Conservation and democratization: constituting citizenship in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, Guatemala

Political Geography 22 (2003) 715–740 www.politicalgeography.com

Conservation and democratization: constituting citizenship in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, Guatemala Juanita Sundberg ∗ Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, 1984 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z2 Canada

Abstract How does environmental protection intersect with processes of democratization in Latin America? This paper examines this question with a case study in Guatemala centered on the Maya Biosphere Reserve. In particular, I explore how individuals and collectives—who are differently situated socially, politically, and geographically—conceptualize and negotiate the linkages between conservation and democratization in Guatemala. Drawing upon interviews with key players as well as my ethnographic research on the daily practices of conservation in the reserve, I suggest that democratization and environmental protection in Guatemala intersect in uneasy and paradoxical ways. At the heart of these contradictions lay historical patterns of exclusion that restrict who counts as a political actor, (environmental) decision-maker, and therefore citizen.  2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The recent emergence of environmental movements and new conservation policies in Latin American countries is frequently tied to the restoration of democratic regimes in the 1980s. As Stephen Mumme and Edward Korzetz (1997: 46) contend, “liberalization and democratization create a host of new opportunities for environmental mobilization and policy development in the region”. Latin American leaders support the presumed congruence between environmental protection and democracies, as outlined in Our Own Agenda, the Latin American response to the Brundtland Report (UNDP, 1990; Gabaldo´n, 1992). ‘Green’ activists working in North

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American or European contexts also promote the notion that environmentalism is essentially a democratic ideology (Eckersley, 1992; see also Payne, 1995). Such claims are hotly contested at theoretical or philosophical levels (Dobson, 1996; Goodin, 1992; Saward, 1993), while empirical researchers find little evidence of natural congruence (Carruthers, 2001; Lafferty & Meadowcroft, 1996; Midlarsky, 1998; Walker, 1999). Instead, ample data demonstrate that conservationist objectives can be and are met without consideration for democratic procedures (Campbell, 2000; Neumann, 1998; Peluso, 1992). In short, although we may wish that environmental protection be accomplished through democratic means, there are no essential linkages between these two social imperatives. Consequently, understanding if and how environmental protection projects support or foster democracy requires geographically situated empirical analysis that is attentive to social relations and every day practices. This paper contributes to the on-going debate about the linkages between environmental protection and democracy with a case study in Guatemala centered on the Maya Biosphere Reserve, created in 1990 to protect 1.6 million hectares of tropical lowland flora and fauna. Specifically, I explore how individuals and collectives— who are differently situated socially, politically, and geographically—conceptualize and negotiate the linkages between conservation and democratization in Guatemala. My interviews with key players as well as my ethnographic research on the daily practices of conservation in the reserve lead me to suggest that democratization and environmental protection in Guatemala intersect in uneasy and paradoxical ways. At the heart of these contradictions lay historical patterns of exclusion that restrict who counts as a political actor, (environmental) decision-maker, and therefore citizen. Citizenship, then, is central to my analysis and I begin this paper outlining how and why this concept is particularly relevant in the Latin American context. I then turn to a more fine-grained analysis of citizenship formation in Guatemala, with a focus on the transition to democracy and emerging environmental movements. Drawing upon interviews with key players in the environmental movement, I consider how the social and political exclusions organizing Guatemalan society shaped the implementation of protected area legislation and the Maya Biosphere Reserve in particular. I next examine how the reserve’s inhabitants experienced the imposition of new environmental governance strategies. In two ethnographic vignettes, I analyze how two social groups, whose class position, gender, and race have historically limited their access to citizenship, negotiated the daily practices of conservation projects. In each case, the outcomes are at once uneven, contradictory, and promising. My analysis draws upon qualitative research between 1996 and 1997 on the politics of conservation in Guatemala and the Maya Biosphere Reserve. I conducted additional fieldwork in August 2000, focusing specifically on the relationship between environmental protection and processes of democratization.1 Unless otherwise noted, all quotations are taken from my taped interviews and field-notes, which

1 I am grateful to the University of British Columbia for funding my research in August 2000 with an HSS grant. Support from IIE Fulbright funded my research in 1996–1997.

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I have translated from Spanish. With the exception of some public officials, all names have been omitted/changed to protect the identity of the men and women working both to protect Guatemala’s bio-physical landscapes and to create a more just society. I also wish to note that the analysis presented here is necessarily selective and partial (after Haraway, 1991). I did not speak to everyone, nor am I speaking for anyone. Rather, I have constructed this narrative to make a particular argument about conservation, democratization, and social inequality in the hopes that future generations will consider the broader political implications of environmental protection in specific geographical contexts.

