"Aquí No Pasó Nada": Terror, Remembrance and Healing in a Guatemalan "Green Zone"

This research focuses on the experiences of survivors of political violence and their healers in Momostenango, Totonicapán. The majority population of Momostenango is K’iche’ Maya. During Guatemala’s civil war (1960-1996), the state used terror to silence popular resistance and to neutralize the threat of insurgent guerilla forces that drew wide support from Maya communities. From 1981 to 1983 state army and paramilitary forces resorted to scorched earth tactics that two different truth commissions subsequently characterized as genocidal. During the war, the military designated the town as a “green zone” (a region sympathetic to and supportive of the military’s counterinsurgency project). Aquí no pasó nada (“nothing happened here”) focuses on how state-sanctioned identities are maintained and contested through providers’ and patients’ narrative frames during healthcare encounters. Qualitative and ethnographic analysis of competing accounts and perspectives about historical truths illuminate the interplay of class and ethnic identities as well as the ongoing effects of state-counterinsurgency in post-accords Guatemala. By exploring how biomedical and traditional Maya healers understand and speak about political violence, this dissertation examines providers’ ideologies of care and how survivors think about and actualize their present political agency.U.S. Dept. of Education FLAS Fellowship U.S. Dept. of Education Title VI Fellowship Fulbright-Hays Fellowship University of New Mexico 3% ScholarshipAnthropologyDoctoralUniversity of New Mexico. Dept. of AnthropologyNagengast, CaroleLamphere, LouiseField, LesFabri, Mar