(Alternative) justice spaces: Testimony,

Mayan women in Guatemala, and

Emotional Communities

Morna Macleod

Radcliffe Institute

8/9/2016

PRESENTATION

1. Unpacking Testimony

2. Context: rape as a weapon of war in

Guatemala’s armed conflict

3. Four moments of Mayan women’s

testimonies of rape as a weapon of war

4. Emotional Communities

5. Final Reflections

TESTIMONY & CONFLICT: GENEALOGIES

• Holocaust (Levi, Wieviorka, Celan etc.)

• Performance Studies: Felman, Taylor, Wake, etc

• Literary genres: Life histories, memoires,

• Contested terrain (Stoll/Beverly)

• Videos & Documentaries, Bhaskar y Walker, etc.

• History, Anthropology, and Social Science: (oral

history, etc.)

• Transitional justice: a contested terrain

• Testify: (J’accuse Zola, Felman), Public

intellectuals, ethical and truth commissions

POLITICAL TESTIMONY IN

LATIN AMERICATherapeutic testimony (Elizabeth Lira)

Testimony of struggle

o (Auto) Biographies, Memoires & Confessions:

Rigoberta Menchú, Miguel Marmol (Roque

Dalton), Commandants, traitors, etc.

oNovels: e.g. Sandinista Revolution (Cabezas)

o The revolutionary struggles of women (Randall)

o Social movements: Chiapas and Oaxaca (Lynn

Stephen, etc.)

(Quasi) Legal: Truth & ethical Commissions, trials

Testify: (J’accuse) mainly indigenous peasants

REFLECTIONS ON TESTIMONY IN

LATIN AMERICA

• Political URGENCY (often lives at stake)

• “Speak truth to power” (from “below”)

• Both individual & collective (“public intimacy”)

• Eye witness (seeing)

• A variety of secondary witnesses (listening,

documenting, filming)

• Always mediated

• Resistance: legal, cultural, social, etc.

GUATEMALA: GENOCIDE

AND ARMED CONFLICT

• CEH documented:

• 626 massacres

• 42,275 victims (men, women and children)

• 23,671 arbitrary executions

• 6,159 victims of forced disappearance

• Identified victims: 83% = Mayans, 17% =

ladinos

• Massive displacement: internal & refugees

• CEH: Acts of Genocide in certain areas

RAPE AS A WEAPON OF WAR

• Vienna 1993 HR World Conference (UN)

• Resolution 1325 (2000) women, peace and

security

• Resolution 1960 (2010) UN Security Council

approved annual publication of groups

deliberately committing sexual violence

campaigns (“naming and shaming”)

• CEH: Consultation with civil society (1998)

Novel alliance between Maya and feminists:

genocide and rape as a weapon of war

RAPE AND TESTIMONY

• Crime against humanity. Denounce →

– Never again

– To bring perpetrators to trial

• Risks of publicly denouncing rape:

– Revictimising (possibility of being raped again

in revenge)

– Humiliation and stigma

• The right to denounce and to keep quiet

– Theidon, Ross,

• JELIN

4 CASES OVER TIME (1983-2014):

– During the armed conflict

– Commission of Historical Clarification (truth

commissions) 1998 & 1999

– Ethical Tribunal against sexual violence of

women during the armed conflict in

Guatemala

– Ríos Montt trial

1. Carmelita Santos

(massacres taking place)

“I want to speak in the name of all the men, women,

children and elders in my village, so that the world

hears of the injustice we´re suffering, and that we

have the recognised right that to live on the land and

as children of God”. (PPT 1983: 377) Collective

“They’ve treated us in Guatemalan as if we were

stupid Indians. That´s not the case. We have the

same capacities, but we don’t have the opportunity to

study. They tell us that we indigenous are worthless

and that we´re a nuisance for Guatemala.” (1983)

Carmelita Santos

• “I think these massacres are worse for us women,

because first the women are raped… and after

raping her, they pull out her tongue, they put out

her eyes, they tear away her breasts, and

afterwards, they just leaver her dying there. Many

times we have said –witnessing such terrible

suffering- that we’d prefer it if they simply shot us,

but not be killed in this way”. (1983 FEDEFAM

conference, Mexico City)

• “¿Por qué nos matan como chuchos?”

