Title A finger in the wound : body politics in quincentennial Guatemala / Diane M. Nelson

Published Berkeley : University of California Press, ©1999

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Description 1 online resource (xix, 427 pages) : illustrations, maps Contents Introduction: body politics and quincentennial Guatemala -- Gringa positioning, vulnerable bodies, and fluidarity: a partial relation -- State fetishism and the pinata effect: catastrophe and the magic of culture -- Hostile markings taken for identity: questions of ambivalence and authority in a graveyard inside Guatemala, October 1992 -- Gendering the ethnic-national question: Rigoberta Menchu jokes and the out-skirts of fashioning identity -- Bodies that splatter: gender, "race," and the discourses of Mestizaje -- Maya-hackers and the cyberspatialized nation-state: modernity, ethnostalgia, and a lizard queen in Guatemala -- A transnational frame-up: ILO Convention 169, identity, territory, and the law Summary Many Guatemalans speak of Mayan indigenous organizing as "a finger in the wound." Diane Nelson explores the implications of this painfully graphic metaphor in her far-reaching study of the civil war and its aftermath. Why use a body metaphor? What body is wounded, and how does it react to apparent further torture? If this is the condition of the body politic, how do human bodies relate to it-those literally wounded in thirty-five years of war and those locked in the equivocal embrace of sexual conquest, domestic labor, mestizaje, and social change movements?Supported by three and a half years of fieldwork since 1985, Nelson addresses these questions-along with the jokes, ambivalences, and structures of desire that surround them-in both concrete and theoretical terms. She explores the relations among Mayan cultural rights activists, ladino (nonindigenous) Guatemalans, the state as a site of struggle, and transnational forces including Nobel Peace Prizes, UN Conventions, neo-liberal economics, global TV, and gringo anthropologists. Along with indigenous claims and their effect on current attempts at reconstituting civilian authority after decades of military rule, Nelson investigates the notion of Quincentennial Guatemala, which has given focus to the overarching question of Mayan-and Guatemalan-identity. Her work draws from political economy, cultural studies, and psychoanalysis, and has special relevance to ongoing discussions of power, hegemony, and the production of subject positions, as well as gender issues and histories of violence as they relate to postcolonial nation-state formation Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 383-406) and index Notes English Print version record Subject Mayas -- Ethnic identity Mayas -- Civil rights Mayas -- Politics and government Human body -- Political aspects -- Guatemala Human body -- Symbolic aspects -- Guatemala Ladino (Latin American people) -- Guatemala -- Social conditions Mestizaje -- Guatemala -- Social conditions Popular culture -- Guatemala Sex role -- Guatemala Violence -- Guatemala SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Ethnic Studies -- Native American Studies. Ethnic relations Human body -- Political aspects Human body -- Symbolic aspects Ladino (Latin American people) -- Social conditions Mayas -- Civil rights Mayas -- Ethnic identity Mayas -- Politics and government Politics and government Popular culture Sex role Violence Geschichte Maya Menschenrecht Mayas -- Identité collective. Corps humain -- Aspect politique -- Guatemala. SUBJECT Guatemala -- Ethnic relations Guatemala -- Politics and government. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85057648 Subject Guatemala Guatemala Maya. Form Electronic book ISBN 9780520920606 0520920600 0585326770 9780585326771

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