UNBC-Rights Action Experiential Learning in Guatemala 2023

Field School Facilitators Dr. Catherine Nolin (University of Northern British Columbia, UNBC) and Grahame Russell (Rights Action) have worked together for 20 years organizing and leading experiential learning delegations to Guatemala.

From May 9-23, 2023 we traveled to mainly Indigenous-led community defense struggles in different regions of the country, suffering and resisting the violent, harmful and corrupt operations of global mining companies, the food-for-export industry and hydro-electric dams. We met with victims of the U.S.-backed genocides and atrocities committed by Guatemalan military regimes in the 1970s and 80s, and with victims groups, NGOs and lawyers seeking a tiny bit of justice in the (corrupted) Guatemalan courts, 40 years later, for the crimes committed.   In each of these sectors of the global economy, people are being forcibly evicted from their lands, suffering human rights violations and repression (including killings, maimings, rapes), suffering arbitrary criminalizations and jailings, and so forth.

As a field school / student delegation, we are exploring issues of the contemporary search for justice, truth, memory, and historical clarification, particularly among the struggle around resource extraction and in the search for the disappeared from the decades-long armed conflict. We enter this course from a place of witnessing, not questioning (meaning that in community meetings, students are not often asking questions, other than requesting an update on their situation/case).

With this most recent delegation in May 2023, like each year, we dove into the overlapping-connected-key themes which include:       

• Victims/ survivors/ protagonists ·      
• Truth/ memory/ justice·      
• Local/ national/ global issues ~ intertwined
• Not only “national” issues, historically and today·      
• Environment/ development-economic model/ human rights issues ~ all intertwined – not “national” issues·      
• Exploitation/ Repression/ Impunity/ Corruption – all intertwined – not “national” issues·      
• Building local to global awareness and activist alliances based on, and more than solidarity

Each university student participant contributed reflections and photographs to this StoryMap to follow through on the key request from all people/communities/organizations that we met: to amplify their voices in the pursuit of memory, truth & justice in this so-called 'post-war,' / 'pre-peace' period in the aftermath of genocides in Guatemala.

We invite you to jump in and explore this StoryMap in no particular order. Viewers can click through by student name on the navigation bar at the top or navigate by location by clicking on the map or by photographs by clicking on photos of interest.

While classroom learning has its place, education must move beyond four walls to truly understand lived realities. On May 8th, 2023, I began the journey alongside ten of my peers to Guatemala as a part of the field school led by Dr. Catherine Nolin and Grahame Russell for my first learning experience outside of the classroom. The objective of this field school was to experience on-the-ground learning about past and present conflicts in Guatemala. To understand the current context of Guatemala, we had to first learn about the history of the country, primarily the period of time known as the “bad years” which spanned the 1970s and 80s. This context provided the foundation for us to understand the political and social setting of the country today, primarily related to the insurgence of development in the form of hydroelectricity, mining, and other large-scale projects. This paper is laid out in chronological order, moving through my experience before, during, and after the trip. By reflecting in chronological order, I demonstrate how my understanding of the context of Guatemala and the broader world has evolved, and how I have personally grown through these experiences. Through reflecting on my time in Guatemala, I hope to process what I learned and all that I experienced. I do not want to forget any part of this trip, but I know that as time goes on there will be parts of it that are not as While classroom learning has its place, education must move beyond four walls to truly understand lived realities. On May 8th, 2023, I began the journey alongside ten of my peers to Guatemala as a part of the field school led by Dr. Catherine Nolin and Grahame Russell for my first learning experience outside of the classroom. The objective of this field school was to experience on-the-ground learning about past and present conflicts in Guatemala. To understand the current context of Guatemala, we had to first learn about the history of the country, primarily the period of time known as the “bad years” which spanned the 1970s and 80s. This context provided the foundation for us to understand the political and social setting of the country today, primarily related to the insurgence of development in the form of hydroelectricity, mining, and other large-scale projects. This paper is laid out in chronological order, moving through my experience before, during, and after the trip. By reflecting in chronological order, I demonstrate how my understanding of the context of Guatemala and the broader world has evolved, and how I have personally grown through these experiences. Through reflecting on my time in Guatemala, I hope to process what I learned and all that I experienced. I do not want to forget any part of this trip, but I know that as time goes on there will be parts of it that are not as clear in memory as others. This reflection, along with my videos, photos, and field journal, will serve as physical reminders of all that Guatemala means to me. clear in memory as others. This reflection, along with my videos, photos, and field journal, will serve as physical reminders of all that Guatemala means to me.

Throughout the five years of my undergraduate degree in Human Geography my classes were focused around environmental and social justice issues. As I moved throughout my degree my perspectives changed significantly. In my first and second year, I was committed to changing the world; I wanted to eradicate all harm, exploitation, and suffering for every living being. I spent a lot of these early days upset, screaming at anyone who would listen about all the injustices that I was learning about. In the next two years, I learned about the vast scale of global issues and began to realize that changing the whole world was impossible requiring me to adjust my scope. During this time, I realized that working at a small-scale, through little resistances, would be what I committed to.

During my final year of my undergraduate degree, I took Critical Development Geography with Dr. Catherine Nolin which gave me a strong understanding as to how systemic and all-encompassing these issues are. This class demonstrated the entanglement of social, political, and economic factors across the world, and that everything is much deeper than I ever realized. This class shone a spotlight on how bad Canada's international involvement really is through many lectures, readings, and documentaries. This content contributed to personal feelings of guilt about being both North American and Canadian. I have never been overly proud of being a Canadian knowing the country's past and ongoing relationship with Indigenous peoples, immigrants, and refugees. Thus, I have never closely identified as being Canadian, rather identifying with being from the Kootenays and now Prince George. However, during this my time in Critical Development, I was having an identity crisis fueled by guilt for a country that I have never even identified with. I wanted nothing to do with Canada, yet it is the place I call home. This was also the first time during my degree that I felt truly defeated. For the first time, I felt like it did not matter what I did with my life, there would always be suffering so extreme that I could not comprehend. On my drives home from school I would scream and cry before getting home and lying in bed for hours contemplating what the point of learning such heavy content was when it felt like nothing I did mattered. Truly, the only thing that got me through this point in life was that I was, and continue to be, surrounded by friends that are just like me, my people, who were as equally distraught as I was.

After Critical Development ended and the spring break led up to the field school, I felt equally as upset and actually regretted signing up for the Guatemala field school. I did not think I could emotionally handle meeting the people we learned about face-to-face. This belief only made me feel worse however, because I knew how selfish and privileged my apprehension was while the people of Guatemala have no choice but to face the injustices these injustices. I felt better once we started the field school preparation course; it was comforting to finally meet my peers who would be on the trip. Given that I had taken Critical Development Geography, I was not surprised by the information presented and therefore, was not as overwhelmingly upset for the first few days. However, the Wednesday class was a very intense day learning about the impacts of the Chixoy Dam, the RHEMI report, and the Death Squad Diaries. This day was especially difficult for me as it was made clear how systemic and intentional these events were. Suddenly, all the composure that I had was gone and I was no longer able to cope. I went home that afternoon and laid in bed going back and forth between crying and napping, everything felt heavy, and nothing felt okay. I felt paralyzed by the weight of all that we had learned. However, the next day I got up, got myself ready, and returned for the last two days of learning. In the week between the course and leaving for Guatemala, I gathered my things, packed, and repacked my backpack, and tried to mentally prepare myself for the two weeks that lay ahead.

            On May 8 ^th , we began our journey to Guatemala. Despite the amount of anxiety that was running through my body on the way to the airport, once I finally got on the plane, I knew that I had made the right decision, and that feeling was only strengthened during our time in Guatemala. Over the course of two weeks, our group traveled around the country in a van to meet various communities and groups where they were at. We got to see so much of Guatemala, and I spent half of the time in awe of the beauty that the country has to offer, whether it was the diverse landscapes, the bright colours, or the kind people. The other half of the trip was spent feeling the exact opposite, I was devastated by the horrors and atrocities that occur within Guatemala’s borders.

One of the things that I was most worried about going into the field school was the group dynamic. While I am a seemingly extroverted person, when the day is over and my social battery is low, I become very introverted. I was worried that being with a group of people, many of whom I did not know well, while learning about difficult topics for two weeks would make me more upset. However, this assumption was anything but true. The twelve people that I got to travel and experience Guatemala alongside were one of the best parts of the trip and made learning about hard things a bit easier. It was these people that I learned with, that I felt safe enough to completely break down in front of, crying so hard that my body trembled. It was also these people that I laughed with, swam with, and talked about life with. We were all connected by this deeper understanding of the tragedies that exist, not just in Guatemala but everywhere, and a desire to improve conditions, no matter the scale. As well, this trip was the perfect example of how insurgent research should be conducted, meeting people where they are at, giving them support where you can, compensating them for their time and travels, and building strong, lasting relationships. I am so honored to have been a part of this kind of research trip and experience that firsthand by two incredible mentors. It was incredible to see the relationships that Catherine Nolin and Grahame Russell had with different people and communities. Despite the difficult topics, they gave space to hug, share meals, laugh, and talk about day-to-day things.

Throughout our travels, we had meetings with those whose struggles we had learned about through lectures, films, and readings in our week-long preparation course. The purpose of these meetings was multifaceted, firstly to show our solidarity and support as well as to learn about their current circumstances. Even though I had spent so much time worrying about how I would cope on the trip, it was not as hard as I had worked it up to be because it felt so right. Even during the difficult conversations and hard days, I knew it was exactly where I was meant to be, the importance of being in Guatemala outweighed the difficulty of it. During the trip, many negative themes emerged and persisted, including exploitation perpetrated primarily by Canada and the United States, the cooptation of the Guatemalan state, and the long history of disappeared and murdered people within the country. These were many of the themes that we had read about during the course through the work of authors including Maggie Black, Eduardo Galeano, George Lovell, Grahame Russell, and Catherine Nolin.

In Testimonio, Nolin and Russell (2021) showcase the poor impacts of development in Guatemala through a collaboration of testimonies that discuss peoples experience with both direct and structural violence. We then got to meet with many of these impacted people in Guatemala, including Sebastian Iboy Osorio. We had read about Sebastian’s story in Testimonio (2021) which provided an incredible understanding of the development of the Chixoy Dam and the massacres that ensued. However, meeting with Sebastian and being in Río Negro gave me an even better understanding of the circumstances. We got to boat along the Chixoy River and hike up the mountain to Pacoxom, which was the spot where 177 women and children were killed in 1982.

Although I had read about the massacres and Pacoxom, written words had nothing on sitting in the exact spot where people were killed, listening to Sebastian talk. Sitting in this place, I was filled with this feeling that I can only describe as holy and sacred, but even that does not encompass it. I felt something so much bigger than me or the readings, something that I cannot even translate into words. This feeling, and the power of Sebastian’s words made me realize the true importance of on-the-ground learning as it gave a whole new meaning to my understanding of development in Guatemala.

Development projects, such as building dams or mines, are primarily about making the company as much money as possible, no matter the cost. Black (2015) states that current “development is a very contradictory affair as it reinforces the very poverty that it aims to eliminate” (p.16). Similarly, Galeano (1971) says “development develops inequality” (p.3). The lack of benefit that communities receive from major development projects was so starkly evident across Guatemala from San Miguel Ixtahuacan to El Estor. In San Miguel Ixtahuacan, our van had to cross a deteriorating bridge that we were not sure was safe for us to do so. Catherine and Grahame then explained to us that this bridge was built by Goldcorp, the company who had operated the Marlin Mine in the area, and since they had stopped operating, the bridge maintenance responsibility left with them. The people in this area are now stuck with a bridge that is becoming increasingly unsafe and without the means to maintain. In El Estor, the road leading into the community, which passes the Solway-owned Fenix mine processing plant, is a poorly maintained gravel road. Despite the increased vehicle traffic that the mine brought to the area, the company has not put any resources into improving the road quality. As well, there is a severe lack of potable water for people to drink in El Estor, yet there is no lack of water for the mining operation. Moving west across the country, the Chixoy Dam was built with the intent to provide electricity and the people in the region were promised they would benefit. However, the communities in the Chixoy River area did not receive electricity until 30 years after the dam was completed. While these are just a few examples of how development projects do not improve local conditions, they are not unique. Not a single person that we met spoke of any benefits that development projects brought, aside from a small number of low-paid jobs for locals and some temporary income for the municipality.

I have always been upset by the injustices of the world, even before I really understood the depths of the world’s harm. At a very local scale, I remember going home crying in elementary school because a girl two years older than me was being bullied and all I knew was that it was not right. I then remember taking Social Justice in grade eleven and feeling enraged learning about the Rwandan Genocide, or in First Nations in grade twelve when I had my first full introduction to residential schools. I remember the very details of the Cries from Syria documentary that I watched in my first year of this degree. I could go on for a very long time about classes I took, books that I read, and movies that I watched that contributed to the overwhelming heaviness that I now carry with me. Often, I think we get weighed down by the bad - the murders, the corrupt officials, and the broken systems - and while the bad needs to be paid attention to and denounced, it is equally as important to focus on the good - the resistances and the strength of individuals and communities.     

Every group that we met with on the field school was resisting, whether against the Guatemalan government, the overarching social and economic model, or the mining companies. There are groups who are resisting through legal action, including the people of Lote 8, who are a part of a Canadian court lawsuit against HudBay Minerals. In Rabinal, we met with Jesus Tecu Osorio who created the Rabinal Popular Legal Clinic, which prompted the 2012 criminal court case regarding the sexual violence against Achi women at a military outpost. We met with several groups who physically, but peacefully, resisted through encampments and road blockades. In La Puya, the people blocked the entrance to the mine road for eleven years, and they remain on the side of the road today despite mining operations ceasing. We visited two different plantones in Mataquescuintla and Casillas, which are set up on the side of the road 24/7 to resist the ESCOBAL Mine. The objective of these plantones is to monitor the road for movement of mining equipment to ensure that the company is not operating unfaithfully before the consultation process. In each of these cases, people resisted despite extreme efforts to harm them, whether through criminalization, tear gas, guns, or other weapons of violence.

            Another act of little resistance that we saw was the practice of agroecology. Alongside learning about the Plan de Sanchez massacres, we were able to see how communities are both existing and actively resisting the oppressive economic and social system. We spent an entire day hiking through communities in the watershed of the Xesiguan river with the Association of Community Production Committees (ACPC). In each of the different stops that we made, we saw different agroecology practices. There were a variety of animals including sheep, cows, donkeys, chickens, turkeys, pigs, and fish. We saw crops of macadamia nuts, avocados, corn, coffee, bananas, and taro. At one of our stops, we learned about their honeybee practice and the medicinal properties of both honey and pollen. Our final stop of the day was at the ACPC centre where we had lunch and learned about their practice of agroecology and the ACPC’s goal to create food security for the area. Alfredo Córtez explained that they hope to produce food for their community so that people do not have to rely on the government or big corporations to have adequate access to food. These efforts are a little resistance that positively threatens the global economic order.In El Estor, Angelica Choc said, “thankfully we have resistance” and Olga Che similarly said, “what do poor people have left but to resist?”. Both women’s comments left me realizing the true importance of these little resistances. While the atrocities of Guatemala continue despite these little resistances, it slows and sometimes even stops operations, it causes others to pay attention to the situation, and it demands companies and governments to be accountable. Resistance is all a lot of people can do and these little resistances are actually not so little, they take a lot of strength and courage. This field school demonstrated to me that I had not been paying enough attention to how people respond in bad times. Resistance is something that is very challenging to read or watch movies about as you cannot capture the impact. I am not sure that the plantones on the side of the road or the community meetings could be adequately captured in words, I think you really do have to be there to feel the power and strength of the people and their spaces. The theme of little resistances was seen by all, from journalists to those spending their days in encampments. Resistance can be seen in the littlest ways, in people choosing to meet with us, in people sharing their stories.

I returned home from Guatemala on May 24 ^th  and even though it had only been just over two weeks, it felt like I had experienced another lifetime. I was overwhelmed with emotions upon getting home. I wanted to scream from the rooftops about the injustices and the people I had met with. I wanted to develop photos of the beautiful pieces of the country and tape them in every public space so that people could see that Guatemala is not the desolate ‘third world country’ that it is often described as. Despite all these feelings, the first couple of weeks home I was consumed by sadness. I felt useless being at home, doing nothing about the things I had just learned about. I spent a lot of time napping, which I recognized meant I was not doing well, and as Theidon suggested, I “reach[ed] out to [my] colleagues who ‘get it’” (p.12). I sought out my people, surrounding myself with those who had been in the field school or others who understood. Even if we were not talking about Guatemala, it was nice to be with people who understood my heart.

However, I miss our field school group dynamic; I crave the group dynamic. I cannot believe that the group that I was once so nervous to spend two weeks with I am now aching to be with. One of the hardest parts of returning home was the loneliness. I had just gone from spending two weeks constantly with people, people who understood me, to being alone in my basement suite. I procrastinated writing this reflection because I did not want to read through my field notes and confront my own feelings. However, once I finally got started, it felt important to reflect on my two-week journey. If not for this reflection, I would have closed my field journal and pushed it as far under my bed as possible, bottling up all that I learned until I finally broke down. Instead, I not only had to read through my field journal several times, but I also had to process and write about all that I had experienced. I wrote with my friends when possible, or even texted with them as I wrote, which was, in fact, a very “collective and supportive endeavor” (Theidon, 2014, p.12).

Now that a few months have passed since I got home, I have been able to process more and am doing better. I still feel guilty that I am not actively doing anything about the injustices of Guatemala and am instead being selfish with my own life, but it is easier. I no longer feel the guilt of being Canadian that I once held, Grahame was very vocal about this issue on the trip saying that he “is not Canadian, but a human” and we are all just one person in this one world. Having this perspective has allowed me to free myself of my identity crisis. I am not sure what my future looks like yet or how I will contribute to improving the conditions of injustices. However, I do know that I will use my one life to continue to listen, learn, and resist. These efforts will not just be in the context of Guatemala, although this country now has a very large piece of my heart, but about all injustices. Even when the world feels so large and the problems feel out of reach, I can listen and learn. I can read books and watch movies, and when I travel, I can educate myself about the destination and spend time with the people of the area.

