Sociology & Anthropology

According to the latest U.S. Census projection, the arrival of immigrants and their higher birthrates, projected forward at current rates, will turn the U.S. into a “minority–majority” society in 2042, 8 years earlier than the Census used to predict. Liberals tend to view immigration to the U.S. as a human right, but many employers prefer to hire immigrants because they can be paid less than the cost of reproducing their labor-that is, the cost of keeping an American family above the poverty line. One way of looking at the resulting debates over U.S. immigration policy is in terms of moral economy, that is, how different factions compete for moral authority in order to gain control over a desired good. In this case, the desired good is American citizenship, including access to the highest consumption rates on the planet, and national definitions of citizenship are competing with transnational or globalist definitions of citizenship. Constructing moral rhetoric for either national or transnational definitions of citizenship requires excluding information that does not serve the cause. One way of spotlighting the omissions is to look at each moral economy as a highly selective version of the American Dream.

No incident in Guatemalan history is more debated than the occupation of the Spanish embassy on January 31, 1980 by protesters including Rigoberta Menchú's father Vicente.  The revolutionary movement and its defenders have long insisted that the fire that killed all but two of the protesters and their hostages was started by the riot police invading the embassy.  But when Ambassador Máximo Cajal stumbled out of the embassy with his clothes smoking, he attributed the fire to the Molotov cocktails of the protesters.

In the 1990s there were two new ideas to make the Ixil Mayas of Nebaj, Guatemala, self-sufficient. The first idea, conceived by microcredit consultants, was to make it easier for the Ixils to borrow money so that they could become entrepreneurs. The second idea, conceived by Ixils, was to use the credits to smuggle themselves into U.S. labor markets. In the process, Ixils turned many of the credits into loans to other Ixils at 10 percent interest per month. By 2006-2007 many stateside Ixils were failing to find enough work to pay their loans, and their serial debts were collapsing back in Nebaj. Currently an association of Nebaj women is asking international organizations and the Guatemalan government to save their houses and land from foreclosure. The stories that Ixils tell suggest that migration is a highly competitive process not just in U.S. labor markets but in the sending population, where people are being forced to go north by remittance-and creditdriven inflation. Their stories also suggest that migration is a process that runs on debt, with migrants indebting themselves and their relatives to the migration stream in ways that many are unable to repay. The debts not only enable migration but require more people to migrate north, in a chain of exploitation that may suck more value from the sending population than it returns.

