Conquest traditions, conflict transformation, and the cultural boundaries of criminology: Rigoberta Menchú and criminological science

Abstract

As criminology broadens its traditional concerns to encompass genocide, mass violence, conflict transformation, and peacemaking, it can benefit from exposure to the experiences and epistemologies of actors beyond its conventional borders. Here, I explicate the testimonio of indigenous rights activist Rigoberta Menchú, arguing that an encounter between Menchú and criminology helps us appreciate the significance of culture for our understanding of conflict and makes us aware of how criminological science is itself a cultural tradition. Interpreting the development of Menchú’s consciousness, identity, and activism as a dialectical relationship between her cultural traditions and contemporary experience, I examine the ‘Conquest traditions’ that Menchú inherits, identify stages in her development of a systematic understanding of oppression and commitment to resistance, and explore how her traditional beliefs are transformed by her new understanding and commitment to activism and conflict transformation. I then ask how Menchú’s development and the dynamic understanding of culture it entails can speak to a criminology oriented towards conflict transformation and peacemaking, and consider the epistemological implications of approaching her testimonio as ‘unorthodox criminology.’ I conclude by exploring ways in which Menchú’s work can make us aware of the cultural boundaries of criminological science.

Keywords:

• conflict transformation
• criminology
• culture
• genocide
• Guatemala
• peacemaking

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Jeffrey Gould, Michelle Brown, Mary Dart, and Hal Pepinsky for their helpful responses to early drafts of this study.

Notes

1. By definition, Ladinos are Guatemala’s mestizo population, the mixed‐blood heirs of the Spanish colonization that are neither Mayan nor strictly Hispanic. In Menchú’s usage, it is commonly used to describe all Guatemalans who have abandoned Mayan tradition. By the mid‐1990s, the success of Mayan activists in constructing a positive cultural identity against that of the Ladino had led to a widespread rejection of the category as a basis for identity, leading instead to an embracing of multiple identities (Hale, 1996).

2. The primary source for this section is Rigoberta Menchú’s testimonio, entitled I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala, originally titled in Spanish My Name is Rigoberta Menchú, and This is How my Consciousness was Formed. Unless otherwise noted, all citations are to this work.

3. Catholic Action was originally a conservative movement, created in the late 1940s as a response to radical Protestant evangelical movements spreading among the Indians. It was outspoken in its opposition to indigenous religion and leadership. However, the movement was radicalized in the 1960s by the country’s experience and by Vatican II, and ironically became a vehicle of liberation theology to the Indians. When the movement reached its peak in the late 1970s, it was reaching over 100,000 Indians, receiving aid from the United States, and was frequently the target of military attacks (Berryman, 1987).

4. Fincas are large plantations that primarily grow coffee, and frequently sugar or cotton.

5. CUC is an abbreviation for the Comité de Unidad Campesina.

6. Most of Guatemala’s Indian population lives in the altiplano, the country’s mountainous northwest region.

7. The term compañeros is commonly used in a social sense to mean ‘friend’ or ‘companion.’ Over time, the term has taken on political meaning, to refer to one’s ‘comrades’ among the organized unions or among the guerrillas.

8. Especially significant is John Hagan’s institutional analysis of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia as an advocacy movement (Hagan 2003).

9. Writings on these themes from within criminology include Brannigan (1998), Day and Vandiver (2000), Drumbl (2002), Friedrichs (2000), Jamieson (1999), McEvoy and Gormally (1997), Leebaw (2001), McEvoy (2003), Mika and McEvoy (2001), Morrison (2004), Mullins, Kauzlarich, and Rothe (2004), Woolford (2006), and Yacoubian (2000).

10. The importance of culture for constructing shared histories and shaping memory is also a theme of recent work addressing formal legal institutions that seek to respond to mass violence and provide transitional justice. See, for example, Lawrence Douglas’ comparison of the Nuremberg Tribunal with the trial of Eichmann (Douglas, 2001); Martha Minow’s analysis of truth commissions and restorative justice (Minow, 1998, 2002); Fiona C. Ross’ study of the representation of women’s experience in South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Ross, 2003), and Michael Ignatieff’s argument for viewing human rights as a form of cultural negotiation from the ground up (Ignatieff, 2001).