The Guatemala field school was transformational, and not at all what I expected. Alongside learning about the injustices of the country, I also learned so much about the people and the culture. I got to eat local food, ride in the back of a pick-up truck, and I laughed with children because that was the only language we had in common. I was worried about how I would write a ten-page reflection, and ironically, I now wish that I had more space. There is so much more good that I wish I could have talked about, the kindness of Guatemalan people, the gratitude they had for us being there, the bright colours, the incredible landscapes. There is also much more bad that I could have discussed, the corruption of the Guatemalan legal system as good politicians and journalists are arrested, the regulation of Canadian mining operations within our borders but not in Guatemala, the way rape is used as a tool of violence. None of these topics are less important than the other, this is just the direction that this reflection took. I am so glad that I made the decision to attend this field school, it was an incredible learning experience that I could not have had in the classroom. This trip solidified that we need to do better, for all people. Learning is the first step.

During the field school, we learned about many different themes including activism, violence, and the role communities play in the fight against mines. In Guatemala, I found that community members are the ones who start the activism and are the reason any change happens if any change does happen. In the country, the communities were the ones who decided to take action rather than depending on volunteers from NGOs or people coming in who they do not know, and the people do not know the full details. A second theme I found during the field school was how severe the risks of fighting are for the community members and how exhausting it makes people. However, they still do it for future generations. This experience and meeting these people changed my understanding of the impacts of my country and my country’s role in global issues. I found that during the field school, the on-ground reality was such a different experience than reading and talking about these issues in a classroom. I also found that being there and learning from who is experiencing the impacts makes learning from books and in a classroom seem pointless. Furthermore, not only did this experience change my understanding of Canada’s impacts, but also this experience shifted my knowledge and awareness of the world around me and my role in it.

            Throughout the course, we learned about activism against Canadian and U.S. mining projects and how this activism was started by the local communities and then spread larger from there. Once we were in Guatemala and attending the field school, we saw this community activism playing out. For example, one of the first places we visit FAMDEGUA Guatemala which is an organization that helps fight crimes against humanity in Guatemala. During this first meeting, we learned that FAMDEGUA was started by family members who were looking for the remains of their loved ones who were murdered or disappeared. FAMDEGUA was started by women who were left without husbands and looking for answers and their loved ones, but then started getting more attention from the public and became FAMDEGUA around the year 1991. FAMDEGUA is not the only community-lead organization that we learned about, we also met journalist Quimyde Leon who started a school to help provide her local community with access to education to become a reporter and increase the number of local reporters in Guatemala. Also, FAFG involves families and community members in the process of looking for and testing the DNA of the remains of loved ones. During the presentation at FAFG, they explained how involving family members is an important part of the process for them and how many other organizations; who work on the same issues, do not allow family members to be there at all. However, having family members and loved ones there on the site and a part of the process not only is healing for them but also helps identify the remains. Family members also help in the search for mass graves, making the process go by faster. Another community where we saw community-led activism was La Puya. La Puya’s mining resistance started with one woman parking her car in the middle of the mining road to block all mining vehicles from passing through. Now, just over eleven years later, community members are still there on the side of the road blocking any mining vehicles.

            One of the main connections I saw between all the community resistances was that they were started because they felt like they were left alone by the effects of the mines. The communities were either not getting help from their government and people who had the power to help or, the people who would come in and help them were from NGOs who weren’t from Guatemala or did not understand what it was like living through the massacres and violence. This created issues with communities because these outsiders would come in, interview the residents, and take their information back to their country and not much would be done for the people in Guatemala. We heard from many people, including the fishermen in El Estor and the community of San Miguel Ixtahuacan that these issues left Guatemalans feeling hopeless which lead to taking matters into their own hands. We heard the fishermen express the need for "real consultation" and how NGOs will come in and get involved and become falsely represented as the leaders of these struggles; where in reality, they are not from here and lack understanding of the full struggles. Another community-led activism movement I want to mention is the mining resistance struggles against the Escobal silver mine. These resistances represented community-led change by showing up every day and all day to protect Mother Earth from the mine. As well as being involved in court cases and working every day to fight the mine legally. We also saw a huge movement of community-lead activism in the film “Dictator in the Dock”, in this film, we saw an example of “community members vs. the government” where many witnesses and victims had the courage to speak their testimonies against their government in court and win the case.

            A second theme that I found during the field school was the risks that were involved in the fight and how tired people are of fighting and getting no justice, but still do for future generations and Mother Earth. In almost all interviews and meetings we had on the field school, everyone was fighting for a better future, but not getting one. People were dedicating their lives to their land but were still being turned down in court or being faced with violence from the companies they were against. For example, in one of our very first meetings we met with Quimy Leon, she explained how she “cannot stop even though there are risks”. Quimy explained how she has had to move homes, cannot talk about work, can barely see her family, and may have to go into hiding at any time because of the work she does and because of how dangerous it can be, but cannot stop because of the importance of the work she is doing by interviewing and reporting the impacts of these mines on Guatemalans. We saw a similar situation in La Puya and how they have been fighting for years and continue to do so, even though they know that the fight will not end soon, and will go on for the rest of their lives. Almost all communities and people we met with have been fighting for almost their whole lives and still, have not received justice. For example, as we read in Testimonio, Rio Negro has been fighting for a petition with Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for years, arguing corruption and impunity. However, they have not yet received the justice they deserve. Also, with losing many people because so many people are worn out and exhausted, they decided not to come back after COVID. We saw this exhaustion in so many other meetings including Lote 8 in El Estor where the community members expressed their tiredness by asking the question “do we have to fight again?” but showing their resistance by explaining “I know that the company will come back and I know I will resist” and getting up every day and doing exactly that, resisting against “the monster”. Lote 8 was one of the main communities where I felt like I saw strong resistance and relationships between the people. The community is very committed to putting their lives on the line if it means a chance for their land to be saved. For example, one fisherman explained that he has been to jail twice due to activism and he would go back a third if he needed to. Others explained how they have had to go into hiding due to the work they do. Although this community is involved in dirty work from the perspective of the government, they still stick together and help each other fight each day. As well, many resistances expressed the same concerns of being so worn out and exhausted from the work that they do, however, they must keep going. For example, at the second resistance, one guy explained how they “fight hard, lose, fight hard, lose, fight hard, etc” and are constantly in this cycle that is not over but they are so worn out.  One main question that I found came up in a lot of conversations with the communities was how they are doing this work and fighting for future generations, but despite all the work they are doing, they don’t know if anything is going to change for their kids or grandkids' lives. In Lote 8, many of the community members stressed the question “is that all we are leaving for future generations is fighting and resistance?” These people know that no matter how hard they fight, the government can come in with a new company and do it all over again. Many other meetings raised the same questions; for example, all four mining resistance struggles we visited asked the same question of “what are we leaving for future generations?” while also explaining that being there fighting for the future comes with many risks, but they are willing to do so for the chance of their children and grandchildren to have the land.

            Along with the exhaustion, stress, and frustration that these people are experiencing because of the impacts of the mines, they are also experiencing an increase in tension within their communities. For example, we saw this in one of our last community meetings in Mataquescuintla where the people were already experiencing a heavy toll mentally due to the environmental and health impacts of the mine but were now faced with frustration and anger that they took out on their community members. In that meeting we heard the quote “the company is here short-term, but the effects are here long-term.” This statement explains how deep and large the impacts from the mine are on the people living in the areas because although the company may only be operating in a mine for three to five years, the environmental and social impacts it has on the community are irreversible.

            The experience of the field school and meeting with all of the amazing, inspiring people that we met completely changed my understanding of the key issues of the course such as activism, political violence, the intensity of violence, and the injustice these communities face. One of my main understandings that changed is community activism was how activism was not as voluntary as it is here. Here in Canada, most people choose to be an advocate on certain issues that they are passionate about. Whereas in Guatemala, we saw many people who would explain how they did not choose to be an activist, but because they are a member of the community and care for the future of their families, they do so. The fishermen in El Estor made me have this realization because one man explained how when he started as a fisherman, he never imagined it would turn into this struggle and turn into this big of a fight with mining companies to keep the water clean and fishable. As we saw at many mining resistances such as La Puya and the mining resistance struggles, activism in Guatemala is a part of life, people are out protesting issues twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Whereas when you think of activism here, you picture protesters with signs and huge crowds of people who go home every night and are not necessarily living the issues. Along with my perspective of the commitment Guatemalans have to activism, the understanding of the risks of the work these people did also change once attending the field school. Before the field school, I did not think much about what harm could come from activism other than the odd story that makes the news of some protesters getting pepper sprayed or arrested. However, the risks are much larger in Guatemala and some protestors would be lucky if all that happened to them was pepper sprayed. For example, we heard from Luis Choc in El Estor and how he has been jumped multiple times because of his leadership position in the movement against the mine, or how his cousin was killed because he was mistaken for his brother. Another example includes Berta, Berta we learned about in class and learned how she was assassinated right after winning an environmental activism award. The risks of the activism work that these people are doing in nothing compared to the violence we see in Canada, but the ironic part is that Canada is behind the violence these protesters face in Guatemala.

            In addition to the risks and violence within activism, my understanding of development shifted after attending the field school. Although we spent a lot of time in class before learning about the dark sides of development and how development can destroy some countries, being there and seeing it firsthand made me realize just how badly our “development” is ruining these countries. As we talked about a lot in class, "bringing development" is not something all people and places need in these Global South countries. We saw many examples of this in Guatemala where a community would be home to a mine and the company would build new roads which can sound like a good thing, but now they have no drinking water because of how contaminated the water is due to the mine. Before the course, I thought that projects that were “bringing development” were people coming in because the country needed them or has asked another country for help. However, as I quickly learned that is not exactly the case, being there in Guatemala and seeing just how badly some of these projects are for the community made me understand the issue so much more. In many meetings, we heard community members explain the frustration these outsiders and their projects bring. For example, in the last community meeting, we heard one woman express her anger for Canadians and how her community has done many meetings, but their information is just taken and they are ditched by the people who were supposed to help them. One of the biggest reasons countries like Canada go into countries like Guatemala for development is because of money. We learned about this lot in class, but once in Guatemala, it was easy to see just how much control Canada had over Guatemala and how they operated there because it was easier and cheaper rather than operating there in Canada. For example, the mines we saw were Canadian companies that illegally bought the land from the Guatemalan government for huge amounts of money, and then ran it the way Canada wanted to run it even though the mine is located in Guatemala and uses our employees rather than providing jobs for locals.

            Furthermore, learning in the field and the on-ground reality was much harder to process compared to learning about these issues in class. Although we talked about these tough issues in class and many of us had a hard time learning about it, it was even harder to hear it from the people who lived it. During the field school, I felt that every day I would say “we read and talked about this issue, but to be here and hearing it from the person who experienced it is so different and a lot harder”. I felt as I first felt like this in Rio Negro when we were doing the early morning hike and I kept thinking about what we heard in the documentary “Discovering Dominga” about how it must have felt as one of the women or children who had to hike this knowing, they most likely would not come back down. Rio Negro was one of the hardest places emotionally for me due to being on the land where a massacre occurred and being with Sebastian who was only sixteen at the time and hearing him tell his story. The experience of being there and learning from the people, but also hurting for them is nothing compared to any emotional topic that I have learned in a classroom.

            Lastly, the shift this field school has created in my mindset regarding my knowledge, awareness, and understanding of the world around me is dramatic. Before the field school course, I had no idea how large of a role Canada plays in these issues in the Global South, and on top of that, how well Canada hides it. As well as how large these issues are in countries like Guatemala, but here you never hear about it even though our country is a main player. Canada not only operates mines illegally in Guatemala but also treats workers and locals horribly in those mines. For example, if a local were to get a job, it would be a very low paying one and they would also have to work in unsafe work conditions. In addition, I learned the extremeness of the violence in Guatemala. For example, political violence towards activism is way larger than I ever thought before going to Guatemala. Being there and talking to people who explain how they have been in hiding or have had family members murdered because of their work was more extreme than I ever thought activism violence could be.

            The experience I gained from the field school has given me a different type of awareness about the world around me than before. This experience has made me understand larger world issues that I would not have paid any attention to before and has also given me a different perspective to view what I see on the news and hear about in politics. For example, I now question things I hear in the media and question what some governments and large companies are saying about "development" and "helping" in other countries. I have learned the loopholes these companies work through and how they use the money to get away with illegal actions. I have also gained an interest in educating myself more on the world globally and not just what's around me. I now see the importance of paying attention to global news, but also making sure I use trustworthy sources and do proper research on issues.

            Concerning my personal choices, it has been very difficult coming back home and being expected to jump back into life and work, but I have been trying to remind myself to do what I can do within my life and then think about the large issues once in ready. Since coming home I have now become more conscious about what and who I am supporting with what I am buying. Although this is hard to manage in a country like Guatemala, I am still trying to support the right companies with my fruits and vegetables, as well as where my clothing was made. Not only has this field school changed my perspective on where I get my information or what I buy, but it has also made me second-guess my career path. Before this field school, I knew I wanted to help others so I planned to go into teaching, now I have seen how I can help others in ways that they might truly need someone. For example, Erica was a huge inspiration, seeing someone come from UNBC and now working with people who need help across the continent was mind-changing and showed me how much of an impact I can have. This experience also changed the ways I view myself as someone who is privileged and has access to education. After the field school, I have now wanted to use my privilege and opportunities in education to do better. By this, I mean traveling with a purpose rather than just a vacation. For example, research where I am traveling to and know whose land I am on and how I can support local communities or businesses to the best I can as well as educate myself about the places I travel to.

            In conclusion, this field school was life-changing and taught me so many new things that I would not have been able to learn without this experience. Although I have learned some heavy topics and am still processing many things, my life has still been changed for the better and I will now continue to work on making the world a better place with the knowledge I gained from this experience. I have learned how my country has a role in the global poverty issues and how it is choosing to work illegally in other countries for more money while hurting and killing hundreds of people along the way. Guatemala has also shown me the importance of simpler things in life such as connections rather than money and being “developed”. After this experience in Guatemala, my views on learning and becoming educated have shifted to now understanding the importance of experience and learning from those who have experienced such issues first hand, rather than sitting in a classroom and reading textbooks about these issues.

Starting in April 2023, myself and a group of students, Catherine Nolin, and Grahame Russell began an intensive one-week course at UNBC to prepare students for the two-week field school in Guatemala. In this course, GEOG 333, we discussed and read testimonios that supported themes of impunity, historical and contemporary accounts of violence, exhumations and accountability, mining, and development. Prior to GEOG 333 I felt I had a sufficient understanding of the harms and misinterpretations surrounding development practices, how governments use violence as a method of control, and the level of impunity that is apparent throughout states and corporations. However, nothing prepared me for the testimonios that were shared in the REHMI report that we read in the class or the images of Adolfo Ich after he was beaten and hacked to death in front of his son. Throughout the GEOG-333 course, there have been periods of reflection prior to being in Guatemala, while in Guatemala, and post-Guatemala. All reflections have shaped the lens in which I view the world and the inward lens in which I view myself and my role. Reflecting on my field notes, conversations, and experiences in Guatemala allows me to continue to learn, grow, and share the testimonios of those who live lives of resistance.

The relationship between Canada’s mining industry and Guatemala is both disheartening and complicated. Guatemala is evidently not a ‘democratic’ state, yet Canada and the U.S. declare it as such to further their own extractive agendas. Showcasing that impunity in Guatemala does not just benefit the Pacto de Corruptos at the state level, impunity benefits transnational corporations from Switzerland, the US, and Canada as well as the governments of these countries. Furthermore, while unbeknownst to most, Canadian’s benefit from this impunity as well due to our pension plans being directly invested into these mining practices. I often feel hopeless with the seemingly continuous and complicated downward spiral that is the relationship between Canada and Guatemala. The one-week intensive course at UNBC outlined some of the reasons for such a relationship, as did George Lovell’s book, A Beauty that Hurts: Life and Death in Guatemala (2019). The long history of imperialism and colonialism in the global south, as well as a painful history of racism leads us to today, where deals, policies, and decisions are made by de-valuing human life. The introduction to this course left me feeling irritable and sick, as testimonios of those harmed in the genocide and by Canadian mining companies show that they were treated less than human.

Following the week-long course, we travelled to Guatemala where we engaged with and had interviews with numerous communities and individuals who were impacted by the Guatemalan Genocide and Canadian mining operations throughout numerous regions in the Country. Alongside the planning, paying, and travelling through Guatemala came the question of why, what brought me to Guatemala? I wanted to come to Guatemala because it is not fair. We do not get to choose where we are born, how or where we are brought up, so how is it that Canada and Guatemala – two regions so different from each other are connected so strongly by injustice and death? It is not fair that innocent people suffer due to Canada and the West’s greedy roles in the global economic system. With the question of “how is this possible and why?” I travelled to Guatemala for 6 and a half weeks to gain further understanding. As Grahame and Catherine have stated numerous times while in the van or in debriefs throughout the field school, “these are Canadian issues playing out on Guatemala land.” Therefore, our understanding of the global economic system and our country’s dominant role within that system ties us as Canadians to the issues that Guatemala contends with instead of Canadians being bystanders to a poor, desolate state in the Global South.

 Our first location was Guatemala City where we were introduced to Grahame Russell and members of Green Peace in Hotel Spring. Hotel Spring quickly became a place of comfort, reflection, and debrief with its moderate temperature, kind staff and conversations with new friends. I felt anxious during the evenings in Hotel Spring as I wondered what we would hear from communities, and how it would impact me. Would I cry? Become sick? Light-headed? However, as the number of tasks each day increased, it became apparent to me that the anxiety I felt did not matter, the conversations needed to be had and it would never be as difficult as the daily lives felt by those we spoke to.