Environmentalism, democratization, and citizenship Since the 1960s, environmental movements in North America and Europe have prompted debates about environmentalism and democracy. For some, environmentalism is necessarily a democratic ideology; in Robyn Eckersley’s (1996) view, the connections are rooted in liberal principles that protect the autonomy of human and non-human beings. Critics highlight the contradictions between democracy and environmentalism at theoretical or philosophical levels (Dobson, 1996). In a pointed assessment, Goodin (1992: 168) suggests that democracy is about procedure, whereas environmentalism is about achieving outcomes; as he asks, “what guarantees can we have that the former procedures will yield the latter sorts of outcomes”. In light of such tensions, ‘green’ theorists and activists are said to privilege environmental ends over the means by which they are accomplished (Saward, 1993). Until recently, debates about environmentalism and political ideology have been overwhelmingly theoretical and primarily situated within North American or European contexts (Doherty and de Geus, 1996; Lafferty and Meadowcroft, 1996; but see Leff, 1997). Increasingly, however, scholars have begun to examine these questions through empirical research in other geographical contexts with distinct political and environmental histories (Desai, 1998; Mumme & Korzetz, 1997). In his study of three African countries, Peter Walker (1999) finds no natural congruence between democracy and environmental sustainability. For Walker, the tensions stem from the limited capacities of local institutions in weak democracies; continuing poverty is also identified as a factor, in that poor communities may use increased political power to demand access to resources. Walker (1999: 279) advocates shifting the focus of inquiry from “facile assumptions of congruence” to asking “what kinds of institutions and political systems are needed to make democracy work for people and the environment”. Given that Chile is held up as a model of political and economic liberalization in Latin America, David Carruthers’ (2001) study of environment–democracy relations in the post-Pinochet period is of particular relevance to my analysis. Indeed, the strengthening of formal democratic institutions and procedures in Chile has been accompanied by the creation of extensive environmental legislation and institutions. And yet, Carruthers suggests, environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and state institutions in Chile are characterized by “elitism” and “cupulismo”

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or decision-making behind closed doors. In this case, all the formal institutions and procedures necessary for environmentally informed democratic decision-making are in place, but the result is not inclusive, transparent, or sustainable. While the outcomes described in each of these examples may be explained in terms of national differences, Laura Pulido’s work on the environmental justice movement in the United States offers some insights that transcend individual case studies. Pulido (1994) argues that efforts to achieve procedural justice by making environmental frameworks and procedures more open and accessible are limited in the face of systemic socio-spatial inequalities between social groups. The primary lesson I take from her study is that formal institutions cannot be treated as a priori entities within a pre-constituted society (see also Yashar, 1999). Even in established democracies, political actors or citizens are differently constituted (Bell, 1995; Kofman, 1995; Lister, 1997; Marston, 1990). This means that procedural or institutional changes do not reflect or bring about social change if, in practice, all voices are not given equal weight and all communities do not have access to the same set of rights. In light of these issues, my approach to understanding democracy and environmental protection begins by analyzing who counts as a political actor, (environmental) decision-maker, and therefore citizen. This approach is influenced by recent efforts to re-conceptualize citizenship as both a set of legal attributes that includes rights and responsibilities as articulated in particular political frameworks, and “the [social] practices which define membership in society” (Sieder 1999: 106). In this sense, citizenship is framed as the processes through which individuals contest and negotiate legal frameworks, social or daily practices, and, I would add, cultural imaginaries, as they attempt to exercize rights and responsibilities. This framing is significant, given recent studies showing how overlapping systems of oppression (on the basis of gender, race, class) and exclusionary social practices present barriers to citizenship for specific groups within larger populations (Marston & Staeheli, 1994). In turn, increasing attention to social practices necessarily foregrounds the geographies of citizenship struggles, for practical hurdles to citizenship take place not only in formal political arenas, but also in daily practices at various geographical scales, such as the home, workplace, or community (Staeheli & Cope, 1994). Placing citizenship at the center of my analysis is ideal for studying Latin America’s democracies-in-the-making, where “rigid social hierarchies of class, race, and gender” organize social relations in ways that “prevent the vast majority of de jure citizens from even imagining, let alone publicly claiming, the prerogative to have rights” (Alvarez, Dagnino, & Escobar, 1998a, b: 12). In this context, citizenship has become an important arena for struggle, particularly for new social movements, many of which challenge and reconfigure the very notion of what counts as political but also, who counts as a political actor (Slater, 1985; Garcı´a-Guadilla & Blauert, 1992; Escobar & Alvarez, 1992; Alvarez et al., 1998a, b). As Brazilian researcher Evelina Dagnino (1998: 47) notes, new social movements are involved in democratizing— not only formal political institutions—but “society as a whole, including therefore the cultural practices embodied in social relations of exclusion and inequality”. For the purposes of this essay, then, democratization is defined as the social processes whereby individuals and collectives come to acquire/embody/enlarge the category

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of political actor, decision-maker, and therefore citizen in the context of conservation projects. To understand how daily practices and cultural imaginaries intersect with and modulate processes of institutional democratic reform in Latin America, the next section briefly outlines the contours of citizenship formation. While recognizing that each Latin American country has unique histories, my goal is to explore prevailing cultural imaginaries determining who counts as a political actor, decision-maker, and citizen. Citizenship and decision-making in Latin America Since the colonial era, Latin American societies have been organized by biological and cultural hierarchies that position as inferior women, indigenous people and people of color with African or Asian ancestry.2 Limits on women’s legal rights have been conceptualized in terms of naturalized accounts of biological differences between men and women, particularly in terms of mental capacity and roles within the family (Dore, 2000; Garcia, 1997). Within the logics of biological and cultural racism, indigenous people, other people of color, and illiterate mestizo (mixed-race) campesinos (peasants) have been considered unfit to take on the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Their exclusion has been rationalized on the basis of their socalled ‘degenerate’ mentality as well as cultural traits (Wade, 1997). The 19th century independent Latin American countries—just as their counterparts in North America—established liberal democratic political systems “based upon restricted representation” (Dore, 2000: 9). Women and all people of color had limited political rights and could not vote (Dore & Molyneux, 2000; Van Cott, 1994a, b). Within liberal thought, “the right to rule derived from the social superiority of elite males” (Dore, 2000: 9). In this sense, Latin American as well as North American liberal theory conceptualized the individual as masculine through sets of binaries that are gendered and racialized, as in male/female, public/private, culture/nature, reason/emotion, civilized/primitive (Dore & Molyneux, 2000; Garcia Prince, 1997; see also Lister, 1997; Shklar, 1991). Consequently, until the mid-20th century, citizenship and therefore decision-making in formal arenas were restricted to elite (propertied), educated white males. In the 20th century in many Latin American countries, feminist movements were successful in eradicating the structural bases for gender-based exclusions (Jaquette, 1994); however, women are still largely absent from the formal arenas of decisionmaking (Jaquette, 1994; Garcia, 1997). Moreover, women’s inclusion varies, depending upon how each individual’s gendered identity intersects with other axes of power, like class, ethnicity, race, sexuality, etc. For people of color in Latin America, the struggle for representation and participation is on-going (Van Cott, 2000). In the last 30 years, indigenous movements have made great strides in eradicating structural forms of discrimination (Warren,

2

The same can be said about North American societies (see Shklar, 1991).

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1998; Yashar, 1999). Indigenous organizations throughout the region have used the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 169 on indigenous peoples, completed in 1989, to demand revision of state–indigenous relations; it has also provided a model for those revised relations (Van Cott, 1994a, b: 262).3 Despite some changes, indigenous people and people of color in all Latin American nations are disproportionately marginalized at social and economic levels. Moreover, they lack institutional representation in Latin American political structures and deeply embedded social norms and prejudices restrict their participation in formal decision-making. As this brief and broad-brushed sketch of citizenship formation in Latin American countries suggests, democratization and institutional reform without social change will have little effect, in the sense that daily practices and cultural imaginaries may present barriers to the inclusion, participation, and representation of specific social groups. It is precisely because of such histories of social inequalities that new social movements in Latin American countries focus attention on changing prevailing notions of who counts as a political actor, decision-maker, and therefore citizen. I now turn to an analysis of citizenship and democratization in Guatemala; my goal is to situate the environmental movement and the creation of new protected area legislation in the context of post-civil war citizenship struggles.

Citizenship, democratization, and environmental activism in Guatemala As in other parts of Latin America, Guatemala returned to civilian rule in the 1980s when the military permitted national elections in 1985 to appoint the first civilian regime since 1966, thus ending three decades of military rule (Azpuru, 1998; Schirmer, 1996).4 A decade later in 1995–1996, Peace Accords were signed between the Guatemalan government and the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity to end a 30-year civil war and bring peace to a nation torn apart by violence (Whitfield, 1998). This period of dramatic social change has prompted unprecedented nationallevel debates about Guatemala’s “pigmentocracy”, the “racialization of inequality”, and gender politics (Casau´ s Arzu´ , 1999; Gonza´ lez-Ponciano, 1999; Blacklock & Macdonald, 2000). Struggles over citizenship—or who counts as a political actor— are at the heart of such debates in a country where about 60% of the population pertain to one of 23 indigenous or ethno-linguistic groups.5 3 The ILO Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries outlines the rights of indigenous peoples and the responsibilities of states towards them. Guatemala ratified the convention in 1996. Eight Latin American constitutions contain language recognizing the multiethnic, pluricultural and/or multilingual nature of their societies (Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Mexico, Argentina) (see Van Cott, n.d.). 4 Technically, Guatemala had been ruled by the military since a coup in 1954 ousted democratically elected president Jacobo Arbenz. However, civilian Julio Ce´ sar Me´ ndez Montenegro was “elected” president in 1966—always under military rule. 5 Guatemala is a small country with incredible ethnic or racial diversity. There are 21 distinct Maya languages as well as Xinca and Garı´funa speakers (Afro-Guatemalans) (Cojtı´ Cuxil, 1996).

