Abstract

GRANDIA, Liza. Back to the Future: The Autonomous Indigenous Communities of Petén, Guatemala. Antipod. Rev. Antropol. Arqueol. [online]. 2020, n.40, pp.103-127. ISSN 1900-5407.  https://doi.org/10.7440/antipoda40.2020.05.

James C. Scott’s (1976) classic work on the Chayanovian logics of peasant economy argued that less important than the amount taken was how little might be left. A similar awareness about the paucity of the “leftovers” (li xeel, in Q’eqchi’ Mayan) has inspired a peasant federation in northern Guatemala to embrace its indigenous identity through scores of village declarations of autonomy. Albeit born from a class-based organizing repertoire, the new political trajectory of this Q’eqchi’ organization still reflects Via Campesina’s broader conceptual umbrella of peasant rights, good living, indigenous spirituality, gender equity, agroecology, and the ancient right to save seed. Drawing from a participatory mapping project, fieldnotes, letters, proposals, social media, texts, and other elusive “grey literature” from seventeen years of allied camaraderie, I describe how they are resuscitating and adapting an oppressive political structure from 16th-century colonial rule into a creative political mechanism to defend their territory from 21st-century neoliberal land grabs.

Keywords : Agrarian Studies; Guatemala indigenous communities; indigenous identity; peasant; Petén.

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