Browsing by Subject "Guatemala"
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Item Agriculture, technology, and conflict(2009-05-15) Zilverberg, Cody JohnConflict and agriculture have a long, shared history. The purpose of this research is to look at the relationships between agriculture, agricultural technologies, and conflict during current and recent conflicts, large scale and localized. Agriculture and its related technologies are often affected by conflict, but rarely acknowledged as a cause or solution to conflict. Literature reviews in six topic areas illustrate various facets of the relationship between agriculture and conflict. Research conducted in Santa Cruz del Quich?, Guatemala illustrates the ways farmers were impacted by the country?s civil war. It also examines farmer survival strategies during the war, and reveals the presence of minor localized conflict over water resources. Conflict over land is not a major concern at present. Market access for inputs and outputs are shown to have been a problem for a number of farmers during the civil war. The poverty of Santa Cruz farmers indicates that much could be gained by rural development. Research is unable to support the hypotheses that agricultural technologies have prevented or caused conflict in Santa Cruz del Quich?, or that they have played a large role in recovery from the country?s civil war. The author recommends that future research be undertaken in regions with a diverse set of agricultural technologies, and/or a recent history of significant technological change in agriculture. Policy recommendations include providing secure access to markets during war time, increasing capacity for home-based rural production, and continuing research into resilient crops. Finally, the author suggests that the responsible decision to develop, adopt, or introduce an agricultural technology must take into account the social consequences of that decision, including how the new technology may alleviate or contribute to conflict.Item Ancient Maya cosmological landscapes : early classic mural paintings at Rio Azul, Peten, Guatemala(2007-05) Acuna, Mary Jane, 1978-; Stuart, David, 1965-The ancient Maya site of Rio Azul, located in the tropical lowlands of Guatemala, contains several Early Classic (250 – 550/600 CE) tombs with beautiful mural paintings. Commissioned for the interment of the royal elite, the tomb murals are painted with wonderful examples of Maya calligraphy depicting iconographic scenes of the watery underworld and hieroglyphs naming particular mountains of a cosmological landscape. This study focuses on the analysis and interpretation of the paintings and compares them to other examples in the Maya lowlands to demonstrate the widespread notion of cosmological landmarks associated to death and the rebirth of venerated ancestors.Item Bodies politic, bodies in stone : imagery of the human and the divine in the sculpture of Late Preclassic Kaminaljuyú, Guatemala(2013-05) Henderson, Lucia; Guernsey, Julia, 1964-; Stuart, David, 1965-Bulldozed, effaced, and paved over by the buildings and winding streets of Guatemala City, the vast majority of the archaeological remains of Kaminaljuyú are now lost to us. This early site, which reached its peak during the Late Preclassic period (ca. 300BC-250AD), was once the largest and most influential site of the Maya highlands and one of the most important sites of early Mesoamerica. This dissertation, begun as an art historical salvage project, is at once documentary and analytical. It not only focuses on recording and preserving the Late Preclassic bas-relief stone sculptures of Kaminaljuyú through accurate technical drawings, but also provides cautious and detailed analyses regarding what this iconography can tell us about this ancient site. In essence, the following chapters approach, flesh out, and describe the bodies of Late Preclassic Kaminaljuyú---the stone bodies, the divine bodies, and the human bodies that interacted with them across the built landscape. They discuss topics like human sacrifice, the Principal Bird Deity, and the myriad supernatural forms related to water and wind at Kaminaljuyú. They consider the noisiness of performance, the sensory impact of costumed rulers, and the ways in which these kings utilized the mythical, supernatural, and divine to sustain their rule. In addition to untangling the complex iconography of these early sculptures, these chapters give voice to the significance of these stones beyond their carved surfaces. They contemplate the materiality of stone and the ways in which the kingly body and sculpted monuments were inscribed, made meaningful, and performed to establish and maintain ideological, socio-political, and economic structures. In essence, then, these chapters deal with the interwoven themes of stone and bone and flesh and blood; with the structuring of human, sculpted, and divine bodies; and with the performative role these bodies shared as transformative spaces where extraordinary things could happen. In other words, this dissertation not only addresses stone carvings as crucial points of access into the belief structures and political strategies of Kaminaljuyú, but as active participants