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Since the colonial era, Guatemala’s elites—commonly referred to as the oligarchy—have sustained a belief in the inherent biological and cultural inferiority of indigenous and ladino (mixed-race) groups;6 moreover, authoritarian rule in Guatemala has been consistently justified in racial terms. Guatemala’s indigenous population has been said to stand in the way of progress (Gonza´ lez-Ponciano, 1999); for some elites, extermination of indigenous people is a desirable option to foster modernization (Casau´ s Arzu´ , 1999). Indeed, Guatemala’s civil war is rooted in a social, political, and economic system organized around exclusion of the majority; “the state gradually evolved as an instrument for the protection of this structure, guaranteeing the continuation of exclusion and injustice” (CEH, 1999: 18). The Commission for Historical Clarification concludes that racism “expressed repeatedly by the State as a doctrine of superiority” explains the violence directed at Maya communities during the civil war, and the Guatemalan state stands accused of committing acts of genocide against Maya populations (CEH, 1999: 24, 41). Systemic racism in Guatemala intersects with economic inequality. Guatemala is said to have the most unequal system of land tenure in Latin America—a significant issue in a country with 60% of the population living in rural areas.7 The last thorough land survey was in 1979, when 2.5% of farms controlled 65% of agricultural land, while 88% of farms occupied 16% of land; recent studies suggest that today, “acute inequality and land poverty are worse” than in 1979 (Sieder, Thomas, Vickers, & Spence, 2002: 49). The national economy is overwhelmingly centered on agri-business and extraction of natural resources, yet, such industries do not offer significant employment and wages are extremely low. Landless or land poor ladino and indigenous campesinos face incomprehensible levels of poverty with little to no state supported systems of social security (Sieder et al., 2002). Historically, the Guatemalan state has spent little on education and health.8 And yet, until 1956, men’s right to vote was tied to literacy; illiterate women were not granted the right to vote until 1965.9 Today, Guatemala has one of the highest illiteracy rates in the region (second only to Haiti), and the highest disparity between men and women (Sieder et al., 2002: 43). In many communities, schooling is not available, especially in rural areas; the schools that do exist are poorly funded and offer Spanish-language education only. Although political equality is no longer officially tied to economic worth (property holding and access to education), economic 6 Ladino is the term used in Guatemala to refer to a person of mixed European and indigenous descent; it can also refer to an indigenous person who no longer identifies him- or herself as such. In contrast to Mexico, processes of nation-building in Guatemala have not revolved around the notion of mestizaje or the creation of a ‘new race’ born of the mixing of indigenous and European. Instead, Guatemala’s elites have sustained notions of racial purity (Bianchi, Hale, & Murga, 1999, especially chapter by Casau´ s). 7 Guatemala Data Profile 2001, World Bank accessed online February 27, 2003. 8 Ironically, even the World Bank—advocate of shrinking the state—believes that Guatemala must expand tax-supported health and education services to sustain growth (Spence, Dye, Worby, Leon-Escribano, Vickers, & Lanchin, 1998). 9 The Constitution of 1956 granted illiterate men the right to vote (Jim Handy, pers. comm.). Literate women were given the right to vote in 1945; universal suffrage for women was granted in 1965 (Rachel Seider, pers. comm.).