TRUTH COMMISSIONS(REMHI 1994-1998 & CEH 1997-1999)

• Sexual violence: not from the start (CEH),

included later (Yolanda Aguilar)

• Rape= the most unreported HR violation

(CEH 2000 Tomo II: 23),

• Peru = First truth commission to include

gender from the beginning, but less cases

documented than in Guatemala

• Peru: 538, Guatemala: 1,465

• Why? (Q for Kimberley Theidon)

Indigenous women

victim of sexual violence:

• 1,465 reported cases of rape (CEH)

• 99% against elderly, adults, young

women and girls

• Rape of indigenous girls:

– 27% girls

– 8% 0-5 year olds

– 22% 6-12 year olds

– 70% 13-17 year olds

• 88.7% cases of sexual violence doc. by

CEH = Indigenous women

• Fragments (not complete testimonies)

• Written word, less direct

• Very few testimonies in 1st person

• Others speak for and of the rape of

women

• But it did break a taboo, groundwork

for ethical tribunal

TRUTH COMMISSION TESTIMONY

REMHI & CEH

3.EthicalTribunal on sexual violence

sexual of women during the armed

conflict in Guatemala

Irma Alicia Velásquez:

Expert witness on Mayan culture

3. ETHICAL TRIBUNAL

• 4-5 March 2010, organised by UNAMG,

ECAP, MTM + CONAVIGUA & La Cuerda

• Jury: ♀♀ → Japan, Uganda, Peru,

Guatemala – including Mayan ♂♀

• Testimonies, expert witness, “judges”

• “Juridification”: what justice should look like

• Caso Sepur Zarco = spin-off

• Video: 5.30-8.00

• Sentence: 10 May 2014

• Short video

4. RÍOS MONTT TRIAL

EMOTIONAL COMMUNITIES• Term coined by Myriam Jimeno:

• Culminating experience:

– Esp. work with displaced (indigenous)

communities in Colombia

– Bringing together the political & the emotional

(theoretically & lived experience)

• Characteristics:

– Kitek Kiwe’s activities (identity, denouncing,

performing, negotiating)

– Collaboration & accompaniment by Jimeno &

team (different moments and issues)

– Empathy (and academic rigour), moments of

closeness and distance

EMOTIONAL COMMUNITIES

• Academic implications, in situations of

extreme violence:

• What´s left out of academic work by not

including emotions?

• How can we researchers remain “neutral” or

“unaffected”?

• Bringing emotions of victims/survivors and

researchers into academic work

• Breaking with traditional theorising: bringing

together the emotional and political, circulation

between people, body, things, place,

EMOTIONAL COMMUNITIES IN

GUATEMALA

• A good example, work by Brinton Lykes &

Alison Crosby:

– YEARS of accompaniment of Mayan women

– Ixil ♀♀ photographers,

– UNAMG, ECAP, MTM accompaniment and

research Mayan women raped during armed

conflict

– Creative “sanación” workshops (art, body)

– In Ethical Tribunal on rape/armed conflict

– Theoretically: widening debate, → dilemmas,

questioning assumptions, new ideas/concepts

FINAL REFLECTIONS:

• Polysemy of Testimony

• Why so little theorisation of testimony

during (armed) conflicts?

• Most theorisation= post, linked to memory

and transitional justice

• The powerful impact of testimony in

person and in video (all senses involved)

• “For the record” subalternative voices,

“history from below”

• “J’accuse” needs more theoretical analysis

FINAL REFLECTIONS:

o Emotional communities reflect the bonds (and

tensions) between collective social actors and

collaborators (academics, volunteers, etc.)

o Strands of emotional communities in public

events (1983 Carmelita Santos testimony at

FEDEFAM conference in DF, REMHI and CEH

public presentation of findings , 2015 Ríos Montt

trial anniversary UNAM), contribute to long-term

trajectories of emotional communities

CURRENT WORK ON

EMOTIONAL COMMUNITIES

• Working paper (Rachel & Jenny Pearce’s idea),

article and basis for book for Palgrave

• LASA: Otros Saberes: a proposal for a double

panel (↑↑ interest): Colombia, Mexico,

Guatemala, Salvador, Chile, and Chiapas/CA

• Paper in V Coloquio sobre Emociones (ITESO)

with example of Sicilia’s book presentation on

MPJyD (with Carmen Aristegui) at the Fosas de

Tetelcingo, Cuautla, Mexico

• MM: So far Chile and Mexico, not Guatemala

(would like to write about the collective strands)

Gracias

Maltyox Chiwe