From Santiago Atitlán to the Pan Maya movement, national educational reform, local power and social change in Guatemala

grantor: University of TorontoThis study follows the tenets of the Naturalistic inquiry. It allows the participants in any collective process to tell their own stories. I examine two Guatemalan Mayan non government organisations, ESEDIR and PRODESSA. They follow a 'radically reformist' strategy at both the national and the local level to implement the provisions of the 1996 Peace Accords. Of particular importance to this study is their involvement in promoting educational reform. Internationally, this is an era in which the traditional left is experiencing a theoretical and programmatic crisis. Politically, this crisis has led to the virtual disappearance of the reformist (or revolutionary) political party as the preferred vehicle of social change and the rise in influence of social movements. In Guatemala this has meant the decline in influence of the URNG, the former guerrilla organisation, now a legal left-wing political party, and an expanded role of the Pan Maya movement. The social change strategy of this movement consists primarily of working in the local communities to prepare people to become protagonists in their own development. Thus, the local development councils not only bring specific services to their communities, but in preparing themselves to do this, they enhance the political literacy and organisational capacity of the communities. Many Mayan organisations also work nationally to promote policies and practices designed to meet the pressing needs of the Maya majority of the population. ESEDIR and PRODESSA were chosen as case studies as they represent two Maya organisations that work simultaneously at the local and national level to achieve social change 'from a Maya perspective'. I conclude that Guatemala, despite its uniqueness, is part of an international phenomenon characterised by the emergence of new social movements to provide leadership to previously marginal social sectors. It is unlikely that this movement alone will be able to overcome those social forces that oppose the far-reaching social changes promised by the Peace Accords. However, by creating a strong community base and extracting concessions at the national level, they are creating the preconditions for a long-term process of political struggle which has the potential, in alliance with others, of effecting transformatory social change in Guatemala.Ph.D