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Introduction: Comadronas attend most births in rural and urban Guatemala where the maternal mortality rate (MMR) is highest in Latin America. Information has been published regarding rural comadronas' response to obstetrical emergencies. Understanding urban comadronas' response to obstetrical emergencies is essential to addressing Guatemala's MMR. Methods: A total of 17 urban comadronas participated in one, 34-min focus group to share their knowledge, practices, and attitudes regarding obstetrical emergencies. We used the long table to analyze the content to develop a matrix of themes. Results: Five themes emerged. Urban comadronas receive consistent training, have hospital transportation, and feel confident in their knowledge, but they lack equipment and feel hospital providers disrespect them. Still, the joy of attending births outweighs the challenges they face. Discussion: Urban comadronas described a different experience of responding to obstetrical emergencies than rural comadronas. Distinct approaches are needed to provide culturally congruent support for urban and rural comadronas when responding to obstetrical emergencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community policing, and citizen cooperation with law enforcement more broadly, can improve local security outcomes by providing decentralized mechanisms for police accountability to local citizens. We hypothesize that five factors—alignment of citizen/police interests, relative costs of cooperation, costs of crime, prevalence of others' cooperation, and perceived police efficacy—comprise a decision framework that guides citizens' choices regarding whether to share information with law enforcement. We find evidence for this framework using rich survey and survey experimental data from a large nation-wide survey of Guatemalans and municipal administrative data. Our results indicate that increasing police efficacy, witness protection, and neighborhood trust boost the odds of cooperation with police by up to 55%. At a time when conversations about the relationship between community and police are widespread, this research offers insights into conditions under which cooperation between community members and law enforcement is most likely to occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: As the burden of mental health disorders continues to increase worldwide, there is significant need to describe the cultural variations in presentation, diagnosis and treatment of these diseases. An understanding of these variations can lead to the development of more effective programs to manage these conditions. In Guatemala, depression is the second-leading cause of disability and yet mental health treatment resources are scarce, particularly for indigenous individuals. Aims: The primary research aim was to describe primary care nurses' explanatory models of depression in their clinical work in indigenous communities in Guatemala. A secondary research aim was to describe training and resources which would support and empower these nurses, in order to lessen risk for burnout. Methods: A cross-sectional mixed methods survey was designed to elicit nurses' perspectives on the presentation, cause and treatment of depression in the communities they serve, as well as their clinical and emotional comfort in working with depressed individuals. Two subsequent focus groups gathered qualitative commentary which informed training and resource recommendations. Theoretical thematic analysis was used to generate codes and themes from focus group transcripts and survey responses. Results: Guatemalan primary care nurses described symptoms of depression in their cultural context, identified socioeconomic factors which contribute to depression in their communities, and detailed treatment preferences. Limited referral options and concern for privacy made connecting patients to mental health care difficult. Nurses emphasized the need for community education on depression and for supplemental mental health resources which would increase their capacity to identify and treat depression. Conclusions: Primary care nurses in Guatemala identify and treat depression despite limited resources. Further investigations should focus on creating training modalities which include front-line nurses, given their critical role in the health system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Depression is the largest contributor to non-fatal health loss globally and the majority of this burden occurs in low- and middle-income countries. Yet, estimates of prevalence rates and severity in these contexts may be uncertain due to limited screening, lack of mental health providers, and stigma around mental disorders which may prevent individuals from seeking care. In Guatemala, estimates of depression vary, due in part to the range of screening and diagnostic instruments used and diversity of sample populations. Most studies emphasize personal experiences with violence as a predictor of depression in Guatemala, although high rates of inequality, discrimination, and resource scarcity in the country potentially play a role. Aims: In this study, we examine factors associated with depression severity categories measured with the Personal Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ-9) among a random sample of women in a small urban community in the Central Highlands of Guatemala. Methods: Participants were recruited through a randomized sample of households in a small urban community. Participants completed a questionnaire which included questions on demographics, illness history, food insecurity, and the PHQ-9. In total, 101 women were included in the analysis. Results: Food insecurity, 2-week symptom reporting, and experiencing susto are associated with higher depression severity categories. Conclusion: This research highlights need for more research on factors related to the prevalence and severity of mental disorders, and the relationship between mental disorders and cultural constructs of distress, particularly in areas like Guatemala with limited mental health services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wartime civilian victimization produces a counter-reaction against the perpetrator. However, this effect hinges on the creation of collective memories of wartime events. In many countries, former fighting actors and political elites try to redirect memories of wartime events through denial, propaganda, and co-optation. Previous works have ignored these aspects. I argue that the effect of violence is conditional on the capacity of local communities to build collective memories and bypass those efforts. I test this argument using local-level data from Guatemala. The results show that the effects of state violence on postwar voting depend on prewar exposure to political mobilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

U.S. intervention in Guatemala's agricultural autonomy over the past 80 years has been a toxic blend of commission and omission. From the Green Revolution on, the United States has exported both harmful pesticides and ideological frameworks to persuade indigenous and other locally rooted small farmers to abandon traditional, chemical-free agriculture. Although U.S.-funded programs suggested that with proper labor protocols agrochemicals can be applied without harm on export plantations, there are no conditions for "safe use" under real-life conditions for small subsistence farmers, many of whom live in close proximity to protected areas. Transnational biodiversity conservation organizations have remained oddly silent on this issue, and indigenous and peasant movements have not yet mobilized against pesticides because of a paucity of information about their dangers and the "slow" violence of their impacts on health. To decolonize agriculture and conservation will require a more inclusive environmentalism aligned with peasant movements that take seriously the real conditions of risk and vulnerability in the majority-Maya Guatemalan countryside. La intervención estadounidense en la autonomía agrícola de Guatemala en los últimos 80 años ha sido una mezcla tóxica de comisiones y omisiones. A partir de la Revolución Verde en adelante, Estados Unidos ha exportado tanto pesticidas dañinos como marcos ideológicos para persuadir a los pequeños agricultores indígenas y otros agricultores con arraigo local de abandonar la agricultura tradicional y libre de químicos. Aunque los programas financiados por Estados Unidos sugirieron que, siguiendo los protocolos laborales adecuados, no había peligro en utilizar agroquímicos en las plantaciones de exportación, no existen condiciones para su "uso seguro" en contextos de la vida real tal y como atañe a los pequeños agricultores de subsistencia, muchos de quienes viven muy cerca de áreas protegidas. Las organizaciones transnacionales de conservación de la biodiversidad han permanecido extrañamente silenciosas respecto al tema, y los movimientos indígenas y campesinos aún no se han movilizado contra los pesticidas debido a la poca información sobre sus peligros, así como la "lenta" violencia de sus impactos en la salud. Una descolonización de la agricultura y la conservación requerirá de un ambientalismo más inclusivo y alineado con los movimientos campesinos; uno que tome en cuenta las condiciones reales de riesgo y vulnerabilidad en el campo guatemalteco, con su población mayoritariamente maya. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Free-trade policies have opened the Guatemalan economy to international forces and sparked massive internal and international migration, creating new forms of social struggle produced by and engaging with these processes. A review of the 2008 advent of a grassroots organization in Western Highland Guatemala involved in binational United States–Guatemalan fair trade and migrant and solidarity organizing uses the concept of the platform instead of the network to highlight continuities and ruptures between past and present struggles. This perspective disrupts the vertical/horizontal dichotomy in social movement studies and sheds light on the effects of technological change on grassroots resistance to neoliberalism. Las políticas de libre comercio han abierto la economía guatemalteca a las pujanzas internacionales y provocado una migración masiva tanto interna como internacional, creando nuevas formas de lucha social producidas por y comprometidas con estos procesos. Este repaso del advenimiento, en 2008, de una organización de base en las Tierras Altas Occidentales de Guatemala involucrada en promover el comercio justo binacional entre Estados Unidos y Guatemala, así como la organización migrante y los nexos de solidaridad, utiliza el concepto de la plataforma en lugar de la red para resaltar las continuidades y rupturas entre luchas pasadas y presentes. Esta perspectiva irrumpe en la dicotomía vertical/horizontal subyacente a los estudios de movimientos sociales y nos brinda una perspectiva sobre los efectos del cambio tecnológico en las resistencias de base al neoliberalismo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exporting labor to the United States has become the principal industry of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. Central Americans have been moving to the United States in large numbers since the 1980s, but how they gain entry has shifted thanks to the interplay between the migration industry and border enforcement. Many Guatemalans, Hondurans, and Salvadorans are paying smugglers to deliver them to U.S. border agents so they can apply for asylum. The Trump administration's harsh reactions have energized asylum advocates, who