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La Hidroeléctrica Xalalá en territorios maya q’eqchi’ de Guatemala ¿Qué pasará con nuestra tierra y agua sagradas? Un análisis antropológico-jurídico de los derechos humanos amenazados
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... In 2004, the Xalalá project returned to Guatemala's energy and economic agenda as part of INDE's new Strategic Plan for Hydroelectric Projects. Since then, INDE and successive neoliberal governments have undertaken a range of actions, such as updating the feasibility and engineering studies and elaborating socio-economic evaluations, in order to promote its construction [20]. This dam project is located in Maya Q'eqchi territory and overlaps with the Petén-Veracruz eco-geographic region, which, when joined with Mexico, is considered the most extensive tropical formation in Mesoamerica [21,22]. ...
... With the support of local and international nongovernmental organizations, such as Asociación Puente de Paz and the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA), ACODET started to document the potential economic, social, cultural, and environmental impacts of the construction of the dam. One of the outputs of this collective collaborative work was the creation of a map (Figure 1 These consultations forced the then administration of Álvaro Colom to step back and put the project on hold, but the following government of Otto Peréz Molina (2012-2015) ignored this collective indigenous resistance and in 2013 reopened an international bidding process for the feasibility studies and the construction of the Xalalá dam [20]. At the same time, ACODET, with the support of indigenous lawyers, started to take legal action against the bidding process and publicly denounced INDE. ...
... The requested human rights assessment resulted in a comprehensive 130-page policy report, which tried to respond to these concerns (In the words of the Herent municipality, the goal of the report was to "encourage an open and participatory discussion on the obligations of the States to protect and respect the human rights of indigenous peoples, the future of natural resources and development from a local community perspective, and the strengthening of their self-government". See: Departamento Norte-Sur, Municipalidad de Herent-Bélgica, "prólogo", in [20]). ...
Water conflicts across the world are bringing to the fore fundamental challenges to the anthropocentric boundaries of the human rights paradigm. Engaging with the multi-layered legal ethnographic setting of the Xalalá dam project in Maya Q’eqchi’ territory in Guatemala, I will critically and empirically unpack not only the anthropocentric boundaries of the hegemonic human rights paradigm, but also the ontological differences between indigenous and Euro-Western legal conceptualizations of human-water-life. I argue that it is necessary to pave the way for urgent rethinking of the human right to water and, more broadly, human rights beyond the modern divide of nature-culture. International law and human rights scholars should therefore not be afraid of plurilegal water realities and should start engaging with these ontologically different concepts and practices. Embarking on a bottom-up co-theorizing about human and beyond-the-human water rights will be imperative to avoid recolonization of indigenous knowledges-ontologies by non-indigenous scholarships and public policy.
... El título final del informe de investigación fue: ¿Qué sucederá con nuestro río sagrado y nuestras tierras sagradas? (Viaene, 2015), porque esa fue una de las principales preocupaciones que escuché al preguntar a las numerosas mujeres y hombres ancianos Q'eqchi' y sobrevivientes de la guerra sobre el proyecto hidroeléctrico en su territorio. ...
... En 2014, a petición de las autoridades indígenas de micro región Nimlha'kok (Cobán, Alta Verapaz) realicé una investigación de seis semanas entre mayo y junio, durante la cual llevé a cabo entrevistas individuales, grupos focales, talleres y reuniones con actores clave locales, nacionales e internacionales con respecto al proyecto de represa Xalalá en esta región. La preparación de la agenda de investigación y la organización de distintas actividades en la región Q'eqchi' se coordinó directamente con el equipo de las autoridades indígenas de la región (Viaene, 2015). En 2017, en el marco de mi proyecto de investigación postdoctoral GROUNDHR, realicé una investigación colaborativa de seguimiento durante seis semanas en la misma región para aprender más sobre las relaciones indígenas entre humanos, vida y agua (Viaene, 2017(Viaene, , 2022. ...
El mundo ya no puede negar que el planeta está al borde de una catástrofe.
Mientras científicos de distintos campos y de todo el mundo debaten las causas, los impactos, los retos y las soluciones de la llegada del Antropoceno, un nuevo tiempo
geológico inducido por el ser humano, el campo del derecho no puede quedarse atrás.
En este contexto, los derechos de la naturaleza (RoN), una propuesta que busca
otorgar personalidad jurídica a la naturaleza y sus elementos (como los ríos), se han
constituido en un marco jurídico transnacional emergente que está rápidamente
ganando terreno entre los juristas euroamericanos como nueva herramienta para
combatir la destrucción del ambiente. Basado en reflexiones derivadas de un trabajo
etnográfico de colaboración a largo plazo con comunidades indígenas en el marco de
diferentes proyectos de investigación, este artículo pretende desvelar de forma crítica
y empírica varias preocupaciones y puntos ciegos sobre el efecto «bola de nieve» de los RoN en todo el mundo. Se discute, en especial, las posiciones que sostienen que esta nueva propuesta legal está arraigada en los estilos de vida y puntos de vista indígenas sobre la naturaleza y el ambiente.
