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Background. Consumer nutrition environment measures are important to understanding the food environment, which affects individual dietary intake. A nutrition environment measures survey for supermarkets (NEMS-S) has been designed on paper for use in Guatemala. However, a paper survey is not an inconspicuous data collection method. Objective. To design, pilot test, and validate the Guatemala NEMS-S in the form of a mobile phone application (mobile app). Methods. CommCare, a free and open-source software application, was used to design the NEMS-S for Guatemala in the form of a mobile app. Two raters tested the mobile app in a single Guatemalan supermarket. Both the interrater and the test-retest reliability of the mobile app were determined using percent agreement and Cohen's kappa score and compared with the interrater and test-retest reliability of the paper version. Results. Interrater reliability was very high between the paper survey and the mobile app (Cohen's kappa > 0.90). Test-retest reliability ranged from kappa 0.78 to 0.91. Between two certified NEMS-S raters, survey completion time using the mobile app was 5 minutes less than that with the paper form (35 vs. 40 minutes). Conclusions. The NEMS-S mobile app provides for more rapid data collection, with equivalent reliability and validity to the NEMS-S paper version, with advantages over a paper-based survey of multiple language capability and concomitant data entry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the dynamics of racialized securitization for transnational migrants across multiple borders—from Central America toward Mexico and the United States. Rather than a singular process where US policies, funding, and attitudes toward border security direct Mexican immigration enforcement, I argue that Mexican state collaboration redirects US xenophobia away from Mexican migrants and toward Central American migrants. Migrants' testimonies point to the ways that US and Mexican discourses are mobilized in different—but complementary—ways that shape them as racialized subjects with differential life chances. This is clearest through a crude mapping of people onto nationalities for deportation based on hair, language, and tattoos. Beyond legal violence, deported migrants describe their vulnerability as constructed within tacit networks of collaboration between actors in the US and Mexico, both licit and illicit, in an effort to extort migrants and their families. While race is a key signifier in border securitization, the differences between these racial states have material consequences in the differential state violence in immigration enforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through analysis of a Guatemalan ecotourism project, this paper examines how tourism development is driving the militarization of conservation through a modality of violence I identify as counterinsurgency ecotourism. I look at four manifestations of counterinsurgency ecotourism: the repurposing of the army to enforce conservation law; the creation of an environmental 'predator' discourse; the eviction of peasants from protected areas; and the construction of military outposts. These practices illustrate that ecotourism development has become a means by which the Guatemalan state is militarizing conservation spaces in ways that revive and repurpose tactics of counterinsurgency warfare from the country's civil war (1960-96). Furthermore, this militarized approach to ecotourism development obscures the structural production of poverty, insecurity, and deforestation in northern Guatemala and undermines environmental conservation and social justice efforts. The counterinsurgency ecotourism practices identified in Guatemala resonate with many other conservation and ecotourism spaces found across the world, such as UNESCO Biospheres, as well places across the Global South with histories of counterinsurgency warfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advocates claim that market-assisted land reform (MALR) promotes economic development and reduces poverty by improving the security of private property rights and the efficiency of land markets. However, scholars argue that MALR often benefits elites at the expense of the disadvantaged and forces intended beneficiaries to resist or make difficult compromises. Nevertheless, this critical literature largely glosses everyday processes of implementation that help this policy get traction in particular locations. This paper examines the work of regularizing (titling) land in the context of a World-Bank-funded MALR project in northern Guatemala. Specifically, the focus is on the meaning-making work of field technicians who seek to convince campesinos (peasants) to participate in this regularization project. In their recruiting efforts, these technicians creatively link neoliberal slogans, human rights narratives, and exclusionary visions of nation, race, and property. By examining how technicians elaborate knowledge in the field and on the fly, this study reveals spheres of politics where regularization could be modestly contested or transformed. Such politics are worth attending to because in northern Guatemala and elsewhere, regularization contributes to conditions for land grabs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do variations in state-society relations affect development outcomes locally? Specifically, do local, non-state actors and informal institutions, including indigenous elders and traditional authorities, complement the work of the formal local authorities, or compete with them, with observable implications for long-term human development? This paper focuses on Guatemala, where despite nearly two decades having passed since the end of its civil war, and significant external statebuilding, governance and financial assistance, the country remains stricken with widespread poverty and crime. Most apparent in the Guatemala case is the well-documented disparity in living conditions between the capital region surrounding Guatemala City, and rural regions. Even within impoverished regions, however, there is unexplained variability in development outcomes across sub-regions and communities. Drawing from within-country case studies, the paper argues that qualitative differences in state-society relations at the community level -- including the degree to which local indigenous leaders or other non-state actors either compete with or complement local formal authorities -- have a direct bearing on development outcomes as indicated by human development indicators, and by demonstrated commitment to development programmes from formal authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Guatemala, where statistics and information systems do not yet play a central role in planning and decision-making processes, a USAID-funded project was initiated in 2007 to systematically collect data and information for the education component of the social sector. The project utilizes up-to-date business intelligence tools and software for gathering, storing, analyzing, and providing access to data. The primary outcome of the intervention has been the development of the National Integrated Information System, an online accessible platform that includes all information from the social sector (i.e. education, health, finance and population). The paper will discuss four primary factors that are considered crucial in successfully carrying out the management of information as a development intervention. [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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

This paper examines how rural communities on a clandestine road crossing the Mexico-Guatemala border stake claim over this route while delegitimizing state control. Each community delimits its control by erecting a cadena, or chain, across its section of the road, from which it levies tolls on cross-border contraband. The cadenas shape political, economic, and cultural geography by instituting a local sovereign system of morality, economy, and legality. As border residents reimagine and rematerialize the border by displacing it from the geopolitical line to their cadenas, they mark their claims to this space. In a region where the majority of border flows occur through clandestine routes, residents contest the power of the nation-state to determine the border, sovereignty, belonging, and transregional development. Simultaneously, however, residents' border practices mimetically reproduce the relation between territory, power, and identity. I argue that the margins of the state can be critical junctures for examining how everyday people and state actors continuously negotiate and reconfigure the shifting materializations and meanings of territory, state power, and (trans)national space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Tropical Conservation Science is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article explores the problematic assumptions at play in the asylum applications of Central American asylum seekers in northern California. I address the disjuncture between the legal parameters under which asylum is granted and the perceptions and knowledge about the process of all those involved. For 'undocumented' immigrants, claiming asylum establishes a formal relationship to the state, in which they must learn to reformulate their identity and memory to fit the legal definition of refugee. Poverty, marginality, lack of education, and fear, however, make the situation difficult to grasp. Uncertainty and confusion increase during the asylum interview, where officer's interpretations of the situation lead to essentialized notions of ethnicity, poverty, and violence. Ultimately, positive outcomes depend on applicants' ability to learn to navigate the process and access the categories established in a political economy of suffering. The power relations inherent in the application reflect the greater social framework of exclusion within which 'undocumented' subjects are positioned. Thus, for many, the asylum application ensures further misunderstandings and marginality, even if the claim is granted. [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]

Copyright of Journal of Politics in Latin America is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Since colonial times, Northeastern Guatemala has been at the crossroads of legal and illegal trade routes used by local elites and foreign investors. Organized crime has always prospered there with the complicity and participation of the local authorities, while the United Fruit Company started its first banana plantations there in 1904. Both rested their capital accumulation on governmentalities mixing disciplinary and sovereign power mechanisms as analyzed by Foucault. In response to the impact of these governmentalities, centered on control and violence, the population has developed a tactical subjectivity that presents obstacles to its political participation and collective mobilization. Desde la época colonial, el noreste de Guatemala ha estado en la encrucijada de las rutas comerciales legales e ilegales utilizadas por las élites locales y los inversionistas extranjeros. Allí, el crimen organizado siempre ha prosperado con la complicidad y la participación de las autoridades locales, y la United Fruit Company sembró sus primeros platanares en el territorio en 1904. Ambos bandos sustentaron su acumulación de capital en gubernamentalidades que mezclan mecanismos de poder disciplinario y soberano, tal y como los define Foucault. En respuesta al impacto de estas organizaciones gubernamentales, centradas en el control y la violencia, la población ha desarrollado una subjetividad táctica que presenta obstáculos a su participación política y movilización colectiva. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Design and training methods for instructors on integrating experiential learning continues to be a challenge in high school education. Purpose: This work reports on research concerning the current status, available resources, limitations, and capabilities of high school teachers implementing experiential learning in a technical and vocational high school curriculum in Guatemala. Methodology/Approach: Case study methodology was used to examine professional development training involving the implementation of experiential learning into an agriculture and forestry curriculum. The design of the training included a series of hands-on activities to enable teachers to identify barriers and drivers influencing experiential learning and the redesign of a course program. Findings/Conclusions: Teachers were able to identify resources and limitations affecting the implementation of experiential learning in their teaching program. The guidance and examples provided by the instructors were fundamental for the teachers to modify a standard course program that included significant experiential learning methodologies. Implications: Many high school teachers lack the training and knowledge necessary for integrating experiential learning. Furthermore, in many cases, they are required to follow a structured curriculum that at allows for minimal modifications. Teachers also recognize that courses that only include classroom activities are the most challenging for including experiential learning activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Each year, 1.1 billion people suffer from disease, dehydration, and malnutrition fueled by waterborne pathogens. Although point-of-use water filters are a viable solution, effectiveness requires consistent use. As collaborators in international development projects, social workers are poised to address service barriers through their focus on multilevel practice and a relentless emphasis on culturally competent practice. This article describes an illustrative case of a water remediation project in rural Guatemala where social work researchers collaborated with engineers to understand how users appraised the project. We present a content analysis of interviews conducted in 20 households in the Boca Costa and Highland regions of rural Guatemala that received bio-sand water filters, which revealed a diverse group of filter users, with varying motivations and constancy patterns. Our study demonstrates how talking to people is essential to understanding their use of technology and how other objective measures—such as the wetness of the sand—can be helpful in interpreting results. It also shows that within the developing context, people vary in their need for additional supports as they adopt new health-promoting activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When they introduced cattle into Guatemala in the 16th century, Europeans also brought a whole new industry involving ranches, slaughterhouses, and new forms of labor. On the one hand, cattle producers had to treat the animals as intact living organisms requiring care and nurture to maintain and increase the herds. Those animals were grown by the ranchers for specific purposes. In the first place, colonial Mesoamerican cattle were raised to produce hides and leather for intercontinental trade with Spain. The regularized disassembling of the bovine bodies created these new products, but it also had some unintended consequences, namely the generation of new subject positions among the indigenous workers of these facilities. New forms of butchering techniques aimed at extracting animal parts were unlike the indigenous practices of animal hunting and exploitation, which aimed at preserving the physical integrity of the animals' bodies. The newly introduced techniques that involved the compartmentalization of animal bodies also involved an increased compartmentalization of labor, accompanied by new body techniques and gestures. As the butchers and the tanners became enskilled, their bodies changed and so did their hexis. To operationalize these ideas, technological approaches combined with zooarchaeological (butchery marks), ethnographic, and historical evidence are used to investigate how humans and cattle mutually grew each other's matter and subjectivities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The design of the original nutrition supplementation trial that was conducted from 1969 to 1977 in 4 villages in rural Guatemala to evaluate the benefits of improving nutrition during pregnancy and early childhood, combined with several follow-up studies, provides unique data to examine the effects of improving nutrition on the next generation.Objective: This article provides a summary of the key findings from the INCAP Longitudinal Study on the intergenerational effects of improving nutrition on the growth and well-being of the next generation.Methods: The key outcomes include offspring birth size as well as attained size and body composition through age 11 years. The sample sizes varied from approximately 200 to 800 depending on the timing of the follow-up studies and data collection protocols. The effects of parental birth size, maternal linear growth from birth through adulthood, and exposure to the nutrition intervention, that is, Atole versus Fresco during critical periods from prenatal through age 15 years, have been examined using complex models and approaches.Results: Overall, these publications demonstrate clear improvements in the growth of the next generation. Effects were seen primarily for maternal exposure to Atole and were larger for boys compared to girls. Stunting during early childhood among girls was also a significant predictor of offspring birth size, and younger age at first pregnancy (<20 years) was associated with an increased risk of stunting in the offspring.Conclusions: These studies have contributed significantly to our understanding of the importance of investing in nutrition, especially during early childhood for future generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama (INCAP) longitudinal study of 1969 to 1977 was a community randomized trial in which 2 pairs of matched villages received either a protein-rich gruel (atole) or a nonprotein, low-energy drink (fresco). Both contained equal amounts of micronutrients by volume. I review the history and design of the study and impact on dietary intakes and physical growth. The design dates from the 1960s when protein was seen as the main dietary deficiency. During the 1970s, emphasis shifted to energy deficiency and this influenced early analyses. Energy from the 2 drinks during pregnancy was associated with improved birthweights and whether protein was also provided along with energy appeared to make no difference. These analyses, observational in nature, were possible because there was substantial overlap in energy intakes from the supplements during pregnancy across village types. In children, analyses initially focused on energy but eventually relied on the original experimental design. Exposure to the atole compared to fresco was associated with improved physical growth at 3 years of age but not from 3 to 7 years. Consumption of the fresco in the first 3 years of life was low such that there was little overlap in energy intakes from the supplements, not allowing for the type of analyses done for pregnancy. Diets in atole villages were greater from 15 to 36 months in protein, energy, and micronutrients, making attribution of impact on growth to a specific nutrient impossible. The atole improved linear growth, arm, and calf circumferences at 3 years but not skinfold thicknesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how existing health inequities in the Guatemalan health system facilitate the emergence of its medical tourism industry. We report on our thematic analysis of 50 key informant interviews conducted with 4 groups of stakeholders in the local medical tourism sector. Participants frequently discussed the interplay between the country's longstanding health inequities and the promotion of medical tourism, characterized by 4 thematic viewpoints: the private health sector is already flourishing; the highly fragmented health system already faces multiple challenges; the underfunded public health sector has a weak regulatory capacity; and the commodification of health care has already advanced. Medical tourism and health inequities shape each other in low- and middle-income countries. In addition to the potential for medical tourism to exacerbate health inequities, previously existing health inequities create opportunities for the industry's growth. Although regulation of the medical tourism industry is necessary, it needs to be implemented both at the domestic and supranational levels for it to be effective in preventing greater health inequities, and it needs to address the political and economic drivers that make health systems generate health disparities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anti-immigrant rhetoric and constricting avenues for asylum in the United States, amid continuing high rates of poverty, environmental crisis, and violence in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, have led many migrants from these countries to remain in Mexico. Yet despite opportunities for humanitarian relief in Mexico, since the early 2000s the Mexican government, under growing pressure from the United States, has pursued enforcement-first initiatives to stem northward migration from Central America. In July 2014, Mexico introduced the Southern Border Program (SBP) with support from the United States. The SBP dramatically expanded Mexico's immigration enforcement efforts, especially in its southern border states, leading to rising deportations. Far from reducing migration or migrant smuggling, these policies have trapped migrants for longer in Mexico, made them increasingly susceptible to crimes by a wide range of state and nonstate actors, and exacerbated risk along the entire migrant trail. In recognition of rising crimes against migrants and heeding calls from civil society to protect migrant rights, Mexico's 2011 revision to its Migration Law expanded legal avenues for granting humanitarian protection to migrants who are victims of crimes in Mexico, including the provision of a one-year humanitarian visa so that migrants can collaborate with the prosecutor's office in the investigation of crimes committed against them. The new humanitarian visa laws were a significant achievement and represent a victory by civil society keen on protecting migrants as they travel through Mexico. The wider atmosphere of impunity, however, alongside the Mexican government's prioritization of detaining and deporting migrants, facilitates abuses, obscures transparent accounting of crimes, and limits access to justice. In practice, the laws are not achieving their intended outcomes. They also fail to recognize how Mexico's securitized migration policies subject migrants to risk throughout their journeys, including at border checkpoints between Guatemala and Honduras, along critical transit corridors in Guatemala, and on the Guatemalan side of Mexico's southern border. In this article, we examine a novel set of data from migrant shelters--16 qualitative interviews with migrants and nine with staff and advocates in the Mexico-Guatemala border region, as well as 118 complaints of abuses committed along migrants' journeys--informally filed by migrants at a shelter on the Guatemalan side of the border, and an additional eight complaints filed at a shelter on the Mexican side of the border. We document and analyze the nature, location, and perpetrators of these alleged abuses, using a framework of "compassionate repression" (Fassin 2012) to examine the obstacles that migrants encounter in denouncing abuses and seeking protection. We contend that while humanitarian visas can provide necessary protection for abuses committed in Mexico, they are limited by their temporary nature, by being nested within a migration system that prioritizes migrant removal, and because they recognize only crimes that occur in Mexico. The paradox between humanitarian concerns and repressive migration governance in a context of high impunity shapes institutional and practical obstacles to reporting crimes, receiving visas, and accessing justice. In this context, a variety of actors recognize that they can exploit and profit from migrants' lack of mobility, legal vulnerability, and uncertain access to protection, leading to a commodification of access to humanitarian protection along the route. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 21st-century Guatemala transnational gangs (or maras) have become erstwhile emissaries of extreme peacetime violence, distilling in spectacular fashion the fear, rage, and trauma swirling around out-of-control crime. Young gang members (or mareros) are drawn in by and work hard to recreate the phantasmagoric figure the maras cut in social imaginaries, linking the acts of violence gangs perform to the ways gang members – and myriad others – make sense of this violence. This article traces how collective fantasies about gangs are essential in the making of the 'real' marero by engaging with the oral history of a single informant: a former member of the Mara Salvatrucha named Andy who became a protected witness for the Guatemalan government. Through Andy's life and violent death, it illuminates how essential shared fantasies and falsehoods are in the production of knowledge about criminal terror, as well as in the production of violence itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The first three years of a child's life are a critical period for brain growth and development. Caregiver interventions during this period that improve early childhood health and development have the potential to enhance a child's physical, mental, and social well-being.Methods: This was a pretest/posttest quasi experimental program evaluation. Early childhood education materials were adapted to create two separate interventions consisting of 30-page interactive flipchart talks to educate mothers on health and development topics relevant to 0-6 and 6-12 month old children. Three community health workers performed the talks with groups of 5-8 mothers. Short learning assessments were given individually to each mother pre-intervention (pretest), immediately post-intervention (posttest 1), and two weeks post-intervention (posttest 2). Demographic surveys and focus group discussions were conducted with all participants.Results: Mothers (n = 77) had an average age of 33.6 years and had an average of 3.6 living children. Most of the mothers (71%) had received some primary education, but 23% had received no formal schooling. For the 0-6 months flipchart learning assessment (n = 38), the mean pretest score was 77% correct. The mean posttest 1 score improved to 87% (p < 0.0001), and the mean posttest 2 score improved further from the mean posttest 1 score to 90% (p = 0.01). For the 6-12 months flipchart learning assessment (n = 39), the mean pretest score was 78%. The mean posttest 1 score improved to 89% (p < 0.0001), and the mean posttest 2 score improved further from the mean posttest 1 score to 92% (p = 0.03).Conclusions: Mothers in an impoverished region of southwestern Guatemala significantly increased their knowledge about child health topics following a short interactive group talk. Mothers further increased their knowledge two weeks after the intervention, without specific re-exposure to the intervention materials, suggesting assimilation and informal reinforcement through group based learning with other mothers in their community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study investigated the information-seeking behavior and information provision practices among bilingual (Spanish and K’iche’) students and adults in a Maya town in highland Guatemala. The research combined participant observation ethnography (spanning a total of fifteen months from 2008-17) and interviews with current and retired teachers, Internet café founders and employees, the municipal librarian, students aged 10 and up as well as recent graduates and professionals. Ethnographic insights guided the identification of ‘information,’ the selection of study participants and the nature of questions they were asked. Although a rudimentary library in one form or another has been present since the early 1980s, employees of the library are not, and have never been the primary information providers in Nahualá. Rather, in the past teachers have played that role and many locally important and respected men continue to do so, while currently the employees of one Internet café in particular serve many of the functions characteristically served by librarians in the developed world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his article, Brouwers argues that cross-cultural psychologists (CCPs; a term he uses to include cultural psychologists and indigenous psychologists) should be a resource for agencies and organizations that engage in international and developmental aid. His argument is that CCPs can help these agencies and organizations ensure that their interventions become "entrenched" -- meaning they become long-lasting aspects of life in the communities receiving the aid. We agree with Brouwers that CCPs can and should be more involved with international aid organizations. However, we argue that CCPs' primary concern should be ensuring the ethical and cultural appropriateness of the ways in which the aid organizations interact with recipient communities. We believe this can only happen when indigenous psychologists are involved in the intervention in ways that ensure recipient communities are fully engaged with any aid-based intervention. We highlight our argument by utilizing some preliminary analyses from a related project we recently completed in Guatemala. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Using the draw-and-write methodology, this study examined cross-cultural similarities and differences in children’s perceptions of health. Design: Cross-sectional design. Setting: One public elementary school in the USA and in Guatemala. Method: The total sample included 161 children 9–10 years of age, 80 in the USA and 81 in Guatemala. Children in each setting were asked to draw-and-write responses to two prompts regarding things that make someone healthy/unhealthy. Responses were coded for the presence of themes for each topic, and statistical tests were performed to test for significant differences by gender and country. Results: Food is central to children’s perceptions of healthy and unhealthy in both locations, as over 90% of children overall depicted food items for both topics. Fruit, in particular, constitutes the majority of depictions for healthy items in both countries, followed by vegetables. In terms of differences, children in the USA were more likely to depict drinking water and exercise as things that make someone healthy and fast food as being unhealthy. Guatemalan children, in contrast, were more likely to depict hygiene and the environment as both healthy and unhealthy. Conclusion: There are more cross-cultural similarities than differences in children’s perceptions of health. While similarities derive from the centrality of food in perceptions of health, differences in perceptions of health emerge from unique national health conditions and initiatives, local socio-ecological contexts and school curricula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During Guatemala’s 36-year-long civil war (1960–1996), Canada’s