Identity and memory as resilience: Applications of liberation psychology in a rural Maya Achi community

Abstract

This study sought to understand interpretations of interconnections between historical trauma, contemporary violence, and resilience in a Maya Achi community currently engaged in promoting peace and social change through popular education. In particular, the ways in which participants drew upon identity and memory in articulating characteristics of community distress and resilience are discussed. The research is informed by liberation psychology and critical perspectives of mental health, particularly considering the challenges inherent in the promotion of collective memory of trauma and resistance in contexts of violence and humanitarian settings. Participant reflections on historical and contemporary violence highlight elements of collective distress, connecting identity and memory with acts of both oppression and resistance. Education and development are signaled as possible sites of resilience but also experienced as sites of power upholding the status quo. Diverse experiences and applications of identity and memory provide insight into the ways in which community organizations working in contexts of political violence might navigate polarizing and paradoxical discourses in order to subvert, co-opt, or adapt to hegemonic cultural, political, and economic power relations in the process of transformation for collective resilience.

Keywords

Guatemala historical memory and trauma liberation psychology Maya Achi mental health in humanitarian settings resilience

The proliferation of non-governmental organizations focused on truth and reconciliation in humanitarian settings reflects an increased recognition of the legal, political, and psychosocial roles that memory can play in contexts of violence and displacement (Corntassel & Holder, 2008; Lindorfer, 2009; Martín Beristain, 2006; Perez Sales & Liria, 2015). Myriad organizations base their work on aid models aimed at responding to the traumas of armed conflict. Other collectives seek to mobilize support networks and services in order to mitigate ongoing cycles of poverty and violence that result in psychological distress. In spite of the potential of these interventions to promote positive change, valuable critiques exist of the ways in which they can also replicate dynamics of western cultural and economic hegemony. Even local memory reconstruction initiatives can eclipse diverse voices and perspectives, while imposing singular narratives about otherwise complex social histories (Fassin, 2008; Foxen, 2010). Although social movements and grassroots organizations may at times work from the influence of political agendas (see Fassin, 2008), these can also be sites of dialectal action both shaped by, and in resistance to, systemic patterns of cultural imperialism, neocolonialism, and neoliberalism. There is little research on the efforts of local movements engaged in social change and their unique approaches to community resilience.

Social movements in contexts of violence might integrate multiple perspectives of trauma and resilience in their objectives, and find themselves navigating possible tensions and contradictions over which conflicting historical and contemporary events are the “truth,” and what social, economic, and individual outcomes might truly be transformative. This article discusses student and staff perspectives of social factors in collective resilience at a non-governmental, non-profit Maya Achi educational institute in rural Guatemala. The institute is part of a broader social movement of non-governmental organizations engaging with popular education and liberation psychology principles in order to promote historical memory, healing, and change following the signing of the country's peace accords. Amid ongoing structural inequality, intergenerational trauma, exclusion, and violence, this research sought to understand student and staff interpretations of memory and identity, and how these might shape their considerations of social, cultural, and economic aspects of resilience in postwar Guatemala.

Liberation approaches to memory and resilience

The 36-year civil war in Guatemala resulted in 200,000 dead or disappeared, one million displaced, and 600 rural villages destroyed by the state's scorched earth policies (Rothenberg, 2012; Schirmer, 1998). The UN-mandated Truth Commission's report published as part of the peace accords in 1999 declared many of the counter-insurgency tactics used in the 1980s as a genocide against the country's Indigenous populations (Foxen, 2000; Rothenberg, 2012). In rural Guatemala, grassroots movements continue to seek justice through activities that promote truth and reconciliation, human rights, and development (Chávez et al., 2016; Perez Sales & Liria, 2015). Exhumations and investigations for the prosecution of war crimes draw upon mental health, legal, and community-liaison expertise in order to reconstruct the conflict's history and challenge official versions of events (Roberts & Thanos, 2003; Rothenberg, 2012). This approach “synthesizes the therapeutic and the political—a political dimension because the violence was political and because people's political visions are needed to restore communities, and thus, mental health” (Roberts & Thanos, 2003, p. 953; see also Arias, 2006; Drouin, 2010).

The integration of mental health concepts with truth and reconciliation discourses, often in collaboration with global human rights organizations, enacts a potential subjectivity through which affected communities might exercise political advocacy (Fassin, 2008). Similarly, acknowledging historical trauma as an ongoing legacy of social, cultural, and economic injustices might prompt public action to address health and mental health disparities in Indigenous communities in the present (Hatala et al., 2016). However, the documentation and testimony of violent events can also reproduce psychological or psychiatric models that pathologize distress, emphasize victimization and vulnerability, and overlook individual and collective sources of strength : “[T]he politico-legal instrumentality of the human rights concept—based in a broader Western discourse on individualism and rationality—often veils the untidiness, complexity and cultural agency through which people experience, interpret and remember the past” (Foxen, 2000, p. 359; see also Hatala et al., 2016). Denham (2008) questions the possible construction of PTSD and historical trauma as a diagnosis “being used for political or biomedical agendas” (p. 398). Similarly, Fassin (2008) critiques the imposition of clinical terminology on lived experiences of suffering and violence for political ends in humanitarian contexts. The forensic, investigative nature of historical memory work, by assigning a victim and a perpetrator, can obscure the ways in which communities may have had multiple experiences in a conflict, or practiced resistance and survival strategies in a variety of ways, for a variety of reasons (Foxen, 2000).

