Temporal Imaginations: Mnemonic Frames Against Extractivism in Guatemala
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Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Autonomous University of Barcelona (ICTA-UAB)
Spain
Abstract
What is the role of collective memory in motivating social movements in post-peace Guatemala? Focusing on Indigenous resistance against extractivism, an 18-month (2021-2023) participant-observation project on grassroots campaigns with Defensoria Q’eqch’ and AEPDI documented the Maya-Q’eqchi’ front against the Fenix nickel mining project. Fifteen in-depth interviews with men and women in sites of struggle across El Estor, Izabal and 30 recorded testimonies of survivors of the Guatemalan genocide reveal activists draw on resistance narratives to counter the legacies of settler colonialism. Indigenous activists are mobilizing unified fronts against the state and capital in post-conflict societies, and the mechanism of collective memory plays a crucial role in encouraging political action through the deployment of “temporal imaginations,” which are self-reflecting and retrospective frames that position social movements in history and time. Temporal imaginations provide a way to articulate past injustices and present grievances, cement loyalties, establish goals, and evaluate new challenges.
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Author Biography
SpainVaclav Masek Sánchez is a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) from Guatemala, who previously completed master's degrees in Latin American and Caribbean Studies (NYU, 2019) and Sociology (USC, 2023). He is a doctoral researcher for REAL: A Post-Growth Deal, an ERC-funded project that promotes scientific research for achieving post-growth transformations, under the supervision of Giorgos Kallis. His ongoing dissertation project involves a multi-sited ethnography of grassroots movements aiming to institutionalize post-extractivism in Colombia and Guatemala, which have emerged from decades of violent armed conflict. Peer-reviewed academic journals that have featured his original research include the Iberoamerican Journal of Development Studies, the Journal of Latin American Geography, the NACLA Report on the Americas, and the International Area Studies Review As a public scholar, he writes monthly opinion editorials for elPeriódico, one of Guatemala’s largest daily newspapers in Spanish.