role in response to the conflict diverged from the United States’ realpolitik. In contrast to U.S. policy objectives during the cold war, the Canadian distinctiveness in Guatemala was prevalent in the realm of democracy and human rights policy. The Canadian government and civil society condemned human rights violations in Guatemala, supported the various phases of the peace process, and participated in international efforts to strengthen the rule of law. However, since 2003–2004, the Canadian government has promoted mining investments to the detriment of human rights and its relationship with civil society has deteriorated both at home and in Guatemala. This shift can be linked to a securitization process of human rights within the neoliberal order in Latin America and a change in the identity-based interest of Canadian foreign policy during Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s era (2006–2015).Durante los 36 años de guerra civil en Guatemala (1960-1996), la respuesta canadiense se distinguió de la realpolitik estadunidense. A diferencia de los objetivos políticos estadunidenses durante la Guerra Fría, la presencia canadiense en torno a Guatemala se dio en el ámbito de la democracia y la política de derechos humanos. El gobierno y sociedad civil canadienses condenaron las violaciones de los derechos humanos en Guatemala, apoyaron las distintas fases del proceso de paz y participaron en los esfuerzos internacionales para fortalecer el Estado de derecho. Sin embargo, desde 2003–2004, el gobierno de Canadá ha promovido inversiones mineras en detrimento de los derechos humanos, y su relación con la sociedad civil se ha deteriorado tanto en casa como en Guatemala. Este cambio puede vincularse a un proceso de seguridización de los derechos humanos dentro del orden neoliberal de América Latina y un cambio en la política exterior canadiense, antes basada en la identidad, durante el gobierno de Stephen Harper (2006–2015). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines attempts by authorities to undermine overt collective challenges, such as protests, riots, or armed attacks, by targeting activities that precede and/or support such behavior. After providing a theory of how repression and resistance develop, the study analyzes unique data drawn from the confidential records of the Guatemalan National Police to assess the use of repression during the years between 1975 and 1985. Empirical tests demonstrate that (1) government forces anticipate challenger development by identifying the mobilization activities nascent challengers rely on to initiate and sustain overt collective challenges and (2) the use of repression designed to undermine such efforts is specifically targeted against radical (i.e., highly transformative) claims making. Implications are drawn for how we understand and study political order and conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to investigate how Guatemalans procure information on national and local matters. Using data from two nationally representative household surveys, probit models are estimated to identify mechanisms that activate information seeking behaviors among Guatemalans. Findings of the study reveal that Guatemalans primarily use communication media (e.g. television, radio and newspapers) to access information on national issues. In contrast, information procurement on local matters is primarily accessed through individuals’ social networks (e.g. family, neighbors and friends). The findings indicate that females, indigenous groups, citizens living in rural areas and poor individuals are less likely to be informed on both national and local matters, in comparison to other groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transdisciplinarity (TD) is a participatory research approach in which actors from science and society work closely together. It offers means for promoting knowledge integration and finding solutions to complex societal problems, and can be applied within a multiplicity of epistemic systems. We conducted a TD process from 2011 to 2014 between indigenous Mayan medical specialists from Guatemala and Western biomedical physicians and scientists to study cancer. Given the immense cultural gap between the partners, it was necessary to develop new methods to overcome biases induced by ethnocentric behaviors and power differentials. This article describes this intercultural cooperation and presents a method of reciprocal reflexivity (Bidirectional Emic–Etic tool) developed to overcome them. As a result of application, researchers observed successful knowledge integration at the epistemic level, the social-organizational level, and the communicative level throughout the study. This approach may prove beneficial to others engaged in facilitating participatory health research in complex intercultural settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Canadian corporation Goldcorp's Marlin Mine in San Miguel Ixtahuacan is the first open-pit goldmine in Guatemala. While Goldcorp depicts Marlin as a showcase for development and good business, many Mayan women express extreme distress at the multilayered destruction caused by the corporation. Under the guidance of the indigenous women's movement Tz'ununija', in May-June 2011 and July 2012,1 held in-depth interviews with five Maya-Mam leaders and two workshops in San Miguel with more than 30 women opposing the mine. Analysing their visions and Goldcorp's public development discourse, I argue that the mine is decimating San Miguel's social fabric and environment. Although Goldcorp has created employment, infrastructure and injected money into the local economy, gains are short term in comparison with the long-term impacts of the mining venture on land and community. At heart, two fundamentally opposed visions are at stake: Western "development" versus tb'anil qchwinqlal, or quality of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there has been a dramatic growth in the field of youth civic engagement, although little of this work has been conducted in fragile democracies contending with legacies of war and authoritarianism. This study explores how Guatemalan postwar generation youth develop as civic actors under extreme conditions of violence, social and political distrust, and a dwindling space for public expression. Drawing from ethnographic research conducted in rural and urban Guatemala, this study demonstrates how young people’s sense of civic efficacy interacts with their interpretations of historical injustice and the civic messages mediated by teachers, families, peers, and communities. Young people struggle to define and enact appropriate civic action, at times working outside unjust systems as a means of fostering change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article identifies equity outcomes associated with three biofuel systems in Brazil, Ethiopia, and Guatemala. Acknowledging that winners and losers are socially and politically generated, the article identifies some of the factors behind the distribution of winners and losers along different stages of three sugarcane–ethanol supply chains. Analyzing the outcomes for equity within each case study reveals an uneven distribution that, we argue, is related to the procedure and structure of the given sugarcane–ethanol system, and the recognition of the impacts on different actors within those structures. Increasing equity in sugarcane–ethanol systems will require greater openness in decision-making processes, in order that multiple voices are taken into account in the promotion, production, and consumption of biofuels—particularly those of smaller and less powerful actors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The coming of peace in Central America after several decades of civil war and military dictatorships has not resulted in an end to violence. Murder rates have risen to such a degree that these countries are among the most violent in the world. One form of violence that has received a great deal of attention is the murder of women, but many argue that this is only one of many forms of violence that women face on a daily basis. The women’s organizations that have emerged in Guatemala since the end of the civil war have focused on demanding greater political and economic rights for women and laws that recognize violence against women as a crime and improve the mechanisms for investigating and prosecuting it. Two recent laws redefine sex crimes in such a way as to suggest that they should be seen as heinous acts regardless of the woman’s sexual history, character, or age. Though these discursive changes are a triumph, problems with the legal system and the persistence of sexist ideologies have so far limited the effectiveness of these new laws.La llegada de la paz a Centroamérica tras varias décadas de guerra civil y dictaduras militares no ha puesto fin a la violencia. El índice de asesinatos ha aumentado a tal grado que estos países se encuentran entre los más violentos del mundo. Una forma de violencia que ha recibido mucha atención es el femicidio, pero muchos argumentan que esta es sólo una entre muchas formas de violencia que las mujeres enfrentan a diario. Las organizaciones de mujeres que han surgido en Guatemala desde el fin de la guerra civil se han centrado en demandar mayores derechos políticos y económicos para las mujeres y leyes que reconozcan como delito la violencia contra la mujer, mejorando los mecanismos de investigación y justicia. Dos leyes recientes redefinen los delitos sexuales de tal forma que sugieren que pueden considerarse actos atroces sin importar la edad, carácter o historia sexual de la mujer. Aunque estos cambios discursivos representan un triunfo, los problemas con el sistema legal y la persistencia de ideologías machistas han limitado, hasta ahora, la eficacia de estas nuevas leyes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Latin American Perspectives is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article develops a framework to evaluate net benefits from mining and utilizes it to assess the Marlin mine in Guatemala. The framework integrates “weak” and “strong” sustainability principles. Under weak sustainability, a net gain in human welfare can substitute for the loss of nonrenewable resources. Under strong sustainability, nature’s life-support systems are not substitutable. We define “net benefits” as the joint generation of net gains to human welfare, defined as local acceptance and high economic benefits, and low risks to the resilience of environmental life-support systems, especially water, evidenced by best practice management standards. We find little evidence that the Marlin mine meets either weak or strong sustainability criteria: there is strong local resistance to the mine and economic benefits are low, while environmental risk is high, especially in terms of potential long-term contamination of life-supporting ground and surface water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the representation of Maya culture in travel and tourism literature. It compares and contrasts framings in historical, promotional and online tourist media. Two main tropes are identified that have been central to this literature since the mid-nineteenth century, culminating in a current practice described here as Maya cultural tourism. In Guatemala, promotional texts replicate earlier tropes to portray Maya culture as a primary source of attraction. What these dominant commercial framings consistently ignore, however, are Maya contributions to global tourism narratives and exchanges. To address this gap, the second part of the article focuses on the ways in which local actors use online media to present themselves to tourists in the case of Quetzaltenango. This serves to illuminate key differences in how tourism marketers and local actors package Maya culture for global consumption. It is concluded that overcoming a preoccupation with the same tired tropes involves paying closer attention to cultural narratives emerging in cyberspace that acknowledge Maya agency in their relations with tourists and portray these exchanges in a more nuanced and robust manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As evidenced by laws addressing abandonment of the home and children, family preservation was paramount for early twentieth-century Latin American nation builders. The judicial record of abandonment cases from Guatemala demonstrates how men attempted to enforce their authority in the home and then enlisted state officials to uphold it when their wives or daughters defied them. Yet, abandonment litigation often liberated women. By condoning female flight as a response to domestic abuse, judges emancipated women with the very laws intended to corral them. The same gendered institutions that buttressed patriarchies also provided women with the tools to challenge men's perceived right to intimidate and beat women. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Latin American Perspectives is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In contrast to more pessimistic studies, the authors find evidence that civic participation in one domain of public life can lead to more participation elsewhere, what they call spillover effects. The authors’ findings are based on a large survey—among the broadest in its class—of participants in community-managed schools throughout rural Honduras and Alta Verapaz, Guatemala. Despite various obstacles to spillovers, once initiated, participation can engender further participation. Many participants acquire and apply new skills, and some join new organizations. These spillover effects are stronger if participants receive state support and perceive the participatory arena to be democratic. The authors’ optimism, however, remains guarded: Even where spillovers abound, new groups’ autonomy and scope of action remain limited. In short, participatory governance is not a dead-end affair, but its capacity to strengthen civil society locally is not guaranteed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Social anthropology at INCAP evolved through a series of stages. The initial work in the 1950s was concerned with finding ways to make INCAP nutritional research more effective. In a second phase, emerging in the 1960s, anthropology examined the nutrition process in the population, especially as it was manifested in child care and feeding, lactation, and population growth and in the relation of economic process to nutritional progress. In the 1970s, anthropology once more became an adjunct of nutritional research. Anthropological awareness was introduced into project planning, and field studies were undertaken by way of shaping the research process to work in accord with local realities. In the 1980s and 1990s, there was a shift away from more descriptive research to research directed to supporting and facilitating specific nutrition and health behavior change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the origin and development of Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama (INCAP). It states that the institution has conducted researches that made significant contributions to modern recognition of the role of nutrition in both chronic disease and infections. Moreover, its early researches will include marasmus, amino acid requirements, and antherosclerosis.

From 1962 to 1989, the coffee-producing and coffee-consuming nations created a commodity agreement limiting the amount of coffee a nation could export in order to correct two structural deficiencies: global overproduction of coffee and drastic price movements associated with weather-related phenomena. During the 27 years of this quota agreement, Guatemala had a unique opportunity to get farmers to diversify from coffee to other export commodities and allow farmers to use new technology to improve their profitability. The Asociación Nacional del Café (ANACAFE) administered these diversification and technification programs, while the London-based International Coffee Organization (ICO) regulated the international coffee trade. However, the ICO achieved more success in reducing overproduction of coffee and stopping downward price movements than ANACAFE did in implementing diversification and technification. Because ANACAFE failed to disseminate technification to the vast majority of the small coffee-producers, when the ICO allowed quotas to expire in 1989 the vast majority of the Guatemalan coffee growers found themselves not as price-competitive as their Central American neighbors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study we examined the origins and consequences of HIV/AIDS-related stigma on the Mexican-Guatemalan border. To explore these issues, an inductive/deductive approach was taken. Data were collected using qualitative methods including nonparticipant observation, in-depth interviews, and informal conversation. Informants included Central American immigrants, locals, and contextual key informants. Findings reveal that gender, social class, and race/ethnicity function as key determinants of HIV/AIDS-related stigma, but serve also as the basis around which migration-related stigma is constructed within this particular context. These issues need to be taken into account in addressing the vulnerability of mobile populations, as well as the stigma attached to migration and HIV/AIDS. To be effective, responses should be based in the social and contextual realities faced by migrants and mobile populations, and be part of a more general process of empowerment that improves their legal, social, economic, and health status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The USA and international recommendations no longer emphasize using risk factors to target groups for HIV-testing. Using a Guatemalan database of HIV tests, we developed a clinical prediction rule to guide decisions on HIV-testing. Prior to HIV-testing, data were collected on demographics, risk factors and prior testing. Based on a theoretical construct incorporating demographics, known HIV risk factors and symptoms, we developed a logistic regression model to predict HIV seropositivity. Between 2000 and 2005, 16,471 tests were performed, of which 19.8% were positive. The algorithm successfully predicted 1883 of 2489 HIV-positive tests (sensitivity 76%, likelihood ratio [LR]-positive 2.45) and 6282 of 9086 HIV-negative tests (specificity 69%, LR-negative 0.35). Although the model indices are robust, applying the model in a clinical setting would have little impact on improving selective testing practices. Our findings support current recommendations for universal HIV-testing, not selective testing based on risk factors. Before these recommendations can be adopted widely in Guatemala, treatment access needs to be assured and protections put in place for people diagnosed with HIV infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]