in the social, economic, and ideological processes that shaped human history at this ancient site.Item Building opportunity : disaster response and recovery after the 1773 earthquake in Antigua Guatemala(2013-08) Pajon, Mauricio A.; Deans-Smith, Susan, 1953-Building Opportunity centers on disaster response and recovery after a 7.5-magnitude earthquake destroyed the city of Antigua Guatemala, the capital of colonial Guatemala, on July 29, 1773. It also concentrates on the colonial government’s decision to relocate Antigua Guatemala and establish a new capital, New Guatemala. This dissertation examines how the cultural, economic, political, and social views of inhabitants -- bureaucrats, clerics, Indians, architects, and the poor -- shaped their reactions to the tremor. Furthermore, it contends that the migration from Antigua Guatemala to New Guatemala created socioeconomic opportunities through which individuals made strong efforts to rebuild their lives. Debates on natural catastrophe in colonial Latin America have emphasized the ability of calamity to ignite power struggles over competing ideas about emergency management. However, in addition to an analysis of such disputes, this dissertation advances new understandings of the ways in which the earthquake gave victims chances to reshape their world. How did individuals' beliefs influence their attitudes toward the cataclysm? How did the effort to create a new city forge openings for survivors to refashion their identities? This study shows that individual groups' notions of fear, hazard mitigation, history, and socioeconomics defined arguments about whether or not to move. It also demonstrates that the tragedy produced spaces in which officials, ecclesiastics, indigenous peoples, and the impoverished worked to improve their lives. In various ways, administrators and victims turned adversity into an opportunity to become disaster managers and survivors, respectively.Item Defining the Red Background style: the production of object and identity in an ancient Maya court(2014-05) Lopez-Finn, Elliot Michelle; Stuart, David, 1965-; Guernsey, Julia, 1964-As one of many other distinct painting styles that appeared on ceramics throughout the Guatemalan Lowlands of the Late Classic Period (AD 600-900), the Red Background vases represented the economic reach of the owner into local and foreign courtly culture. Supernatural processions, playful hieroglyphic texts, and the distinctive red background circulated on vases, plates, and bowls in order to perform prestige and the elite identity in public feasts. The diverse narrative content of these vessels reveals the importance of mytho-historic origin stories and supernatural identities to the prevailing political order, while the unique hieroglyphic texts link the style and its imagery to the royal court of Pa’ Chan. However, the lack of context for most of these vases thwarts a straightforward understanding of their role in Maya society as objects from a specific geographic place with archaeological provenience. Despite this inability to embed the Red Background vases within a robust archaeological framework, the production and circulation of a visually distinct style by a named community still indicates that the creators of these objects wished to communicate a unique artistic identity through an intersection of formal qualities. Refocusing the question of agency through the lens of the final product reveals that these works acted as part of a larger campaign to create the typical courtly trappings of master artisan production and public social feasting with representatives of other powerful polities. This Master’s Thesis aims to examine the current corpus of almost sixty vases in order to describe how the Red Background style manifests. In addition, my study explores the tendency of many polychrome styles to link a specific royal court with the artistic product through hieroglyphic emblems. I conclude that the unique Pa’ Chan emblem takes this extroverted statement of belonging to a higher level, providing an emic classification of the vase where the text comprises a social category of art that performs identity through its distinct visuals.Item Discourse, social cohesion and the politics of historical memory in the Ixhil Maya region of Guatemala(2012-05) García, María Luz; England, Nora C.; Sherzer, Joel F.; Hale, Charles R.; Strong, Pauline; Epps, PatienceThis dissertation will examine the speech practices of collectives of Ixhil Mayas in post-war Guatemala. Specifically I analyze the way that historical memory of the recent period of violence, which culminated in genocide in the 1980s, is encoded in Ixhil ways of speaking and constitutes social action among Ixhil collectives. I propose an ethnographically situated framework within which to consider Ixhil historical memory which includes Ixhil concern for relationships with the dead, proper treatment of cornfields, innovations on community practices that were threatened during the war, and discourses about the injustice of an unarmed population confronted with armed soldiers of the government of Guatemala. Such a framework critiques views that see historic memory as externally imposed or as a manifestation of trauma and brokenness. Rather, the framework I offer allows us to see how discourses of historical memory make use of the resources of the Ixhil language and the conventions of various Ixhil ways of speaking in order to continue to constitute Ixhil communities and the collectives of political society. In this dissertation I likewise propose a broader view of the politics arising from Ixhil historical memory. In addition to the simultaneously spiritual and overtly political reburial ceremonies for the wartime dead, political rallies, and formal exhumations, the post-war politics of historical memory includes a proliferation of community-based organizations which have begun to take key positions in Ixhil communities. Ixhil genres of prayer, political speech, meeting talk, collective narratives, funeral speeches, and the talk used when visiting the sick provide the discursive tools to encode historical memory and new forms of community. In the aftermath of genocide that sought to destroy Mayas’ ability to exist as a collective, these acts of community-making among groups formed in response to the peace accords offer a version of post-war politics of historical memory.Item The first hundred years of the Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología of Guatemala(2013-05) Carney, Sarah Jacquelyn; Guernsey, Julia, 1964-This thesis considers the development and growth of the Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología of Guatemala during its first hundred years of existence within the context of the social, political, and cultural developments of the times. Covering the period from 1866 to 1967, it first provides basic historical information about the growth of the Museo Nacional as an institution, which itself was a convoluted process full of museum closures and relocations. Subsequently, three main factors that affected the development and direction of the Museo are examined—namely, the European museum model, Pan-American ideologies, and Guatemalan nationalism. Each factor is addressed in its own separate chapter, which not only delves into the origins of the factor itself, but also, and most importantly, its appearance in the museum space and how it shaped museum development. Finally, the conclusion discusses how to address the lasting effects of the European museum model and Pan-American ideologies in the museum space, and that the “national” aspect of the objects in the collection should be emphasized. Overall, this thesis conducts an investigation of factors that have historically affected the Museo Nacional of Guatemala in order to call attention to their enduring influence on the exhibition and public reception of the artifacts so that contextually richer displays for the objects can be developed in the future.Item The fox trot in a nation of cosmopolitans : music and race in early twentieth-century Guatemala(2013-08) Amado Pineda, Andres Roberto; Moore, Robin D., 1964-; O'Meara, Caroline; Candelaria, Lorenzo; Burnett, Virginia G; Keeler, WardIn this dissertation I explore musical importations in early twentieth-century Guatemala, particularly the fox trot, and their relationship to notions of cosmopolitanism, race, and national identity. Although Guatemalans may boast that the son is their national music—a genre often associated with local indigenous traditions—examination of the national marimba repertoire reveals that its most predominant styles derive from foreign music and dances that circulated transnationally in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Such a realization raises questions about the role of indigeneity in national discourse. I argue that Ladinos (non-indigenous or mixed Guatemalans) imported the fox trot and other musical forms to construct a national identity predicated on racialized notions of modernity and cosmopolitanism. The fox trot, a dance derived from African-American ragtime traditions, enjoyed worldwide popularity for nearly two decades due in part to its ability to mediate constructs of whiteness and blackness that fit presentist ideas of modernity: blackness represented a primitive alterity while whiteness evoked a modern and civilized society. Analyses of racial discourse among Ladinos and its implications for the national instrument (chapter 2), the stylistic features of Guatemalan national repertoire (chapter 3), and the subjects that locally-composed fox trots reference through titles, cover art, and musical styles (chapters 4 and 5) demonstrate that many elements of the fox trot, along with their connotations of modernity and race, resonated with the cosmopolitan sensibilities of Ladinos. Their preference for international as opposed to local forms suggest a fundamental ambivalence towards indigeneity and its centrality to national culture.Item Guatemalan diasporic fiction as refugee literature : an analysis of Héctor Tobar’s The tattooed soldier and Tanya Maria Barrientos’s Family resemblance(2014-05) Mills, Regina Marie; González, John MoránDespite a large influx of Guatemalans to cities such as Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., their narrative has largely been subsumed in the traditional Latino/a immigrant narrative. The importance