Mayan young women and photovoice: Exposing state violence(s) and gendered migration in rural Guatemala

This research reports on a collaborative photovoice project developed to document and respond to some of the effects of the complex interface of state violence and gendered migration in the Southern Quiché region of Guatemala. The participating women were students in a local high school who had at least one parent living in the United States, and had themselves expressed some interest in migrating North at some point in their lives. Findings from the photovoice process revealed how these young women’s transnational understandings of family and home shaped their hopes, resistance, and complex views of migration. The youth’s visual representations facilitated community dialogues regarding the urgency to challenge gendered forms of discrimination at the intersection of state violence and migration. The article also discusses ethical implications for co-researchers and Mayan communities seeking to engage feminist-infused photovoice processes that best support Mayan young women’s resistance to some of the structural violence(s) that push them North

Can educational policy redress historical discrimination? Exploring a University Community’s experiences with India’s caste-based affirmative action policy

This research engaged a grounded theory process to explore whether or not and, if so, in what ways, an affirmative action quota policy disrupted historical power structures towards generating change in one university community in rural India. This rural university community has implemented an affirmative action quota system for three decades. Participants’ embrace of and resistance to diversity and caste-based social transformations were identified through an analysis of in-depth interviews with 6 Upper caste faculty and staff, 3 Dalit students, and 7 and Upper caste students. Strategies of embracing and resisting diversity and broader pushes for social transformation to create a more inclusive community included participants positioning themselves in favor of or opposed to the affirmative action quota policy. Implications for change at individual, community, institutional, and national levels are discussed

Situating and contesting structural violence in community-based research and action

Structural violence refers to social systems as well as the mechanisms through which they produce and normalize marginalization, exclusion, and exploitation. It is intricately tied to cultural violence, that is, systematic assaults on the human dignity and self-worth of individuals and communities. This latter violence operates through culture, language, ideology, and knowledge production in academic disciplines and in scientific canons. Cultural violence serves to justify, legitimize, mask, and naturalize both direct assaults on human beings and systems of oppression and inequality. This special issue highlights new approaches to interrogate the processes and mechanisms between individual and collective suffering and the macrosocial matrices in which the experiences are configured. In this introduction, we argue that an understanding of structural and cultural violence has significant potential for reinvigorating some of the longstanding but often under-engaged goals of community psychology. We explore the challenges facing community psychologists committed to social and transformative change towards wellbeing for all in a global context characterized by gross inequities, thereby establishing the context for this special issue on situating and contesting structural violence in community psychology

Políticas y prácticas de deportación en la administración de Obama: “Entre más cambian las cosas más se quedan igual”

El Proyecto de Post-Deportación de Derechos Humanos (PDHRP) en el Centro para los Derechos Humanos y Justicia Internacional de Boston College colabora con organizaciones de inmigrantes en Nueva Inglaterra y en la región Quiché al sur de Guatemala en proyectos de investigación y acción participativa y en la defensa y representación legal de los deportados para abogar en colaboración con las familias y comunidades afectadas- por los cambios fundamentales que introducirán proporcionalidad, compasión y respeto a la unidad familiar en las leyes de inmigración de los Estados Unidos y asegurar la compatibilidad de éstas con las normas internacionales de derechos humanos. Dos miembros de este equipo interdisciplinario describen la evolución reciente de las políticas y prácticas de deportación del gobierno de Obama y sus efectos sobre los inmigrantes indocumentados y legales que viven en los Estados Unidos - y los desafíos de estas prácticas para todos aquellos que buscan una política de inmigración más justa y humana

Terror, silencing and children: International, multidisciplinary collaboration with Guatemalan Maya communities

In recent years psychologists and other mental health workers have begun to document the effects of state-sponsored violence and civil war on civilians and to develop specific clinical and community interventions to address these issues. During the past decade between 50,000 to 100,000 Guatemalans have been murdered and at least 38,000 people disappeared. Over 400 rural villages were destroyed and the Guatemalan army's scorched earth policy forced hundreds of thousands who survived to flee, either to another part of the country or to leave Guatemala altogether. State-sponsored terror and silencing persists in Guatemala despite a return to civilian government. This article describes some of the problems encountered by Maya children in situations of ongoing war and state-sponsored terror and the development of one specific response, Creative Workshops for Children, an international, interdisciplinary program organized by mental health workers from Argentina, Guatemala and United States. The inadequacies of psychological theory based on a medical model that sees trauma as an intrapsychic phenomenon and conceptualizes its effects in situations of war as post-traumatic stress are described and a reconceptualization of trauma as psychosocial is proposed. The accompanying need to address the "normal abnormality" of war and state-sponsored terror through a community-based group process is presented. The model incorporates drawing, story telling, collage and dramatization in a group process that seeks to create a space and time in which the child can express him or herself, communicate experiences to others, and discharge energy and emotion connected to previous traumatic experiences. The work draws on existing cultural traditions (e.g. oral story telling and dramatization) and resources (e.g. nature, plants) of indigeneous communities, offering additional resources to those seeking to collaborate in the development of mental health in their communities and suggesting alternative bases from which to understand the cultural and social psychological effects of war. Through participation in the creative workshop the child survivor enhances natural means for communication that will facilitate the expression of physical and mental tensions and the development of a capacity to construct an identity that is not exclusively subject to the dehumanizing and traumatizing reality of war. The strengths of this work and the limits of psychoassistance work within a context of war are enumerated and discussed.children of war community mental health psychosocial trauma play and drama Guatemala Maya community

Fathering Within Transnational and Mixed-Status Mayan Families: An Exploratory Study

This study explores fathering within a small sample of Mayan transnational and mixed-status families divided between the Northeastern United States and the Quiché region of Guatemala. A positive masculinities framework informs this theoretical thematic analysis of semistructured interviews with 7 migrant fathers and 2 sons-as-fathers who were caring for younger siblings in Guatemala. Analyses sought to illuminate how the performances of fathering in the context of migration depart from and sometimes challenge hegemonic conceptions of masculinities evident in much of the migration scholarship. In total, 5 themes capturing varying performances of fathering were identified: (a) staying-at-home, (b) emotionally expressing cross-border relationality, (c) communicating within the family about return and consejos (conventional wisdom), (d) sons-as-fathers caring for family members here and there, and (e) maintaining the household intergenerationally. We discuss how the transnationalizing of these Mayan families has contributed to more diverse gendered roles and relationships, with a focus on some of the potential positive influences of this process on family relationships. Implications for future research about the various ways in which fathers and sons contribute to their transnational families, especially in difficult sociopolitical contexts, are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved

Mayan young women and photovoice: Exposing state violence(s) and gendered migration in rural Guatemala

This research reports on a collaborative photovoice project developed to document and respond to some of the effects of the complex interface of state violence and gendered migration in the Southern Quiché region of Guatemala. The participating women were students in a local high school who had at least one parent living in the United States, and had themselves expressed some interest in migrating North at some point in their lives. Findings from the photovoice process revealed how these young women’s transnational understandings of family and home shaped their hopes, resistance, and complex views of migration. The youth’s visual representations facilitated community dialogues regarding the urgency to challenge gendered forms of discrimination at the intersection of state violence and migration. The article also discusses ethical implications for co-researchers and Mayan communities seeking to engage feminist-infused photovoice processes that best support Mayan young women’s resistance to some of the structural violence(s) that push them North.</p