy Maxwell, Diane Nelson, Tom Offit, Karla Pezzia, Debra Rodman, Tim Smith, and David Stoll. Special thanks go to Jennifer Burrell for her vii helpful advice, generosity of spirit and shared love for Todos Santos. Thank you as well to Andrés Cholotio Garcia of the Proyecto Lingüístico Francisco Marroquín. In Guatemala, the friendships of Edgar Chen Camay, James Denio, Emily Yates Doerr, Courtney Dowdall, Ryan Klotz, Patricia Escalon, and Kelly Chauvin sustained me during fieldwork. I am especially grateful to David Stewart for introducing me to the ever unfolding wonder of the adventure. I want to express my appreciation for my academic siblings at UCLA for interchanges of advice and support over the years, including Brent Luvaas, Meher Varma, Misa Dayson, Devaka Gunawardena, Cassandra Markoe and Janell Rothenberg. For airport pick ups, places to crash and much more, thank you to Angela Orlando and Muriel Vernon. Thank you as well to Jena Barchas-Lichtenstein, Anjali Browning, Jennifer Guzman and Megan Heller. I have immense gratitude for my dissertation writing group–love and thanks to Katja Antoine, Keziah Conrad and Anna Corwin. Thank you to my parents, John and Jane Sharp, for their enthusiastic backing of my graduate school journey, and most especially their support during this past year of writing up. I also want to express my gratitude for the support of my family of choice during this process, especially Barbara Adams, Michal Ashley, Un Choi, Beth Kracklauer, Charlie Mulkeen, Jacque Myers, Molly Rysman and Harriet Woodford. Many thanks as well to my comadres Laura McCann and Lucia Mendoza Pablo for friendship and fictive kinship over the years. Finally, thank you to Joel Moreno Rojas for love and butterflies. Macheros, Mexico March 3, 2014 viii ELLEN SHARP Curriculum Vitae March 3, 2014 341 Haines Hall 868 Milton Avenue Box 951553 Rock Hill, SC 29730 Los Angeles, CA 90095-1553 EDUCATION MA Anthropology. University of California, Los Angeles, 2008 MA Modern Studies. University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, 1994 BA Women’s Studies. Brown University, 1991 PUBLICATIONS Published 2012 “Between Justice and Vigilantism: Organizing to Confront Crime in Postwar Guatemala,” The
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