of the historical specificity and traumatic nature of Guatemalan immigration, as a consequence of the Central American revolutions, has only now begun to be studied by scholars such as Arturo Arias and Claudia Milian, though the field of Latino/a studies is still largely focused on immigrants from Mexico, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. Thus, through an examination of two novels by Guatemalan-American authors, Héctor Tobar’s The Tattooed Soldier (1998/2000) and Tanya Maria Barrientos’ Family Resemblance (2003), I compare how each novel differently positions Guatemalan diasporic identity around traumas surrounding the Guatemalan civil war and diaspora. Ultimately, I argue that Tobar establishes Guatemalan diasporic fiction as a kind of refugee literature, while Barrientos attempts to fit the Guatemalan diasporic narrative into a traditional Latino/a immigrant narrative using the genre of chica lit, thus flattening out the unique historical experience of the Guatemalan civil war while also highlighting the constraints of the chica lit genre for Central American-American women writers.Item Guatemalan Kairos : Catholic social thought, liberation, and the course of history, 1965-1976(2013-12) Chandler, Creighton; Garrard-Burnett, Virginia, 1957-Guatemalan Kairos chronicles the rise of the discourse of liberation in Guatemala’s Catholic Church in the decade following the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). In these years, as this study reveals, faith and human history comprised a double helix, constituting two interdependent and mutually supporting sides of the same soteriological vision. Rooted in Vatican II’s call to read the “signs of the times,” this historically conscious theological framework not only propelled Guatemala’s burgeoning progressive Catholic Church to redirect its pastoral practices toward the poor and the marginalized, especially Guatemala’s indigenous majority through an indigenized Catholicism. That new approach also sought to reshape the nation’s history by redrawing its socioeconomic, epistemological, and cultural landscape, in part through the formation of socially engaged lay leaders (catechists). Scholarship on the liberationist church has largely focused on how, as Guatemala’s Cold War civil war (1960-1996) sunk to its nadir in the late 1970s, state repression targeted the church as “subversive.” This dissertation, by contrast, seeks to step back from this prevailing attention on later repression to reconstruct the social and cultural liberative imagination prior to this religious revolution and state counterrevolution. In so doing, it cautions against historical interpretations that have ineluctably connected liberationist praxis in the decade after Vatican II to the—often catechist-led—armed or covert revolutionary activity of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Moreover, intensified by the defeat of the Guatemalan Left, the post-Peace Accords (December 1996) entrenchment of neoliberalism has brought hard times for critical historical consciousness. Indeed, as this study’s concluding chapter outlines, how to read the signs of the current historically fragmented times and craft a narrative for liberation amid today’s deep structural injustice remains a formidable obstacle. Perhaps the most daunting hurdle in this endeavor is to raise awareness of the need itself, particularly given that Guatemala’s historical record remains confronted by the perils inherent in harnessing faith and history in order to shape contemporary circumstances.Item Guatemalan unaccompanied children migration : a case study of unaccompanied children in guatemala(2016-05) Gonzalez, Luis Raul; Rodriguez, Nestor; Menchaca, MarthaThis thesis examines the motives and conditions of migration of Guatemalan unaccompanied children through a case study. Unaccompanied children have been arriving in large numbers than in the past. According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in fiscal year 2014, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol apprehended more than 68,000 unaccompanied children (DHS Statistical Yearbook 2014), and approximately 69,000 migrants traveling together as families. Based on ethnographic, semi-structure interviews with families, NGOs, lawyers, and community members I argue that new migration communities are emerging as a result of systemic legal violence. There is little consensus among analysts regarding why the number of Central American minors abandoning their homes in hope of entering the United States has increased so significantly. Nevertheless, structural conditions of high levels of poverty, unemployment, violence, and instability in the region has contributed to the influx of child migration.Item Human skeletal remains of the ancient Maya in the caves of Dos Pilas, Guatemala(Texas A&M University, 2004-09-30) Minjares, Amador, Jr.This study focuses on the assessment of the depositional activity that occurred in six caves of the Petexbatun region of the Peten, Guatemala through a quantitative analysis of the human skeletal material recovered from them. Five of these caves are associated with the site of Dos Pilas; the sixth cave (Cueva de Los Quetzales) is