Cuerpo-Territorio: Embodied Transformative Memory and Cartographies of Healing among GuateMaya Feminist Groups
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Date
2024-03-25
Authors
Macal Montenegro, Carla
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Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
My dissertation presented case studies of two GuateMaya feminist groups that are challenging state-dominant narratives of the Guatemalan 36-year- war (1960-1996) and foregrounding counter-memory with art, Maya cosmovision spirituality, and gendered embodied memory production. The groups also denounced contemporary feminicide cases through the cosmo-political praxis of cuerpo-territorio. Cuerpo-territorio declares the body our first territory and advocates for a communal subject agency. I develop this deeply embodied framework to examine how 8 Tijax and GuateMaya Mujeres en Resistencia-Los Angeles (GMR-LA) challenge the state’s hegemonic memory by actively engaging in embodied transformative memory experiences, or what I describe as healing cartographies. I asserted that such healing cartographies at the scale of the intimate contribute to hemispheric decolonial solidarity. These healing cartographies contradict and actively challenge the Guatemalan state’s claims of what can be remembered or erased when the evidence is embodied and reiterated, told through stories, and brought into being by active remembrance. I use a community-based participatory approach and feminist ethnographic methods to examine and support the transnational affective solidarity connecting GuateMaya women throughout the hemisphere. My research is a political project of unearthing the counter-memory, silences, fear, and intergenerational trauma from the oral and embodied testimonios of GuateMaya women survivors of genocide who are currently involved in collective projects to recover Guatemala’s historical memory. While GuateMaya feminist groups are connected across the United States, Mexico, and Canada, my dissertation focused on the relational testimonios of GuateMaya feminist groups in Guatemala and Los Angeles.
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Keywords
Body Mapping, Cartographies, Cuerpo-Territorio, Cultural Memory, Feminist Geography, Guatemala