Collective processes of reconstruction are additionally contentious in a national climate that effects a “depoliticization of historical memory” (Oglesby, 2007, p. 82), where the structural causes of past violence, such as colonialism and institutional racism, are silenced. In Guatemala, national counter-insurgency campaigns attempted to destroy, “through various forms of physical and psychological terror,” the cultural basis from which people sought meaning (Foxen, 2000, p. 360). In rural areas, a widespread state strategy forced the recruitment of locals into Civil Defense Patrols (known in Spanish as PACs), whose participation in the terror further undermined group solidarity and severely divided communities for decades to come (Dill, 2005; Godoy, 2006). Memory and human rights work thus occur in a polarized environment of ongoing fear and risk “amplified by residues of trauma from decades of armed conflict” (Benson et al., 2008, p. 40; see also Godoy, 2006; Lopez de Gamiz, 2009). These risks are illustrated by the 1998 assassination of Bishop Juan Gerardi, the director of the nation-wide Interdiocesan Project of Recuperation of Historical Memory (RHEMI), whose report Guatemala: Nunca Mas publicized human rights violations during the civil war. Gerardi's death is evidence that “the concepts of ‘truth’ and ‘memory’ are thus critical—and lethal—socio-political issues in Guatemala” (Foxen, 2000, p. 356).

In spite of the complexity and dangers, truth and reconciliation initiatives continue working to address the intergenerational consequences of displacement, dispossession, and violent repression on the region's Indigenous and marginalized populations, and to restore the social fabric of communities (Martín Beristain, 2006; Perez Sales & Liria, 2015). Many draw upon Latin America's rich traditions of liberation psychology, radical theology, and popular education, including the work of Brazilian popular educator Freire (1972) and the Salvadoran liberation psychologist Martín-Baró (1994). A key concept in liberation theories is Freire's notion of concientizacion: a collective, participatory learning process promoting critical awareness of historical patterns of oppression and resistance. Martín-Baró, in addition to sharing Freire's emphasis on historical memory, challenged psychology's western, individualistic bias, compelling the discipline to engage in a process of “posibilitar,” or making alternatives to the status quo possible in order to put knowledge “in the service of human liberation” (1994, p. 9). These critical approaches to postwar reconstruction and development resonate with medical anthropological observations that cultures experiencing violence make meaning through political and historical explanations “that posit anger and distress as valid expressions of a desire for social justice and accountability” (Foxen, 2010, p. 70).

Liberation theories and practice seek to transform the political and social dimensions of problems typically pathologized as symptoms of trauma. They are part of a broader paradigm shift to conceptualize mental health and resilience beyond individual traits, residing “in the durability of interpersonal relationships in the extended family and wider social networks of support” (Kirmayer et al., 2011, p. 85; see also Lindorfer, 2009). Cross-cultural resilience research increasingly views mental health from a community perspective, with interest in “collective processes of suffering, healing, and rebuilding” (Foxen, 2010, p. 72; see also Perez Sales & Liria, 2015). Harvey's ecological theory of resilience suggests that reactions to different stressors are best understood in light of the values, behaviors, skills, and meanings present in communities (Foxen, 2010, p. 72). Similarly, Hatala et al. (2016) call for research that contributes to “a strengths-based concept of resilience to counteract the potentially negative implications of historical trauma narratives that can frame Aboriginal health issues within a narrative of pathology, victimization, and disparity” (p. 4). They emphasize “a plurality of perspectives” of trauma and resilience in order to understand their manifestations in unique contexts.

Mental health disciplines have traditionally overlooked the importance of stories, songs, and cultural resilience in situations of trauma and in humanitarian settings (Denham, 2008; Kirmayer, 2010; Teo, 2012). Grassroots interventions that promote collective narrative and meaning-making can draw upon community strengths that may historically have supported resistance (Martín-Baró, 1994). Denham (2008) suggests that the chronological ordering involved in narrative can help individuals to integrate and overcome the fragmented sense of self that results from traumatic memory first experienced as sensations or feeling states, while connecting them to their social and familial environments and rebuilding a sense of identity. While many community-based organizations throughout Latin America have documented their truth and memory activities at the local level, much of this work has yet to be systematically compiled or researched toward more global application (Perez Sales & Liria, 2015).

Community organizers throughout Latin America adopt liberation approaches not only to clarify the intellectual and material authors of human rights abuses, but also to start to heal the intergenerational effects of conflict by promoting social change in the present. Little research exists regarding how these grassroots movements contend with the task of articulating shared narratives from which to challenge power on one hand, while maintaining openness to a plurality of meaning and experiences on the other. In divisive postwar settings still influenced by western economic and cultural hegemony, the reach of asymmetric power relations can permeate many aspects of community organizing, including how historical traumas are interpreted, how cultural identity is experienced, and how resilience is understood. A multi-voiced approach to these concepts is perhaps best considered in light of Foxen's (2010) elements of individual and collective resilience: “identity, continuity, and purpose as defined within the context of particular communities and value systems” (p. 83). This study explores whether and how these aspects of resilience are experienced and articulated by members of a popular education collective located in the Rabinal region of Guatemala's Baja Verapaz department.

