The Dichotomy of Guatemala

A select series of these photos were previously published in 2018 as a photo essay titled ‘The Faces and MicroGeographies of Resistance: an illustration of struggle and solidarity’ to satisfy course requirements of GEOG426/626: The Geography of Culture, Rights & Power: The Global Order, Injustice, and Resistance in Guatemala at the University of Northern British Columbia. The course and field school were co-taught by the amazing Dr. Catherine Nolin (UNBC) and non-practicing lawyer and human rights activist, Grahame Russel (Rights Action). The field school introduced participants to life after genocide in Guatemala. My original essay visually articulates witnessing victim-survivor-protagonists, dedicated human rights activists, and the spaces they occupy in post-civil war Guatemala.

Post genocide Guatemalans continually struggle for basic human rights, land reterritorialization, clean water, and a government free of corruption and impunity. In Guatemala, the most marginalized of groups also bear a disproportionate weight from the Global North's neoliberal economic model.

Mixed in with snapshots of our travels through rural and urban areas of Guatemala, these images are intended to provide a lens into how human rights activism is implemented at a grassroots level. Solidarity groups, such as Rights Action and The Human Rights Defenders Project, provide in situ operational support and funding at a scale immediately impacting lives.