... founded a new 'return community' at the shores of the Chixoy River. As we speak, their common future is endangered by the possible construction of the Xalalá hydroelectric dam (Viaene 2015a). Fearing new violence and displacement, the Copaleros resist the imposition of any 'megaproject' in the region. ...
Following previous experiences of violence and forced displacement, 'the returnees' from the Guatemalan campesino community 'Copal AA la Esperanza' are now defending their territory against the construction of a hydroelectric dam. The returnees unexpectedly mobilized me as a Belgian historian to 'make' their 'shared history' and produce a documentary about their past and present struggle. The aim of this article is to reflect on how and why I developed a participatory, filmmaking-based methodology to tackle this challenge. I focus on filmmaking, participation and knowledge production to demonstrate the epistemological and ethical benefits of a dialogue between disciplines and methodologies as much as between academic and community practices and concepts. As such, I exemplify my visual participatory approach through its engagement with post-colonial histories and the co-creation of shared knowledge at the intersection of community and research interests. Moreover, I demonstrate how filmmaking can be developed as a grounded, visual, and narrative approach connecting media activism with 'performative ethnography'. Combining insights from participatory action research (PAR) with Johannes Fabian's notion of 'performance', I argue for 'nonextractivist methodologies'; 'knowing with' instead of 'knowing-about'. From being a side project and a matter of research ethics, participatory filmmaking turned for me into an investigative tool to explore the collective production and mobilization of historical narratives. I argue that participatory research should not be limited to communities participating in research projects; researchers can equally participate in community projects without this obstructing scientific research. In sum, participatory visual methods challenge us to reconsider the role of academics in (post-conflict) settings.
... Indeed, it is through community ceremonies (Mayejak) that Q'eqchi' people communicate with nature. Any damage to nature or to another individual is interpreted as something that creates disharmony and sadness and it affects them collectively (Viaene 2015). ...
The world can no longer deny that the planet is on the verge of an Anthropocene catastrophe. As scientists from different fields and from around the globe are discussing the causes, impacts, challenges , and solutions to the arrival of this human-induced new geological time, the field of law cannot remain behind. Rights of Nature (RoN), granting legal personhood to nature and its elements such as rivers, is an emerging transnational legal framework fast gaining international traction among Euro-American legal scholars as a new tool to combat environmental destruction. Grounded in reflections derived from long-term collaborative ethnographic work among indigenous communities, this article aims to critically and empirically unpack several interrelated concerns and blind spots at this moment of the RoN snowballing effect around the globe related to claims that this new legal proposal is rooted in indigenous lifestyles and views about nature/the environment.
This book grapples with the interplay between Guatemala’s violent past and violent present. The present study focuses on the politics of history after the internal armed conflict (1960-1996), exploring this phenomenon in a contemporary context of socio-environmental conflict and the defense of indigenous territories. We therefore travel to the remote jungle of Alta Verapaz, where the returned refugees of the multi-ethnic community ‘Copal AA La Esperanza’ are defending their territory against the possible construction of a hydroelectric dam. The returnees unexpectedly recruited me, a Belgian historian, to ‘make’ their shared history by co-creating a documentary about their past and present struggle. Starting off as a side project and a way of ‘giving back’, filmmaking with the returnees turned into a way of exploring the collective production and mobilization of historical narratives. This dissertation offers a performative ethnography of collective narrative capacity (CNC) by means of participatory filmmaking. At the same time, it exposes a broader search for participatory, visual and performative methods to empirically explore collective narrative production and mobilization in (post-)conflict settings. Finally, as a form of participatory action research, this investigation also explores the synergy between research ethics and epistemics and seeks to move beyond a research-activism binary.
This book grapples with the interplay between Guatemala’s violent past and violent present. The present study focuses on the politics of history after the internal armed conflict (1960-1996), exploring this phenomenon in a contemporary context of socio-environmental conflict and the defense of indigenous territories. We therefore travel to the remote jungle of Alta Verapaz, where the returned refugees of the multi-ethnic community ‘Copal AA La Esperanza’ are defending their territory against the possible construction of a hydroelectric dam. The returnees unexpectedly recruited me, a Belgian historian, to ‘make’ their shared history by co-creating a documentary about their past and present struggle. Starting off as a side project and a way of ‘giving back’, filmmaking with the returnees turned into a way of exploring the collective production and mobilization of historical narratives. This dissertation offers a performative ethnography of collective narrative capacity (CNC) by means of participatory filmmaking. At the same time, it exposes a broader search for participatory, visual and performative methods to empirically explore collective narrative production and mobilization in (post-)conflict settings. Finally, as a form of participatory action research, this investigation also explores the synergy between research ethics and epistemics and seeks to move beyond a research-activism binary.
Indigenous claims “to speak the law” in Guatemala extend far beyond late twentieth‐century statist proposals for multicultural legal orders based on recognition of legal pluralism. Drawing on collaborative research with the Indigenous Mayoralty of Santa Cruz del Quiché and examination of public debates in the media, this article analyzes attempts to ensure the legibility of Indigenous law, including disputes over constitutional reforms in 2016 and 2017. It suggests how different conceptual framings shape methodological approaches and representations of law. While opponents of Indigenous jurisdiction frame Mayan law as violent and illegal, and thus radically incommensurable with the national legal order, for Indigenous authorities “speaking the law” is not about seeking recognition from the nation‐state. Rather, “speaking the law” is about communitarian forms of sovereignty and legality rooted in Mayan languages and cosmologies. Countering racialized tropes, Mayan authorities’ representations allude to understandings of justice and forms of legitimacy that existed prior to the sovereign state and national and international laws. In this way they highlight not only the historical violence of the Guatemalan state but also the foundational violence of law itself, pointing to temporalities and ontologies of justice beyond modernist legal frames.
This text, the result of an intercultural and interdisciplinary dialogue between a Colombian Arhuaco lawyer, Belkis Izquierdo, and a European anthropologist, Lieselotte Viaene, states that indigenous norms and practices concerning justice, reparation and reconciliation deeply question the dominant paradigm of transitional justice and human rights that is embedded in anthropocentric acceptations. We argue that this encounter not only raises epistemological questions, but, above all, invites us to analyze this as an “ontological conflict” that creates great legal disconformity among human rights defenders.
See: http://www.icip-perlapau.cat/numero34/articles_centrals/article_central_2/
Este texto, resultado de un diálogo intercultural e interdisciplinario entre una abogada arhuaca colombiana, Belkis Izquierdo, y una antropóloga europea, Lieselotte Viaene, plantea que las normas y prácticas indígenas de justicia, reparación y reconciliación cuestionan profundamente el paradigma dominante de justicia transicional y de de-rechos humanos que está enclavado en aceptaciones antropocéntricas. Sostenemos que este encuentro no solo genera cuestiones epistemológicas, sino que, sobre todo, nos invita a analizarlo como un "conflicto ontológico" que crea una gran disconformidad legal entre los defensores de derechos humanos.
Ver: http://www.icip-perlapau.cat/numero34/articles_centrals/article_central_2/
This article develops a research approach which can be summarised as ‘analysing users’ trajectories in human rights’. The key element of this approach, adopting a users’ perspective on human rights, implies a shift in analytical focus. Instead of analysing a specific legal instrument, topic or enforcement mechanism, one puts oneself in the shoes of those who engage with (use) human rights. The article explores the implications of adopting such a users’ perspective on human rights and introduces and reflects upon a categorisation of human rights uses and users. It proposes a broad understanding of human rights users, including rights claimants (who invoke human rights), rights realisers (who give effect to human rights), supportive users (who support the realisation of human rights) and judicial users (who impose the implementation of human rights), and argues that a possible way of adopting a users’ perspective is through analysing the ‘trajectories’ of users in relation to human rights.
This paper, as part of the dossier on ‘human rights integration’ attempts
to imagine what an integrated view on human rights would look like. As a political and ethical project, human rights are one, indivisible and universal. As law however, they are fragmented. This paper wants to start a conversation on whether it is desirable to pursue an integrated approach to human rights law at the level of its implementation. It does so by arguing in favour of such an integrated approach, while at the same time leaving room for different degrees of intensity in integration.
Since the mid-1980s, when Guatemala returned to civilian rule and achieved relative peace and stability, the Maya have begun openly expressing their spiritual beliefs and practices. Jean Molesky-Poz draws on in-depth dialogues with Maya Ajq'ijab' (keepers of the ritual calendar), her own participant observation, and inter-disciplinary resources to offer a comprehensive, innovative, and well-grounded understanding of contemporary Maya spirituality and its theological underpinnings. She reveals significant continuities between contemporary and ancient Maya worldviews and spiritual practices. Molesky-Poz opens with a discussion of how the public emergence of Maya spirituality is situated within the religious political history of the Guatemalan highlands, particularly the recent pan-Maya movement. She investigates Maya cosmovision and its foundational principles, as expressed by Ajq'ijab'. At the heart of this work, Ajq'ijab' interpret their obligation, lives, and spiritual work. In subsequent chapters, Molesky-Poz explores aspects of Maya spirituality-sacred geography (the reciprocal relationship between the earth and humans, sacred places, and the significance of the cross or quatrefoil map), sacred time (how the 260-day sacred calendar is "the heart of the wisdom of the Maya," the matrix of Maya culture), and ritual practice (the distinct way and method of ancestral study, with special attention to fire ceremonialism). She confirms contemporary Maya spirituality as a faith tradition with elaborate historical roots that has significance for individual, collective, and historical lives, reaffirming its own public space and legal right to be practiced.
This impassioned and rigorous analysis of the territorial plight of the Q'eqchi Maya of Guatemala highlights an urgent problem for indigenous communities around the world-repeated displacement from their lands. © 2012 by the University of Washington Press All rights reserved.