I reflect on our visits to FAMDEGUA, FAFG, and our visit with the Journalist, Quimy de León in Guatemala City. Alejandra Cabrera, a survivor of the Genocide whose parents were disappeared with their profiles in the Military Diary was the first person I met who was directly impacted by the genocide. I remember her sharing the history of FAMDEGUA while wearing a red traditional shirt woven by women from the Ixil region. She said the shirt gives her strength while testifying in court and for those impacted by the genocide. It was hard for me to imagine being Alejandra, who had read about her mother’s torture and sexual violence in the military diaries. This was the first moment I had where it became clear that we were meeting with people who carried so much pain, and it made the readings we did in the pre-course seem all the more disturbing.

Our next meeting in Guatemala City was with Quimy, a dentist, feminist, and journalist who documents incidents of extractive industries in rural and Indigenous communities. These remarkable journalism pieces focus on community-based activism, truth, memory, and justice, female violence, and state impunity and corruption. However, Qwimi shared with us the true cost for her being in this line of work. She said that does not talk on the phone with friends or family, she does not visit family, she regularly changes residence, and does not often go out. This is what Qwimi describes as how to do journalism under a dictatorship, but that even with death threats, safety issues, and the inevitable difficulty of connecting the local to the global, she said “we cannot stop, we have a commitment to society and to passion.” Throughout the field school, we read and discussed how several journalists, lawyers, and activists were in exile, and how truly difficult it is to work in this sector when your life is dependent on maintaining resiliency. Hearing about Qwimi’s life and her dedication to fight for a better world made me instantaneously both sad and in awe of her.

The most powerful day I had while in Guatemala City was visiting the FAFG. Seeing the remains in the lab, the execution locations on skulls and the smell of antiseptic materials was enough to make me feel as though I would cry or faint. However, visiting the remains that had been identified and were placed in storage was one of the hardest moments of the trip for me. I remember reading about CREOMPAZ in the intensive one-week course where hundreds of men, women, and children were executed and thrown into mass graves with their hands and feet bound and eyes blindfolded. I walked through the narrow hallways where my shoulders brushed against the thin cardboard boxes that were filled with the remains of those exhumed, waiting to be paired with their loved ones again, if ever. It was so hot outside that day, and I felt as though I could not catch my breath while reading the cardboard boxes that indicated how they were identified and when. There were so many boxes, and many filled with children. I have so much respect for the individuals at FAFG, to me they are heroes who continue to act regardless of relentless threat. The mural painted outside of the lab is an example of the respect and love that goes into grave exhumations. Despite the difficulty of visiting human remains, FAFG is incredibly beautiful, and it was remarkable to see humanity being put into science and having families as a crucial role in the painful process. I hope one day Canada’s painful past can be revealed truthfully and compassionately, with the well-being of communities impacted at the forefront of the process.

            I look back on the Plan de Sánchez and the Maya Achí region as being unbelievably beautiful and painful simultaneously. I remember feeling so welcomed by Alfredo Cortez and Juan Manuel Geronimo to Juan’s home, as they fed us a delicious breakfast and shared the significance of burning candles for the earth. However, the excitement of travelling through the mountains in the back of a pick-up truck and hiking through Plan de Sanchez was rapidly overshadowed when Juan began to share how everyone he loved was massacred in his sister’s house so many years before. The paintings on the walls inside the community church continue to share the events that unfolded in Plan de Sánchez. There were images of helicopters flying over villages, community members being shot, and people being placed into graves. I cried with Juan and several others as he recounted the events that took place. I cannot help but wonder numerous times throughout the Plan de Sanchez visit, how they are able to walk into that church, and mentally relive what they experienced and live on without their loved ones. However, they push on everyday and showed us how they continue to fight for a better life, what else is there to do but fight for life? As we left the church, Juan shook my hand and touched my shoulder as he said goodbye. The kindness and care I felt in the midst of so much relived horror for this community, and his desire to share the truth with us was overwhelming. We continued hiking and visited numerous farms and agroecology practices that are sustainable, and manageable for future generations to come. It was incredible to see such large, multifaceted farms in small spaces that are so dry. The pride the community members feel about their farms does not pass unnoticed, however, neither does the evidence of hard work and ingenuity. Seeing as how poor agriculture practices are a substantial issue throughout the world, it was amazing to see how much more sustainable agriculture could be through community-based, bottom-up initiatives. This led us to discussing how the farming practices introduced by the United States so many years ago with pesticides and tilling practices has destroyed fungal and soil integrity. It was appalling to see that the US not only harmed so many in this area though the US backed genocide, but how families were able were able to produce and sustain food for themselves and their communities.

            Similarly, to the communities in and around Plan de Sánchez, El Estor is another community where the worst parts of the capitalist system evidently play out. According to the community of El Estor, it does not matter if the industry is hydroelectricity, mining, monocrops, or cattle, companies will “control and take over the lands.” To live in El Estor where the capitalism plays out is to “struggle for humanity” as stated in our El Estor meeting. This was a very difficult realization for me to recognize the differences between my position in Canada to Guatemala within this global economic system. It is apparent in El Estor, Plan de Sánchez, San Miguel Ixtahuacan, and numerous other regions how they truly suffer and fight everyday for basic human rights, access to firewood, respect, and communication all for the benefit of those who live in the Global North.

Throughout the region surrounding Lago de Izabal, there is African Palm Oil, coffee plants, and other monocrops that were created, and continue to be created by displacing people from land. Not only does such displacement cause further impoverishment for communities in the area along the lower elevations, contaminants from mines in the mountains such as dust and water contamination impact the communities simultaneously. Furthermore, many community members in El Estor become increasingly impoverished due to exhaustion from constant resistance struggles, criminalization, and fear. I felt unbelievably disheartened at this meeting knowing that these community members of El Estor are working so hard for justice and a livable life but knowing that their resistance struggle is far from over. Grahame said while we were driving in the van to Río Dulce, “this is where the other end of the supply chain takes place, this is the other side of capitalism that we do not see. It takes place right here and this is what it looks like.” I am grateful to now be able to see the issues with capitalism through my own personal lens as someone in Canada, as well as someone who has seen the pain and struggle it causes in Guatemala, the environmental impacts, and the ability for self-determination.

            Impunity is theme that is impossible to ignore when discussing Guatemala in any context. Every meeting we had, every van conversation and all the pre-course readings exemplified how commonplace injustice is in Guatemala at the international, state, local, and individual level. For example, the deaths of Myrna Mack, Bishop Gerardi, Alfredo Ich, the raping of the women from Lote 8 and the deaths of their children, and the continuous invasion of extractive industries without consultation are few examples of crimes committed without consequence. Furthermore, falsified permits, private security patrolling areas for ‘squatters,’ the criminalization and fabrication of media, and the demonization of people for simply existing are other acts of impunity that Canada knows well, and that is carried out in Guatemala by both the state and Canadian companies. I often find myself reflecting on how Goldcorp has been able to evade accountability for the human rights crimes they have committed over the years throughout numerous corners of Guatemala, and eventually be acquired by Newmont. This is a level of impunity that I have a hard time fathoming, because it does not seem to matter what happens to a mining company, there is always another that is able to acquire shares, purchase a sister company with the same board and employees, pay off the corrupt Guatemalan government, hire the same private security that committed murder or rape for another company, allowing for the cycle of impunity to continue.

After the field school ended, impunity raged on. Zury Ríos, the daughter of the late Efrain Ríos Montt is running for presidency in Guatemala. A quick google search of Zury will show that she outwardly denies the genocide occurred or her father’s involvement. Three high-ranking ex-military generals were released from prison against the ruling of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on June 9 ^th , 2023. The imprisonment of Guatemalan journalist José Ruben Zamora on June 14 ^th , 2023. Violence against voters on June 25 ^th  who were protesting the corrupt voting process in Guatemala. These examples of contemporary impunity are never temporary as another issue is presented, more crimes committed, more blood shed, and very little justice. The fisherman’s guild of El Estor even mentioned how there is currently a ‘lull’ of violence and crimes by mining companies in their area, but that they know it is a false sense of safety as mining concession after mining concession will be granted. The fight against impunity never ceases, however, the hunger for money and corruptions refuses to cease as well. I believe that in Guatemala resistance is not an ‘act,’ it is a necessity for survival.

            After everyone returned to Canada, I spent my days practicing Spanish, reading “A Beauty that Hurts,” and Jesús Tecú Osorio’s memoir, “Memoir of the Río Negro Massacres” in my homestay in Guatemala. Unfortunately, I also suffered from heinous nightmares of the crimes in the genocide being enacted on my family. For two days I did not want to sleep for fear of conjuring up the same unconscious thoughts. These nightmares made it all the more difficult to comprehend the level of trauma, pain, and fear that is evident for people like Jesús who saw these horrid acts happen and experienced them firsthand. It also made me wonder how members of human kind are capable of committing such awful things.

I have found the transition home over the last week to be tremendously difficult. It has almost felt as though I never visited Guatemala, that life picked up in the same place it was before I left. It has also felt impossible to not be thinking about Guatemala. I not only catch myself thinking about the violence at Río Negro or the never-ending resistance in El Estor, but also El Chapin, the colours of buildings, the smell of car exhaust, the kindness from strangers, the greetings by touching the back of one another’s arms, and the feeling that everyone I met was watching the world around them. Since coming home, I have been surrounded by conversations that seem redundant to me, but not in a good way where I feel my priorities and points of focus have changed, but in a sad way. I have found it hard to have conversations about neighbourhood drama, being late for work, and any small talk really as it means so little when being compared to a life. I have spent a lot of moments comparing things here to the lives that struggle and the lives that have been lost in Guatemala.

            I asked Grahame and Catherine during our final meeting in Guatemala, “how are we possibly able to do enough when we return home?” They both responded by saying that they hope the field school helps us center ourselves in our own lives. That we can bring what we have learned home, and let it influence our decision-making in our work lives, consumer lives, and personal lives. Guatemala taught me that amongst the pain, violence, and impunity that there is a place for love. The right to raise children believing there is good in the world, to fight for the rights of the earth, to pass down traditional knowledge, weaving, music, and dancing is imperative to life. I hope to remember these values in my own life and have more moments like our last night in Guatemala when we shared music and sang together. I also hope to find space to always share the stories that were shared with me by all the resilient people we met on our journey. I think working towards truth, memory, and justice is not unique to Guatemala, but is something I vow to do through all facets of life, wherever I am.

      “The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world” – Paul Farmer. In a brief, summarizing statement, I can conclude that Guatemala is a beautiful country filled with beautiful people, who are affected by the reaches of political and economic corruption at every level including spiritual, physical, and emotional. The throes of this corruption reach every corner of the country, from coast to coast, jungle to mountain to countryside, and the only people immune from this corruption are those who are responsible for it; the political and economic leaders that benefit from the exploitation of the global south. In order to unpack these thoughts, I will reflect on my experiences throughout all aspects of the course, my interactions and feelings with the content of the course, and my personal integration of this knowledge into my own life.

In May of 2023, I spent 3 weeks travelling around Guatemala as a visitor, listener, tourist, and learner, and developed a new understanding of the state of global economic and political affairs that challenged any previous knowledge I had in these areas. In order to effectively reflect on my experience, I have organized my thoughts into the knowledge I had before departing on the field school (referred to as pre-Guatemala), my experience on the field school and my time in Guatemala (referred to as Guatemala), and my experiences since arriving home (referred to as post-Guatemala).

In this reflection, I aim to discuss my observations of the incredible resilience and hope among Guatemalans who have lived through devastating events and relate them to the political powers and resource extraction at play in Guatemala. I also aim to reflect on grave exhumations, which was a very powerful and moving topic to me throughout our discussions and time in Guatemala.

            A question that was frequently asked of me throughout the trip was why I wanted to attend the field school, considering I am coming from a health science background and not from geography, planning, or international development. I’m glad to have been asked this throughout the trip, because each time it came up, I found myself pondering the answer. While my perception of Guatemala, the global south, and political and economic corruption have changed completely since visiting Guatemala, my reasons for wanting to attend hold true.

            Throughout my time in the Bachelor of Health Science program at UNBC, I have learned extensively about the ways in which health can be impacted, and one of the frameworks for these impacts are the social determinants of health. For reference, some of these determinants include income, social status, employment, education, social support, and access to health services, among others. All these determinants can be correlated to the political and economic systems at play in a country, such as whether it is a capitalistic or communist society, or whether a dictator or a democratically elected leader is ruling. While we learn about the impact of these political systems on human health, our focus is on the specific health conditions that may occur and less on factors such as corruption, impunity, unlawful military force, and other politico-specific impacts. This led me to become interested in understanding how our political and economic models function and how our interactions with these systems can impact our health. This Geography field school seemed like a great educational and experiential opportunity to gain knowledge on these topics.

            In addition to my academic desire to learn about political impacts on health, I also had a personal desire to become informed on systemic issues that affect people living within these systems. My post-secondary career, particularly my experience with First-Nations Studies classes at UNBC, has illustrated how harmful systemic racism and state-sanctioned violence are to underrepresented groups who experience it. As a Canadian citizen, I felt not only a responsibility but also a desire to further my knowledge on these issues, and after starting to discover that the Canadian government is playing a role in political violence and harms taking place in other countries, I felt that this field school would be incredibly educational in both my understanding of political harms taking place within Canada as well as in the global south.

            Prior to the field school courses, I had a very basic understanding of corruption within Canada, let alone in other countries. I was aware of previous instances of state-sanctioned violence within Canada such as residential schools, and that there were current instances of corruption taking place in Canada, but the examples I was aware of took place solely in industry. However, I was unaware that Canada played roles in violence and corruption in other countries around the globe.

            During our intense week of classes at UNBC prior to our departure, I discovered the intense reality of Guatemala’s past and present states of repression, genocide, violence, and terror. Much of the content of these classes brought me to the devastating realization that politics and money hold enough power in the world that governments can kill entire populations with no risk of consequence. This notion was communicated through the idea of “bare life,” where Maya people are seen as people who can be killed with no consequences. In the eyes of the government, these were not crimes that were committed, but a valiant effort to create a “good” state. This idea stuck with me, because it can be applied to all human rights violations and crimes, including genocide, where populations that are viewed as lesser are considered expendable so much so that they can be killed without remorse. While these were broad, overarching ideas, these themes are at the basis of all issues in Guatemala and so they stayed at the forefront of my thought during my time there.

            In addition to learning some of the theory and background about why these issues were occurring, learning about exhumations during this weeklong course introduced the importance of truth and recognition for the crimes against humanity that occurred in Guatemala. During the course, we learned about why exhumations are important, particularly for Mayan people. The Maya people are connected to their dead, and without a proper burial they cannot maintain this connection. This connection is a way for surviving Maya to connect with their deceased loved ones, where they appear in dreams to advise or warn the living. The exhumation process includes digging up murdered loved ones, reburying them, holding a funeral, and remembering their names and how they were massacred. This process allows for the reunification of torn communities, and the reweaving of a torn and ragged social fabric destroyed through state-sanctioned crimes. In addition to the spiritual and familial importance of exhumations, they also provide a means for proving that people were murdered, and they are instrumental in the court of law in providing a basis for charging individuals such as government and military officials with the crimes they committed. This course also discussed present day issues in Guatemala, specifically the Canadian mining industry and resource extraction. In the wake of genocide that occurred in the 1980s, Canadian mining companies have moved in and continued to commit murder and rape in the name of money and power, leaving Guatemalans vulnerable and in a similar position that the Guatemalan government put them in in the 1980s.

            These ideas surrounding why the government or military would partake in such criminal activity within the country (money, power, resource extraction) as well as the importance of exhumations and the current state of truth processes in Guatemala are at the forefront of my reflection because they are the points that I found carried substantial weight throughout my time in Guatemala.

            After leaving Prince George and travelling to Guatemala, I was unsure of what to expect. My previous experience in Central America helped me understand what the landscape (literal) would look like, but with this new knowledge on the severe inequity, power struggles, and violence that has occurred and is currently occurring in Guatemala, I found myself anxious of what to expect after getting off the plane in La Aurora International Airport, Guatemala City. After arriving, and throughout my 3 weeks in Guatemala, I experienced nothing but kindness within the country, so much so that I cannot recall a negative experience. Everyone was entirely welcoming and friendly, regardless of the situation. While this was noticeable in tourist areas such as Antigua and Guatemala City, the kindness displayed by the members of rural communities, especially those who survived massacres or murders by the Guatemalan government, military, or the private security forces of Canadian mining companies, was astounding. I found this to be incredibly moving throughout the trip, particularly in communities such as Río Negro and El Estor where we visited sites of mass murders with community members or discussed disappearances and killings of their loved ones. Despite their situation, which often includes tragedies and horrors that many of us could never comprehend, these people remain hopeful, and I found this to be moving. Discussions regarding the thankfulness and hope that these communities displayed during our meetings came up in multiple evening reflections, and one comment stuck with me – these communities are hopeful and resilient because there is nothing else that they can be.

This left me feeling both touched by their displays of kindness, but also incredibly saddened by the nature of their situation. These communities have faced so much hardship, loss, and violence, all of it passed down to them by contributors such as the Guatemalan government or Canadian resource extraction, that they are backed into a corner and not allowed to feel any other way. They don’t get to feel angry, or remorseful, or violent (at least openly), because these emotions are almost always countered by more intense violence from people with more power. This leaves communities left with only one option, which is to take small steps and try to have their voices heard. One critical example of this is La Puya, a mining resistance set up at the entrance to Kappes, Cassiday & Associates’ mine just outside of Guatemala City (formerly owned by Radius Gold). Protestors set up a peaceful encampment but were met with both violence from the Guatemalan military and community members who wanted mining jobs. This violence led many people to give up on the struggle for fear of harm and demonstrates how risky it is to protest human rights violations in Guatemala, with even peaceful protests resulting in violence. Stories such as this, coupled with the kindness and resilience of these communities, showed me how beautiful the people of this country are despite living in a place where corruption and money take precedence over human life.

            This theme of hope and resilience was apparent in every community that we visited, regardless of the conflict they have experienced. Community members of Río Negro, who are living the consequences of the internal armed conflict in the 1980s and the corruption of the Chixoy Dam, are fighting the same fight as members of Mataquescuintla, who are resisting against the Escobal mine run by Vancouver’s Tahoe Resources, and communities outside of Huehuetenango, who are dealing with the consequences in the aftermath of Goldcorp Inc’s Marlin mine. They are all fighting a collective battle against impunity and corruption on multiple scales, from local to national to global.

            While in Guatemala, another theme that I felt carried significance for me was grave exhumations. After our week of classes, I knew the importance of grave exhumations both culturally for Maya people, but also for discovering the truth of the crimes and violence in Guatemala and taking the perpetrators to court in the fight for justice. After visiting the Guatemala Forensic Anthropology Foundations’s (FAFG) lab in Guatemala City, the true importance of this work was demonstrated to me. My background in health sciences is a contributor to my interest in exhumations, as I feel there are many questions that can be answered by studies of the human body. Visiting the FAFGs lab showed this to me in a completely different context. Rather than studying the body to understand how a gene or a protein functions, this lab is using the remains of victims of conflict in Guatemala to build a story for who they were, how they were killed, and who may have done it. This is a deeply important piece in understanding the truth about what happened and providing closure to the loved ones of the deceased and the remains of the body for a proper burial. Seeing this process firsthand, along with my understanding of the laboratory techniques the FAFG uses to identify who the remains belong to and matching them to their family, gave me a sense of admiration to the geographers, anthropologists, scientists, and biochemists who use their skills to reconnect families with their missing loved ones.

            Leaving Guatemala was a very bittersweet time for me. Before we travelled to Guatemala, I felt that after 3 weeks of travelling I would be ready to come home. However, I found myself wishing to stay longer, and worried about the prospect of going back to my everyday life with the new knowledge we had accumulated throughout our time. I felt that I had gained new perspectives on how the world functions and how lucky I am to have been born where I was. I also feel as though I gained a responsibility to do what I can with my privilege to change the impacts our country has on others. On a personal level, while in Guatemala I felt as though the problems I put so much energy into prior to the field school weren’t very significant, and it felt peaceful to not feel like I had to put so much worry into these issues that now seemed obsolete. This was one of the personal changes that I had hoped to carry home with me and implement into my life in Canada. These were just a few of the many thoughts and feelings I had before leaving Guatemala.

            After returning home, I found myself revisiting the issues and reflecting on the trip with family and friends who showed genuine interest in what we were doing. While I didn’t dive into the issues too deeply, I was pleased to be able to debrief and that my family was so interested in listening. However, I quickly found myself not wanting to talk about it anymore and when people asked I started to resort to telling them I had fun trip and that it was a great experience. I think that it became difficult to start thinking about the issues again, so I stopped discussing it with people who didn’t already know about it, and only spoke in detail about my time in Guatemala to those who experienced it with me. My most prevalent emotion both in Guatemala and after returning has been frustration; frustration that I live in a country that contributes to suffering in Guatemala, frustration that people are spending their lives fighting against issues that are out of their control, making little to no progress, and frustration with returning home and dealing with issues that now feel unimportant. While I know it is important to take time to help others understand what is happening in other countries, especially with the support of the Canadian government and companies, I have found it difficult to discuss these issues on a regular basis due to the nature of the content and the heaviness of the issues.

            A few days after returning home, I returned to my job in Prince George and was quickly emerged in tasks and thinking that were far removed from Guatemala. I became worried that the things I’ve learned and the changes in my thinking would begin to fade. After a month of being home, it felt like ages ago that I was in Guatemala, meeting with these communities and learning about the impacts that political power and resource extraction have on them. Some of the experiences feel distant, and aspects of my life before going to Guatemala have returned. At first, I was quite concerned about these changes. However, I have since realized that this is what will happen. We all have lives and responsibilities in Canada, and I don’t need to feel that the things I did in my life before Guatemala are futile. However, I can navigate through some of my challenges and experiences with a new perspective about what is going on in other parts of the world, and try my best to stay in touch with global issues, particularly those in which Canada is playing a negative role in.

            Travelling to Guatemala as part of the 2023 UNBC Guatemala Field School was an experience that altered that way I think about and perceive the world, and I am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to meet with communities who have suffered from violence and human rights violations and be someone who can listen to their voices. Learning about the strength and resilience that these communities displayed and then actually experiencing it was moving, and it altered the way I approach issues that come up in my own life. Visiting the FAFGs lab in Guatemala City and learning about the impactful work of forensic anthropologists in the fight for truth and justice was one of the most impactful experiences of this trip, and one that I found was prevalent in all conversations we had with almost every community we visited. After only one month at home post-Guatemala, I look back on my experience with great sentiment and a desire to hold everything I learned from the communities and my fellow delegation members close to me while navigating through the obstacles of our world.

As a critical, future Planning professional, I recognize the potential harms that the planning profession can cause by ruthlessly pushing development through regardless of ‘public participation,’ and protests to human rights and environmental violations. Planners have the power to create conditions for environmental racism and community division through various planning mechanisms such as zoning and leveraging colonial laws. If planners do not honour relationships or recognize the weight of responsibility attached to designating land use on stolen land the results can be detrimental to ethnic groups. My experiences in the Guatemala field school only solidified for me that I must choose ethical projects within the context of planning where I will not actively participate in causing harm.

Witnessing harms caused by corruption and racism helped me to clarify which movement I want to be a part of. I do not believe there is a menial middle in which I can work that is situated between causing harm and working for the absolute benefit of diverse communities. I certainly do not want to be a part of a movement that celebrates colonial wins without learning from history or without applying a critical lens to the impacts our decisions can have on the communities for which we are supposed to plan for. Who are we supposed to plan for? It is often not marginalized communities. Canada’s planning values seem to be centred around very particular groups of people (e.g., rich, cisgender men, white, ablebodied). Development is driven by those who stand to profit. Creating harm and loss is often considered to be a byproduct of making money. It is by following a narrow scope of values that we have planned racism, classism, ableism, and sexism into the fabric of our communities.

My participation in the field school strengthened my understanding of how the impacts of settler colonialism on Indigenous Peoples look different between the geographies of Canada and Guatemala.  When I use the term settler colonialism, I mean the genocidal tool that settlers use with the primary goal of continually displacing Indigenous Peoples from their land (e.g., culture, lifeways, family) and replacing them with colonial processes, value systems, and lifeways (Hutcheon & Lashewicz, 2020; Simpson, 2014). Historically, colonizers in each country arrived with the goal of exterminating Indigenous groups that have occupied the desired land for time immemorial. From my current understanding, the nation state of Canada recognized their efforts to exterminate the Indigenous population had been unsuccessful and looked to assimilation tactics necessitating the creation of legal mechanisms to control the population.

Currently, the discourse in Canada focuses on reconciliation (however meaningful their words may be for a government which stands to profit from settler colonialism) which can narrowly entail acknowledgement of the horrors caused by the Church and Government and reparations. Guatemala does not have any legal protections for Indigenous Mayans. In Guatemala, discussions of reconciliation are so inconceivable now due to the past and current political landscape, enforced racism, and the active silencing of the truth. This heart-breaking recognition makes me feel helpless. Yet the settler colonial project remains unsuccessful and incomplete because of resistance and healing amidst Indigenous Peoples across the globe.

 Genocide cannot (should not) be studied objectively substantiating the pursuit for an interpretative search of meaning (Nolin-Hanlon & Shankar, 2000). It is for this reason that I will reflect on my position and how my understandings of my relations to the world have shifted throughout the Guatemala Field School experience. I will draw from various experiences (e.g., personal conversations, field school meetings) to highlight my understandings, perspectives, and reflections of inequities upheld by oppressive structures in Guatemala. First, I will explore my answers to a series of pressing questions I had in the weeks leading up to our experience in Guatemala regarding how my position in the work may provide benefit to the communities for which we would visit. Second, I will share my reflections regarding land use systems and how settler ableism is being used to control and subdue Mayan Indigenous populations across the country. Finally, I will discuss my current understanding of how tactics of violence such as rape against women has historically operated and contemporarily operates to maintain corrupt power structures.

I’ve spoken to the harm that planners can cause, now I will discuss my concerns for the potential harms of research in Indigenous communities. Researchers have caused and continue to cause harm to Indigenous communities in Canada, and I would imagine elsewhere. Mayan Indigenous People of Guatemala are in a particularly vulnerable position due to the impacts of genocide, ongoing development, and the lack of legal foundations to support their healing and sovereignty. When working in Indigenous communities in Canada there are best practices to be found in the literature and vague procedures embedded within institutions to guide relationship building and research with Indigenous Peoples. Often Indigenous communities can lack process to establish protocols for seeking consent from members involved, relationship building, and for knowledge translation/data sharing. A predatory or even benevolent researcher may cause harm by not following individual community protocols and produce results the community may never see or receive any tangible benefit from. 

Without having my own knowledge of community protocols or relationships in the context of the field school, I had not an inkling of how previous research had been carried out or the relationships that had been built within communities.  I also held uncertainty about what my relationship would look like with my professor, Rights Action, field school peers, and the community members. Natural questions emerged for me: how does my short-term presence as a white woman, in Mayan communities, directly or indirectly benefit community members? In other words, am I taking experiences (data) from communities and giving nothing of meaning or value in return? Will interactions with communities be done in a responsible way? These questions arise from two sources:

1)    My sense of responsibility to the people that I work with and for.

2)    I had a limited pre-established relationship to Catherine/Rights Action and limited knowledge about previous research work within the Guatemalan context.

I am concerned about the potential harms of working with survivors of trauma, sometimes this concern can stop me from approaching certain people, topics, and making connections unless the interactions are trauma informed, intentional, and meaningful. If I avoid this type of work and conversations that I want to be having, I will never be of service. Essentially, I came to Guatemala with a lens of curiosity for the types of relationships that had been built and continue to be established within the context of these delegations. As I learned more about the extent of violence, impunity, and land dispossession I became weary; not necessarily of the learning outcomes and modes of operation of this field school, but what type of research more broadly takes place with Mayan Indigenous People who have experienced and continue to experience unimaginable pain and exploitation. It is not set in stone that each delegation or research institution will work in a good way, because who is there to stop damaging relationships if people do not work in a good way? Certainly not the Guatemalan or Canadian Governments.

In almost each community, the representatives that we spoke to each commented on how grateful they were for our presence. Hearing this statement repeatedly was surprising to me and honestly, it made me uncomfortable because I did not understand why someone would be grateful for my presence when I feel as though there is nothing I can do. Why was my 1–2-hour presence of benefit to anyone in these communities? The answer as I understand it now is threefold. First, no one believes their stories of violence due to repeated silencing and rampant racism; they are desperate to be heard. To have someone come to community and hear what they had to say was important to community and individual healing processes. Second, solidarity shows that people are still paying attention and can provide a blanket of protection in some instances. One community member from San Miguel mentioned that he was glad to see us because it shows that not all Canadians are bad, and that some are still caring and good. Why would they believe there are good Canadians when all they experience is exploitation, sickness, and death brought on by the pursuit of Canadian profit? Lastly, we have the power to change little bits of systems here and there from the bottom up. No matter where we are in the world, our relations to each other and Madre Tierra, irrespective of arbitrary borders, are all interconnected. If we work well in Canada to improve all life, even if we are not directly tied to work in Guatemala, we must sit in our privileged discomfort as we listen to stories so that we may learn how we can change the world.

Our meeting in San Miguel Ixtahaucán was the first time I heard someone that we met over the duration of our field school, speak about their frustrations with delegations of students/people coming to learn about the struggles related to and dispossession. One courageous woman stood up and spoke her piece, questioning whether we were there to talk a lot and steal their information, never to be seen again or whether we would contribute to their justice movement. This response, in all honesty, was what I was expecting to hear from every single community. By this point, I gained a clearer understanding of my role and the role of Rights Action. Although, it was reassuring to listen to Grahame’s response to this woman’s concerns while under fire. I was shown throughout the field school how valuable honouring each person’s perspective is in building and maintaining relationships founded in trust. I am humbly grateful to have the opportunity to learn with and from Catherine, Grahame, and community members in Guatemala.

One question I had was: what do community members think we are here to do? It appears there was a shared understanding, as Grahame mentioned in San Miguel, that we were each there to speak from the heart, to understand the struggle, and recognize our privileged position as being separate from the ongoing position of those on the ground that must live in the struggle. “How can we support you?” Bringing hope to communities made me uncomfortable at first while receiving gratitude for our presence. I began to feel more comfortable as I realized that my presence coupled with action would of course bring hope. As Grahame shared in his most recent email “action is the mother of hope” ¾ Pablo Neruda. Additionally, truth sharing of collective memory created hope for them as they view being heard as integral to moving forward. I believe the community members and myself recognize that no one person can create change. However, the longstanding relationship between each community, Catherine’s delegations, and Rights Action can provide support in whichever way community members require at any given point of their struggle. A discussion with Grahame highlighted that way my presence could directly support Rights Action beyond a possible letter to Canadian Government. By reflecting, sharing, and posting about my experience in any way can attract donors to support the work of Rights Action who maintains longstanding relationships founded in trust. Each action that we take as individuals and communities can create unanticipated ripple effects throughout our inequitable global systems. This discussion eased my worries of taking without giving.

As Grahame has said, he did not choose to be born into these systems of power from which he benefits, but he does have a choice about what he does with the privilege. I experienced more feelings of guilt in Guatemala than I already do daily in Canada for my position in the Global Order. Ultimately, it is up to me what I do with my privilege. Do I want to remain complicit and unaware? Not likely. As painful as shedding my ignorance has been throughout my academic journey, I would not trade my experiences and knowledge for the world. I have choice. The power in the word ‘choice’ should not be undermined as we have clearly seen the absence of choice for many of those living in Guatemala. What I do in my personal and professional practice will be to contribute to a more equitable and just society. When making decisions in my life I will always return to the importance of reciprocity and relationships to each living being and future living being.

Relationships between land, people, and culture have been severed in Indigenous communities globally by the continuous dispossession of land and state sanctioned violence. The extraction and exploitation of environmental and human resources continues to privilege settlers with multiple forms of wealth. Much of my understanding of challenges Indigenous Nations face in the Nation State of Canada face are linked to the concept of settler ableism, the ways in which Indigenous people experience state violence through federal assimilation measures that targets body-minds, including lifeways (Cowing, 2020, p.11). Scott (2005) asserts settler ableism’s core application is concerned with privileging ability to serve colonial interests by actively disabling Indigenous ways of life. As I mentioned earlier, the ways in which the government and military carry out violence and genocide in Guatemala makes clear that assimilation was never the goal of Spanish settlers. The absolute extermination of Mayan people was the goal from the outset founded in deep seeded racism.

Learning that Guatemala lacks formalized systems like Canada’s Indian Act (1865) or a system of land that mirrors the cadastral system (don’t get me wrong, they are horrendous tools of settler colonialism) was surprising to me. Perhaps it should not have been surprising given what we have learned about corruption in Guatemala, but it was. Why would there be a system of governance to control Indigenous people and distribute land if they were never meant to survive colonization? My next silly question was: through what formalized mechanism is land being obtained by Canadian mining companies and other exploitative industries? In a discussion with Catherine about this very issue, I discovered there was no system whatsoever. If the government wants to take the land for profit, they can and they will use mechanisms such as scorched earth or genocide. In my privileged position, I could not accept fact that there were no systems of protection in place for Indigenous Peoples, I think highlighting my ignorance and maybe my wishful thinking.

There is no formalized land system, but a systematic one none the less. The government justifies the violence and resultant harm of genocide by spreading blatant lies and propaganda rooted in racism such as “no Indigenous People live here,” “Your houses crack because you don’t know how to build,” and “Your children are sick because you sleep with dogs.” I find the use of systematic community division to be yet another deplorable mechanism to assist with successfully coopting land for those in power in Guatemala and for Canadian benefit. I had not closely considered the impact of this tactic until we were talking to multiple communities across the country that spoke to how widely used and particularly sinister dividing communities is. By inserting yet another level of distrust into a community, they are ensuring that the community will not recover as quickly from the destruction.

For those communities in the Polochic Valley and El Estor, genocide is being carried out through the means of starvation. I would argue that this is where settler ableism is directly applicable. The forced production of bananas, African palm, sugar cane, and coffee interferes with their ability to maintain culture, lifeways, and sovereignty as they are no longer able to grow traditional foods such as beans and squash. In this region there is widespread malnutrition, contamination of land and water, and limitations around water usage as they are diverted to crops. The people in this region are severely limited in their ability to practice culture and lifeways by meaningfully connecting to their traditional lands because they are focusing energy on just surviving. “Plant this crop and cultivate the fields for us or starve”. “Join the mines as workers or fight us and die.” Yet people starve cultivating fields that are designated for export or working in the mines anyhow. Many communities are given no choice but to stay and fight or leave the homeland and family to which they are deeply connected or leave it all behind by risking dangerous bordering crossings.

One of the realities I struggled with learning about the most is the impunity in these situations. When will modes of operation change? Will they change? What was the Mayan traditional land use system in Guatemala, could they ever return to this relationship? Is Indigenous sovereignty and governance over traditional territory even possible or apart of the discourse? The organizations involved in maintaining systems that benefit very few are so powerful that they control the discourse. When we have dictators granting land and not batting an eye at the harm that ensues without repercussions, why would they change? As we benefit from the exploitation of Mayan Indigenous Nations, my hope is that eventually people in Canada begin to denounce our government for their role in this system. I believe this can start by educating the Canadian public, making personal consumer decisions based on this knowledge, and most importantly supporting the ongoing resistance of people living in Guatemala.

Working with survivors of sexual assault has always been near and dear to my heart. I wouldn’t say that learning about sexual assault or speaking about it was new for me. What was new for me was learning about how sex crimes in the context of the internal armed conflict were used as systematic, physical, and psychological control. Reading the stories of women in detail highlighted the universal language of visceral hatred for women, specifically Indigenous women. The fact that women are speaking out about their assault is incredibly brave in any context but can be even more dangerous in Guatemala in a fleury of denial and intentional silencing of many Indigenous voices by the government and military.

