TY - JOUR
T1 - Entangled territorial controversies
T2 - Contesting mining, territorial ordering, and authority in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala
AU - Porada, Hannah
AU - Boelens, Rutgerd
AU - Hogenboom, Barbara
PY - 2024/10
Y1 - 2024/10
N2 - This article examines territorial disputes in the Palajunoj Valley of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala's second largest city located in the western highlands. Drawing on our field research, we explore how dominant territory-making practices and indigenous-led resistance play out over an emerging municipal territorial ordering plan that gets interwoven with disputes over large-scale mining, waste disposal, and municipal authority amid wider urban–rural marginalization and tensions. We innovatively combine the notions of territory, territorial ordering governmentality, and the echelons (or levels) of rights framework to unpack the different layers on which dominant actor alliances’ territorialization strategies and the responses of territorial defense movements emerge. Departing from an understanding that the disputes in the valley are not only about resources, but also entwine struggles over rules, authority, and discourses, we make a twofold argument. First, we argue that the ruling-group's existing territory-making practices and new territorial ordering techniques coincide across the echelons, building on and reinforcing stark power imbalances. Second, we argue that indigenous-led, territory-based resistance movements engage in diverse strategies of contestation to articulate shared concerns around externally-imposed territorial interventions across echelons, but are challenged by micropolitical fragmentation, threats and instances of violence, and fragile multi-scalar support networks. Our analysis suggests that future territorial defense depends on the strengthening of multi-scalar and multi-actor alliances that – while acknowledging difference and tensions within and among resisting actors − devise their strategies along the four interconnected echelons and articulate their concerns in converging yet plural resistance strategies.
AB - This article examines territorial disputes in the Palajunoj Valley of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala's second largest city located in the western highlands. Drawing on our field research, we explore how dominant territory-making practices and indigenous-led resistance play out over an emerging municipal territorial ordering plan that gets interwoven with disputes over large-scale mining, waste disposal, and municipal authority amid wider urban–rural marginalization and tensions. We innovatively combine the notions of territory, territorial ordering governmentality, and the echelons (or levels) of rights framework to unpack the different layers on which dominant actor alliances’ territorialization strategies and the responses of territorial defense movements emerge. Departing from an understanding that the disputes in the valley are not only about resources, but also entwine struggles over rules, authority, and discourses, we make a twofold argument. First, we argue that the ruling-group's existing territory-making practices and new territorial ordering techniques coincide across the echelons, building on and reinforcing stark power imbalances. Second, we argue that indigenous-led, territory-based resistance movements engage in diverse strategies of contestation to articulate shared concerns around externally-imposed territorial interventions across echelons, but are challenged by micropolitical fragmentation, threats and instances of violence, and fragile multi-scalar support networks. Our analysis suggests that future territorial defense depends on the strengthening of multi-scalar and multi-actor alliances that – while acknowledging difference and tensions within and among resisting actors − devise their strategies along the four interconnected echelons and articulate their concerns in converging yet plural resistance strategies.
KW - Echelons of Rights
KW - Governmentality
KW - Guatemala
KW - Mining
KW - Resistance
KW - Territorial Ordering
U2 - 10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104110
DO - 10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104110
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85203299906
SN - 0016-7185
VL - 155
JO - Geoforum
JF - Geoforum
M1 - 104110
ER -