The Ugly Poetics of Violence in Post-Accord Guatemala

• Published in: Forum for development studies 2009-01, Vol.36 (1), p.49-77
• Main Authors: McNeish, John-Andrew, Rivera, Oscar López
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Civil war; Crime; Cultural factors; Democracy; Guatemala; Peace; Peace agreement; Political anthropology; Political violence; post-accord; Post-conflict societies; Poverty; Reconstruction, Postwar; Violence
• ISSN: 0803-9410; 1891-1765
• DOI: 10.1080/08039410.2009.9666425

With the signing of the Peace Accords in 1996 Guatemala's credentials of democratic governance were re-established, but as media reports and the international community have observed the killing and crimes of the civil war have continued. With thought of the apparent contradictions of continued violence in a time of peace, this article aims to characterise and identify the causes of this violence. The article proposes that whilst carrying some validity, current academic, media and political explanations largely fail to capture the extent and significance of the violence in Guatemala because of their general tendency to disarticulate certain forms of violence from each other and their failure to collectively place these acts of violence in a wider socio-political context that stretches beyond Guatemala and between historical periods of peace and war. In underlining the importance of an interpretative approach to violence strong identification is made in this article with anthropological ideas of a 'poetics of violence'. It is argued that study of the 'poetics' of violence-that is, its generative character-unravels existing statistics and highlights that its origins and solutions are to be found beyond the largely static limitations of dominant combative policies. Ultimately, explanations for the persisting violence in Guatemala do not He with the presence of gangs and organised crime, or a pathological 'culture of violence' marked by war and by poverty, but in its support and sanction by the continued systemic violence of elites and contradictions of international intervention.