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inequities continue to present significant barriers to exercizing citizenship. In particular, illiterate and poor people continue to be regarded as mentally inferior (Gonza´ lez-Ponciano, 1999; Casau´ s Arzu´ , 1999). As in other countries, such cultural imaginaries translate into every day social practices that work to discriminate against the poor, effectively barring them from inclusion in the political system (Staeheli & Cope, 1994). Structural inequalities, systemic racism, judicial inequality, and impunity for perpetrators of human rights abuses throughout the 20th century have meant that the majority of the population (composed of rural indigenous and ladino campesinos) have had little or no conception of themselves as citizens with rights and obligations (Sieder, 1999: 109). However, social activism during the civil war led to transformations in people’s conceptions of citizenship, in the sense of fostering analysis and awareness of both formal political rights and responsibilities and of cultural imaginaries dictating who counts. The Pan-Maya movement, which emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s, has been the key challenger of long-standing and exclusionary conceptualizations of citizenship (Warren, 1998). Maya activists such as Demetrio Cojtı´ Cuxil (1996) have provided incisive analyses of Guatemala’s system of internal colonialism and their intellectual and organizing efforts have produced a new generation of Maya involved in transforming the national body. In addition, women’s groups—such as the Mutual Support Group for Relatives of the Disappeared (GAM)—created new spaces for women’s political activism; for some, engagement with human rights organizations led to sustained efforts to mobilize for women’s rights as citizens (Blacklock & Macdonald, 2000; Nolin Hanlon & Shankar, 2000). By 1996, Peace Accords had been signed to end the civil war and bring changes to the nation’s social, political, and economic systems. The Agreement on the Rights and Identity of Indigenous Peoples (1995) and other agreements commit the Guatemalan government to develop the legal mechanisms to recognize indigenous identity, indigenous customary law, and to guarantee increased indigenous participation and representation in the nation’s political system (Sieder, 1999). These institutional reforms make citizenship central to processes of democratization in Guatemala. However, as Jim Handy (2002) notes, the Peace Accords are not legally binding and in a 1999 national referendum, a proposal to amend the constitution to reflect some issues recommended in the peace agreements was defeated. According to many observers, the rejected reforms reflect a refutation of Maya demands for recognition (Handy, 2002: 49). In sum, despite commitments made in the Peace Accords, the state has been unable or unwilling to undo the country’s system of structural inequality (Sieder et al., 2002). Consequently, democracy in Guatemala is fraught with violence, corruption, racism, and a deepening mistrust of political institutions and judicial solutions. Human rights violations continue and in fact, are sanctioned by the military (Schirmer, 1996). In Edelberto Torres-Rivas’ (1996: 51) words, “Guatemala is experiencing a coexistence of healthy authoritarian forces, institutions, and personalities together with several other weak and inexperienced institutions, party forces, and incipient democratic social forces”.

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Democratization and environmental activism In this context of socio-political upheaval, civil society in Guatemala has blossomed. In addition to women’s and indigenous movements, the mid-1980s witnessed the emergence of an environmental movement made up of biologists, ecologists and lawyers from Guatemala’s professional and elite classes (Berger, 1997). In particular, the movement focused attention on deforestation in the Pete´ n, Guatemala’s northern most department (see Fig. 1). In the popular imagination, the Pete´ n was a heavily forested region rich in natural resources; for many, it represented the country’s future (Schwartz, 1990; Soza, 1970). However, as environmental activists revealed, the expansion of the cattle ranching industry, logging, and migrant farming had removed approximately 50% of the Pete´ n’s forest cover between the 1960s and 1990s (Ponciano, 1998). Moreover, the population of the Pete´ n had expanded dramatically since the mid-1960s, when about 25,000 people lived in the area. Due to government policy to colonize the area, followed by internal displacements caused by Guatema-

Fig. 1.

Map of Guatemala with the Maya Biosphere Reserve.

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la’s civil war, the population in the Pete´ n increased to 300,000 in 1990 and is currently believed to be at 500,000 (Schwartz, 1990; Nations, 1999). Taking advantage of the political opening created by the return to civilian rule, environmentalists succeeded in convincing then president Vinicio Cerezo Are´ valo to sign legislation in 1989, establishing the System of Protected Areas and a new administrative agency, the National Council of Protected Areas (Consejo Nacional de A´ reas Protegidas—CONAP). This legislation created the Maya Biosphere Reserve in the northern Pete´ n to protect 1.6 million hectares of tropical forest (CONAP, 1996). In light of complex pressures facing the reserve, environmentalists chose the biosphere reserve model, which combines conservation with sustainable development by zoning for different uses. As mandated by UNESCO (1984), the biosphere reserve model divides protected areas into different zones with varying management regimes; nuclear zones require strict protection while multiple use zones permit ‘traditional’ livelihood activities deemed compatible with conservation goals. The buffer zone encircles populated areas and according to the model, sustainable development and appropriate resource management projects should be provided to encourage support for conservation. Although CONAP had the legal authority to implement the reserve, the state turned to the international community for financial and administrative support. In Guatemala, as in other Latin American countries, economic crisis, structural adjustment policies, as well as a shift to neo-liberal models of state–society relations have meant that the state is unable or unwilling to provide many necessary social services (Bulmer-Thomas, 1996). Thus, in environmental regulation and other arenas, there is an increasing devolution of responsibility to international agencies, NGOs, the private sector, and other groups in civil society (Bebbington & Thiele, 1993; Fisher, 1997). In this context, the Guatemalan government signed an agreement in 1990 with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to participate in the management of the reserve under the auspices of the Maya Biosphere Project (USAID, 1989). The USAID contracted three North American NGOs to carry out the project: The Nature Conservancy to strengthen the reserve’s management; CARE International to carry out environmental education; and Conservation International to encourage economic alternatives (see Sundberg, 1998 for a detailed analysis of NGOs in the reserve). In the next section, I draw upon my interviews with key players in the Maya Biosphere Reserve to examine how systems of social categorization and cultural imaginaries inform the implementation of conservation legislation; my focus is on the first 6–7 years of the project.