Research setting: The New Hope Rio Negro Foundation

The New Hope Rio Negro Foundation's objectives (Fundación Nueva Esperanza or Spanish acronym FNE) include rural community development, increased participation of Indigenous Achi youth in society, revitalizing Achi culture, and teaching historical memory, particularly of the massacres that occurred in nearby Rio Negro. The village of Rio Negro first drew accusations of connections with guerilla interests in the late 1970s when many community members opposed the construction of the Pueblo-Chixoy Hydroelectric Project, and impending relocation from their ancestral lands (Colajacomo, 1999; Lopez de Gamiz, 2009; Osorio, 2003). In 1982, state forces attacked Rio Negro and nine nearby communities in order to complete the project, torturing and killing over 400 men, women, children, and elderly people in a period of six months (Lopez de Gamiz, 2009; Rothenberg, 2012). Throughout the Rabinal region, military and paramilitary groups killed at least 4,411 people, targeting civilians and burning property, tools, and domestic animals (Lopez de Gamiz, 2009; Rothenberg, 2012). The Chixoy dam was flooded in January 1983 (Lopez de Gamiz, 2009). One survivor, Jesus Tecu Osorio, who was a child at the time of the massacres, later went on to lead the establishment of the New Hope Rio Negro Foundation in 2003.

In addition to its mandate to teach local history and revitalize Achi culture and language, the New Hope Foundation encourages learners to create more equitable and sustainable approaches to peace and development in the present (Einbinder, 2010; New Hope Rio Negro Foundation, n.d.; Osorio, 2003). At the time of research, the Foundation worked in collaboration with the local chapter of Guatemala's community psychosocial action team (Equipo Comunitario de Accion Psicosocial or Spanish acronym ECAP). These and several other organizations work together to change patterns of historical marginalization of Indigenous peoples in Guatemala through community-based education and action. The school's teaching methods are inspired by participatory education philosophies from throughout the region. Their approach is founded on a local research initiative entitled the Methodological Recreation of Intercultural Bilingual Education project (Spanish Acronym REM-EBI) (New Hope Rio Negro Foundation, n.d.).

The Foundation's curriculum manual grounds its praxis in REM-EBI and in principles of Maya cosmovision, which it describes as valuing the collective good and honoring the interrelatedness of people, nature, and the universe (New Hope Rio Negro Foundation, 2006; see also Chaveste & Molina, 2013; Lopez de Gamiz, 2009). The REM-EBI philosophy emphasizes the complex, changing nature of Achi culture and of cultures in general, as well as the importance of interchange between different ways of knowing:

Interculturalism requires a different sort of relationship between the different cultures that are coexisting … pluri- and multiculturalism acknowledge the existence of different cultures in the same space, in other words, their coexistence, but they ignore the relations that exist or could exist between them. As such, we are looking to establish fluid, equal, and just relationships with and between the different cultures present in our country and throughout our continent, knowing that it will be enriching for everyone. (New Hope Rio Negro Foundation, n.d.)

Human rights violations unfortunately persist in postwar Guatemala, and violence continues to affect families and their communities (Duque, 2006; Monterroso, 2018). Economic restructuring ushered in by the armed conflict has resulted in ongoing physical and cultural displacement of communities, particularly Indigenous communities, for the construction of megaprojects and extractive industries (see Benson et al., 2008; McNeish, 2018). Though this research was initially conducted in 2011, social movements throughout the region continue their work at present on truth, reconciliation, and the rehabilitation of support networks (Monterroso, 2018; Perez Sales & Liria, 2015). Youth are especially vulnerable to the dangers of organized crime and migration that arise in the postwar context, and are thus considered key actors in ongoing efforts to reconstruct the social fabric (Green, 2011; Monterroso, 2018). It is hoped that the insights reflected here can contribute to the ongoing efforts of organizations like the New Hope Foundation to intercept the cycle of violence through the teaching of historical memory and promotion of more equitable social relations.

Methodology

The reflections discussed in this article were part of qualitative field research with staff and students at the New Hope Foundation's Intercultural Education Institute. The Institute is located on the outskirts of Rabinal, whose population is predominantly Maya Achi Indigenous. Participants included six adult staff members between the ages of 20 and 60, and 13 youth between the ages of 12 and 18. Half of the adult participants were male and half were female, and of the youth participants, five were male and eight were female. All participants self-identified as Maya Achi. The combined school and staff population was approximately 100, and sampling was achieved by inviting volunteers to participate. In order to capture as wide a sample of the school staff and student body possible, and to maintain an equitable and inclusive process, anyone who wanted to participate was able to. Ethical approval was initially gained from the Dalhousie University Research Ethics Board, and consultations were held with the board and staff of the organization regarding local protocols. The research objectives and invitations to participate were presented at a parent community meeting and through classroom visits. Oral consent was obtained at the beginning of each interview, as well as parental consent for student participants.