It is difficult to come forward in Canada for multiple reasons, such as not being believed, being gaslight, fear of retaliation from the assailant(s), having your character decimated in court etc… Shame is deeply entangled in these tactics and the reason that many people are silenced. Each of these fears would likely apply in Guatemala, except for the conversation in our countries around sexual assault greatly contrasts. In one of the documentaries about the women of Lote Ocho, a woman had said “they let themselves be raped.” I think this quote alone highlights the differences in our definition of rape. I understand that being raped was viewed as a sacrifice so that maybe their husbands and children could have a better chance of escaping, however, this is very different from the broad Western understanding as I see it. I remember in the film Discovering Dominga, a woman comforted Dominga and said, “don’t cry, the tears hurt your heart.” These are only two examples that highlight the difference between my understanding of sexual assault and healing. My responsibility is to approach these differences with curiosity and an attempt to understand where these views and understanding may come from, rather than approach them place of judgement.  

Men were murdered, forcibly disappeared, tortured, and forced to work for parts of the military operations, which had major impacts on the demographic make-up of communities. However, women also experienced such violence and were often raped, made to be sex slaves and kept alive to remember what had happened to them and to carry this fear into the next generations. Women are now vocal advocates and truth sharers for the community as they are framed as being most articulate. In Guatemala City I had asked whether this was because of emotional labour that traditionally falls to women in a Western context. For example, women are usually those who lead and volunteer their time for environmental and human rights organizations, have their work devalued, without recognition and in underpaid conditions. I see that the burden of having to fight may not be perceived as emotional labour in this context, and more as an honour but also not a choice.

Is the structure of their Indigenous systems of governance inherently matriarchal that would position women as natural leaders deserving of respect? I come to the conversation of emotional labour with a very Westernized view of burdens that fall to women because of our patriarchal society. Are men using the excuse of women being articulate to justify not being involved in a leadership role? I understand there is deep hurt in surviving communities of trauma and the impacts may reverberate through violence and coping strategies. Someone needs to step up but why is it usually women? I wish to better understand how women’s leadership is perceived in their communities to challenge my own beliefs about emotional labour. I cannot even imagine a situation where women step into leadership and don’t feel criticized, devalued, underpaid, underrepresented, or like they are being used as a cop out. I recognize this view is likely jaded by my personal experiences and many other women from Canada, but again, I aim to approach discussions from a place of curiosity.

Yet, it is about survival for Mayan communities. How do questions of gender and gender roles interact under these conditions? I can appreciate that the lasting legacies are not individual, they are collective results of capitalist systems driven by systemic greed. Would there be a question of men versus women? The mentality seems so different and collective from what I understand to be true of our systems in Canada. Genocide and the continual dispossession of land and soul are not isolated incidents and to suggest that community members treat them as they are isolated would unfairly place the responsibility solely on individual survivors. Compared to many Indigenous communities in Canada, the collective remembrance and truth sharing in Guatemala is what helps people to heal. Whereas in Canada, many Indigenous Peoples will not speak for any other person or community but their individual selves. I find it interesting how differently each individual, community, and country addresses issues of trauma. I think there is something to be learned from the collective practices of Mayan communities.

I noticed that in each place we visited I wanted to ask questions but continued to tell myself that my questions were stupid or that I had already heard the answer from a different person in Guatemala. Therefore, I was making assumptions about how someone might have answered the question. For example, I wanted to ask a lot of people about their healing processes, but I would assume that I knew because I had already heard an answer from a different community. I figured, well they all heal by sharing their stories because that is what we had been learning about through conversations of truth, memory, and justice. But what if someone had a different answer to my question that hadn’t anticipated? By not asking because of my assumptions, I would be silencing them further by not giving them an opportunity to respond. I also feel there is a balance between knowing someone well enough to ask certain questions, which relates back to the importance of relationship and walking alongside community to achieve desired results.

In closing, my experiences in this field school challenged my world views in unexpected ways, highlighted the inequities among Indigenous Peoples in Guatemala, and strengthened my understandings of how the Global North and South are connected. The field school has changed me in ways that I could not possibly fully articulate in a ten-page paper because I do not know which ways those are yet.  I will carry my experiences, new understandings, and questions with me as I continue to learn how to live and work in a good way with each of my relations.

After hundreds of pages of reading and one week of intensive discussion based learning, the UNBC-Rights Action delegation boarded planes and headed for Guatemala City. Following these pre-field-work teachings of Dr. Catherine Nolin and Grahame Russell, we had been armed with two key theoretical concepts, “victims, survivors, protagonists,” to describe the people with whom we would be meeting, and “truth, memory, justice,” to describe the underlying aim and uniting purpose of the community-based work towards a better future being done in Guatemala. To add to these concepts, “strength, resistance, community” is a conceptualization that I wrote down during a meeting in El Estor to thematically represent the way the women with whom we were meeting were describing their struggle. I will reflect on our time doing fieldwork framed around these three structures, and in doing so demonstrate how “strength, resistance, community” can represent the means by which the “victims, survivors, protagonists” with whom we met work towards “truth, memory, and justice.”

In order to provide this discussion and reflection, I will first situate the issues being examined with a summary of the Guatemalan context. Second, I will provide reflections framed around each theoretical perspective: “victims, survivors, protagonists,” “truth, memory, justice,” and “strength, resistance, community.” Finally, I will offer concluding thoughts.

A key theme of our studies is that Guatemala’s problems are not only Guatemalan problems – they are international problems, the natural results of carefully planned actions by actors in the Global North like Canada and America. The international origins to which Guatemalan – specifically Mayan – struggles are linked can be understood by the “Cycles of Conquest Model.” Lovell (1988) describes these cycles as “conquest by imperial Spain, conquest by local and international capitalism, and conquest by state terror” (27). Starting in the early sixteenth century, these cycles began an unrelenting pattern of subjugation and threats to Mayan culture, life, and identity (Lovell, 1988).

Conquest by imperial Spain involved the long and intense campaign of invasion by Spanish colonists, ending in the establishment of hegemonic settler colonialism that radically restructured the country (Lovell, 1988, pp. 28-31). Conquest by local and international capitalism occurred after Guatemala’s independence from Spain, when Mayan labour and land were forcibly co-opted by successive regimes’ economic projects (Lovell, 1988, pp. 37-39). Conquest by state terror according to Lovell (1988) involved the years of slaughter the Maya faced in the late 1970’s to mid 1980’s at the command of the Guatemalan state, presented falsely as a”struggle… to rid Guatemala of communist interference” and revolutionary insurgents (p. 45). This conquest saw the military regimes of García, Montt, and Victores claim “the lives of thousands of Maya… [and serve] effectively to traumatize survivors into submission (Lovell, 1988, pp. 45).

Conquest by state terror is a particularly harrowing chapter of the Mayan peoples’ histories. Much of the testimony we heard during our field work recounted the stories of this violence. Grahame Russell broke down the intimate means by which the US was involved, having supported the preceding 1954 coup. We listened, in this early meeting, as the imperial nature of the Global North’s relationship with Guatemala was described – through structures such as neoliberalism that exists as a legacy of imperialism and colonialism, and the Monroe doctrine that describes the US’s claim to control of the Americas.

            Grahame instructed that the term “civil war” fails to capture the international nuance of the conflict during conquest by state terror, instead describing this period as a global proxy war against transformational change. We would go on to meet with many individuals such as Jesús Tecú Osorio and Sebastian Iboy Osorio who recounted their traumatic stories of surviving genocide during this time. Further, we would go on to hear from those hurt by and fighting against what is called by Nolin and Russell a fourth cycle of conquest: Canadian extractivism in the wake of the genocide (Lovell, 2021, p. xv).

The phrase “victims, survivors, protagonists,” is a conceptualization with which to understand the people with whom we met in Guatemala. People whose lives have been entangled with the conflict about which we learned throughout our time in the classroom and our time in the field. I began to build a clearer understanding of the concept when listening to Grahame’s explanation on Day 1. I noted Grahame’s discussions of “victim” as acknowledging those that have been victimized by forces beyond their comprehension or control, “survivor” as describing those who lived through becoming victims and acknowledging the adversity that they overcome, and “protagonist” as recognizing those playing a role in confronting the powers by which they were victimized and survived in pursuit of truth, memory, and justice. I was able to reflect on the phrase and apply the concept of “victims, survivors, protagonists” to the groups with whom we were meeting. For example, we attended a presentation at FAMDEGUA – the organization of the families of the disappeared in Guatemala – and my understanding of “victims” began to become clear when I examined the disappeared documented in the infamous military diary and the innumerable portraits of disappeared individuals on FAMDEGUA’s walls. The idea of a “protagonist” also became clearer as FAMDEGUA discussed their prolonged work in harrowing cases despite being targeted. On Day 2, the meaning of “victims” in this framework of “victims, survivors, protagonists” became all the clearer at the FAFG – the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation. We observed human skeletons being investigated and saw the hundreds of boxes in the FAFG’s storage rooms each containing the remains of a victim of state violence. Violence sponsored by the Global North. The sight of countless shelves stacked up to the roof containing innumerable boxes is an image burned into my memory. Following this, each story of death that we were told prompted me to wonder whether I might have seen a box containing the victim.

My understanding of the meaning of “victims, survivors, protagonists” as a model for understanding individuals became fully clear while listening to Jesús Tecú Osorio on Day 3. After our drive to Rabinal we convened at Jesús’s offices. He told us much of his own story and the history of his region. I had the privilege of being able to purchase his book, Memoir of the Río Negro Massacres. His book and testimony described a brutal story of indiscriminate slaughter against the people of Río Negro persecuted at the hands of men in a civil defense patrol from their neighbouring community Xococ. Although we learned about these tragedies in our class time, hearing Jesús made me realize how little the classroom can prepare you for in-person experience. He had been a victim of this violence having lost his parents in a massacre in Xococ, and witnessing the rapes of his sisters and murder of his little brother. He is a survivor of the violence having been spared so he could be taken as a source of slave labour by the man who killed his little brother in front of him. He is a protagonist, having returned home in the ‘90s to be a part of exhuming clandestine graves to unbury the truth of the violence in Río Negro, writing his book to carry on the memory of the victims and the violence they faced, and going on to found his legal clinic in Rabinal to fight for justice against the perpetrators.

On May 11th at the FAFG we observed a harsh laboratory setting where human remains were examined by empirical and scientific eyes, however, we also learned about the FAFG’s caring and respectful family centered approach that honours the wishes of the families of victims while they undertake the exhumation process to unbury the truth. The FAFG’s presentation filled me with admiration for their work yet, I had a small voice in my head that wondered “might it be better to leave the past buried? And try to move on?” Going upstairs and seeing the rows of boxes made two things clear. First, there is not enough soil in Guatemala to bury the past. Second, these thousands of boxes of remains means thousands of families being granted closure by the FAFG’s 3,869 total identifications. The FAFG’s work illuminated a key component of truth, memory and justice – it means the active denial of the instinct one might have to try and forget painful memories. The instinct that might drive one to accept injustice rather than fight for justice. Truth, memory, justice seems intimately connected with the past through the willingness to confront the past in order to not forget it, and also connected to the future through the drive to create a better future and not repeat the tragedies of the past. These extensions of truth, memory, justice into the past and the future were solidified for me when we were in Río Negro talking to Sebastian Iboy Osorio. In Río Negro we listened to Sebastian and Cupertino – the coordinator of Río Negro’s historical centre – describe what they went through as children. We hiked to a massacre site and heard the story of what happened there. Sebastian told us about how – after losing his father in the same massacre in Xococ that took Jesús’s parents – the Xococ civil defense patrol came looking for the “guerillas'' but only found the women and children, all the men having been either killed or driven into hiding. He told us about the massacre – the same one Jesús survived – that claimed the lives of seventy women and one hundred and seven children, the women killed against a tree with a rope, the children dashed against rocks, the women and girls raped, and the bodies buried in shallow graves. Being here was the most raw and emotional experience of this entire trip, especially knowing that the World Bank’s Chixoy dam project spurred this violence – a project of extractivism to benefit the Global North, to benefit people like me, like us. He told us this while we were seated in the memorial. The memorial was a large alcove, previously the main clandestine grave before it was exhumed and converted. Sebastian’s willingness to undertake that morning’s hike to the memorial, his painful testimony, and his community’s reclamation of both Río Negro and that site are demonstrations of how truth, memory, justice connects to the past. Truth exists in the past, and must be recovered and protected by exhumations, reclamations, and testimony. The memories of these events must be validated and passed on through projects like Río Negro’s historical centre to contest the government’s agenda of allowing memories to fade and the past to be forgotten.

Our experience in Río Negro also displayed how truth, memory, justice as a concept connects forwards to the future, in two main ways. First, I asked Sebastian how many families currently live in Río Negro, to which he replied around twenty. Thus, the people of Río Negro have reclaimed their community and resumed a life that can be inherited by future generations. Second, Sebastian and Cupertino stated that they no longer have enemies in Xococ, meaning that they understand and have processed the actions taken by the Xococ civil defense patrollers that committed the massacres. Personally, I have grappled with how they could speak with such understanding and forgiveness about Xococ. I do not know if I could match Sebastian’s grace if I went through what he went through. However, I think this suggests that future generations will not have to carry the past as a burden, for with this commitment to moving forward they will be made to remember and tell their parents stories, but not inherit their trauma.

After our time in Río Negro, our delegation traveled to El Estor to talk to the women from Lote 8. This was a meeting that I was both excited and nervous for. I was excited because the women from Lote 8 had a lot to share about the issues that we were there to study, having been introduced to their stories during our class time. I was nervous because the violence they suffered was not only particularly intense but also recent. Further, the women from Lote 8 were persecuted as a result of displacement efforts by a Canadian mine, meaning the crimes which they suffered were bankrolled and ordered by Canadian mining executives, which put my own complicity into the spotlight. I expected to be detested or at least untrusted as a privileged, middle-class, white, Canadian man. Instead, I was greeted by each individual woman with an embrace and a smile – a display of understanding and commitment to moving forwards that echoes Sebastian and Río Negro’s peace with Xococ. In El Estor we heard about the long and unrelenting struggle against – mostly Canadian – extractivism. Angélica, a community leader with a particularly stunning drive to fight back against oppression, has even suffered the loss of her husband Adolfo – assassinated by a pro-mining operative – and other murders and attempted murders in her family (Choc, 2021). We were also joined by German, who was shot and left paralyzed from the waist down by the same assassin that killed Adolfo. Our time in El Estor displayed the gendered aspects of both the violence and resistance, as most of these women were victims of sexual violence which nearly exclusively affects women and girls, and yet these women, such as Angélica, were prominent and inspiring voices for the interests of their community. Throughout these conversations I picked up three certain words with my rudimentary Spanish. Words that had been spoken several recurring times. Important words. Resistencia, fuerte, and comunidad. Resistance, strength, and community. It seemed that resistance, strength, and community were recurring themes people were using to describe how they continued with their struggle for justice for so long. For example, At the FAFG, a family and community centric approach was cited as their greatest asset in pushing forwards towards their goal of unearthing truth, even though it often involved working to resist the efforts of a government that wanted the truth buried. Sebastian, in his testimonio, says that what kept him alive as he survived massacre and torture was speaking “with [his]... murdered parents and siblings,” which gave him “the strength and courage to go on” (Iboy Osiorio, 2021, pp. 26-27). Further, we learned that Sebastian met and married his wife, Magdalena while they were hiding in the mountains and fleeing genocide. This was Sebastian drawing on community, along with the strength and resistance he displayed in persevering. The women from Lote 8 display this concept fiercely – Angélica says that her community has given their lives in the struggle for land and for mother earth, so that they have more to pass down to their children than their struggle. The night before the women had convened in an all-night Mayan ceremony for strength to continue pushing back against extractivism. They had come together as a community, drawn on cultural practice for strength, such that they might resist; displaying the role of strength, resistance, and community as a means by which to pursue truth, memory, and justice. Writing down “strength, resistance, community” while I was in El Estor, made for a strong framework for understanding while reflecting on the meetings we had attended throughout our time doing fieldwork. “Strength, resistance, community” is a way by which I understood how “victims, survivors, protagonists” pursue and manifest “truth, memory, justice.” It is a connection between two theoretical structures that were integral to understanding the themes of this course and experience. It describes the gritty, determined, but also sorrowful commitment of the women from Lote 8’s to standing up against oppression that is caused by the extractivist actors that inherited their power from hundreds of years of patterned oppression of the Maya. As Angélica put it, “there are tears behind our strength.”

The three theoretical perspectives discussed above provided structure throughout this experience. “Victims, survivors, protagonists” helped to situate the people with whom we were meeting on a wider scale. This was important because many of the people we met were victims of state violence in the ‘80s and survived to become community leaders resisting extractivist policies today, such as Sebastian. Further, this is reflected by some perpetrators, such as Mynor Padilla “an ex-colonel in the Guatemalan army” during the genocides, who would go on to assassinate Angélica’s husband in service of a Canadian mine. Our understanding of their struggle must be informed by an understanding of their story, which is intertwined with the power dynamics that were at work during the genocide and are at work now. While in Guatemala, I also learned what “truth, memory, justice” looks like. It is the stacks and stacks of boxes in the FAFG, the gut-wrenching stories that Sebastian told us on the hillside of Río Negro, and the anger that was expressed towards Canada for its mining activities by Angélica Choc. It is not always easy to look at, or hear about, but “truth, memory, justice” is a promise that the blood shed in Guatemala will not be forgotten, that justice will always be pursued in national and international courts, that the crimes being committed will not be missed by blind eyes, nor will the pleas fall on deaf ears. In this experience I became aware that all Canadians are complicit to a degree with the exploitation of Guatemalans by Canadian mining companies, what Grahame calls the “other side of our supply chain,” since we benefit economically from it. What is important is that we learn from this experience being confronted with the exploitation with which we are complicit. Therefore, going forward I am determined to join in the commitment to truth, memory, and justice by sharing the stories that I heard, finding new opportunities to display solidarity, making more informed consumer decisions, and rethinking my career goals. I struggled a lot with guilt throughout this adventure and I had trouble understanding my role as a student in these visits – it felt like I was extracting information from them for my educational purposes and offering nothing in return – the typical extractive relationship imposed by a Canadian man. However, talks with Grahame and Dr. Nolin, the statements of many people we spoke with such as the Maya Mam community leaders, and the warmth and smiles from the women from Lote 8 brought perspective to this feeling. Traveling to Guatemala, in person, so that we could listen is an act of solidarity in itself that was largely appreciated and enriching to the people with whom we visited. Arriving at El Estor was an especially poignant example of how our role as students in these visits was perceived. I figured that I would be hated and untrusted by the women from Lote 8 given the death, rape, and displacement that befell them because of a Canadian owned mine. However, there was an eight-year-old girl named Aneida, who’s mother was sharing testimony with us. Aneida’s mother shared a long and hard story of struggle against forces which we, as Canadians, benefit from, and then subsequently watched with a smile as her daughter played with us. We were there, in person, to listen to their stories. We had traveled there, with Dr. Nolin and Grahame who had spent years cultivating this relationship. We were there in solidarity. And so, Aneida’s mother trusted us with her testimony, and also with her daughter. Aneida’s innocence, laughing and running into the arms of a Canadian such that I might spin her around in the air while her mother details her experience with oppression and community defence prompts me to contemplate Lovell’s (2019) question, “how can you marvel at such beauty in the face of so much pain? ” (p.57). I, like Lovell, do not have an answer to offer. However, this field-work has allowed me to see and understand first-hand both the beauty, and the pain.