The politics of exclusionary conservation Implementation of the Maya Biosphere Reserve began in 1990, just 4 years after civilian elections and democratic reforms in Guatemala. The new civilian regimes, however, have been unable to transform the autocratic forms of governance that

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prevail in Guatemalan state bureaucracies. Indeed, CONAP, the new park administration held an authoritarian outlook on its mandate to implement the legal statutes creating the reserve. As CONAP’s first executive secretary stated, “Our first job in Pete´ n will be to make our presence felt. Once we have laid down precedents for a strict protection of the nuclear zones, then we can negotiate with interested parties for a limited exploitation of the secondary areas” (quoted in Perera, 1989). As a former CONAP leader noted, in the early 1990s, “the approach was to impose and enforce the law”. Those implementing the reserve, he said, “were driven by a TNC [The Nature Conservancy] vision—[i.e.] this is a park and we are going to enforce the law”. Moreover, suggests another former CONAP executive, CONAP did not allocate funding for the promotion and dissemination of information about the reserve to reassure the population if and under what conditions their use rights would be respected. As the leader of a Central American organization for sustainable development acknowledged, “the reserve was not implemented in a participatory manner”. However, he said, it was urgent to establish the reserve and the administration would have lost too much time trying to do it in a participatory way. Plus, he added, “people would not have agreed to it anyway”. A current senior official at CONAP also laments the approach taken at the time, but his reasoning supports such tactics. He said: “If all of the people had participated in the creation of the reserve, perhaps the reserve would not have the problems it currently faces, perhaps it would be better protected than it currently is.” “Was this possible at that time?” I inquired. “It was impossible”, he replied “because no one understood environmentalism, and no one knew what it was for”.10 As these comments suggest, the urgent need to protect the Pete´ n’s forests is called upon to justify the use of authoritarian enforcement of a law (MacFarland, Godoy, Heckadon, Popper, & Posadas, 1994). The lack of participatory methods is tied to people’s presumed inability to understand conservation. Although they may not have agreed in principle, Northern NGOs and the USAID were complicit with CONAP’s authoritarian methods in the early 1990s, because those practices accomplished desired institutional goals and moral commitments to the protection of nature. As a consequence of such attitudes, neither municipal and departmental leaders nor local residents were consulted prior to the creation of the reserve. Many individuals found out that they resided within a protected area after being instructed to halt traditional practices in certain areas (i.e. collecting forest products, felling timber for housing, farming). According to my interviews, CONAP officials also threatened to take away people’s pets (i.e. monkeys, parrots, toucans, coati mundis, etc.). People residing within the reserve demonstrated their disapproval of such exclusionary practices and the potential loss of livelihood by burning several CONAP check points in 1991 and 1993, and a biological station in 1997 (Cabrera, 1991). Also in 1997, a group of officials were kidnapped on their way to meet with and

10 The translation is somewhat awkward; in Spanish, he replied: “Era imposible, porque nadie conocia el tema ambiental y nadie sabia para que era.”

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negotiate the removal of a peasant community from the reserve. As a result of one such incident, CONAP abandoned its post in a Maya Q’eqchı´ agricultural settlement, although a military encampment eventually replaced it. Indeed, the military is viewed as a valuable resource in the fight to protect the forest. In the words of one project director, “the military can help give support” because it is widely “respected”. Explaining exclusionary measures My interviews with governmental and non-governmental personnel illustrate that they justify such authoritarian and exclusionary measures in a number of ways, ranging from the narrow vision of NGOs, the poor quality of democracy in Guatemala, to the perceived cultural traits of the reserve’s inhabitants. Although I have organized the responses according to these three rationales, it is important to note that the same individuals may hold all three views simultaneously. When asked if processes of democratization are included in the design of projects, the Guatemalan director of a US-based international NGO replied, “No, because all the NGOs are sectorialized; we only do our thing. Human rights, which include respect for others, does include processes of democratization. But, development only includes things like clean water, and environmental NGOs only focus on environment; democratization is not a variable.” He added, “we [NGOs] don’t approach things in an integrated fashion. Our challenges oblige us to pursue specific goals.” From his perspective, NGOs can be analyzed only in terms of the specific goals they set out to accomplish. Broader questions about how environmental NGOs reflect and constitute political processes are precluded from this analysis. A manager at CONAP framed his answer to a question about why inclusive decision-making processes were not part of the reserve’s implementation plan as follows: Because the processes of democratization in Guatemala have been bad; it’s said that there is democracy in Guatemala, but this is doubtful. I don’t think there has been vision, and decision-making is done at a centralized level. The Maya Biosphere Reserve’s boundaries were drawn up at a desk, so there it is. This is why there are so many problems. From his perspective, centralized decision-making and authoritarian measures stem from the lack of real democracy in Guatemala.11 A North American NGO director also points to the quality of democracy as a factor influencing conservation practices. He suggests that “Guatemala is currently neither democratic nor authoritarian. If it was at least authoritarian, we could at least say, ‘this is the law, so obey it.’ We get by with negotiations, not by applying the law.” 11 Deborah Yashar’s (1997: 240) analysis provides additional insight on the non-democratic methods employed by NGOs in the reserve. She argues that because Guatemalan social movements and organizations must operate within a context of state-sanctioned violence, they adopt “the non-democratic practice of privatizing discourse, communication, strategizing, and decision-making”.

