Beyond Repair?: Mayan Women’s Protagonism in the Aftermath of Genocidal Harm

Alison Crosby; M. Brinton Lykes

Published by Rutgers University Press 2019

Beyond Repair?

Mayan Women’s Protagonism in the Aftermath of Genocidal Harm

Alison Crosby and M. Brinton Lykes

In the series Genocide, Political Violence, Human Rights

https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813599007

Overview
Contents

About this book

Winner of the 2021 Raphael Lemkin Book Award from the Institute for the Study of Genocide
Honorable Mention, 2020 CALACS Book Prize

Beyond Repair? explores Mayan women’s agency in the search for redress for harm suffered during the genocidal violence perpetrated by the Guatemalan state in the early 1980s at the height of the thirty-six-year armed conflict. The book draws on eight years of feminist participatory action research conducted with fifty-four Q’eqchi’, Kaqchikel, Chuj, and Mam women who are seeking truth, justice, and reparation for the violence they experienced during the war, and the women’s rights activists, lawyers, psychologists, Mayan rights activists, and researchers who have accompanied them as intermediaries for over a decade. Alison Crosby and M. Brinton Lykes use the concept of “protagonism” to deconstruct dominant psychological discursive constructions of women as “victims,” “survivors,” “selves,” “individuals,” and/or “subjects.” They argue that at different moments Mayan women have been actively engaged as protagonists in constructivist and discursive performances through which they have narrated new, mobile meanings of “Mayan woman,” repositioning themselves at the interstices of multiple communities and in their pursuit of redress for harm suffered.

Author / Editor information

ALISON CROSBY is an associate professor in the School of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies and the director of the Centre for Feminist Research at York University, Toronto, Canada.

M. BRINTON LYKES is a professor of community-cultural psychology and co-director of the Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Boston College, in Massachusetts. She is the author or editor of several books, including The New Deportations Delirium: Interdisciplinary Responses.

Reviews

"New Books Network - New Books in Genocide Studies" interview with Alison Crosby and M. Brinton Lykes
https://newbooksnetwork.com/a-d-crosby-and-m-b-lykes-in-beyond-repair-mayan-womens-protagonism-in-the-aftermath-of-genocidal-harm-rutgers-up-2019/

— New Books Network - New Books in Genocide Studies

"Highly recommended."

— Choice

"Extremely persuasive and admirably clear, Beyond Repair? emphasizes the need to analyze gender violence through the historical lens of colonialized racial violence and underlines the centrality of the justice constructions and engagements of Mayan women."

— Rachel Sieder, editor of Demanding Justice and Security in Latin America

"Beyond Repair presents a valuable framework in which to understand how broader legal mechanisms can be deployed within transitional justice and human rights approaches."

— Human Rights Quarterly

"Crosby and Lykes offer readers a unique opportunity to hear the voices of Mayan women who come together around pain and justice, and to learn about their mixed emotions and their experiences of poverty, peril, fear, and resiliency."

— Journal of Community Psychology

"This deeply researched book follows Mayan women as they search for justice in the aftermath of sexual violence. Using feminist participatory research methods, the authors attend to both suffering and protagonism."

— Kimberly Theidon, author of Intimate Enemies: Violence and Reconciliation in Peru

"Human rights scholars and activists will plumb this rich text for insights into the limitations of our legalistic understanding of human rights. Psychologists will find inspiration in the curative aspects of indigenous practices. Researchers will reevaluate how to conduct feminist, postcolonial PAR work. Feminists will rethink our work on identity and activism. And all of us will reach a fuller understanding of the human capacity for resistance and recovery from gross injustices and atrocities."

— Psychology of Women Quarterly

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
List of Abbreviations Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Documenting Protagonism: “I Can Fly with Large Wings” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	27
2. Recounting Protagonism: “No One Can Take This Thorn from My Soul” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	62
3. Judicializing Protagonism: “What Will the Law Say?” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	90
4. Repairing Protagonism: “Carrying a Heavy Load” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	129
5. Accompanying Protagonism: “Facing Two Directions” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	155
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	202
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	221
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	227
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	237
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	259