            I first read Testimonio (Nolin and Russell, 2021) over a year ago and was immediately inspired to focus my graduate studies on the issues involved in the book. To say this research trip to Guatemala was life-changing is an understatement. It helped me develop a deeper understanding of the issues I’ve been reading about for the past year and develop a clearer focus for my work. Seeing the places I had been trying to picture in my head in real life was surreal. This is a type of learning I never thought I’d be able to experience and I am so thankful for the opportunity to go on this research trip. So many important topics were covered over the trip, but for this reflection, I will focus on four main themes/categories. I will first reflect on the systems of power that affect the issue of mining in Guatemala and how these systems are interconnected locally and globally.  I will then discuss the recurring topic of truth, memory and justice within Guatemala and the different ways Maya people are fighting for this. The next section of my reflection will focus on the issue of Canadian mining companies and tactics that are used to continue violence against Indigenous peoples in Guatemala. I will finally end my reflection by talking about feelings of hope and hopelessness that I experienced during this trip.

            Systems of capitalism and colonialism work together in Guatemala to create a state of oppression where Indigenous bodies are the targets of violence and exploitation. The UN set up the world bank and the IMF to create a global capitalist order that became the dominant system of power (Grahame Russell, Field Notes, May 10). As emphasized throughout the field school everything is interconnected which is evident in the fact that this system of power can be seen in Guatemala’s history to now. Indigenous Maya communities have been exploited since the first stage of conquest in Guatemala when the Spanish invaded in an attempt to colonize the nation (Lovell, 1988, pp. 27). This continued into the next cycles of conquest, conquest by local and international capitalism and conquest by state terror (Lovell, 1988, pp. 27) all of which continue into the fourth cycle that is occurring now conquest by Canadian mining companies. It was during the third cycle of conquest that the internal conflict in Guatemala occurred which led to the genocide of Maya poeples, labelled as ‘subversives’ and therefore enemies of the state. It was clear throughout our trip that Maya peoples are still thought of as enemies of the state because they oppose the capitalist system of power that controls their country. I didn’t understand how deep the impunity ran through Guatemala until I was in the country, seeing political campaign posters around the cities plastered with the faces of politicians such as Zury Rios. Zury Rios is the daughter of dictator Efrain Rios Montt who was convicted of genocide against Maya peoples, yet his daughter is allowed to run for president. Those who committed acts of genocide and violence against Maya populations are still running the country, what is referred to as the ‘pacto de corrupto’. It is no wonder that this violence has continued today and that mining companies face little repercussions for the damage they do.

One of the most significant examples of this global system of power in Guatemala that we saw on our trip was the Chixoy Dam. It was a very surreal experience to see the dam in person, it was much bigger than I could ever picture and the damage it had done was even more extensive. The World Bank and IMF destroyed the communities living on the river to make way for the ginormous hydroelectric dam. They worked as a system of power that removed Indigenous people from their land using the same colonial tactics that the Spanish had in the first cycle of conquest. The construction of the dam began in the years of the internal conflict in Guatemala, meaning these companies could use the systems of power and control already in the country to their benefit which led to the Río Negro Massacres. When we first arrived at the Río Negro historical centre, I started thinking about the film we watched in class, Discovering Dominga. I looked around the mountains and realized this is where she had to run to escape the massacre. I could barely walk up the paths to the centre, I couldn’t fathom having to run for my life up them. It helped me put context to what we had watched and read in class about the massacres and the people who survived them. This understanding deepened when Sebastion took us on a hike up to the site of the massacre of 177 women and children. It was hard for me to picture any of these events when reading about them but being able to see exactly where everything took place made it clearer to me. I could see where Dominga ran into the mountains, I could see the crevices that Sebastian hid in, and I hiked the same path that the victims walked. The army carried out these acts of violence, using the excuse that they were all subversives and threats to the Guatemalan government and the country's safety. In reality, they were threatening the capitalist global order, the IMF and World Bank who sought to destroy their lands for a development project that benefitted everyone but those impacted the most by it.

            Río Negro was not the only site of massacres in Guatemala, they occurred all across the country during the ‘bad years’ and the survivors of these events are still working towards truth, memory and justice. The perpetrators of this violence had no regard for the lives of Maya peoples, they tortured them and left them in clandestine graves. According to statistics from the FAFG there are over 200 000+ killed and disappeared and 83% of the victims are Indigenous people (Field Notes, Claudia, May 11). It is hard to argue that these disappearances aren’t systematic and targeted towards the Maya when looking at the facts. We learned about the FAFG in class as they work doing mass grave exhumations to help reconnect people with their lost loved ones. This work is done in accordance with the goals of truth, memory and justice. In uncovering the mass graves hidden by the government FAFG they bring the truth to light about what had been done. It also allows family members to have peace/justice as they are able to have proper burials for their loved ones. I understood the work that was being done from what we read and talked about in class, but I didn’t realize the extent of it until I saw it for myself in Guatemala City. In our meeting at the FAFG everything seemed really technical, I was staring at the skeletal remains of a real human- something I had never seen before yet It didn’t seem real. I felt the same when we went into the storage room, it was hard to connect the fact that these rows and rows of boxes held the remains of loved ones. A few days later when we went to Río Negro and I heard the story of the massacre I thought of the boxes. I thought of how the women and children murdered at this site would have been put into boxes like that and how important that was so that their families could have some justice for them. I also thought of Discovering Dominga and the exhumation that was done to help her find her father.

         The work of the FAFG is not only important for reconnecting families with their loved ones to give them a sense of closure and peace, but it is also important to fight for legal justice. One of the main ways the survivors of this violence are fighting back is through legal cases. It has changed from warfare to lawfare, there is still deep corruption and impunity within the justice system in Guatemala but progress is being made. The FAFG helps support legal cases by providing evidence in the courts that have been collected from their exhumations. One thing that surprised me to learn was that many of the legal battles from the 1980s are still going on. Jesús Osorio spoke to us about the Rabinal Popular Legal Clinic that he started in order to fight these cases and bring justice to those who were killed during the massacres and all the survivors who still face the effects of it (Jesús, Field Notes, May 12). I think it was really important to learn about Jesus’ legal clinic, as it is an example of the sovereignty that Indigenous people have been fighting for globally. In activism and social justice movements, organizations are too often embedded with white saviourism. People or organizations from other countries, like North America and Europe, will go into countries that they deem in need of saving and speak for people instead of supporting them. As evident in Jesús’ legal clinic, Indigenous people are more than capable of fighting for themselves what they really need is our support to amplify their voices. This is evident in the legal cases they are fighting now too against mining companies.

            Canadian mining companies are continuing the capitalist colonial order that harms and exploits Indigenous peoples and their land. This is evident in Guatemala where violent tactics are used by Canadian mining companies security to forcefully remove Maya people from their land in order to complete their development projects. One of the most important facts that stuck out to me from what we learned in class and on the field school is that companies are using the same tactics that were used during the internal conflict to harm indigenous communities. One major example is the use of the scorched Earth policy in El Estor to clear land for INCO/Hudbay Minerals Nickel Mine. The scorched Earth policy is the practice of “massacres, pursuit, burning and siege” of entire communities (REMHI Report, 1999, pp. 133). The military was sent into Maya communities where they massacred populations, forcefully removed people from their homes, raped women and burnt down their villages (REMHI Report, 1999, pp. 133). As evidenced in the video we watched in class by Steven Schnoor and James Rodriguez and the conversation with Lote Ocho community members the Scorched Earth tactic was used again to clear land for mining activities. It was not that long ago in 2007 that security forces and police went into El Estor and Lote Ocho and destroyed the communities through violence. Since then, people have been displaced, and the river and their life force have been polluted making it so Indigenous people cannot survive on fish as they used to. This direct and indirect violence is caused by Canadian mining companies and their security forces who rape, torture, and kill people for opposing the mine. This is an example of what Grahame referenced as a ‘local to global and global to local’ issue, even though this is happening in a country far away from Canada it is our problem and we should be holding our government responsible.

The Canadian Government and the mining companies also use more sophisticated tactics that devalue and delegitimize the experiences of the Maya people. These tactics are reminiscent of tactics used during colonization in both Canada and Guatemala in order to ignore Indigenous people's existence and treat them as less intelligent to justify taking over their land. This is proven in the actions of the Canadian Ambassador who claimed Steven Schnoor’s videos of the violence were old ones from the war or reenactments. These statements just prove how embedded colonialism still is within our global order and that the same tactics are being used if the actions can be compared to videos from the war. Another example is the CEO of Tahoe Resources saying no Indigenous people live on the land that they were clearing for the mine. It is a colonial tactic of erasure that is used by companies to continue their capitalist development projects. In addition to this, I was also surprised to learn the ways that the companies gaslit Maya people who were experiencing negative impacts from Goldcorp’s open pit mining. The company blew up chunks of the mountain for Gold and used cyanide to separate the gold from the rubble which led to cracks in people’s homes and more frequent sickness. The company said they had cracks in their foundation because they poorly built them and they were getting sick because of all the animals they had in their homes. This gaslighting reminded me of colonial tactics used to dehumanize Indigenous people during colonization because they were viewed as ‘less than’ and their knowledge was therefore inferior to European ways of knowing.

            One of the hardest meetings for me on our trip was in El Estor when we spoke to the Lote Ocho community members and the Fisherpeoples Guild (Field Notes, May 16). I had been so surprised at every meeting we’d been to so far at how happy and bubbly everyone had been despite the intense violence they had endured. In my head, I was reducing them to the stories we had heard about them in class and our readings, I didn’t expect them to be laughing and joking around with Grahame right off the bat. It was difficult to hear their stories of violence and what they had experienced, but what hit me hardest was when we heard from the fisherpeoples guild. The people in El Estor have had their homes, lives and waters destroyed by the Nickel mining operation in their region and due to US sanctions, they are now in a mining lull. It seems like a win, a success that the US put sanctions to stop the mine from operating but already there are rumours of a new Montreal-based company coming in and starting operation again. The people we spoke to described to us that they are just living in fear of the return. They are exhausted. They have been shot, tortured, jailed and tormented for defending their land and they will have to go through it again if a new mining company comes in. I always thought of land defenders as inspirational figures, whenever I read stories or watched documentaries about them they are always painted in a way that leaves you feeling inspired and hopeful. This meeting showed me how unrealistic that was, Julio told us how scared he was. They would defend their land, they would resist but they didn’t want to. I left the meeting feeling very sad and hopeless for the people of El Estor who were just waiting to continue their life of struggle and violence.

            I know it isn’t all hopeless. Quimy de Léon reminded us of that when she spoke about her work as a writer for Prensa Comunitaría (Field Notes, May 10). She told us about how dangerous it is to be a journalist in Guatemala, she has to live in hiding as there is a constant threat of violence against them. Journalists who speak the truth and call out the corruption of the state are abducted and disappeared and Quimy is at risk of this. She isn’t allowed to talk on the phone, she has to continuously move and has to keep distanced from her family. She told us it wasn’t all bad though, there were moments of joy for her and the other journalists that worked together such as when they got together and danced. There were other moments I felt hope on this trip such as at Alfredo Cortez's agro-ecology farm that supported thousands of community members and his school that he started where he taught other people agroecology. Or when we spoke to Jesus at the legal clinic that he started and trained others to fight legal cases. I also felt hope when we stayed at the Tortugal Lodge and learned of the owner's solidarity work and that they provided safe refuge for land defenders that were criminalized. I think it is okay to feel both hopeless and hopeful. They are feelings I have taken back home with me that will inspire me to continue my work on this issue of Canadian mining in Guatemala.

            In conclusion, this trip to Guatemala was an experience I never thought I would be able to have. It is one thing to read about the issues of Canadian extractivism in Guatemala and its harms on Indigenous people but it is even more to learn directly from the people impacted by this. I gained the context I needed of the country, its history, and the current issues of mining to be able to better understand the purpose of studying this issue. Through the four themes I spoke about in my reflection, it is evident how interconnected they are. The systems of power that are prevalent locally and globally such as colonialism and capitalism are not new, they are deeply embedded in the histories of Spanish conquest and the internal conflict in Guatemala. The theme of truth, memory and justice that was prevalent throughout the trip is important as it resists the systems of power that are in control of Indigenous lives. This resistance is necessary to continue resisting mining companies that use the same tactics as were used in previous cycles of conquest. This feeling of repetition of violence brings feelings of hopelessness yet the work that is being done by survivors and land defenders ensures there is still hope. It is important to recognize that everything I wrote about in this paper has everything to do with Canada and is a Canadian responsibility.

Being born and raised in Canada my perception of my Canadian nationality was shaped by elementary history and social studies classes which glossed over indigenous issues and excluded Canada’s genocide of indigenous people from the curriculum. As a country, Canada has kept a good reputation, by hiding it’s “tarnished history” and outwardly branding itself internationally as a non-violent country. Because of this education I believed that Canada acted morally and responsibly at home and abroad. My understanding of the nation and nationality were heavily influenced by European concepts of land as a commodity and borders as ridged lines between culture and life. In his book titled A Beauty That Hurts: Life and Death in Guatemala (2019) George Lovell describes how Western and liberal concepts of land as private property laid the foundation for today’s export oriented “coffee republic” in Guatemala (p. 44). The coffee republic was established in the nineteenth century and ever since it has sanctioned the way the country has been exploited by foreign companies and the corrupt state to grow extreme wealth for a few (Lovell, 2019, p. 44) while further impoverishing Guatemala’s poor indigenous population. Today, land in Guatemala is illegally exploited by the mining and agricultural industries for development. The concept of European superiority extends to every aspect of life including religion, social values and land ownership in Guatemala (Nolin, 2006, p. 63). Community division is a strategy used by mining companies and the Guatemalan state to sew division among communities to minimise the strength of indigenous resistance. In Rio Negro Sebastian and Coupertino recalled how INDE and the military attempted to divide indigenous communities by creating the civil defense patrols and demonizing the Rio Negro people by labeling them as “thieves” and “guerrilla fighters”. The Guatemalan government’s creation of the Chixoy Dam in collaboration with the World Bank represents the colonial appropriation of land that divides indigenous communities and enforces “agrarian laws” based on the individual and not the community (Lovell, 2019, p.44). These community dividing tactics were strategies employed by the state to quell indigenous resistance to “state building” projects like the Chixoy Dam. Today, the Chixoy Dam is a massive body of water that is a sombre sight when considering the indigenous homes and villages buried under layers of mud and water. The Chixoy Dam represents one of many examples of the Guatemalan state’s appropriation of indigenous land.

My early conception of Guatemala consisted of a troubled country, whose conflict I considered a ‘problem of their people’. I lacked a larger understanding of Guatemala’s colonial history and the extensive global connections within the country. My previous belief of Guatemala as both geographically and culturally distant from Canada allowed me to explain away the political and social strife facing the country on a basis of a ‘difference in culture’ between our two countries. When my teacher told me about the poverty, violence, and insecurity within Guatemala, I thought of ‘Guatemalan problems’ to be problems of their people who were of a different culture and therefore a “different time”. I was unaware of the global context of Guatemala’s struggles and practiced what Paul Farmer calls cultural relativism (Farmer, 2010, p. 342). Cultural relativism is the belief that people of different cultures are also of different worlds and different times (Farmer, 2010, p. 342). These beliefs of cultural difference are often used to explain away assaults on dignity and suffering of those from the other culture (Farmer, 2010, p. 342). I had done what Paul Farmer describes as “confusing structural violence with cultural difference” (Farmer, 2010, p. 342). This confusion caused me to believe that the difference in Guatemala’s culture can explain the suffering and violence that exists within it. Since visiting Guatemala, although culturally different from Canada it became clear the violence that exists in the country is caused by global companies and countries participating in the extraction industry.

After visiting Guatemala, my perspective shifted as I began to understand Canada and United State’s historical and present role in resource extraction in Guatemala. Previously I had considered Guatemala’s problems to exist solely within the confines of the nation’s borders. But since visiting the country, I have witnessed the harms caused by Canadian mining companies operating in local Guatemalan communities, exposing the global to local connections of extractivism. El Estor provided me with the most vivid example of the harms caused by Canadian based mining operations. Our van first arrived at the Fenix Nickel mine on a dirt road West of the town of El Estor. The dust and dirt clouded around our van as we drove down the unkept road. When the mine is active, company trucks pass by the road every day causing serious lung and health issues for the surrounding community. Mining trucks not only cause significant respiratory health problems in the community but in late 2022 a mining truck struck and killed a man on the roadway. In response to the harms and death caused by the mine’s activity, El Estor community leader and Maya Q’eqchi woman Angelica Choc questions “who pays for all the past damages?” she continues “Is that all that there is for us? Resisting? Fighting? That has been our past, it is our present. Is that all that were leaving for future generations?” (Angelica Choc, May 16, 2023). These questions kept reverberating in my head as we drove through the community of El Estor. I could clearly see the connection between Canadian extractivism and local suffering and how the harms of Canadian mining in El Estor transcend national borders. From this moment, it became clear to me that the issues indigenous communities were facing in Guatemala were not simply issues of the Guatemalan state, but problems caused by international corporations owned in Canada and other foreign countries. Paul Farmer writes that suffering is “structured” by processes and forced that conspire through economics and politics to constrain agency (Farmer, 2003, p. 335). The lack of agency and ability of achieve agency through justice represents the interconnected mechanisms at work that cause suffering at a large scale in Guatemala (Farmer, 2003, p. 336-337). El Estor showed me the interconnectedness of the global economy and the harms that reach local communities and individuals in Guatemala.