located beneath the site of Las Pacayas. The cave is an important aspect of the Maya worldview, as evidenced in the artifactual and skeletal material found in caves by archaeological exploration. My study is specifically focused on the assessment of the primary and/or secondary burial of Maya dead within these caves via analyses of the relative skeletal element frequencies, the minimum and probable number of individuals, and the identification of human cut marks. Based on these lines of evidence and data from preliminary reports, between 100 and 150 individuals of both sexes and various age groups were primarily deposited/buried in these caves. Secondary activity may be inferred based on evidence of human-made cut marks on several elements. There is no osteological evidence to support the hypothesis of human sacrifice. I was unable to determine the status of the individuals deposited in the caves. The best interpretation is that several types of depositional activity occurred within these caves over time.Item The impact of international migration on ethnic relations and ethnic identity shift in Guatemala and Nicaragua(2012-05) Yoshioka, Hirotoshi, 1978-; Roberts, Bryan R., 1939-; Ward, Peter M., 1951-; Buckley, Cynthia J.; Pullum, Thomas W.; Rodriguez, Nestor P.; Jessee, Stephen A.Over the past few decades, the volume of international migrants has increased considerably. As a result, impacts of international migration on migrants' communities of origin have become much more prevalent and diverse. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, this dissertation investigates a little studied aspect of such diverse impacts: the impact upon ethnic structures and relations in migrants' communities of origin. More specifically, I examine to what extent international migration affects the level of socioeconomic inequality across ethnic groups and how such impacts influence indigenous people's ethnic identity in two Central American countries: Guatemala and Nicaragua. I contend that ethnic identity shift is one of the most significant changes that international migration brings to these countries because such a shift can even endanger the existence of the indigenous population. I have found that international migration reinforces ethnic identity shift from indigenous to Mestizo in both countries. At the same time, the pace of such a shift differs by a community's characteristics including its demographic composition and definition of indigenousness. While it is hard to deny the fact that international migration provides indigenous people in both countries economic opportunities that are hard to obtain through other ways, it can also have unexpectedly negative effects on ethnic minorities and their cultures in the long run. Since indigenous people in both countries face a tough economic reality, it is difficult to prevent them from migrating to other countries. In such a situation, to conserve indigenous cultures and prevent more indigenous people from abandoning their ethnic identities, we need to assure that indigenous people can feel pride in their cultures while they participate in national economy and politics under the strong pressure caused by changes originating from international migration and multicultural reforms. Understanding how the definition of indigenousness is constructed and transformed as well as a mechanism of ethnic identity shift is an essential step to finding solutions to the dilemma related to international migration among indigenous people and achieving a robust multicultural society.Item La afectividad como contra-discurso de la poesía comprometida de Daisy Zamora, Otto René Castillo y Roque Dalton(2010-08) García Núñez de Cáceres, Jorge Federico; Arias, Arturo, 1950-; Shumway, Nicolas; Robbins, Jill; Salgado, César; Rodríguez, Ana PatriciaIn this work, I explain that the focus of criticism on the Central American poetry of the second half of the twentieth century has emphasized its political content. I argue, however, that such a limited view obscures the broader import of this poetry and its place in Latin American literature. By reading the work of Nicaraguan Daisy Zamora, Guatemalan Otto René Castillo, and Salvadoran Roque Dalton with an emphasis on affectivity rather than revolution, I suggest a different relationship between the poet and society, one that is not limited to the marginal figure of the mujer soldado, the poeta guerrillero or the poeta marxista in conflict with all societal norms. Rather, I argue that my study portrays the complex subjectivity of the speaker/poet not unlike that of non-revolutionary poets, as well as his or her multi-dimensional affective connections to family and society. At the same time, an analysis of affect in this poetry allows us to reconsider the nature of the revolutionary figure itself, no longer a myth or a romantic hero, but an individual inserted in society in a more complex way. In Chapter 1, “Daisy Zamora: De la mujer-soldado a la mujer-mujer”, I contend that an analysis of affectivity of her poetic work reveals how personal memory constructs an individualized subjectivity different from that of a woman-soldier. In the second chapter, “Otto René Castillo: De la