Fourteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

In this research I examine how the Civil War in Guatemala (1960-1996) which ended with an indigenous genocide, impacted current movements of resistance among Guatemalan women. I address gendered sexual violence that disproportionally impacted indigenous women during the war. The focus of systematic sexual violence serves as a critique of the nation state’s continuation of violence and use of colonial rationalities. In addition, this project closely examines the Ley de Reconciliación Nacional: Decreto 145-96, a State project that took place after the Peace treaty on 1996 that recognized the nation-state as a “multi-ethnic” and engendered country, but never recognized the country as a multi-racial region. This event was also used to coin the neoliberal economy that led to economic, social, and political disparities between urban ladino and rural indigenous communities. Consequently movements for gender equality and resistance against patriarchy and are often deeply divided between women who identify with different racial and ethnic categories because they are responding to different experiences. I am focusing on understanding the genealogies of these tensions using the epistemological positionally of both groups, indigenous and ladina women in contemporary Guatemala.