Towards a historical materialist analysis of femicide in post-conflict Guatemala
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The crisis of social reproduction is a key neoliberal feature that helps explain the continuation of femicide in Guatemala. “At its most basic, [social reproduction] hinges upon the biological reproduction of the labor force, both generationally and on a daily basis, through the acquisition and distribution of the means of existence, including food, shelter, clothing, and health care” (Katz 2001, 711). Following LeBaron and Roberts (2012: 26), the “crisis in social reproduction” reflect the socio-economic inequalities that are brought about through neoliberal restructuring fundamentally alter the conditions of social reproduction, which, as a result of the gendered nature of social reproductive work, exacerbates existing gender inequality. In Guatemala’s post-conflict context, for instance, the evolving neoliberal restructuring of capitalist society has led to the conditions that enable femicide. Seen from this perspective, femicide must be understood as an articulation of the tensions and inequalities that are contextual to the post-conflict era, and are historically entrenched in the Guatemalan experience. The Law on Femicide and specialized justice system created through the law overlook this aspect of femicide, thereby neutralizing and depoliticizing the issue as a subjective, rather than systemic problem. By depoliticization, I refer to the ways in which the imposition of the Law on Femicide acts as a technical fix that treats femicide as an issue of law and order, above and outside of the (authoritarian) neoliberal state. In this sense, the Law on Femicide erases the neoliberal capitalist dimensions of femicide, in particular the gendered vulnerability of inequality, by creating a technical fix to what I argue is also a problem of Guatemala’s post-conflict neoliberal capitalist experience. Moreover, the law seeks instead to penalize those who commit the crimes, rather than to prevent the crimes themselves from occurring.7 (p. 93-94).
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Looking at the case of Guatemala over time, it is evident that the role of the colonial state, particularly the colonial state of the postcolonial period has grown to be increasingly in control over productive forces in Guatemalan society, particularly through its imposition of state terror over the conflict. In order to accommodate neoliberal interests, the Guatemalan experience is illustrative of a shift, from authoritative, violent and genocidal military dictatorships, who protected neoliberal land reform interests, towards a post-conflict era buttressed by human rights discourse that masks a liberal peace and post-Washington consensus neoliberal project. It is in this latter period within which the Law on Femicide is situated as a response to this problem.
There are parallels between the Chilean and the Guatemalan experiences of transitioning to neoliberalism. As I highlight in my previous chapter, Taylor (2006) highlights how strategies towards national developmentalism over the course of the 1920s and 1930s ultimately paved the way for economic crisis. In some ways, both Chile and Guatemala share common ground in the way military intervention has played a role in replacing governments in the name of economic and political transformation.
Way (2012) introduces a mapping of economic development in urban Guatemala over the course of the twentieth century, and like Chile, it reflects the contradictions that have come through modernization and capitalist projects. Importantly, much of Guatemalan colonial and postcolonial history is rooted in struggles over dispossession, resources and foreign investment that illustrate the violent nature and transformation of neoliberalization in Guatemala. Indeed, since colonial times, governance in Guatemala has been structured around extracting the greatest value from the poor majority of the populations, namely indigenous peoples and others who live in the rural regions of Guatemala for the benefit of the ruling elite (Rudel 1981, 83). In Guatemala’s context, the imposition of authoritarian market structures through the state is particularly evident throughout the twentieth country; this has evolved in contemporary context, which is masked by the rhetoric of liberal peace, security and development.