Though time and resources did not permit a fully participatory research methodology, in the spirit of the Foundation's mandate the research sought to involve staff and students in aspects of the design and interpretation wherever possible. Both group and one-on-one discussions were held regarding research objectives and integrated into research and interview questions. Focus groups were also held with students following the interviews to discuss emerging data. Semi-structured interviews were held in Spanish and centered on themes related to peace, culture, memory, identity, education, and development, in order to learn how participants navigate multidimensional perspectives of these in their interpretations of resilience and social change. Data were transcribed by the author and analyzed using a combination of thematic (Braun & Clarke, 2006), grounded theory, and case study approaches (Yegidis et al., 2012).

Case studies allow for observation and description of the actions, attitudes, and perceptions of an organization (Yegidis et al., 2012). Engagement with school events, staff meetings, and cultural activities, as well as interview questions regarding school objectives, were an initial springboard for learning about the living mandates of the New Hope Foundation and participant interactions with these mandates. The combination with thematic and grounded theory was considered an appropriate lens by which “to learn what meanings people give to certain events in their lives” (Yegidis et al., 2012, p. 180). These were approached first with a process of open coding, in which participant ideas and reflections were labelled. The most prevalent codes were then clustered into common categories. These categories were grouped into major themes and then grouped further into subthemes. A narrative “story line” describing observations of the data was written in tandem with the themes. Relevant passages were translated by the author, and pseudonyms are used throughout the analysis in order to protect confidentiality. For purposes of scope and space, the three themes discussed below were considered the most salient in connection to community resilience. These themes were “Understanding violence of the past and present,” “Reframing stigma, re-claiming identity,” and “Community development.”

As a non-Indigenous, Canadian woman, the author sought to devise a methodology that honours the culturally embedded processes entailed in the construction and reconstruction of knowledge (see Apentiik and Parpart, 2006; Murray et al., 2003). For both participant and researcher, the design, interpretation, representation, and expression of experience are fraught with ambiguity: “Privileging experience as foundational to knowledge, or as a transparent window of the ‘real’, denies its situatedness in discourses that constitute subjectivities in the first place, and that enable articulation of experience from discursively constructed subject positions …” (Luke, quoted in Choules, 2007, p. 170). In order to integrate subjectivities but also seek to counter potential biases, the author drew from Ollman's (2001) process of abstraction, in which the separation of data into component “parts” for study necessitates constant revisiting and re-abstraction in order to build understanding of the relationships between meanings, events, and experiences. This approach is part of an overall critical realist framework, which acknowledges the subjective experience of participants as agents of change in their environment, but also recognizes the significant, though not deterministic, influence of material and social conditions in shaping subjective realities (Bhaskar, 2008; Roberts, 2014). Through this lens, the study engages with staff and student articulations on the role of memory and identity in relation to community resilience, and how these interact with the structural factors of distress outlined above.

Limitations

The study does not measure whether participant perspectives are a direct result of their involvement with the New Hope Foundation. The study was also not intended as an evaluation of the Institute's teaching methods or educational or psychosocial outcomes. In addition, it is beyond the scope of this study to fully outline community perspectives on the nature of Achi identity or to define cosmovision as a worldview. Rather, this research sought to explore relationships between memory, identity, community distress, and resilience, as perceived by members of an organization working for social change. It is hoped that the values and meanings shared by participants can provide implications for the challenges of reconstructing collective narratives, in which fluidity between adaptation and resistance is a mode of agency and transformation.

Learning from the past, reconstructing in the present: Reflections on collective strength

Interviews with teachers and students, as well as a review of internal and public documents about the New Hope Foundation's mandate, espoused diverse ideas for breaking the cycle of social, historical, and economic factors of violence and cultural marginalization. Stressors were often highlighted as a collective rather than individual phenomenon, manifesting as intergenerational violence, poverty, and internalized stigma and shame resulting from historical inequality and discrimination. Throughout these conversations, memory and identity appeared simultaneously as agents of change and sites of engagement with power.

“Never forget”: Understanding violence of the past and present

Though postwar discourse heralds the presence of a democratic, free-market-fueled “peace” (see Corntassel & Holder, 2008; Oglesby, 2007), youth often suggested in interviews that in spite of the signing of peace accords in 1996, ongoing violence continues to put stress on their communities:

In Guatemala, there's assault, there's familial violence, child maltreatment, people steal from other people, there's threats in all of the communities … the government isn’t doing anything anymore. We can no longer take, no longer sustain so much law breaking, so much maltreatment in Guatemala. (Celina, student, October 2011)

The importance of understanding the impact of past violence on communities was a recurrent theme, as illustrated by another student's urging that “We must never forget. It is a real history, that our families came from, and continues to affect them” (Jorge, student, September 2011). Many participants highlighted intergenerational aspects of current violence, such as Niki, a first-year student: “Now there is a lot of violence, they assault, they extort … they replaced the violence in the past with the violence now in the present” (September 2011). Julia, a third-year student, alluded to historical links between former military and paramilitary actors and current gang activity:

Those who murdered in the years of the massacre … they’re teachers … the youth who now commit those crimes are like, apprentices to the people who, in the years of the violence, killed, they teach it all over again to the young people. (October 2011)

All youth participants referenced personally experiencing insecurity or crime in their communities, often in the form of robberies or extortion, and acknowledged the negative collective impact of ongoing cycles of violence:

So what one tries to inculcate in a child … is that, if one does damage to another person, that person, the damage that they do, that will continue the violence. So … it's a chain. I do something bad to a person, they will do something back to me, but with bigger consequences. That is what is happening in our society now. (José, student, August 2011)

The “chain” and “damage” in José's description appears to reference ongoing conflict in the broader social fabric. Julia also noted both individual and community effects of the war:

a few people today, are still, like, traumatized, by what happened. And others are still searching. In Rabinal there are a lot of people who were militias at the time. People who are still walking the streets who haven’t had justice applied to them. And that is what many in Rabinal ask for, is justice. (October 2011)

The search for justice described is complex and divisive in many regions where former PAC activity took place, as survivors of war crimes live alongside their perpetrators. Though adult participants generally did not share as many personal reflections on contemporary violence as students, they often drew the connection between past and present violence. For instance, in addition to the psychological and social effects of the war, Ernesto, a teacher, also described compounding material effects:

The big challenges have to do with defeating certain difficulties … like for example, the economic situation, distance, family problems, sequels that the war has left. That the war left. Because still, there are sequels … there are young men and women who have those problems still … because there are several who have many, many economic lacks, lack nutrition, lack clothing … but why would that be? Because this is part of the sequel of what happened in the 1980s. (September 2011)

Students and staff shared this understanding that ongoing social and economic conditions contributed to the cycle of violence, such as José's reflection on the experience of families living with poverty: “They can’t provide for their kids, they can’t buy them shoes, they can’t buy clothing. So that makes it so that youth opt to rob, to kill … to kidnap to have money. So, the same poverty is what generates the violence” (August 2011). Reflecting on the economic roots of the armed conflict, Julia notes the connection between dispossession from lands and historical violence:

Here in Baja Verapaz, it was for the lands. There were many ambitious people that wanted Guatemala's riches. The richness of the lands … [Our grandparents] didn’t want to leave their lands. They loved what they had achieved very much. But the people who wanted to build the hydroelectric dam forced them to. And that was one of the causes that there was a massacre here. (October 2011)

Remembering not only supports understanding of the material factors in past violence, but also reflects on collective achievements and connections with the land. Memory was a touchstone for affirming many similar aspects of identity and community.

Reframing stigma, re-claiming identity

Among both students and staff, memory was interwoven with affirmations of identity to resist systemic shame, stigma, and discrimination. Many participants acknowledged that institutional and cultural barriers replicated a disconnection from their history. Speaking to the ways in which young people in mainstream schools can internalize stigma, Sara, a staff member, shared: “They lose their identity. And we become ashamed in the end, once we are professionals, we are ashamed of … ourselves. We become ashamed of our past. And it shouldn’t be that way …” (September 2011). Alternatively, many participants placed value on learning the strengths and knowledge in Achi culture and identity as a mechanism for transforming shame into appreciation:

The language is also getting lost. Because it embarrasses youth to speak it … so, I think that it's a great value for us, to learn our maternal language. Now that they teach us Achi, it's very good because it is a way of not being ashamed of our language, and then we would like to recuperate it more. (Camilla, student, September 2011)

Recuperating Achi culture and language made possible a pathway to overcoming the lived experiences of shame and stigma often embedded in the ongoing drive for assimilation in many societal spaces and institutions. Once given the opportunity to learn more about Achi language, Camilla explained, “we realize that it is a treasure” (September 2011). Embracing the value and strength of Achi culture was described by many students as a key motivation for their studies at the Institute: “In the research we do in Achi class, we realize that our people is full of mysteries. Of great things. Of great events that have occurred. That here great people have existed, very beautiful places have existed” (José, student, August 2011).

Participants also valued learning about Achi memory as an aspect of identity that allows connection with institutionally silenced versions of historical events:

Now in Guatemala, the state manages a methodology created from the Spanish, Western point of view, while a methodology created in agreement with the culture, traditions, and histories of Guatemala, we don’t have. Many times, the texts that the state gives hide the true history of Guatemala, and the true history with names and surnames doesn’t exist. (Cesar, teacher, September 2011)

Adult participants emphasized the mandate to teach Achi language and culture as meant to present an alternative to the western bias in education. Fewer students explicitly acknowledged this objective, but viewed learning about their culture as a vehicle for change in intergenerational patterns of discrimination and violence:

Education … should be based in our culture, in our history, in our roots. Of our ancestors, because first, we have to know our past to be able to see our future. Education in Guatemala should be based in … discovering past knowledge, remembering what we were before. In discussing what happened before in Rabinal, of the armed conflict, so that we don’t see that anymore in our society. What happened should be an example that future generations do not return to in the future. (José, student, August 2011)

José's reflection suggests the possibility of drawing strength through remembrance: to better understand one's identity, but also to avoid repetition of harms perpetrated. Speaking to the memory of armed conflict, Sara also emphasized: “We cannot deny that part of history. It can be a sad history, a painful history, but it leaves us teachings. All history leaves us teachings, so that it does not happen again” (August 2011). Several participants acknowledged that in spite of the difficulty in talking about past suffering in their communities, they considered it necessary both for embracing their identity and for change:

Yes, I am in agreement that we must work on historical memory. It's something that leaves us a lesson, and it would give the youth a little bit of sensitivity maybe, not to lose it, and to continue thinking that Rabinal is a people that has a lot of culture, history, and sometimes a history that's a little bit bloody, violent, awful, intense, but, we must continue the struggle … historical memory is fundamental. Nobody can achieve development if they do not know their story, where they come from … (Oscar, teacher, September 2011)

The passing on of memory seeks both to acknowledge violent events that occurred as well as to promote positive change through development in the next generation. Development commonly emerged as a theme in connection with education, memory, and peace. Its meaning, as further discussed below, was also culturally and historically charged.