argue that applicants are fleeing dislocation by neoliberal capitalism. Migrant households in the Ixil Maya municipio of Nebaj, Guatemala, express an optimistic interpretation of this situation that they call their American Dream. Their wish for high wages in the United States can be seen as the latest in a series of "hope machines" that interpret disadvantageous relations of exchange as the path to a better future. Such hopes are based on the irrefutable buying power of the dollar, but migrant remittances to their families conceal the extraction of rents. U.S. asylum advocates understandably stress that the most important challenge facing irregular immigrants is their legal status. However, with or without legal status, the underlying issue for migrants will continue to be their position in the U.S. job market, because this generates household indebtedness that increases vulnerability to human trafficking. La exportación de mano de obra a los Estados Unidos se ha convertido en la principal industria de Guatemala, El Salvador y Honduras. Los centroamericanos se han estado mudando a los Estados Unidos en grandes cantidades desde la década de 1980, pero la forma en la que obtienen la entrada ha cambiado gracias a la interacción entre la industria de la migración y la industria de la deportación. Muchos guatemaltecos, hondureños y salvadoreños pagan a coyotes para que los entreguen a agentes fronterizos de Estados Unidos, pudiendo así puedan solicitar asilo. Las duras reacciones de la administración Trump han energizado a los defensores del asilo, quienes argumentan que los solicitantes están huyendo de la dislocación causada por el capitalismo neoliberal. Los migrantes en el municipio ixil maya de Nebaj, Guatemala, tienen una interpretación optimista de esta situación, la cual llaman su Sueño americano. Su deseo de salarios altos en Los Estados Unidos puede ser visto como la última en una serie de "máquinas de esperanza" que interpretan las desventajosas relaciones de intercambio como el camino hacia un futuro mejor. Dichas esperanzas se basan en el irrefutable poder adquisitivo del dólar, pero las remesas de los migrantes a sus familias ocultan la extracción de rentas. Los defensores del asilo en Estados Unidos enfatizan, comprensiblemente, que el desafío más importante que enfrentan los inmigrantes irregulares es su estatus legal. Sin embargo, con o sin estatus legal, el problema subyacente para los migrantes seguirá siendo su posición en el mercado laboral estadunidense, ya que esto genera el endeudamiento de los hogares e incrementa su vulnerabilidad a la trata de personas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender role ideologies are embedded in cultural values and assumptions about life. Women's greater endorsement of egalitarian beliefs may stem from gender differences in world views as indexed by social axioms. The purpose of this study was to examine potential mediators of gender differences in gender ideologies among university students in Guatemala, a country where traditional views are prevalent. Participants, 2,134 university students from nine campuses in different regions of Guatemala (43% male, 85% emerging adults), completed a Social Axioms Scale, along with three culturally relevant measures of gender ideology: the Historic-Sociocultural Premises Scale (HSCP) and the Machismo Measure that taps both traditional machismo and caballerismo (gentlemanliness). Consistent with previous research in other countries, men held more traditional attitudes about gender and the family than did women on all measures. Gender differences on all scales were mediated by cynicism and religiosity. Fate control mediated the gender differences in traditional machismo and the HSCP. These findings suggest that Guatemalan women and men through socialization, cultural demands, and life experiences develop gender-specific ways of viewing the world, and their attitudes about gender roles are shaped by those worldviews. The achievement of gender equality, a U.N. sustainable development goal, may require attention to the underlying world views of women and men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over a third of women in Guatemala are subjected to intimate partner violence (IPV). Indigenous Mayan women are particularly vulnerable, due to the intersection of race, gender, and poverty. However, no research exists into the causes of IPV among this group. Our pioneering study addresses this knowledge gap. Our results from in-depth interviews with service providers in Sololá highlight four interlinked causes of IPV: rigid gender roles, lack of awareness of women's rights, use of alcohol by men, and poor reproductive health. From these, we draw implications for service provision to victims of IPV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses official data from Guatemala's Departamento de Atencion a la Victima (Victim Attention Department), a specialized unit in Guatemala's National Civil Police, to assess the long-term impacts of a government mandated lockdown and reopening on domestic violence. It also considers how the lockdown and reopening impacted domestic violence across administrative departments in the country. Our findings suggest that combined, daily cases of domestic violence were already decreasing prior to the pandemic lockdown and that both the shutdown and the reopening altered the patterning of domestic violence, first to increase domestic violence and then to decrease it, respectively. When assessing this trend across departments, not every department exhibited the same, national-level trend, but instead domestic violence trends varied. This study provides a starting point in analyzing long-term pandemic-related policy responses and their impacts on domestic violence in international contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]