Suchergebnisse

An examination of labor unions/organizing in Guatemala focuses on the newly constructed labor ideologies of the young & mostly indigenous workers in international garment factories in rural areas. It is noted that labor union participation is minimal in Guatemala where organizing has been very difficult & human rights violations common. Information was obtained from open-ended interviews with about 100 mostly Maya workers between the ages of 15 & 22. The respondents expressed considerable ambivalence about factory work & most of their families continued to work the land. The younger workers tended to consider agriculture a job for their parents. Although they complained of low wages & harsh working conditions, they expressed both relative satisfaction with the nature of the work & fear that the factories could close. They distinguished between the less demanding Guatemalan supervisors & their stricter Korean counterparts (50% of industrial capital is Korean). Incidents of individual & collective resistance are related, along with the complex implications for labor ideology & the anti-sweatshop movement. Excerpts from the interviews are included. References. J. Lindroth

Mayas from Guatemala and Chiapas, Mexico, narrate strikingly similar stories that are part of their oral tradition. These similarities reflect the fact that Mayas from both areas share a common cultural tradition dating to pre-Hispanic times and a basic pattern of beliefs central to the Mesoamerican cultural complex. At the same time, the stories contain notable differences that can be explained historically and traced both to pre-Hispanic or post-Hispanic developments as they combined with ecological conditions. In this study, we compare the present expression of a series of Earth Lord accounts and explain interesting differences that we observed between two groups of Maya Indians. Our results suggest that the differences can be traced to the diverse ways by which peasants are incorporated at various degrees into the capitalist system, mainly through trade or through wage labor or combinations of these with other forms of production.

Like the original Harvest of Violence, published in 1988, this volume reveals how the contemporary Mayas contend with crime, political violence, internal community power struggles, and the broader impact of transnational economic and political policies in Guatemala. However, this work, informed by long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Mayan communities and commitment to conducting research in Mayan languages, places current anthropological analyses in relation to Mayan political activism and key Mayan intellectuals' research and criticism. Illustrating specifically how Mayas in this post-war period conceive of their social and political place in Guatemala, Mayas working in factories, fields, and markets, and participating in local, community-level politics provide critiques of the government, the Maya movement, and the general state of insecurity and social and political violence that they continue to face on a daily basis. Their critical assessments and efforts to improve political, social, and economic conditions illustrate their resiliency and positive, nonviolent solutions to Guatemala's ongoing problems that deserve serious consideration by Guatemalan and US policy makers, international non-government organizations, peace activists, and even academics studying politics, social agency, and the survival of indigenous people. CONTRIBUTORS Abigail E. Adams / José Oscar Barrera Nuñez / Peter Benson / Barbara Bocek / Jennifer L. Burrell / Robert M. Carmack / Monica DeHart / Edward F. Fischer / Liliana Goldín / Walter E. Little / Judith M. Maxwell / J. Jailey Philpot-Munson / Brenda Rosenbaum / Timothy J. Smith / David Stoll.