Beyond Transitional Justice: Learning from Indigenous Maya Mam Resistance in Guatemala

The international transitional justice movement – while making great strides in achieving justice and uncovering the truth of what happened during the decades-long internal armed conflict – ultimately constructs a narrow understanding of the conflict and postconflict in Guatemala. Domestic and international human rights trials and truth commission reports focus, sometimes necessarily, on stories of suffering and the costs of war, and often leave out stories of resilience and triumph. Drawing on Indigenous scholarship about concepts of desire-centered work, refusal, survivance and thrivance, I argue for the need to shift fundamental assumptions and move beyond traditional approaches to transitional justice, identifying important lessons learned. A collaborative research project with a small Maya Mam Indigenous town in western Guatemala brings to the fore voices often missing from mainstream narratives about conflict by centering the community’s grassroots development, and self-governance projects through which genocide survivors are building new, vibrant futures for themselves and their children.