Do Qualitative Data Help in Addressing Central American Violence? Research Note on Data Collection

Taking as its point of departure debates on the value of criminal statistics and victimization surveys, this article explores the methodological challenge of an alternative approach to Central American violence(s). How can we collect qualitative data that help address the social construction of (in)security? The research project “Public Spaces and Violence in Central America” used multiple data sources, including guided interviews and pupils’ essays. Drawing on research experience in Nicaragua, this paper asks, How can we collect data that reveal lifeworld experiences as well as hegemonic and counter-discourses on violence? Why is it crucial to keep a research diary? What is a “failed” or a “good” interview? This article argues for a research design based on theoretical considerations, impulsiveness and, most notably, constant self-reflection.Central America, violence, insecurity, qualitative research, methodological problems, discourse analysis

Discourses on Violence in Costa Rica, El Salvador and Nicaragua: National Patterns of Attention and Cross-border Discursive Nodes

It has become common to state that youth gangs and organized crime have seized Central America. For theories on contemporary Central American violence, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Nicaragua present important test cases, demonstrating the need to differentiate the diagnosis. First, national discourses on violence differ from country to country, with varying threat levels, patterns of attention, and discursive leitmotivs. Second, there are border-crossing discursive nodes such as the mara paradigm, the perception of grand corruption, and gender-based violence tied to cross-national, national or sub-national publics. The paper explores the ambiguity and plurivocality of contemporary discourses on violence, emanting from a variety of hegemonic and less powerful publics.Central America, violence, youth gangs, corruption, gender, discourse analysis

Colombia's ongoing violence has shifted truth and reconciliation from the past into the present

With the Colombian peace process under pressure from increasing levels of violence, Anika Oettler (Philipps-Universität Marburg) looks at how the country's innovative transitional justice system has adapted to focusing on the present as well as the past

Do Qualitative Data Help in Addressing Central American Violence? Research Note on Data Collection

Taking as its point of departure debates on the value of criminal statistics and victimization surveys, this article explores the methodological challenge of an alternative approach to Central American violence(s). How can we collect qualitative data that help address the social construction of (in)security? The research project 'Public Spaces and Violence in Central America' used multiple data sources, including guided interviews and pupils' essays. Drawing on research experience in Nicaragua, this paper asks, How can we collect data that reveal lifeworld experiences as well as hegemonic and counter-discourses on violence? Why is it crucial to keep a research diary? What is a 'failed' or a 'good' interview? This article argues for a research design based on theoretical considerations, impulsiveness and, most notably, constant self-reflection.Wenn die Aussagekraft von Kriminalitätsstatistiken und Viktimisierungsumfragen begrenzt ist, wie wäre ein Forschungsdesign zu konzipieren, das die soziale Konstruktion von (Un-)Sicherheit in Zentralamerika angemessen zu erfassen vermag? Dieser Artikel befasst sich mit den Herausforderungen der Datenerfassung und greift dabei auf praktische Erfahrungen in Nicaragua zurück, die im Rahmen des Forschungsprojektes zu 'Öffentlichkeiten und Gewalt in Zentralamerika' gemacht wurden. Dabei stehen methodische Fragen im Mittelpunkt, die durch die Durchführung von Leitfadeninterviews und eine Schüleraufsatzerhebung aufgeworfen wurden: Wie lassen sich Daten erheben, die sowohl lebensweltliche Erfahrungen als auch hegemoniale und Gegendiskurse abbilden? Warum ist es von zentraler Bedeutung, ein Forschungstagebuch zu führen? Wann ist ein Interview 'gut' oder 'misslungen'? Dieser Artikel plädiert für ein Forschungsdesign, das auf theoretischen Erwägungen, Impulsivität und vor allem konstanter Selbstreflexion beruht

Guatemala in the 1980s : A Genocide Turned into Ethnocide?

While the Guatemalan Truth Commission came to the conclusion that agents of the state had committed acts of genocide in the early 1980s, fundamental questions remain. Should we indeed speak of the massacres committed between 1981 and 1983 in Guatemala as “genocide”, or would “ethnocide” be the more appropriate term? In addressing these questions, this paper focuses on the intentions of the perpetrators. Why did the Guatemalan military chose mass murder as the means to “solve the problem of subversion”? In Guatemala, the discourses of communist threat, racism and Pentecostal millenarism merged into the intent to destroy the Mayan population. This paper demonstrates that the initial policy of physical annihilation (genocidal option) was transformed into a policy of restructuring the sociocultural patterns of the Guatemalan highlands (ethnocidal option).Auch wenn die guatemaltekische „Wahrheitskommission“ festgestellt hat, dass die Massaker in den frühen 1980er Jahren genozidale Ausmaße hatten, bleiben fundamentale Fragen umstritten: Ist der adäquate Begriff für die zwischen 1981 und 1983 begangenen Massaker tatsächlich „Genozid“ oder lassen sie sich eher als „Ethnozid“ begreifen? Um diese Fragen zu beantworten, konzentriert sich dieser Beitrag auf die Intentionen der Täter. Warum griff das guatemaltekische Militär auf Massenmord zurück, um das „Problem der Subversion“ zu lösen? In Guatemala verschmolzen antikommunistische, rassistische und millenaristische Diskurse zu einer Politik, die auf die Vernichtung der Maya-Bevölkerung zu abzielte. Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird beschrieben, wie eine genozidale Option, die auf die physische Vernichtung der Maya-Bevölkerung abzielte, zu einer ethnozidalen Option wurde: Ziel der Terrorstrategie war nunmehr die indirekte Vernichtung durch die soziokulturelle Neuordnung des guatemaltekischen Hochlandes

Comparing What to What? Intersecting Methodological Issues in Comparative Area Studies and Transitional Justice Research

The paper discusses how current methodological debates on the potentials of Comparative Area Studies intersect with current trends in transitional justice research. As the field of transitional justice studies is approximating a status of maturation, academic enterprises tend to focus on empirical as well as theoretical generalization. The challenge of comparative transitional justice research consists less in weighing national impacts of policies than in taking into account a more historicized conception of causality, inclined to complex long-term processes as well as global interdependencies. From the perspective of Comparative Area Studies, the case of transitional justice studies testifies to the need of combing local, national, transnational, trans-local as well as global foci of analysis

Discourses on Violence in Costa Rica, El Salvador and Nicaragua: National Patterns of Attention and Cross-border Discursive Nodes

It has become common to state that youth gangs and organized crime have seized Central America. For theories on contemporary Central American violence, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Nicaragua present important test cases, demonstrating the need to differentiate the diagnosis. First, national discourses on violence differ from country to country, with varying threat levels, patterns of attention, and discursive leitmotivs. Second, there are border-crossing discursive nodes such as the mara paradigm, the perception of grand corruption, and gender-based violence tied to cross-national, national or sub-national publics. The paper explores the ambiguity and plurivocality of contemporary discourses on violence, emanting from a variety of hegemonic and less powerful publics.Es wird immer wieder darauf hingewiesen, dass sich Mittelamerika in den Fängen von Jugendbanden und organisierter Kriminalität befindet. Costa Rica, El Salvador und Nicaragua stellen für Theorien zur Gewaltentwicklung in Mittelamerika bedeutsame Testfälle dar, die vor allem die Notwendigkeit einer differenzierten Diagnose begründen. Erstens variieren Gewaltdiskurse von Land zu Land und zeugen von unterschiedlichen Bedrohungsebenen und diskursiven Hauptachsen. Zweitens kursieren grenzüberschreitende Leitmotive, etwa in Bezug auf Jugendgewalt, Korruption und genderbezogene Gewalt. Der Artikel untersucht die Vielstimmigkeit und Mehrdeutigkeit gegenwärtiger Gewaltdiskurse, die in hegemonialen und weniger mächtigen Öffentlichkeiten zirkulieren

Encounters with History: Dealing with the 'Present Past' in Guatemala

During the past decade the truth commission has risen to prominence as a key instrument of transitional justice. In this article, the Guatemalan "Commission for Historical Clarification" (CEH) and the Catholic "Project for the Recovery of Historical Memory" (REMHI) are taken as examples in demonstrating the limitations as well as the benefits of this political instrument that customarily must serve a variety of aims. The importance of the official CEH must be seen within the context of its support for the fragile peace and reform process. Moreover, the CEH presented a historical narrative corresponding to the concomitant need for a multicultural national project. Threatened by still existing local structures of repression, REMHI used methods aimed at facilitating a social process of memory work with a fairly longterm perspective. The influence that CEH and REMHI had or could have had on communicative and cultural memory is described, and the politics of reparation and persistent structures of impunity are dealt with as well

The Scope and Selectivity of Comparative Area Studies: Transitional Justice Research

The paper discusses how current methodological debates on the potential of comparative area studies intersect with current trends in transitional justice research. As the field of transitional justice studies is approaching saturation, academic efforts in this field are increasingly focused on empirical as well as theoretical generalization. The challenge of comparative transitional justice research is less to weigh the national impacts of policies than to incorporate a more historicized conception of causality that includes complex longterm processes and global interdependencies. From the perspective of comparative area studies, the case of transitional justice studies testifies to the need to combine the local, national, transnational, translocal, and global levels of analysis

The Central American Fear of Youth

It is often asserted that youth gangs and organized crime have seized Central America. For theories on contemporary Central American violence, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Nicaragua present important test cases, which demonstrate the need to differentiate the diagnosis. This paper is concerned with the social construction of violence-related national and transnational myths as a precondition for policy formulation. The notion of exploding youth violence is part of hegemonic discourses and not necessarily linked to lifeworld experiences. While discourses on youth violence differ from country to country, with varying threat levels, patterns of attention, and discursive leitmotifs, they share the monstrous image of brutal gangs (Mara Salvatrucha, Dieciocho) as the most vivid object of fear