20225502(en)/9 - Between Fear and Disdain: Cultures, Subjectivities, and Meanings of Overflowing Violence in Contemporary Guatemala
BETWEEN FEAR AND DISDAIN: CULTURES, SUBJECTIVITIES, AND MEANINGS OF OVERFLOWING VIOLENCE IN CONTEMPORARY GUATEMALA
ENTRE EL TEMOR Y EL DESDÉN: CULTURAS, SUBJETIVIDADES Y SENTIDOS EN LA GUATEMALA CONTEMPORÁNEA DE LAS VIOLENCIAS DESBORDADAS
Lorenzo Mariano Juárez
Violence is an unavoidable object of study in contemporary ethnography in Guatemala. Based on the analysis of various scenarios produced during fieldwork carried out over the last two decades, this text seeks to delimit the theoretical approaches and explanatory models of the violent forms that recreate a particular way of being in the world for a large part of the Guatemalan population. Starting from the position of the ethnographer - male, European, with the capacity to be and not to be in this social space – I reflect on the way the different modalities of violence are being addressed in theoretical terms. The unbridled violence is emerges as a cardinal trait of the social order, inserting itself into intersubjective spaces, giving meaning to emotions such as “disdain” or “fear” and shaping practices and new topographies of terror. Reflection on the theoretical position of the academic becomes a limiting factor for some of the conclusions drawn: the explanatory insufficiency of classic categories such as “demobilizing character” or “normalizing processes” to describe a social life where violence is deeply engrained, forming part of the present identity.
