Suchergebnisse

Book reviewed in this article:Unfinished Conquest: The Guatemalan Tragedy. Victor Perera. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. 382 pp. Maya in Exile: Guatemalans in Florida. Allan F. Burns. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993. 208 pp.

Increasing numbers of Central Americans, primarily from El Salvador and Guatemala, began arriving in the United States in the early 1980s, fleeing brutal military repression and counterinsurgency efforts in their home countries (Hamilton and Chinchilla-Stoltz 1991, 1998; Julian 1994; Bens 1996; Burns 1988). The Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH) concludes that 200,000 people were killed or disappeared, and that state forces and related paramilitary groups onslaught, from 1981 to 1983, as many as 1.5 million people were displaced internally or had to fee the country, including about 150,000 who sought refuge in Mexico (CEH 1999, 30). The Guatemalan Peace Accords in 1996 signaled an end to overt hostilities but no to bitter social tensions, political violence, stark inequality, and severe economic hardship, all of which fuel emigration pressures. Numerous scholars have documented the factor contributing to immigration, particularly the critical connections between economic and poltical motivations (Richmond 1986; Chávez 1998; Chinchilla, Hamilton, and Loucky 1993; Fagen 1988; Hagan 1994; Vlach 1992; Porters and Back 1985). Guatemalans, however, add a unique sociocultural dimension to migration flows. Unlike that of other Central American nations, more than half of Guatemala's population is indigenous, from various Maya ethnolinguistic groups, adding complex issues of identity to the immigration experience. In this study, we explore the stages of migration through an ethnographic study of Guatemalan migrants to the San Francisco Bay Area. Our study first examines the demanding preparatory phase either in Guatemala or the refugee camps of Mexico, then the perilous journey north, and finally the arduous process of settlement in the United States. Two themes intersect throughout the journey: the role of social networks and issues of identity. In our research, we found that social networks are pivotal through all stages of migration and, in turn, interests with fluid, changing conceptions of identity.

As we move deeper into the twenty-first century, power, lethal force, and injustice continue to explode violently into war, and the prospects for lasting peace look even bleaker. The horrors of modern warfare - the death, dehumanization, and destruction of social and material infrastructures - have done little to bring an end to armed conflict. In this volume, leading chroniclers of war provide thoughtful and powerful essays that reflect on their ethnographic work at the frontlines. The contributors recount not only what they have seen and heard in war zones but also what is being read, studied, analyzed and remembered in such diverse locations as Colombia and Guatemala, Israel and Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Haiti. In detailed reports from the field, they reflect on the important issue of "accountability" and offer explanations to discern causes, patterns, and practices of war. Through this unique lens, the contributors provide the insight and analysis needed for a deeper understanding of one of the greatest issues of our times. Contributors: Avram Bornstein, Paul E. Farmer, R. Brian Ferguson, Lesley Gill, Beatriz Manz, Carolyn Nordstrom, Stephen Reyna, Jose N. Vasquez

The new millennium began with the triumph of democracy and markets. But for whom is life just, how so, and why? And what is being done to correct persisting injustices? Blending macro-level global and national analysis with in-depth grassroots detail, the contributors highlight roots of injustices, how they are perceived, and efforts to alleviate them. Following up on issues raised in the groundbreaking best-seller Power and Popular Protest: Latin American Social Movements (California, 2001), these essays elucidate how conceptions of justice are socially constructed and contested and historically contingent, shaped by people's values and institutionally grounded in real-life experiences. The contributors, a stellar coterie of North and Latin American scholars, offer refreshing new insights that deepen our understanding of social justice as ideology and practice