Academic Career

Teaching Experience

Transformations in Citizenship: Indigenous Legal Activism and Mega-Projects in Huehuetenango, Guatemala

The purpose of this research is to analyse how indigenous legal activism towards mega projects of natural resource extraction transforms practices and meanings of citizenship in Guatemala. Indigenous communities in Guatemala face massive resource extraction by, among others, multinational mining companies that employ methods that endanger the quality of land and water resources, adversely affect community relations and impede indigenous self-determination. At the same time the political recognition of indigenous peoples allows indigenous people to negotiate the regulation of natural resources on the basis of their ethnic identity and have neoliberal reforms led to decentralisation and greater responsibilities for development at the municipal level. The proposed research is located at the crossroads of these developments where different actors – the state, mining companies, indigenous activists and local authorities – engage in the struggle over development and the governance of natural resources. In its analysis the research focuses on how those struggles (re)produce categories of in- and exclusion. 

Journal Articles:

n.d. Representing Mayas. Indigenous Authorities and Ethnic Claim-Making in Guatemala. Social Analysis, accepted.

n.d. From Alcaldía Indígena to Mayan Mayor. Indigenous Political Mobilisation in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, Bulletin of Latin American Research, accepted

2011 Quetzaltenango’s first Mayan Mayor: Transforming Political Culture and the Politics of Belonging? Journal of Latin American Studies, forthcoming February 2011.

2010 Negociaciones sobre ‘lo nuestro’ y ‘lo Maya’. El caso de los Mayores del Corredor de la Municipalidad de Santa María, Guatemala. European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 88. 2003 with Daniël de Jongh ‘Guatemala nog niet klaar voor inheemse president? Presidentskandidaat Rigoberto Quemé Chay’. La Chispa (297).

Book:

2008 Representing Mayas. Indigenous Authorities and the Local Politics of Identity in Guatemala. Dissertation, Universiteit Utrecht.

Others:

2000 ¿Quién arregle mi problema? Autoridades indígenas y poder local en San Idelfonso Ixtahuacán. Research report. Guatemala: Fundamaya.

1999 ¿Es costumbre de nosotros? Research report. Guatemala: Fundamaya.

1999 ¿Es costumbre de nosotros? Etniciteit, identiteit en politiek bestuur in Guatemala. Unpublished MA thesis. Utrecht: Universiteit Utrecht.

Reviews:

n.d. Monica C. DeHart, ‘Ethnic Entrepreneurs: Identity and Development Politics in Latin America’. Journal of Latin American Studies.

2010 Donna Lee Van Cott, ‘Radical Democracy in the Andes’. European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, forthcoming.

2010 Anthony Bebbington, ‘Una ecología política de la minería moderna: movimientos sociales, empresas y desarrollo territorial’. European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 87.

2007 Maria Stern, Naming Security-Constructing Identity: Mayan-women in Guatemala on the Eve of Peace’ (invited book review), Journal of Latin American Studies, 39, pp. 706-707.

Presentations

2010 Transformations in Citizenship? Mobilisation against Mining in Huehuetenango, Guatemala, LASA Conference, Toronto.

2009 Multiculturele dilemma’s en etnisch burgerschap, ABV Conference, Utrecht

2007 Constructing Participatory Sites. Xeljú’s Intercultural Democracy. NALACS Conference, Utrecht.

2007 Guatemala’s Most Beautiful Maya Girl. Identity, Politics, Power and Beauty Pageants in Guatemala. CERES Summer School, Utrecht

2007 A Language of Rights as a Language of Contention? Contesting Authenticity in Santa María Chiquimula. LASA Congress, Montreal.

2005 Inheemse mondialisering en lokale percepties op authenticiteit in Guatemala. ABV Conference, Arnhem.

2005 Mayas, Indians & Ladinos and the Ethnification of Local Government in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. CERES Summer School, The Hague.

2004 Here They Respect What You Have Done in the Army. Military and Traditional Services in Santa María Chiquimula LASA Congress, Las Vegas

2004 Discursos locales y nacionales sobre ‘la costumbre’ de Santa María Chiquimula. El caso de los Mayores Municipales. Seminar ‘Gobierno municipal en regiones indígenas en Chiapas y Guatemala: Construyendo alternativas’. Guatemala City

2004 Ya es ladino. Mayas, Indians and Perceptions of ‘the Other’ in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. SLAS Conference, Leiden.

2002 Challenges for Municipal Governors in Huehuetenango. CEISAL, Amsterdam.

Invited guest lectures (selected)

2008 Representando a los Mayas, Book Presentation, Quetzaltenango (Guatemala),.

2007 Researching Legal Pluralism and Indigenous Law in Guatemala, DPRN meeting Indigenous Peoples: Recognition, Social Justice and Development in Central America and Mexico.

2007 Investigando el derecho indígena en Guatemala, CPD (Centro Pluricultural para la Democracia), Quetzaltenango, Guatemala.

2007 Discussant of the lecture   The Long-Term Process of Building Peace: Civil Society Organizations and the Dilemmas of Dealing with Land Conflicts in Guatemala by Mathijs van Leeuwen (Disaster Studies), Wageningen.

2006 Being Indigenous in Guatemala. Utrecht University

2005 Guatemala,  Mayas and Justice. Law Faculty, Utrecht University.

2004 Nos llaman indio por ser del campo. Civic Committee Xel-jú, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala