Lev Student Research Fellow Vaclav Masek presents on collective memory and Indigenous resistance in Guatemala

Vaclav Masek,  one of two 2022 Beth and Arthur Lev Student Research Fellows at the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research, delivered a lecture entitled “Mobilizing the Past: Collective Memory and Indigenous Resistance in Guatemala” on February 9, 2023. His research utilized the testimonies of Guatemalan genocide survivors in the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive (VHA). Throughout his lecture, using clips, he analyzed what these testimonies reveal about Indigenous resistance and popular social movements. Masek also discussed the ways that Indigenous environmental activists use memories of past victories to bolster resilience in the face of contemporary struggles.

Masek began his lecture with a vignette: Indigenous environmental activists organized when Lake Izabal turned red from run off from the Fenix Nickel Mine. For decades Indigenous Maya Q’eqchi’ communities living around lake Izabal – the largest freshwater lake in Guatemala – mobilized against the mine owned by the Switzerland-based Solway Investment Group. The Guatemalan government approved the Fenix mining project despite the illegal extraction of nickel since 2005. When the lake turned red, fishermen whose livelihoods depending on fishing sought answers and the national police murdered a Q’eqchi’ fisherman named Carlos Maaz. This murder was the catalyst for communities across Guatemala to engage in anti-extraction environmental movements. These activists were concerned about their children’s futures, the state of democracy in the country, and Indigenous marginalization in society. This movement drew upon past movements for inspiration. This collective action, Masek argues, is emblematic of Indigenous organizing against exploitation.

This vignette ties together multiple themes that emerge throughout Masek’s project, such as collective memory, collective action, Indigenous movements, and the legacies of colonialism, genocide, and extraction in Guatemala. As a sociologist, Masek shared his empirical methodology and a review of the sociological literature. He defines collective memory as an analytical category that intersects with storytelling, shared experiences, and social practice.

Masek used this framework when he completed his ethnographic fieldwork from July 2021 until November 2022 and when analyzing VHA testimonies given by survivors of the Guatemalan genocide. Gathered between 2014 and 2016 through the efforts of the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation (FAFG), the testimonies he studied reveal how collective memory has been a significant tool used in social justice movements in Guatemala. Masek found that in the testimonies survivors and activists reflect on the violent effects of government practices and state laws in their daily lives. In his research in VHA, he set out to analyze the articulations of intergenerational resistance that have woven these robust networks of solidarity throughout Guatemala’s turbulent history.

Lake Izabal has been the site of conflict for decades in Guatemala. It was now the site of “extractavism” – the practice of dispossessing Indigenous people through damaging resource extraction. Prior to this violence, Indigenous people in Guatemala were victims and survivors of colonial genocide, plantation economies and military dictatorships. In contemporary environmental collective action, Indigenous activists draw upon the complicated past by drawing on memories of victory and resilience in the face of struggle. This form of collective memory is what Masek referred to as “temporal imaginations,” or, the ways in which a problematic past can become a source of strength and power during collective action and the foundation of an alternative, imagined future. Ultimately, he argued Indigenous resistance remains the most enduring feature across Guatemalan history.

Masek’s lecture was followed by a lively Q&A period. He addressed questions about genocide deniers and how and why he centers Indigenous voice in his work. Masek also addressed why he chose to publish in English as well as Spanish. He discussed Canada’s role in extractavism in Guatemala and spoke about how researchers with knowledge of Indigenous languages are going to be able to make significant and groundbreaking contributions to this field.

Learn more about Vaclav Masek here.

At the 2022 international conference “Mass Violence and Its Lasting Impact on Indigenous Peoples,” Masek presented on genocide denial and distortion in Guatemala. Watch that presentation below.