Quiche Rebelde: Religious Conversion, Poli-here. In llotenango, Traditionalists comprise tics, and Ethnic Identity in Guatemala. Ricardo cofradfa members (cofradias are syncretistic Falla. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001. religious sodalities) and aj'q'ijab, who Falla vii + 279 pp., appendix, notes, bibliography, identifies as zahorines (wizards). The author's index. bias surfaces when he refers to some zahorin ROBERTS CARLSEN activity as "witchcraft" (pp. 101,112). University of Colorado at Denver ^ SC *°l ar * have documented the dominant role of Traditionalists in the local dynam-Quiche Rebelde is a remarkable book writ-ics of many postcolumbian Mayan towns; yet, ten by an unusual scholar. By and large, only local power relations were in considerable flux those in Guatemala have had access to the atthe time of Falla's residency in llotenango, as book since its original publication in 1978. In well as in numerous other highland Mayan 1979, the Association of Guatemalan Journal-towns. Quiche Rebelde is the first book in ists awarded it the Golden Quetzal, the most which an author analyzes systematically the prestigious literary award in Guatemala. With dynamics fueling changes in the religious ecolits recent republication, the book is finally ogy. In that regard, this book is at once a study available to an English-speaking readership ofrevitalization and a pioneering study in what outside of Guatemala. The English version scholars now refer to as globalization. Specificontains a new foreword by Richard N. Adams cally, Falla argues that the economic integraandanewepiloguebytheauthor. tion of llotenango with the outside world was Quiche Rebelde was originally Ricardo key to the religious changes underway. He Falla's doctoral thesis in anthropology. To exclaims that the village's increasing economic plain Falla's writing (including his important links with the outside led to profound changes other book on Guatemalan army massacres), I in local religious identities. These economic must note that his anthropological interests links, however, have not led to significant have always been adjunct to his work as a Jes-changes in ethnicity. To the contrary, Falla aruit priest. In the case of Quiche Rebelde, Falla gues that religious conversion can correlate was the parish priest in the town that he writes with strengthened Mayan ethnic identity, aboutasan anthropologist. Falla argues that Traditionalist religious rit-Falla's work as a priest has clearly allowed ual had leveled wealth within a closed and cor-Falla, the anthropologist, access to data that porate llotenango. In the decades leading upto would otherwise be far more elusive, particu-his research, access to capital increased larly as it pertains to the orthodox Catholic amongthe local Mayan population through recommunity he served. At the same time, his laxing of forced indigenous laborand local use sacerdotal activities restricted interactions of chemical fertilizers that expanded crop with Mayan traditionalists in his parish region, yields. The crux of Falla's argument is that, who considered him to be an "enemy" (p. 5). with money in hand, various members of the The conflict between orthodox Catholics and community actively began to engage in mertraditionalistsformsthebasisof Quiche Rebelde. cantilism outside the community. That move Given Guatemala's well-publicized recent correlated with conversion to Catholic Action history of political violence, one might assume and, hence, a break with the locally oriented that Quiche Rebelde (rebelde is Spanish for Traditionalists. rebel) is primarily about civil war. Although the Falla is clear that as significant wealth accubook has significant political implications, the mulation became possible, older religious title refers to religious rebellion in the Mayan identities were abandoned. He is less clear town of San Antonio llotenango. Specifically, whether the large-scale second wave of con-Falla analyzes the recent ascendancy of ortho-versions that were occurring at the time of his dox Catholicism by examining the lay organi-research also promised economic gain; some zation Catholic Action. To a lesser extent, Falla of the data he presents indicate that this was not considers the growth of Protestantism, which, so. At the same time, Falla paints a largely optiat the time of his research in the early 1970s, mistic picture of the possibilities presented in hadyettoattaintheimpressivefollowingthatit the town's greater integration with the outside would later experience. These new religious world. Whatever the case, his primary position groups grow at the expense of what the author is that the early converts to Catholic Action refers to as Traditionalists, a term that I adopt formed a potent new locus of power in

Some years ago, when the idea of peace accords seemed like an impossible dream, I was the object of undeserved respect for doing fieldwork where soldiers and civil patrollers still occasionally clashed with guerrillas. The Ixil country of northern Quiché Department was presumed sufficiently dangerous that the U.S. Peace Corps forbid its volunteers from visiting. Ironically, Peace Corps volunteers encountered far more danger around their headquarters in Guatemala City, from common crime. When I brought my family to Ixil country in 1988, I presumed that, even though the armyguerrilla stalemate promised to drag into the next century, violence against civilians was dwindling. True, the army was still attacking refugees who refused to come down from the mountains. Anyone who defied the army in the area under its control was subject to swift intimidation or worse. But many Ixils were quick to assure visitors that the situation was now tranquilo compared with the living hell of 1980-82. The same army that had wreaked havoc six years before felt obliged to honour certain guarantees to a population disinterested in further hostilities. This is why, long before the formal declaration of peace at the end of 1996, a counterinsurgency zone could feel safer than a crime-ridden capital. This also helps explain why, in the Ixil area, the most widely-felt result of the peace process was an outbreak of highway robbery. Mass holdups are common in Guatemala, but they were unknown in northern Quiché until a few months before the peace signing, when masked highwaymen, gangs armed with anything from cheap pistols to AK-47s, began stopping buses and robbing passengers. With the army confined to its bases, its civil patrols disbanding, and the guerrillas demobilising, the former monopolisers of armed force had stepped aside. The criminally inclined knew there was no one to stop them. And so the most widespread source of anxiety was not whether the two sides would comply with the peace agreement: it was women's fear of being raped by bandits. This paper will address some of the paradoxes of demilitarisation, democratisation and our customary way of talking about these issues in terms of human rights. Because the peace process is usually analyzed on the national level, I will be very local in my focus, on the three municipios in northern Quiché Department known as Ixil country. As is customary on these occasions, I will dwell on problems rather than accomplishments, even though much has been accomplished. By taking a detailed look at the peace process in one area, I will suggest how a popular way of interpreting Guatemala can make it harder to perceive certain issues. If I keep returning to limitations of the human rights perspective, this is not to denigrate it. Guatemala is one of a number of countries in which human rights pressure has led to significant changes in official behaviour, if not in all the behaviour engaged in by officials during unofficial moments. Yet if we think of human