Transformations in Citizenship: Local Resistance against Mining Projects in Huehuetenango (Guatemala)

In this article, I analyze how Guatemalan indigenous citizens claim their rights to be citizens and agents of their own development through local resistance to large-scale mining projects. These indigenous communities face massive resource extraction by multinational mining companies that endangers...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of developing societies 2012-06, Vol.28 (2), p.159-184
Main Author: Rasch, Elisabet Dueholm
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Citizens
Citizenship
Development
Development Policy
Ethnic Identity
Guatemala
Indigenous populations
Leerstoelgroep Rurale ontwikkelingssociologie
Mining
Mining Industry
Mining policy
Negotiation
Neoliberalism
Politics
Resistance
Rural Development Sociology
Self Determination
WASS
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Summary:In this article, I analyze how Guatemalan indigenous citizens claim their rights to be citizens and agents of their own development through local resistance to large-scale mining projects. These indigenous communities face massive resource extraction by multinational mining companies that endangers the quality of land and water, adversely affects community relations, and impedes indigenous self-determination. At the same time, the political recognition of indigenous peoples allows them to negotiate the regulation of natural resources on the basis of their ethnic identity, as neoliberal reforms have led to decentralization and greater responsibilities for development at the municipal level. I argue that narratives of “alternative development and citizenship” are not only shaped within the multi-scalar character of the anti-mining movement but also constructed within the different ways the resistance is framed, that is, as an indigenous struggle, as a class-based resistance, or as resistance against neoliberal development policies in general. To understand the complex ways that citizenship is constructed from below, we need to take these two dimensions of analysis into account.
ISSN:0169-796X
1745-2546
DOI:10.1177/0169796X12448756