lucha revolucionaria a la soledad del poema,” I argue that a negative connotation of romantic love is projected in his poems bringing about traces of existential solitude in the lyric subjectivity. Furthermore, Castillo’s poetry elicits a binary opposition between “the people” and the guerrillero in which the former is portrayed as lacking of agency. The third chapter, “Roque Dalton: y/o subjetividad en crisis,” reveals the ways in which the Salvadoran poet textualizes a poetic of disenchantment by way of projecting disdain and contempt to the “motherland.” In conclusion, my approach pinpoints how Zamora, Castillo and Dalton share the same preoccupations, affects and ways to conceive reality, which are also similar to the practices of those poets whose works are better-known given their national origin or because their poetic production has been widely studied by academia. This document has been written in Spanish.Item Lights and shadows of the education reform process in Bolivia and Guatemala(2014-05) Xum Palacios, Brenda Estela; Hale, Charles R., 1957-Bolivia and Guatemala experienced a process of education reform in late 90's. Even though both countries had great international support to eliminate inequalities, especially among indigenous peoples, the domestic political contexts determined to what extent such changes were possible to make. In Bolivia the process started in 1994 with the signing of the Reform Law of Education, and in Guatemala in 1996 with the signing of the Peace Agreements. After more than two decades Bolivia and Guatemala present very different outcomes derived from their respective education reforms. This study is a comparison of them, an attempt to unveil the reasons why Bolivia has moved forward in terms of diversity, indigenous languages, and inclusion while Guatemala has apparently nullified the education reform process and remains in authoritarianism.Item Local believers, foreign missionaries, and the creation of Guatemalan Protestantism, 1882-1944(2012-05) Dove, Stephen Carter; Garrard-Burnett, Virginia, 1957-; Kamil, Neil; Butler, Matthew; Tweed, Thomas; Sullivan-González, DouglassThis dissertation examines how Guatemalan converts transformed missionary Protestantism into a locally contextualized religion in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Using archival materials from local religious groups and public archives in Guatemala alongside missionary documents from the United States, this research identifies how converts adopted certain missionary teachings but reinterpreted or rejected others. This selective application not only altered the definition of Protestantism in Guatemala but also affected the early growth of the movement by creating contextualized forms of Protestantism that attracted more interest than foreign versions. The first section of the dissertation analyzes the theologies and goals that early missionaries brought to Guatemala and explains the intramural conflicts that created the first Protestant communities in the country. Between 1882 and 1921, five North American Protestant denominations and several independent missionaries entered Guatemala, each with particular ideas about how to improve the country both spiritually and materially. This internal diversity provided new converts with the ability to choose between multiple versions of Protestantism, but more importantly it also taught them how to carve out their own space between imported religious ideologies. The second section of the dissertation analyzes how local believers reinterpreted Protestantism within those spaces by pursuing four important areas of innovation: theological primitivism, Pentecostalism, political involvement, and nationalism. Despite protests from many foreign missionaries, between 1920 and 1944 numerous Guatemalan Protestants adopted variations of these four themes in attempts to create a culturally and socially relevant religious product. As new converts opted for these new local communities over missionary-led options, these four themes became defining hallmarks of Guatemalan Protestantism, which by the twenty-first century was practiced by one-third of the country’s population. This dissertation argues that these contextualized challenges to missionary ideas in the early twentieth-century made Protestantism an attractive local product in Guatemala and sparked the movement’s growth. It also demonstrates how poor and working class Guatemalans in the early twentieth century used Protestantism as a tool to participate in national conversations about race, gender, and class.Item Problematizing discourses of feminicide in Guatemala : feminist universalism, neoliberal subject formation and hypervisibility(2011-05) Ihmoud, Sarah Emily; Hale, Charles R., 1957-; Browne, Simone A.In this report I argue that the analytical unit of feminicide must be expanded beyond gender in order to assess the axis of inequality upon which gender violence in contemporary Guatemala is being waged. Intersectionality and a gendered racial formation theory provide a more nuanced basis from which to undertake an analysis of gender violence and feminicide, and the grounds for devising effective long-term strategies for ending violence