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Most interesting, but also most significant to my analysis are the responses that identify cultural obstacles as the primary reason why institutions are unable to accomplish their goals through democratic means. From this perspective, it is people’s culture, or their essential nature, which causes organizations to take authoritarian measures. In answer to a question about why institutions find it difficult to foster participation, the Guatemalan director of a US based NGO stated that: The worst obstacle of all are the people themselves, the communities don’t want to do it. After 30 years of non-declared war, people’s psychology is affected; they make accusations like, are you a communist? Are you a guerrillero [guerrilla]? This defines the socio-economic profile of Guatemala today. We are a country scarred by a non-declared war. People have come to manipulate the Peace Accords; they think, ‘now, the government can’t do anything to me, the military can’t do anything to me.’ Here, the speaker is suggesting that Guatemalan culture is anti-democratic and therefore, that Guatemalan people are not psychologically or culturally capable of participating as decision-makers in projects that affect their lives. This rationale permits NGOs to explain why projects are announced to, not negotiated with communities. A CONAP official articulates similar perspectives. In answer to a question about the social barriers to participation, this man suggested that one barrier is education (la misma educacio´ n). When I asked him to elaborate, he responded: “Because people don’t know how to read and write, so how are we going to involve them? They are thinking principally about making sure they have food for the following day.” In this case, illiteracy and poverty are represented as obstacles to reasoning; people are deemed incapable of making decisions about their lives because they cannot read and write and because they are poor. Along similar lines, the Guatemalan director of community development for a Latin American NGO suggested that my study of environment and democratization should begin with an analysis of campesino culture. There are several characteristics of campesino communities that limit both processes, he said, including “illiteracy, culture, vices, personal interests, and limited capacity to invest [i.e. limited capital and limited ability to think ahead]”. These limitations, he suggested, “often oblige the NGOs to act in anti-democratic or even coercive ways”. This is because, he added, “Guatemalans have a long history of violence and we are not accustomed to acting in democratic ways.” In the rationales outlined here, neither the biosphere reserve model nor the means by which it was implemented are mentioned as possible causes of resistance or sabotage; rather, the blame is placed upon the cultural traits of poor indigenous and ladino Guatemalan campesinos. These narratives resonate with elite ideologies, which have consistently positioned indigenous people as the primary obstacle to modernization since the mid-19th century. As the rationale went, “the government and plantation owners want to help the indigenous people but they resist progress” (Gonza´ lez-Ponciano, 1999: 18). Similarly, 19th and 20th century racial hierarchies

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have consistently positioned indigenous and ladino campesinos as “racially degenerate” and “unprepared to make use of their civil liberties… and for this reason they demand a tough hand to control them” (Gonza´ lez-Ponciano, 1999: 18). The metaphor of parent and child, also evoked in conservationists’ narratives, has guided elite thinking about indigenous and ladino campesinos—seen as requiring the guidance of racially and culturally superior people. In positioning Guatemalan campesinos as obstacles to democratic process in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, conservationists reproduce long-standing racial and cultural hierarchies that have been at the root of Guatemala’s violent socio-economic and political system.

Negotiating exclusionary conservation The Maya Biosphere Reserve is inhabited by historically indigenous villages along the shores of Lake Pete´ n-Itza; ladino forest collectors who consider themselves to be Peteneros living in communities within the multiple use zones; an urban-centered colonial elite; and long- and short-term migrants living in all zones growing maize for national markets and working as wage laborers for other farmers, ranchers, merchants, hoteliers, etc. (see Fig. 2).12 Early studies revealed that the majority of migrants are ladino and Q’eqchı´ campesinos from the Oriente and Verapaz departments (SEGEPLAN, 1993:76; Grunberg, 1999).13 As mentioned, these communities were not initially consulted; nor are they included in the reserve’s formal power structures. Individuals and collectives within these communities have been differently affected by shifting environmental governance strategies; their differing experiences stem from the ways in which intersecting axes of power, such as class position, gender, and race constitute their bodies and restrict their ability to embody the category of political actor, decision-maker, and therefore citizen. In what follows, I draw upon my ethnographic research in the reserve to analyze how two social groups historically excluded from citizenship negotiate environmental protection and democratization. In my first ethnographic vignette, I focus on San Geronimo,14 a community of migrant agriculturalists living within what is now the multiple use zone of the reserve; here, class position and racial identity are the most salient features of analysis. In the second case, in San Timoteo, I concentrate on the Women Rescuing Indigenous Medicinal Plants Group and isolate gender and race in my analysis. In each of these cases, my goal is to examine how the every day practices of conservation reflect and constitute social relations and therefore cit-