“To overcome”: Community development

When reflecting on what could change patterns of violence, poverty, and discrimination, the notion of “superación,” which means “to overcome,” was a recurring theme for both students and teachers. The outcomes associated with these ideas entailed individual success as well as characteristics of collective resilience, with education and development playing a key role at both levels: “Knowledge in education is something very important so that the youth go overcoming … that they go rising up … So that Guatemala sounds not like a country of violence, but rather like a country of culture and peace” (Ernesto, teacher, September 2011). Education was understood both as a means to improving individual access to resources and participation in society and as a springboard for systemic change:

The objective of the Foundation is to offer accompaniment to youth of scarce resources at this stage of their studies. And in this form, having a preparation, there will be more opportunities for Indigenous people, the Maya people. But also, we seek the eradication of discrimination, of fascism; that’s the objective. (Cesar, teacher, September 2011)

Some students and staff also referenced the paradoxical ways in which education offered empowerment while also acting as a tool of assimilation:

Being able to speak English, now they can get a better job in the United States, so a lot of people have left for the same reason. For the money, for poverty, and well … that is positive … it's like, to tell you it's a little bit of superación for Rabinal … That's one of the positives, that Rabinal has changed a little. The negative is that they changed, but they left their culture behind. (Julia, student, October 2011)

Other students and staff questioned the collective and environmental impacts of economic development: “[W]e’re in an unsustainable society, a consumer society … supposedly we’re on our way to development. What development will it be? If we’re polluting more?” (Sara, teacher, September 2011). This perspective is salient in light of the state's hegemonic approach to development, which during the genocide included relocation of Indigenous citizens into “re-education camps” and purportedly taught the value of individualistic, free-market models of development (Colajacomo, 1999; Einbinder, 2010). The discourse of development continues to justify expropriation of Indigenous lands and resources as policy (Einbinder, 2010; Lopez de Gamiz, 2009). Alternatively, many reflections on ending poverty and violence emphasized community development activities that prioritized people and nature, often inspired by cultural values:

I would like it if we recuperated nature as well, because … it's like it forms part of our culture … for example in Rabinal, the history of images of our people appear in rivers, in lakes, in forested, mountainous locations. So, I think that [nature] also forms part of our culture … I would like to teach, or give talks, form a group of people and give talks, to schools about the importance of nature … because they still haven’t realized the damage they’re doing, to nature. They haven’t realized the damage that we do. (Camilla, student, September 2011)

In addition to healing and caring for nature, many participants associated development with maintaining collective solidarity:

I imagine a very beautiful country … calmer, one with more security … a country more developed, with more solidarity. It remains for us to rise up, ourselves. Not to seek superación alone, but rather seek the superación of our community. So, in the future I would see a country with peace, without violence, more united as a country, as people, as ethnic groups … caring for what we have, a country where we won’t be selfish, a country where we support others, a country that would be in peace with nature as well. (José, student, August 2011)

José's description of development and superación suggests that interconnectedness could repair some of the markers of community stress, particularly violence and harm to nature. Sara also extends a redistributive and transformative elaboration of what peace and development might look like:

We want … harmony in the intercultural relations of peoples. Just like the revaluing of culture and historical truth. That's what we want. To contribute, to achieve a balanced development, just and in solidarity, of the municipality … Educational methodologies that promote the person, the community, equality, respect, and the values of the Achi people. (September 2011)

Alternative visions of development can present risks in Guatemala, as communities seeking to protect their lands from expropriation or exploitation are often stigmatized as backward and anti-development or criminalized as internal terrorists (Godoy, 2006). Nonetheless, New Hope Foundation members’ formulations of peace and development appear to transcend dominant discourses of development, viewing interdependence and the promotion of a more equitable society as important factors for community resilience.

Memory, identity, and transformation: Toward multidimensional narratives of resilience

In its manual outlining a community focus for mental health, Guatemala's Community Psychosocial Action Team (ECAP) identifies violence, aggression, family or inter-group conflict, and drug and alcohol abuse as indicators of distress (Duque, 2006). This framework, while acknowledging the importance of supporting individual needs and symptoms, seeks to prioritize a collective, psychosocial approach to mental health, emphasizing the key role of revitalizing culturally relevant advocacy for more just and equitable living conditions (Duque, 2006; Martín-Baró, 2006; Perez Sales & Liria, 2015). Rebuilding the social fabric through liberation psychology's focus on strengthening social support networks, popular education, and reconstruction of historical memory have become cornerstones of psychosocial action in the social movement in Guatemala and regionally (Martín-Baró, 2006; Perez Sales & Liria, 2015). They are consistent with a broader shift in mental health and social science research to conceptualize approaches to distress that are “transformative rather than ameliorative,” particularly in humanitarian settings (McMillan & Burton, 2009, p. 200).