Prior to the field school I was concerned about what my presence as a Canadian would be in the communities we were planning to visit. I questioned if my presence at these struggles would be valuable or instead seem performative. As a student I did not know what I could offer besides to listen and learn from the community. I felt as though I did not want to take up “space” in the struggle away from the land defenders and community activists. At our visit to the Maya Q’eqchi community in El Estor Angelica Choc thanked us for our presence as said that “your visit here brings us inspiration and hope” (Angelica Choc, May 16, 2023). At first, I found it impossible to accept her thanks because my solidarity was incomparable to the struggles many of the activists and survivors face in their lifetimes. But, after spending time with community members, I began to realize how important it was to be physically present and in solidarity with communities. As Canadians our accompaniment was particularly powerful because it was a recognition by Canadians themselves of the harms being perpetuated in Guatemala by our own country. Accompaniment shows solidarity with communities, but it also represents a commitment for us to make these struggles known in Canada.

During the delegation I struggled with overwhelming feelings of guilt after leaving one community and moving on to another. The guilt I felt came from a recognition of my own privilege in contrast to the lives of the people we were meeting. In El Estor Angelica Choc said, “we are always resisting and fighting”, for them it is their “past, present and future” Angelica Choc, May 16, 2023). I could enter and exit the struggle when I wanted and as a person with immense privilege this recognition filled me with guilt, knowing that many community members were born into the struggle and must fight to simply exist. At the top of the mountain overlooking Rio Negro Sebastian recalled the Plan de Sanchez massacre and describes how “some wounds never heal” (Sebastian Iboy Osorio, May 15, 2023). Here, Sebastian encapsulated a common feeling of unhealable pain among survivors of state violence. Learning about Sebastian’s survival of the Plan de Sanchez massacre left me feeling defeated, knowing that there are many other survivors of violence like Sebastian that must live each day with the painful memories of the violence they faced. Upon returning home, I consulted Kimberly Theidon’s guide titled ‘Self-Care for Researchers’ (2014). Theidon describes how our relative privilege is often accompanied by frustration when we realize that “whatever we write falls short of doing justice to what we have been seen and told” (Theidon, 2014, p. 9). From here I understood that the source of my guilt and frustration was my inability to “do justice” or provide solace to the survivors of the violence. Making this recognition allowed me to relieve myself of the burden of “doing justice” and instead try to work at smaller more achievable goals.

The idea of community and how strong relationships can help to overcome and work through severe trauma. During reflection on the trip and the stories which were heard, I have found myself questioning my relationships with people in my life. Often it is difficult to take a step back from how busy life may seem and work to strengthen and grow friendships and relations. However, after the trip, I came to realize how important having a powerful system of people who will be there not only during the good times but also during times of difficulty and struggle. One example of this which grew from the field course is the friendship I grew with my peers, and I have found that in the weeks following the trip, I have been able to reach out for support when needed and be an outlet for others too. A community can look different for everyone, but the common theme of having a support system to rely on in times of struggle remains constant.

Another aspect of community which was also touched upon during this trip was the downfalls or struggles which have occurred within Guatemala. Especially the theme of Neighbour-on-Neighbour violence which was a reoccurring pattern within many of the communities we visited. One example of this was explained in the meetings with the fisherman's guild, which explained how many people were unhappy with their activism and how tension within their community was extremely high. This type of pattern was present in all the communities we visited, as it is a strategy which large corporations and mining companies use to break apart groups of people and turn them against each other. During the visit to La Puya, it was revealed how KCA did things such as building a school and promising funding and scholarships to children within the community. Some people saw this as a positive, while others were able to see beyond their so-called kind acts and understand their true motives. Above all, it comes down to outsiders finding any way to divide communities and find a way in. Individuals like Alvaro Sandoval and Felicia Morales at La Puya Peaceful Resistance explained the importance of activism within their communities and how it is a struggle which is lifelong. They took on the roles of activists within their community and have inspired many to do the same as it is a way to seek justice and write their dialogue.

Understanding what it means to write your dialogue or be the maker of your own story is something which I began to think about while on the trip and have further reflected on since arriving back in Canada. Many of the individuals and activists whom we were lucky enough to meet during the two weeks in Guatemala, were prime examples of this. Individuals such as Angelica Choc of Lote 8 retell their experiences and give others the strength to do the same. Creating their native beyond the harmful actions of the government and coming forward to seek the justice which they and their communities deserve. Something which was shared early in the trip during our meetings in Guatemala City, Kacey and Michelle from Greenpeace shared how litigation can be used as a vehicle for storytelling and provide a means to bringing a story or situation forward. Showing the facts and exposing the truth of a situation provides steps forward in the search for justice. Learning of what Angelica and the women of Lote 8 had to endure to stand in front of our group I find nearly impossible to grasp, however, it is something I will remember and be forever grateful for.

Before the trip, I thought that my understanding of justice and how it looked was very structured. However, what I have learned is that justice can and does look different to everyone and in many cases, justice is something that will never truly be achieved following such traumatic events. For some justice is remembering their loved ones and sharing the stories of the people they were before they passed on, such as the stories shared by Alejandra Cabrera at our meeting with FAMDEGUA. For others, justice is seeking impunity and investigating actions of the past, like the work done at the FAFG with the use of science and exhumation which are used in the pursuit of uncovering the truth. Finally, it may be seen in starting over or creating a new way of sustaining communities, such as the work being done by Alfredo and the ACPC in Rabinal, whose aim is to create self-sufficient communities through innovative and sustainable agriculture. Overall, all these individuals are on a different path to achieving their personal goals but have a similar objective of some form of justice.

The day which stood out the most to me and was the one which I think will have the most long-lasting effects was day four spent in the mountains of Plan de Sanchez. The day commenced prior to sunrise and entailed a bumpy ride in the back of a pick-up. As we drove up the mountains, in what I thought was a rough drive, we passed women and children making, what seemed to be a normal, Saturday morning commute. Following the truck ride, we were greeted by Juan Manuel Geronimo, a survivor of an armed massacre in the 1980s. During this conflict, Juan Manuel lost all his family and since then he has taken on the role of an activist, leader, and an active member of ACPC. In the morning before our hike, Juan Manuel welcomed us into his home for a fresh breakfast, which he said was needed to “gas up” for the long day of hiking. One of the hike's leaders was Alfredo Cortez, who is also the founder of the ACPC. As we made our way down the mountain, we passed through multiple homes and saw first-hand how they were adopting the ways of agriculture which can lead to self-sufficiency. Such as the women whom we met that were creating their own feed, or the demonstration we received of “white honey” being extracted from a log. All these encounters of the day led up to our final destination on the hike, which was a presentation from Alfredo and a tour of his own home and farm. It was here that I was able to understand and learn of biofabrica, which is a type of organic matter that Alfredo is producing on his farm to create more healthy and rich soil. This alternative approach to farming, which adopts the historical methods of farming, is what stuck with me and allowed me to reflect deeper when arriving home. The ACPC is proposing a solution to many pressing issues which are affecting those in Guatemala and beyond.

Something Graham told us repeatedly was that the issues we were seeing and hearing were not national. These issues affect all the world and are ones which go beyond borders. Alfredo and the ACPC demonstrated to me how the current system truly reflects a local-to-global approach, without having respect or consideration for the local systems produced for the global market. This was also seen during the drive to El Estor where the land was being used by corporations and the living conditions were far beyond livable. Growing a self-sufficient community was one of the goals Alfredo outlined as the top priority and how he proposed it is achieved through agroecology.

Agroecology is what I consider to be my biggest takeaway from the trip, as it was the topic with which I was most inspired and was able to make the biggest connection. Additionally, after a deep dive into more research and background knowledge into Alfredo's farm and agriculture in Guatemala, I have learned how it proposes a solution to many of the pressing issues which the country is facing. While farming clearly cannot provide a quick fix to issues such as genocide and overall corruption, it does propose a solution to issues surrounding the environment, the economy, overall health, and food security, and a solution to climate change through the promotion of soil health. All of this was information which I was able to ask questions about and receive answers to in our brief time visiting Alfredo. During my time speaking with Alfredo, he also mentioned the challenge of water scarcity, which many are currently facing globally. Alfredo explained how food sovereignty is already difficult to achieve, but it is even harder to maintain with the threat of food scarcity However, they (the ACPC) have found that challenges of lack of water, and lack of employment can be combated with agroecology. Overall, the ACPC threatens the norms of the local to global because gaining food sovereignty means there is no attachment or need to source materials from outside suppliers. This approach to farming and living overall is revolutionary, especially in a country with such elevated levels of control and corruption. To conclude, agroecology can encompass many different themes of the field course, including community, memory, and justice. Farming and the ACPC brings together like-minded individuals with a common goal, and when successful strengthens people and allows them to build a stronger community. Farmers like Alfredo are using the memory of ancestors and previous generations to bring back farming practices from thousands of years ago, all while maintaining respect for mother earth. Finally, agroecology provides a type of justice to people as it provides a way to break away from the government in Guatemala and rewrite their story. As I mentioned previously, justice looks different for all people, and for Alfredo, Juan Manuel, and the members of the ACPC, this means creating a sustainable and self-sufficient system of living.

The trek up to Río Negro was short yet exhausting. Once at the top, I thought only of quenching my thirst. Initially, this meant finding a bottle of water, but I later learned there were still a few cans of beer left over from an earlier night spent in Guatemala City. Before we could indulge in those, however, we focused our attention on two members of the Río Negro community: Sebastian Iboy Osorio and Cupertino Iboy Sanchez. These two men were survivors of the massacre at Río Negro in 1982. Sebastian had been travelling with us on the road since our time in Rabinal, whereas we did not meet Cupertino until arriving at the Chixoy River. We had met another survivor before, Jesús Tecú Osorio, while visiting his legal aid clinic in Rabinal. Jesús shared his story then, and Sebastian and Cupertino were ready to tell us their stories now.

I felt so many emotions while listening to Sebastian and Cupertino share their stories. For the people of Río Negro, I felt sadness, pain, and helplessness. For the people of Xococ, however, and in particular their Civil Defence Patrol (PAC), I felt nothing but anger and disgust. How could they possibly commit such heinous crimes? How could they take the women and girls of the community, people who have never done anything wrong to them, and brutally assault them. They raped those women and girls in private, breaking into homes and having their way there, but also committing these crimes in public, making sure that the other women and children could see what was happening. The Civil Defence Patrol did not even stop with rape. They murdered those people, they cut them up with machetes or smashed their heads in with rocks. They threw them down ravines or left them to rot where they died. And it was not just the women they raped and killed; no, they went on to murder any child not yet old enough to work on the land. A month before, many of the men of Río Negro were killed by soldiers and civil patrollers in the neighbouring village of Xococ. All the soldiers and civil patrollers were left with were young boys, taken to be slaves of the families who killed their own. Anyone who survived the attack on Río Negro and was not taken away was forced into hiding in the hills (For excellent first-hand accounts of the massacres, see Osorio, 2012 and Osorio with Nolin and Russel, 2021).

The emotion I did not feel, or more accurately the action I did not perform, was forgiveness. How could one ever forgive the monsters who committed these crimes? Who killed their families? Destroyed their communities? How could one desire anything but vengeance? Yet, somehow, Sebastian had forgiven. Cupertino had forgiven. When I asked about the present-day relationship between Río Negro and Xococ, I expected Sebastian to describe a situation where, at best, the two communities did not interact with one another or, at worst, they were at each other’s throats. Instead, Sebastian responded with something that shocked me. “We have no more enemies there.”

            This one statement stuck with me more than anything else I heard, saw, or experienced during my time in Guatemala. I am not sure exactly why, but I can only assume it is because I still do not fully understand how it is possible. In this critical reflection, I want to explore the nature of forgiveness. More specifically, I want to think about how and why the people who suffered such immense harm would be willing to forgive those who inflicted that harm. To ground my discussion of violence and repression in Guatemala, I will first discuss the importance of structural violence, scales of analysis, victim-survivor-protagonists, and the centrality of truth, memory, and justice. Next, I will provide a brief overview of the historical context of Guatemala, in general, and Río Negro, in particular. Then, I will return to notions of forgiveness and resilience before offering my concluding thoughts. My reflection necessarily has a narrow focus, both geographically and thematically, as I am concerned with the community of Río Negro, their survival following the state-directed violence, and their relationship with Xococ.

            While learning about Guatemala’s violent history, especially the state’s actions towards indigenous peoples across the country, it is easy to focus only on the immediate harms suffered. Direct violence has been the reality for most Guatemalans over the last five centuries, but these are not random or unconnected acts. Violence in Guatemala is structured and systematic, both informed by the historical context and required by the dominant political economic order. To better understand violence in Guatemala, I drew upon the literature on structural violence, especially Paul Farmer’s work.

            Farmer articulates the difficulty in attempting to describe structural violence by emphasizing the ‘exoticization’ of suffering, the sheer weight of that suffering, and the still poorly understood nature of the suffering’s dynamics and distribution (Farmer, 2010: 335-336). Many of those who suffer from structural violence are geographically and socially/culturally remote from us, which allows us to remove ourselves from their suffering. Structural violence is composed of a multiplicity of direct and indirect acts of violence, so many that it seems incomprehensible at times. Understanding structural violence requires embedding individual stories within larger political economic systems and historical narratives, which is not an easy task.

            The Guatemalan narrative demonstrates that the direct violence inflicted every day, as well as the indirect forms of harm linked with poverty, inequality, and exclusion, are only understandable through the lens of structural violence. Without taking a broader view, one might feel defeated by the sheer scale of the violence. Guatemala’s poor and marginalized, the Maya indigenous peoples in particular, have suffered from state-sponsored repression for centuries. This legacy continues today, and structures their relationship with the Guatemalan state, international institutions, and transnational corporations (Nolin and Russell, 2021: 4-5).

            Understanding structural violence in Guatemala requires bringing together different scales of analysis that many have treated as separate. The local, national, and global levels are intimately connected with one another. Problems of violence which appear on the local and national level are only understandable by taking the global context into consideration, while, conversely, analyses of the global political economic order must consider local and national effects (Galeano, 1997: 7-8). Guatemalan state repression is intertwined with US and Canadian foreign policy, including the need to support transnational corporations operating within Guatemala. The apparatus of power in Guatemala which violence constructs and sustains ranges from national and international actors (Guatemalan military command and government, US and Canadian states and corporations, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, etc.) to local collaborators (Civil Defence Patrols, military informants, etc.) who hope to benefit from the exploitation of their neighbours. Parallel to this hierarchy of domination and violence, however, is a hierarchy of responsibility. While local actors are not relieved of accountability for their actions, ultimate responsibility for the crimes committed against indigenous peoples in Guatemala falls to the intellectual authors and their international supporters (Dill, 2005: 339).

            One term I heard used again and again during my time in Guatemala was Victim-Survivor-Protagonist. This term emphasizes the agency of those who have suffered harms, ensuring that they are in control of their own narratives in the fight against injustice. Victim refers to one who has suffered a specific harm, while survivor refers to one lives within a broader framework of harm, namely Guatemala’s unjust society. Protagonists are leaders in their communities, speaking out against impunity and injustice despite the risks. As I tried to make sense of what I witnessed and learned about during my time in Guatemala, I found Victim-Survivor-Protagonist to be a useful conceptual tool, especially when speaking with those who have suffered harms but continue to fight for a better future.

            Although people we talked to had different ideas of what this better future looked like, several themes were common throughout our conversations. Those we spoke with often considered truth, memory, and justice to be the three most important values. The truth of what happened to these people must be revealed to the world, rather than hidden in a government archive or an unmarked grave under the earth. The memory of these events cannot be forgotten, as future generations must learn about the terrible crimes committed by the state against its own people. Finally, justice must be sought for those who were affected by the repression and genocide, including those who were killed, exiled, or disappeared by the state and other actors. None of these goals can be achieved in the absence of the others: we must work towards truth, memory, and justice together, not separately. As part of this work, it is important to consider the historical context within which this violence occurs, which we will turn to next.

            Maya-Achí identity is rooted in resistance. The Maya-Achí creation story tells of their separation from the powerful K’iche kingdom and their continued “struggle against violent and exploitative governments and their local collaborators (whether K’iche, Dominican, Spaniards, Ladinos, or Achí)” (Dill, 2005: 345). Following the arrival of the colonial Spaniards in 1524, more and more of Guatemala fell under their control, but many indigenous communities continued to resist and practice their own ways of living.

While discussing Guatemala’s history of imperial conquest and exploitation, it is important to remember that indigenous peoples are not mere victims or objects of colonial control, but independent subjects who respond to the colonizers’ actions (Lovell, 1988: 26). The term Victim-Survivor-Protagonist builds upon this consideration, expanding its applicability beyond contemporary struggles across the history of Maya resistance.

            Maya across Guatemala were exploited for their land and labour, but those groups in the country’s lowlands were more easily accessed by Spanish power, while indigenous communities in Guatemala’s highland were able to offer continued resistance to the colonial plan. The Spaniards attempted to reorganize Maya society through centralization of their villages to better exploit their labour power (Lovell, 1998: 33). Indigenous groups across Guatemala, and indeed across Latin America, were treated as lesser beings by the ruling Spaniards. In areas of higher settlement, especially in the eastern part of Guatemala, there was interbreeding between the indigenous Maya and Spanish settlers, producing Ladino or mixed populations, but these people were also seen as lesser than the ‘pure’ European Spanish. This racial hierarchy, developed to justify colonial exploitation and oppression, is still prevalent today throughout the structures of power and violence that govern Guatemalan society (Einbinder, 2021: 18).

