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Contested Landscapes: Collaborations Between Displaced Communities and International Advocacy Groups in Guatemala

Eliza Guyol-Meinrath

States and Citizens: Accommodation, Facilitation and Resistance to Globalization

ISBN: 978-1-78560-181-1, eISBN: 978-1-78560-180-4

Publication date: 11 November 2015

Abstract

Purpose

To assess how an indigenous community in Guatemala, displaced by a mining project, has collaborated with international human rights advocacy organizations to address chronic insecurity and vulnerability resulting from the violence of their displacement.

Methodology/approach

The research for this case study was gathered using unstructured interviews with Lote Ocho community members and human rights advocates as well as textual analysis of social media documents, press releases, and reports. Participant observation was conducted during a community forum. Human rights theory, post-conflict theory, disaster theory, and narrative economy frameworks informed the research.

Findings

As international human rights organizations collaborate with Lote Ocho to address the community’s displacement, intensive focus on a lawsuit between the community and a Canadian mining corporation HudBay Minerals, Inc., contributes to homogenization of the community, reinforcement of destructive power relationships, and lack of focus on long-term security.

Practical implications

Analysis of the potential harms of singular focus on legal action in the examined collaborations identifies areas for improvement for future collaborations in both Lote Ocho and other displaced communities.

Originality/value

Caal v. HudBay is the first case of its kind. Thus, the analysis presented here provides critical insight for international and community actors regarding the successes and shortcomings of collaboration in cases of development-forced displacement, identifying areas for improvement for future collaborations with displaced communities.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

Thank you to the community members of Lote Ocho, whose names have been changed here to protect their privacy, to our wonderful translator, to the staff and volunteers at the Guatemala Human Rights Commission (GHRC), and to the other participants in the August 2011 GHRC human rights delegation. It was this delegation experience that first opened my eyes to the harms of development-forced displacement and reinvigorated my passion for anthropological research and activism.

Citation

Guyol-Meinrath, E. (2015), "Contested Landscapes: Collaborations Between Displaced Communities and International Advocacy Groups in Guatemala", States and Citizens: Accommodation, Facilitation and Resistance to Globalization (Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Vol. 34), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 191-213. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0278-120420150000034008

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited