By Alison Crosby and M. Brinton Lykes
Rutgers University Press (2019)
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In Beyond repair? Aliso Crosby and M. Brinton Lykes explore a group of Mayan women’s collective struggle for justice in the aftermath of harm suffered during the height of Guatemala’s genocidal violence in the early 1980s, a harm these protagonists contend is irreparable yet must be redressed. Drawing on eight years of feminist participatory action research (PAR), the book examines how Mayan women’s protagonism has been shaped through dialogic interactions with intermediaries, including Mayan, ladina, mestiza and transnational activists, feminists, lawyers, psychologists, interpreters, and the authors as researchers. Crosby and Lykes trace how intermediaries accompanied Mayan protagonists in the performance of a “community of women” outside of their local geographic communities, as a space from which to enact actions for redress and engage in knowledge co-construction. In analyzing protagonists’ engagement with a Tribunal of Conscience, a paradigmatic legal case of sexual violence as a crime against humanity and a state-sponsored National Reparations Program — actions framed as “transitional justice” — as well as the authors’ PAR process, the book addresses a central tension between indigenous struggles to redress social suffering rooted in structural colonial violence and dispossession, and the tendency of Western rights-based regimes to individuate acts of harm and generate racialized gendered spectacles of pain and suffering, accentuated in cases of sexual harm. Crosby and Lykes consider the challenges and possibilities of decolonial feminist research praxis within such terrain.
Por Alison Crosby y M. Brinton Lykes
Cholsamaj, Guatemala City (2019)
Traducido al español por Megan Thomas
En el libro Más allá de la reparación, Alison Crosby y M. Brinton Lykes exploran los procesos colectivos de búsqueda de justicia de un grupo de mujeres mayas en el contexto del daño que sufrieron durante la violencia genocida en Guatemala, ocurrida a principios de la década de 1980. Las protagonistas de estos procesos sostienen que, si bien el daño es irreparable, debe ser atendido. Con base en ocho años de investigación - acción participativa (IAP) y feminista, en el libro se examina cómo el protagonismo de las mujeres mayas se ha visto moldeado por interacciones dialógicas con intermediarios, incluyendo activistas Mayas, ladinas, mestizas y transnacionales, feministas, abogadas, psicólogas, intérpretes y las autoras mismas en tanto que investigadoras. Crosby y Lykes rastrean a cómo las y los intermediarios acompañaron a las protagonistas en la representación de una “comunidad de mujeres” fuera de sus comunidades geográficas, como espacio en el cual figurar acciones para la reparación y realizar co-construcciones de conocimiento. En el libro se analiza la participación de las protagonistas en un Tribunal de Conciencia, en un caso judicial paradigmático de violencia sexual como delito contra la humanidad, y en el estatal Programa Nacional de Resarcimiento, todo ellos enmarcado como “justicia transicional,” así como en el proceso IAP implementado por las autoras. Lo anterior permite enfocar una tensión central entre las luchas indígenas por enmendar el sufrimiento social enraizado en el despojo y la violencia estructural colonial, y la tendencia de los regímenes occidentales basados en derechos a individualizar el daño y a generar espectáculos de dolor y sufrimiento con énfasis en la raza y el género, de manera acentuada en casos de daño sexual. Enmarcadas en este contexto, Crosby y Lykes consideran los retos y las posibilidades de una praxis de investigación feminista y descolonizada.
"This book represents the fruition of more than seven years of collaborative work using storytelling and, more recently, photography in a remote corner of the Guatemalan Highlands. As suggested by Berger & Mohr, coupling photographs and stories prevents the past from being effaced and, over time, through them, we construct a future out of the constructed meanings of the past."
-- M. Brinton Lykes
Photo taken in Chajul, Guatemala (January 2000).
Click here or the heading to learn more about this participatory action research project.
African American and Latina health workers and Euro-American university researchers co-created this project using photography, interviews, and other participatory research strategies to identify, critically analyze, and document responses to the health and psychosocial disparities facing post-Katrina communities. Co-researchers critically discussed their work as community-based health promoters, increasing cross-community dialogue and actions through participatory action research and photovoice.
Click here or the heading to learn more about this participatory action research project.
Featured publications
Featured publications
Contributions and limitations of diverse qualitative methods to feminist participatory and action research with women in the wake of gross violations of human rights. (Lykes, Bianco, & Távara, 2020)
Maya K'iche' families and intergenerational migration within and across borders: An exploratory mixed-methods study. (Lykes, Távara, Sibley, & Ferreira van Leer, 2020)
Standing in between: The healing praxis of Mayan women intermediaries in post genocide Guatemala. (Távara, Lykes, & Crosby, 2017)
Community-based and Participatory Action Research: Community psychology collaborations within and across borders. (Lykes, 2017)
Visual methodologies and participatory action research: Performing women’s community-based health promotion in post-Katrina New Orleans. (Lykes & Scheib, 2016)
To see a list of all publications, click here.
Featured Work
Featured Work
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