            Although Guatemala achieved independence from Spain in 1821, the lives of most of its population, especially the indigenous and poor, did not change dramatically (Lovell, 2019: 179). For a time, conservative leaders ensured that labour relations with indigenous communities remained within the almost-feudal framework established by the Spanish colonizers. This changed, however, with the ‘Liberal Revolution,’ a series of reforms intended to open Guatemalan markets to global capitalism. While the intent behind these acts was to ‘modernize’ Guatemala, in effect they served to subordinate the country to a new form of colonial control: this time by the United States and corporations like the United Fruit Company (Galeano, 1997: 108-109; Lovell, 2019: 180-181).

            The United Fruit Company, alongside other appendages of US capitalist control, assumed ownership of indigenous land with the support of the Guatemalan government. Notably absent from these decisions were the indigenous peoples themselves. Indigenous communities across Guatemala, deprived of their land and its resources, were forced to engage in wage labour on plantations. This wage labour was little better than slavery, however, as the wages they received were so low they could barely cover the costs of food and shelter, if indeed they could even do that (Lovell, 2019: 191). Indigenous people were again subjected to structural violence, yet their resistance continued.

            This structural violence, which impacted most of Guatemala’s population, including both indigenous and non-indigenous Guatemalans, provoked mass protests against the governing power. Following a series of coup d’états, free elections were held in Guatemala (beginning in 1944) and its new leaders sought to enact policies more favourable to the poor and indigenous populations (Lovell, 2019: 192). Although Guatemala remained within the capitalist sphere, some of these new policies were influenced by nationalist and socialist ideals. The United States, staunchly pursuing a geopolitical strategy of anticommunism, overthrew this democratically elected Guatemalan government. The newly installed dictator received US support, which he reciprocated with his protection of US political and economic interests (Lovell, 2021: xiv). The US continued to support these military regimes for decades, enabling their repressive activities against their own populations, especially the Maya, in the name of ‘national security’ and ‘containment.’

            During the latter half of the twentieth century, Guatemala was embroiled in what has variously been referred to as a ‘civil war’ or an ‘internal armed conflict.’ These terms do not fully reflect the nature of the violence, however, as they hide the part played by foreign actors, especially the United States, in driving the conflict (For more, see LaFeber, 1984: 71). Indigenous communities were caught in the middle of these conflicts between the government and the guerrilla rebels. The Guatemalan government was responsible for the vast majority of the injustices committed against these communities, as its military strategy was based upon creating a state of terror among the Guatemalan people (REMHI, 1999: 126).

            Río Negro, located in the Municipality of Rabinal in the Baja Verapaz Department, is one such community that has suffered severe injustice at the hands of the Guatemalan state. As its name suggests, the village of Río Negro is situated next to the Río Negro, also known as the Chixoy River, but its new location is much higher than before owing to the flooding of the valley. This community is one of many in the Rabinal Municipality, largely populated by Maya-Achí people. Historically, the Chixoy River was too shallow to travel on by boat, so the people of Río Negro travelled to neighbouring communities by land.

            The following narrative is derived from the testimonies of Jesús Tecú Osorio, Sebastian Iboy Osorio, and Cupertino Iboy Sanchez: Beginning in the late 1970s, the Guatemalan government, financed by the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, increasingly pressured Río Negro’s inhabitants to leave their homes to facilitate the construct of the Chixoy River Dam. Many of the community members refused, and this led to a deteriorating situation whereby Río Negro was viewed by the government as a hostile village. Río Negro was labelled as a haven for guerilla forces, which the state used as justification to attack the community. The massacre was mainly carried out by men from a neighbouring community, Xococ, through their service in their Civil Defence Patrol (Jones, 2014: 1702). The PAC were part of the government’s strategy to control local populations through the militarization of society (REMHI, 1999: 45-46).

            The military commander in Xococ demanded that the men of Río Negro immediately travel to him. When they arrived, however, he proceeded to take their identification papers from them (Jones, 2014: 1701). Following their journey home, he demanded their return to Xococ, but all the men understood that they would be walking to their deaths. The men believed that by returning to Xococ, however, the military might spare their families’ lives. They were mistaken. A month after this first massacre, the Xococ PAC and other military members travelled to Río Negro and raped, murdered, and enslaved all the people they could find.

            It has been a long journey for the survivors of the Río Negro massacres. Their struggles did not end with the immediate violence but continued as they worked towards the shared goals of truth, memory, and justice. Their efforts to rebuild Río Negro are inspirational, and they continue to preserve the memory of what happened to their families and neighbours while working to hold the perpetrators accountable. The people of Río Negro understand that the violence committed against them had both material authors, who physically committed the acts, and intellectual authors, who planned and ordered the acts. Justice is more easily attained against the material authors, including members of the Xococ PAC, but the intellectual authors are much more difficult to hold accountable (Dill, 2005: 336). This contributes to why some members of the Río Negro community are willing to forgive the people of Xococ, which will be discussed below.

            As I write this critical reflection, my mind inevitably returns to Sebastian’s comment about Xococ: “We have no more enemies there.” Although I did not show it physically (at least I hope I did not), I felt shocked at this response to my question. How could Sebastian, Cupertino, and other Río Negro community members return to ‘normal’ life and continue their relationships with the people of Xococ? How could they forgive them for their crimes and move on when the Xococ PAC caused so much death and devastation? Do the people of Xococ, especially those who were in the PAC, deserve forgiveness for what they did in Río Negro?

            Reflecting on that last question, I keep wondering if forgiveness is something that must be deserved. Typically, forgiveness is granted by the wronged person when the individual who committed the wrong repents in some manner. This could take the form of an apology, whether that be through words or actions, but the repentance reflects the individual’s regret for their harmful act. The people of Xococ have never offered a formal apology. Certainly, some individuals in the community feel guilt for their actions, and some people have faced legal justice, but the community itself has refused to acknowledge its role in the violence against Río Negro.

            But does forgiveness require the offending party to apologize or repent for the harm they committed? Instead, might forgiveness be better understood as a free act, unconditioned by requirements of repentance? In fact, rather than repentance leading to forgiveness, the example of Río Negro demonstrates that forgiveness can foster repentance. By showing the people of Xococ that they do not harbour feelings of hatred, the inhabitants of Río Negro can work towards healing divisions between the two communities. These divisions among and between communities were fostered by the Guatemalan state, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and other actors to facilitate control over these populations and exploitation of their land and resources. Continuing the conflicts between communities is in those development actors’ best interests, whereas bridging those divides is beneficial for the communities. Therefore, forgiveness is part of the process of understanding and moving on in life to create a better future, but that does not mean that it is easy.

            The people of Xococ were not solely perpetrators of violence during the internal armed conflict, but victims as well. The Guatemalan military threatened to commit extreme acts of violence if the Xococ PAC did not follow orders, such as the Río Negro massacres. While this consideration does not excuse the Xococ PAC of responsibility for their acts, it does help explain where ultimate responsibility lies: the military, the state, and the international actors that supported them. These structures of power are the true culprits in the Río Negro massacres, and Sebastian and Cupertino communicated that to us.

            Even with all these considerations, however, I still do not fully understand how the people of Río Negro forgave Xococ. I certainly have a better idea about why they did, but the how continues to elude me. The strength required for one act of forgiveness, let alone the multitude they have performed, is monumental. The people of Río Negro’s refusal to be defeated serves as an inspiration to us all.

Participating in the Guatemala Field School was a transformational learning experience. A key reason I wanted to participate in the field school was to learn from and work with the communities I was studying in the classroom. While in my classes at Dalhousie, I have explored themes of neoliberalism, exploitation, and race. The coursework I have completed thus far provided a general overview, yet it remained difficult to understand the real-world consequences of the neoliberal and colonial power structures. My time in Guatemala provided an opportunity to see these concepts in context. The themes of corruption, impunity, and injustice were present in every community and organizational visit and are evidently a result of the larger neoliberal power structures at play. These power structures are situated to keep those at the top in their place of privilege and prevent the upward motion of those at the bottom. As such, these structures remain invisible to those with privilege, but are painfully visible to those who live the reality of exploitation in the name of the neoliberal economic system. 

Before traveling to Guatemala, I thought I was adequately prepared for my experience. I had the relevant background knowledge from the pre-readings and course work; I thought I knew what I was expecting to witness. But, as Farmer (2010) writes, “the suffering of those who are “remote”, whether because of geography or culture, is usually less affecting” (p.336) and, so while I thought I had a comprehensive understanding of the inequalities and inequities those in the global South face daily, it was impossible for me to really understand them from a classroom. In the classroom, inequalities and inequities produced by neoliberalism are treated as a cold fact rather than the tender reality that millions live each day. The people we were fortunate enough to meet with shared some of the most inspiring and heartbreaking moments of their lives, and in turn ignited my own heart with passion and ambition while breaking it at the same time. For me, the Guatemala Filed School humanized the cruelness of the neoliberal world, something that is difficult to fully understand from a place of privilege and a textbook. 

Neoliberalism is a key feature of our modern world. Since the 1980s it has been the most dominant ideology, mode of governance and economic policy worldwide (Steger & Roy, 2010). I have taken two different classes centered on understanding neoliberalism. The origins of it, how it functions, how it came to be in a place of dominance both politically and economically, and how it is both a symptom and condition of the globalized world (Steger & Roy, 2010). Neoliberal theory advocates for open and free markets that exist without government interference. It achieves these goals through the elimination of tariffs, restrictions on foreign investment, and domestic monopolies. Neoliberal theory is paraded as a driver of economic growth and has been adopted by organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to aid in bringing ‘development’ to ‘underdeveloped’ countries, such as Guatemala (Steger & Roy, 2010). While proponents of Neoliberalism advocate that the policy spreads democracy and equality across the globe, neoliberal policy contributes to increasing inequality both between and within nations. Under the neoliberal world order, corruption and impunity are the norm in the name of upholding an exploitative system and maintaining the status-quo, and this is reflected in the on the ground struggle in Guatemala. 

Those living in Guatemala do not need to understand or learn the theories of neoliberalism to understand the inequality it produces, because inequality is an everyday lived experience. The Maya Achi of Río Negro can comprehend the injustice of the top-down decision made by the Inter-development Bank and the World Bank to construct a dam in the name of ‘development.’ Development for which they are not beneficiaries but victims as their land was flooded and their livelihoods ruined (Nolin & Russell, 2021). Alfredo Cortez and the other members of the Asociación de Comités de Producción Comunitaria (ACPC) do not need to understand the forces of the global market to recognize that buying fertilizer is inefficient and creates a co-dependency which constrains their production. While I could reason that I am also a victim of neoliberal policy, because of my place of privilege in the global economic system, I do not think I would have recognized the implications of neoliberalism on my own life without taking two university courses on the topic. I would have never been able to comprehend the true nature of the system because it is simply not my lived experience. I know the neoliberal system is exploitative to people in the global South and that it is situated under the guise of ‘bringing development’ to the developing world. But I know this, only because I have learned about it in a classroom. The Mayans of Guatemala do not need to be taught about the theories and applications of neoliberalism, because they are living the harsh realities of it every day. 

 Throughout the trip Grahame Russell referenced the necessity to alter the global economic order, but how? How do we work to do away with the neoliberal machine that places profits over people. In his article “Fuck Neoliberalism” Springer (2016), talks about how to refute neoliberalism. He suggests the idea of saying ‘fuck it’ to neoliberalism which can be nuanced in many ways. One interpretation is to simply move on from it in academic writing and begin to write about other things. Essentially forgetting about it. But this approach needs affirmative action as well. For this direct-action Springer suggests enacting prefigurative politics to move forward. By using prefigurative politics we can “contend that there was never a conversation to be had anyway, recognizing that whatever it is we want to do, we can just do it ourselves” (Springer, 2016, p.287). However, is it feasible to simply imagine a better future and work towards it as if the present does not exist when there are so many forces currently preventing change? As was reflected in Guatemala, corruption, and impunity function to maintain this unjust and unequal order. It seems easy to write from a place of privilege about ignoring neoliberalism as a means to dismantle it. In the process of ignoring neoliberalism, would we also ignore the millions of people who suffer at the hands of the system? How do we struggle for something better, while remaining accountable to those who need it the most? 

Guatemala was colonized by the Spanish in 1524 and has since endured what Lovell (1988) calls the “three-cycles of conquest”: conquest by colonialism, by local and international capital, and by state terror.  A fourth cycle of conquest by Canadian mining companies and the extractivism sector has recently been proposed as well (Nolin & Russell, 2021). As a result of these cycles of conquest Guatemala has seldom been able to enjoy the spoils of its own wealth and the wealth that is enjoyed is concentrated in the hands of the few (Lovell, 1988). Another symptom of the inequalities produced by colonialism and perpetuated by the goals and policies of neoliberalism is the creation of “nobodies” (Galeano, 1973) Within neoliberalism, there must be ‘nobodies’ to be exploited. But how are ‘nobodies’ created and what keeps them in their devalued place? During the colonial era Europeans used racist notions to devalue the Indigenous people of Latin America (Mills, 1997), and the modern Guatemalan state “has been built on the concept of European superiority in every aspect from religion, social values, and customs, to intellect, reasoning, and worldview” (Nolin, 2006, p.63). The dominant European epistemology of the colonial era has persisted into the modern Guatemalan state and therefore the exploitation and removal of the Mayan people remains central to the actions of the modern state.  

Every day the ‘nobodies’ in Guatemala are victims of structural violence. Structural violence is a difficult concept to comprehend, especially from a place of privilege. Farmer (2010) describes structural violence as “suffering [that] is ‘structured’ by processes and forces that conspire ­– whether through routine, ritual, or, more commonly, the hard surfaces of economics and politics– to constrain agency” (p.335). People who are victims of structural violence, such as poverty and racism, most often occupy the bottom of the social ladder and so as Farmer (2010) notes their suffering is more likely to go unnoticed. While it may be easy to believe that the people who occupy this low standing, such as the Mayan people in Guatemala, are there because of circumstances beyond anyone’s control, Farmer reflects that this is not true. Stating that the circumstances of hunger, deprivation, and landlessness are not “the result of accident or a force majeure; they are the consequence, direct or indirect, of human agency” (Farmer, 2010, p. 335). The agency of those at the bottom is limited by the agency of those at the top. And thus, it is important to consider, as Russell says, that the problems in Guatemala are not solely Guatemalan problems, but fundamentally they are Canadian problems. For it is our companies and our government who collaborates with and condones those in power in Guatemala who would erase the Mayan people in the name of profit (Nolin & Russell, 2021). 

I am anxious about the future. I want to believe we can build a future where we forget neoliberalism, and where we no longer prioritize economic profit over human dignity and wellbeing. Yet, visiting Guatemala relieved none of my anxieties. Impunity and corruption are rampant throughout the country to hold up an exploitative and unfair system and despite the resistance that occurs, it seems like change is not going to come anytime soon. My own government, which claims to stand for equality and freedom, is complicit and a collaborator (Nolin & Russell, 2021). At times, I feel anxious and hopeless to the point of immobility. Perhaps the most important lesson learned from my time in Guatemala is what a luxury it is to feel hopeless. I could decide right now that I do not believe things will change or get better and I could decide to cease in my struggle for change and I would likely live a comfortable life unaffected by that choice. But, those who live under the thumb of corruption, impunity and neoliberalism, like the Mayans in Guatemala, do not have the luxury of feeling hopeless. Instead, they must burden the feeling of hope. Hope that they can resist the exploitation and break free from structural violence and that things will get better. They cannot settle, for if things remain how they are, those who are impacted will be pushed from their homes and lands. All the indigenous resistors we met, demonstrated unrelenting determination, whether verbally or simply by showing up to the meetings. Despite how tired they are of struggling, people like Felicia from La Puya, Angélica Choc from Lote Ocho and Cristobal from the Fisher People’s Guild in El Estor will continue to fight for their right to live a dignified life. In each meeting we went to I left feeling inspired by those who took the time to speak with us. Sure, I could succumb to the notion that my voice does not matter and that my resistance will do nothing to change our current system. But after our time in Guatemala, I now understand that my role in the resistance does matter. It might not be significant to those at the top, but it matters to those at the bottom, and that is a connection much more worthwhile.   

Returning home has been the hardest part so far. When we were in the country, it was so easy to let the other stimulants overwhelm your senses. You are hot, car sick, physically and mentally exhausted. Processing and reflecting on my feelings from this trip have been more difficult than I anticipated prior to departure. My first week at home, I could not sleep. Despite being exhausted from travel, I would stay up late, aimlessly scrolling on my phone, wake up early and could not nap, despite an afternoon siesta in the warm June sun being one of my favourite activities. Theidon (214) discusses symptoms of burnout in her article “How was your trip?” Self-care for researchers working and writing on violence and sure enough extreme fatigue accompanied by insomnia was first on the list. However, until I began the process of writing this reflection, I did not realize how burnt out I was. In many ways I feel silly for the number of times I cried sitting in front of my computer attempting to reflect on and interpret the trip. Afterall, I felt prepared for what we would see and hear. Nothing unexpected or traumatic happened to me. I listened to the trauma of others, I got the hands -on learning experience I signed up for, and then I got to go home. I got the privilege of leaving the country to come home and process my feelings in a safe space, unlike those who cannot leave and must process the trauma in the very landscape it occurred.  Do I even deserve to feel this upset? 

 In our final days in Guatemala, many of my peers reflected on how this trip had changed their life, and I was not sure I felt the same. I figured eventually I would have my ‘ah-ha’ moment, but it has not come yet. This trip has left me feeling overwhelmed and with more questions than before I left. In my ways the field school solidified my desire to continue with my studies at Dalhousie so I may continue in the struggle for a just and more equitable world. But this feels so easy to say from a place of privilege. I feel so fortunate I was able to go on this trip and expand my worldview and understand my place of privilege in the world. On the other hand, I have no idea what to do with this information. How do I go out and struggle in a way that matters? I feel paralyzed in the face of the structural injustice I witnessed.  

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