UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Unthinkable Rebellion and the Praxis of the Possible: Ch'orti' Campesin@ Struggles in Guatemala's Eastern Highlands Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6sq45845 Author Casolo, Jennifer Jean Publication Date 2011 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California 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. Through this spatially and historically relational analysis based on critical ethnographic practice, I present an analysis where the present speaks powerfully to the past making three fundamental contributions. First, I produce an analytic that challenges narratives of spontaneous rebellion and/or seamless neoliberal development, demonstrating concretely how neither adequately address the relationship between racialized dispossession and ongoing rural efforts of repossession and or maintaining possession. Instead I draw attention to how the limits of neoliberal projects shape the contours of rebellion and spontaneous rebellions limit the aims of neoliberal projects: yet how these processes of entailment unfold hinges on particular articulations of past processes of dis/possession, development and difference. Second, I offer a rereading of the Guatemalan Civil War that hinges on rethinking the connections between the so-called ladino military East and indigenous militant West. In so doing I make break down divisive binaries that pervade Guatemalan common sense and offer a new 1 understanding of Guatemala’s 1980-83 racial genocide and creating openings for future alliances based not necessarily on an abstract sense of defense of territory or pan-Mayan identity, but in recognition of shared experiences and analyses of indigenous repression and resistance Third, I show how particular articulations of race, class, gender and space are worked and reworked in and through the concrete practices of struggle and acquiescence, reaccommodation and flight that are shaped by the historical production of place. Rebellion past or present is neither unthinkable nor inevitable. And its potential for social change is bound to ongoing praxis. 2 Dedication With the final countdown of turning years of work into the pages that follow, my brother John’s cancer returned with a vengeance. In his struggle to live, I have seen a fortitude, patience, faith and ferocious love that I never knew my baby brother had. He has also said to me over and over again: “Jenn, I just want you to finish your paper. Will you do that for me?” For my brother, John Peter Casolo, his life and his love. i Contents Page Front Matter Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 1 Dedication ........................................................................................................................................ i Contents .......................................................................................................................................... ii Figures............................................................................................................................................ vi Tables ............................................................................................................................................ vii Notes on Currency, Land Measurements, Orthography, and Pseudonyms ................................. viii Glossary of Names and Places ........................................................................................................ x Acronyms ..................................................................................................................................... xvi Archives Consulted ...................................................................................................................... xix Key Dates in the Ch’orti’ Highlands and Eastern Guatemala ...................................................... xx Acknowledgments....................................................................................................................... xxv Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1 Producing “Forgotten Guatemala” .................................................................................................. 2 The Ch’orti’-Maya East .................................................................................................................. 5 Towards a Critical Ethnography of Struggles against Dispossession in “Post”-War Guatemala . 11 The Politics of Position ................................................................................................................. 14 PART I: Beneath the Grounds of Silence ................................................................................. 18 Chapter 1: W(h)ither the Ch’orti’ East? Remaking Places, Rethinking Dispossession ...... 19 Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 19 Section 1—Let’s Give Them Something to F(l)ight About: The Politics of Dispossession and Difference (1521–1865) ......................................................................................................... 24 1524–1821: Caste Politics and Agrarian Change .................................................................. 24 A Dangerous Alliance: Rethinking the War(s) of the Mountain (1821–1866) ..................... 30 Section 2— A Tale of Two Towns: From “Común de Indios” to “Municipio” (1866–1944) ..... 37 The Politics of Legislating Townships and Difference ......................................................... 37 When the Saints Come Marching In: The Making of Santa Maria de Olopa ........................ 39 Grounds for Separation: La Unión......................................................................................... 42 Section 3—Racialized Reworkings of Land, Labor and Power ................................................... 46 The Roots of Terror: Control and Difference in Ubico’s Militarized Townships (1931–1944) ........................................................................................................................................ 47 Loathing to labor .................................................................................................................... 51 Back to La Unión ................................................................................................................... 53 Conclusion—The Cunning of Recognition .................................................................................. 54 Chapter 2: Buried Secrets and the Silence of the Lands (1944–1989) ................................... 56 Section 1— Beyond Ten Years of Indigenous- campesin@ Spring: Lure and Lore of Power and Land (1944–1960).................................................................................................................. 59 ii The Democratic Spring: A Class Act .................................................................................... 59 Localized Lore and Lures ...................................................................................................... 60 Out like a Lion: The “Liberation” of Terror .......................................................................... 64 Section 2—Revolutionary Ch’orti’? Scorched Earth and Buried Secrets (1960–1983) ............... 67 Military and Militants ...........................................................................................................