This research sought to engage with members of an organization sharing these transformational objectives in order to understand how they might manifest in their understandings of resilience and change. The study builds upon previous work establishing the key role of memory in postwar reconstruction and justice (Dill, 2005; Martín-Baró, 2006; Roberts & Thanos, 2003) as well as the importance of cultural identity for enhancement of community support networks and the social fabric for psychosocial rehabilitation and collective resilience in the region (Duque, 2006; Martín-Baró, 2006; Monterroso, 2018). The New Hope Foundation, though primarily focused on popular education, works in collaboration with ECAP and embodies the conviction that a change in conditions for Achi youth must form part of a larger movement toward postwar social justice and healing. Reflections of students and staff at the New Hope Foundation identify signals of distress at the community level, including high levels of insecurity and violence, discrimination, and stigma. Many also share the vision of improved living conditions and transforming inequalities as important for changing these situations in their communities. Though participant reflections did not contend with specific psychosocial outcomes, their emphasis on collective markers of distress and structural factors of change is thematically resonant with the work of regional social movements toward postwar healing, and could position youth organizations such as the New Hope Foundation as a base for building community resilience in contexts of intergenerational trauma.

Participants often made reference to “overcoming” in order to change patterns of violence by promoting access to economic resources and education, historical memory and cultural identity, and alternative models of development. The prominent, albeit multifaceted, role of identity and memory in participants’ perception of education and development as a means “to overcome” structural inequalities share characteristics with Foxen's (2010) broader concept of resilience as the “ability to maintain a sense of self and identity, continuity and purpose, of control over life and relationships, and of cultural cohesion, social justice, and spiritual meaning” (p. 72). Perspectives differ among institute students and staff when it comes to what overcoming in this way can mean, just as no community or movement will have a uniform vision for what resistance against oppression entails (see Freire, 1972; Jara, 2010). Some participants placed more emphasis on youth receiving a good education and having access to economic opportunities, others placed value on learning about Maya Achi history and culture, while still others acknowledged the potential tensions between excelling in the dominant culture and maintaining Achi culture. These differing perspectives speak to the ways in which grassroots movements for change may simultaneously reinforce, coopt, and subvert discourses of power amid ongoing hegemonic patterns of conquest, conversion, and mass consumer culture (see Arias, 2006; Asgharzadeh, 2007; Green, 2008).

The paradoxical task of social change as resilience, of both navigating and subverting oppressive social and economic structures, is perhaps most evident in the institute's work to reconstruct historical memory. Several participants acknowledged the importance of understanding past repression, violence, trauma, and community resistance as instructive for change in the present. However, in this and countless other processes of commemoration and reconciliation around the globe, the question of what concepts and whose definitions of trauma and violence substantiate historical acts of injustice can be contentious and politicized (Denham, 2008; Fassin, 2008; Foxen, 2000). As Foxen (2000, p. 359) reminds us, “memory is never a fixed, coherent, static story of the past, but is rooted in the present, and often shifting, political and social spaces, as well as visions of the future.” While a shared narrative of past events and present vision for change can arguably privilege certain perspectives over others, the Foundation's teachings on the genocide aim to challenge dominant versions of history which tend to blame, essentialize, or negatively portray disenfranchised communities in Guatemala and throughout the region (Asgharzadeh, 2007; Martín-Baró, 2006; New Hope Rio Negro Foundation, n.d.; Poppema, 2009).

Giving voice to histories typically silenced or left untold could allow upcoming generations to draw more positive identity conclusions and promote resilience in the face of adverse events (Martín-Baró, 2006; Perez Sales & Liria, 2015). Such a process might, as outlined in the Foundation's objectives and suggested by participants’ pride in their language and customs, support youth to transcend and transform racial and cultural dichotomies:

[W]e, as Achi people, must have already established our own self- respect, firmly grasped our own knowledge, and begun to revalue Achi culture. This is especially important for our youth who will make up our future generations. Only in this way could we arrive at intercultural relationships in which everyone involved respects not only their own cultures, but, based on this idea of self-respect, one is then able to respect and value other cultures as well. (New Hope Rio Negro Foundation, n.d.)

On the other hand, the Institute also acknowledges that culture is not static, but rather evolving as communities continue to change (New Hope Rio Negro Foundation, n.d.). What it means to embrace Achi identity, and what this in turn entails for positive social change, is subject to multiple interpretations. Moreover, participant reflections on shame, stigma, and dispossession are concurrent with ongoing, entrenched categories in both public and private life that attempt to control, assimilate, and degrade Indigenous languages and values (Arias, 2006; Asgharzadeh, 2007; Fanon & Philcox, 2004).

