Resistance in the Highlands: Activism among Mayan Women and Interpretations of the Guatemalan Civil War, 1960-1996

The question of trauma and memory has been widely debated in women’s history and especially in Latin American history, with scholars such as Diane Nelson arguing that the testimonio serves to tell a truer history of the Guatemalan Civil War.  However, many perspectives on the testimonio have not adequately addressed the political and linguistic difficulties that arise in cultural translation, and often neglect the political relationships that transpire among historians and rural women of the Global South.  Invoking the work of global indigenous studies and through individual interviews conducted in Maya K’iche’ from 2003-2006 and again in 2015 with women who were guerilla combatants during the Guatemalan Civil War, this paper argues that memories of the war are crucial to women’s ongoing activism and development work in the region.  Special attention is given to individual women’s experiences of war and their interpretations of trauma and memory over time.

 This project, by closely examining individual women’s voices, sheds new light on the neglected topic of indigenous responses to American empire.  I focus on interpreting the history that is told by rural indigenous women and I discuss my own work process of translating and interpreting these stories linguistically, politically and culturally from Maya K’iche’.  Patterns of resistance that emerge in these interviews will especially serve to connect Latin American politics and history with ongoing activism surrounding human rights in Guatemala.