Violence, natural resource extraction and civil resistance in Guatemala

• In Event: Environmental Movements: New Challenges and Tactics

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to examine violence and the state in the context of environmental governance and civil resistance to natural resource extraction in Guatemala.

Conflicts over natural resources and land have a long history in Guatemala, however during the past 15 years resistance to natural resource extraction has proliferated. Connected to this issue is the use of violence in response to civil resistance and social movements that oppose extractive projects in the country.

There is a tendency to see violence as an abnormality but as Jennifer Schirmer points out in her book the ‘Guatemalan military project’ (1998), rather than being an “abnormality” in post-colonial contexts, violence is an accepted mechanism used to create social order.

The research explores how alliances among the state, elites, and the military have shaped, both formally and informally, decisions and practices with key political, social and environmental implications (Bull & Aguilar-Støen, 2015) that often serve to shape and reinforce power inequalities in Guatemala and the disproportionate use of violence in response to civil resistance and social movements that oppose natural resource extraction in the country.

How then are these issues connected, environmental governance and the use of violence? How has the state-military-elite nexus responded to civil resistance, community mobilization and activism and why has the response often been characterized by violence and repression?

Author

• Anna G Sveinsdottir, University of Denver