in its myriad forms. Second, I argue that the increased visibility of feminicide of late in Guatemala, far from being evidence of gradual progress toward addressing the problem, should be read as a sign of the problem‘s deepening, in a new and perhaps exacerbated form. Using historical examples from the Guatemalan women‘s movement, I demonstrate that demands to end gender violence and increase the rights of women, when articulated by the state, have often led not to a diminishing, but a reshaping of patriarchy and other forms of oppression. The Guatemalan state‘s transition towards neoliberal governmentality, and the gendered subject formation that is a part of this process, raise additional contradictions that merit further attention. State-based approaches to women‘s rights and protection should be merely one element of a larger political strategy towards more radical transformations of the state and racial, social and economic inequalities that will end gender based violence in the long-term.Item Re-Christianizing society : the institutional and popular revival of Catholicism in Guatemala, 1920-1968(2010-05) Hernández Sandoval, Bonar Ludwig; Garrard-Burnett, Virginia, 1957-; Brown, Jonathan; Hale, Charles R.; Lawrence, Mark; Butler, MatthewThis dissertation, explores the institutional and cultural revival of Guatemalan Catholicism during the twentieth century. First, it examines the changing character of Church-state relations in Guatemala in the 1920s and 1930s. The gradual decline of anticlericalism and emergence of a modus vivendi between the Guatemalan Liberal state and the Catholic Church proved fundamental for the reemergence of the Church as a social and political actor in the 1950s and 1960s. Second, this work analyzes the Catholic Action movement as a window to study this resurgence. Although it started as a socially conservative movement dedicated to implanting Catholic orthodoxy and curbing the advance of communism among Guatemala’s popular sectors, Catholic Action in the 1950s nevertheless evolved into an instrument of economic and social change. In applying the Gospel to social reality and bringing the Church into closer contact with rural Maya communities and urban workers, this movement became a precursor of Liberation Theology. Catholic Action served as a meeting point from which subaltern groups – namely lay indigenous and non-indigenous peoples, and priests and nuns from the United States and Europe – strove to transform Guatemalan society through the promotion of literacy programs, health-related projects and agricultural cooperatives. In this sense, religious change proved a catalyst of socioeconomic transformations.Item Rescuing our cultural past. Santa Isabel and the archaeological rescue projects in Guatemala City(2014-05) Paiz Aragon, Lorena; Guernsey, Julia, 1964-Since the move of Guatemala´s capital from the Panchoy Valley to the Ermita Valley, the archaeological remains were doomed to be destroyed and 200 years later this could not be more true. Urban development is erasing the traces of a rich cultural past now hidden under modern houses, malls and football fields. Although the Cultural Heritage Law establishes that archaeological remains must be protected, the same law allows sites to be destroyed if they are excavated first. This has lead to an increase of the “Archaeological Rescue Projects”, where time and pressure restrict the scientific nature of the excavation. In this work I explore the theory behind rescue projects and how ethical issues can play a big role in th way rescue archaeology is been done in Guatemala. Also, i explore the history of the rescue projects in Guatemala to demonstrate how important is to have a strong cultural law but also a strong sense of responsibility towards our profession. I use the example of rescue projects, Santa Isabel, to highlight the importance of scientific oriented investigations but also the common mistakes that can be done in these projects. Finally, a proposed a series of steps that can improve the quality of the rescue projects with hopes that they can be implemented in other parts of Guatemala.Item Sanitizing Interventions : PHS VD Research in Guatemala and the rise of public health(2012-08) Crafts, Lydia; Garrard-Burnett, Virginia, 1957-; Levine, PhilippaThe U.S. Public Health Service led human-subject experiments in Guatemala during the late 1940s in which the researchers intentionally infected prisoners, soldiers, and psychiatric patients with venereal disease to study prophylaxis and treatment for syphilis, gonorrhea, and chancroid. The U.S. doctors also conducted a serological study in an attempt to standardize blood testing methods for venereal disease in Central America. This thesis argues that the PHS went to Guatemala not just for the opportunities it presented for research, but also because the organization was seeking to expand its influence in Latin America during this time period. Through experimentation and serological testing in relation to venereal disease, this thesis suggests that the U.S. doctors sought to produce knowledge about venereal disease in Central Americans as part of their goal to augment their role as medical authorities in the region.