These inherent contradictions can present dilemmas for collective reconstruction efforts such as those of FNE, but need not paralyze them. Foxen (2000) credits the ability of Indigenous communities in Guatemala to navigate multidimensional, paradoxical meanings amid asymmetrical power relations to “a culturally embedded tendency to draw on and combine internal and external (or traditional and modern) discourses, world-views and practices for the sake of survival” (p. 362). Similarly, Vanthuyne (2009) highlights the historical and contemporary role of “flexible identities” in Maya advocacy (p. 206). Reclaiming traditional identities while also employing language and skills from the dominant society are key sources of agency in national discourse and educational spaces:

(Indigenous) traditions are no longer to be seen as symptomatic of a fundamental inferiority; rather, they should be read as proof of existence of an authentic alterity, one that legitimates their claims to the rights of a People: language rights, spiritual rights, socioeconomic rights, and self-determination rights. (Vanthuyne, 2009, pp. 207–208)

For community organizations asserting these rights, what, then, constitutes an “authentic alterity?” Which aspects of alterity are resisted, co-opted, or re-claimed, and who decides? And can these changes truly alleviate experiences of collective distress identified locally and regionally as sequels of armed conflict? On these themes, FNE member reflections do not express a singular vision of cultural identity nor of its potential as a starting point for changes in conditions underlying distress. Rather, they suggest ongoing, multidimensional dialogue with implicated sites of power and agency. State schooling and dominant discourses are identified both as tools of assimilation and as vehicles for overcoming discrimination. Historical memory is articulated in stories of repression and intergenerational trauma, but also in narratives of cultural survival and of resistance. Finally, development and participation in the economy are acknowledged as important for overcoming marginalization and reducing societal violence, but consumerist ideals, the hallmark of neoliberal policies, are also questioned.

New Hope Foundation members reveal a rich dialectical possibility within the organization's mandate for reconstruction of historical narratives in the pursuit of social, economic, and cultural change, and in turn for the broader role of popular education in promoting collective resilience. Their diverse applications of themes such as memory, identity, and development to peace and social change indicate the presence of multiple narratives of oppression and resistance: “The accumulation of both traumatic and resiliency processes, which takes form through history and generations, informs the subjective and collective memories, as well as the future hopes and aspirations that underlie people's psychosocial well-being” (Foxen, 2010, p. 83). Further study on the ways in which the REM-EBI methodology formally engages with multiple perspectives within the community, and how and whether its requisite flexibility of thinking is implicitly or explicitly promoted, could shed light on how social movements might channel ambiguity and resolve tensions in the tenuous work of collective meaning-making for social change. Throughout these processes, dialogues intercepting structural violence must integrate contradictory interpretations of memory, distress, and resistance in order to contend with the patterns of division, dispossession, and inequality upon which current systems are founded.

Conclusion

Popular education spaces such as the New Hope Foundation, in collaboration with broader psychosocial efforts toward postwar healing, can provide communities with a forum to draw upon memory and identity in order to change the cycle of violence and its effects. However, the related task of building collective narratives, particularly narratives that engage with sites of power, inevitably presents challenges in polarized communities still affected by contemporary violence and inequality. Reflecting on the postwar context in the Maya Quiche highlands, Foxen (2010) poses the question, “How can psychosocial interventions help to repair social fabrics and heal minds and bodies that have been assaulted not only by the bloodshed and massacres of the war, but by a present filled with economic and social instability?” (p. 81). Understanding the key role of community organizing and trust, the desire of many civil society groups in Rabinal and throughout the region is to rebuild community on social, cultural, and political fronts via collaboration between multiple services and supports (Einbinder, 2010; Lopez de Gamiz, 2009; Martín-Baró, 2006; Perez Sales & Liria, 2015). Overall, in light of increased engagement with social determinants of mental health in the field, better understanding is needed regarding the challenges and successes of grassroots organizations and communities engaging directly with these factors.

Though the construction of collective narrative and memory is not invulnerable to politicization and power, efforts to articulate previously denied social and historical memories can act as a starting point for communities to undergo the key therapeutic process of attributing meaning and explanations to complex, distressing, and traumatic events, particularly in contexts of mass violence (Amaya, 2013; Corporacion Avre y Corporacion Vinculos, 2011; Perez Sales & Liria, 2015). Memory work can also help to define and effect meaningful individual and collective change by identifying strengths and challenges (Perez Sales & Liria, 2015). Future research could further explore the ways in which collective processes might prompt action toward individual and collective factors of resilience, such as the focus of the New Hope foundation on renewal of Maya Achi language, culture, and history, and local sustainable development, which are part of a broader civil society movement to re-weave the social support networks and Indigenous cultural values frayed by state violence (Lopez de Gamiz, 2009; Roberts & Thanos, 2003). Approaches such as the REM-EBI one of embracing interculturality and a non-dichotomous approach to identity can provide one example of a framework for equitable, critical dialogue about what community healing and resilience might consist of, how this is decided, and what rights and supports are valued in order for communities in contexts of violence and displacement “to overcome.”

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author gratefully acknowledges the contributions and encouragement of Dr. Ron Lehr and Dr. Jeff Karabanow to the research and writing of this article. Research and perspectives outlined in this article are those of the author and do not represent affiliated organizations. This research is indebted to the thoughtful and enthusiastic contributions of the staff and students at the New Hope Foundation in Rabinal, Guatemala. The author is very grateful for the time and work shared with the school community.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

This article draws upon research funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

ORCID iD

Heidi Mitton

Heidi Mitton, MA, MEd., is a clinical therapist in the department of Mental Health and Addictions at Nova Scotia Health, with a previous background in human rights and humanitarian settings. Her areas of research through Acadia University have included community-based psychosocial initiatives in contexts of political violence, intercultural perspectives of mental health, and liberation and feminist approaches in psychology.

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