12 In 1999, the population living within the Maya Biosphere Reserve was estimated to be 90,300, and is composed of Peteneros and migrants (Grunberg, 1999). Approximately 20,500 people live in national parks, 19,700 in the multiple use zone, and 50,000 in the buffer zone (Grunberg, 1999). 13 Although population density is highest in Guatemala’s indigenous highlands, only 15% of migrants appear to have come from this region. The data cited here are gathered from a variety of sources. While the numbers may not be completely accurate, they provide an idea of population and ethnicity in the area. 14 The names of the villages and the organizations have been changed to protect the identity of the inhabitants.

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Fig. 2.

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The Maya Biosphere Reserve.

izenship. I will also ask, in what ways do conservation projects foster every day practices of democratization in Guatemala? Land, inequality, and the ‘migrant mentality’ As land (and thus wealth) concentration has been one of the overriding sources of conflict in Guatemala, my first case study privileges class as a principle axis of exclusion; however, I also stress that inequality in Guatemala is racialized. Landless or land poor ladino and indigenous campesinos see few desirable options in Guatemala’s exclusionary socio-economic system, and many have migrated to the Pete´ n in order to provide their families with what they consider to be a decent life. And yet, histories of exclusion inform how long-term or recently arrived migrants are regarded and treated in the Maya Biosphere Reserve. Indeed, academic studies, policy documents, NGO brochures and displays in the reserve suggest that migrant campesinos employ inappropriate land management practices because they are ignorant of the northern Pete´ n’s ecosystem (see Sundberg, 1998 for a detailed analysis of deforestation discourse in the reserve).15 Hence, in 1995, 86% of individuals from 15 NGOs 15 Implicit in these analyses is the notion that nature has inherent qualities and that if migrants were more intelligent, they would be capable of reading nature’s essence off the landscape.

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surveyed responded that the immigrants are responsible for the deterioration of the reserve (Soza, 1996: 153). To examine why migrants deforest, Carlos Soza Manzanero (1996), an educator and director of a US-based NGO, conducted a study in a predominantly Maya Q’eqchı´ agricultural community in the buffer zone of the reserve. Soza attempted to discern the links between ecological conscience, land management techniques, and literacy (only 50% of the community can read and write). To assess the level of ecological conscience, Soza asked people questions like, how is rain formed? What is nature? What is life? What is the forest for? Although the questions clearly privilege textbook understandings of environmental processes, Soza uses the responses to argue that the majority of the population lacks an ecological conscience. He concludes (1996: 99): The anthropogenic impact in the Maya Biosphere Reserve’s landscape is negative due to the feeble ecological conscience of its inhabitants because of the fact that the majority has migrated to the area and tend to reproduce their original customs where the conditions in the landscape are different. In light of such narratives, I argue that migrants are regarded as mentally inferior on the basis of their land use practices and ecological conscience and therefore incapable of appropriate environmental decision-making. This belief system authorizes exclusionary practices in specific conservation projects, such as those in San Geronimo. Negotiating the practices of conservation in a migrant community San Geronimo is a community of migrant agriculturalists living within what is now the multiple use zone of the reserve; the 18–20 ladino and indigenous families have been in the area for 20–25 years.16 In 1991, the Center for Education and Investigation of Tropical Agronomy (CATIE) based in Turrialba, Costa Rica approached community members about initiating a region-wide project—Conservation for the Sustainable Development of Central America—funded by Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Through the project, the settlement was granted Guatemala’s first community forestry concession in 1994, which gives the residents rights to manage a 7039 hectare area zoned for agriculture, sustainable forestry, and forest conservation (Gretzinger, 1998). While the devolution of land rights may suggest a convergence between conservation and democratization, my ethnographic research in this community suggests otherwise. Experiences with social, political, and economic violence frame why families chose to settle in this remote area and how people perceived CATIE’s arrival in the community. Many families had sold land granted through agrarian reform projects

16 The families in this community identified as ladino, Chorti’, and Mopan; it was difficult to learn about ethnic identity as many people in Guatemala are accustomed to hiding such information.

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in southern Guatemala because it was insufficient to feed their families. Others were displeased with seasonal migration work that separated them from family members. Still others were displaced by the country’s civil war and counter-insurgency campaigns. Thus, when CATIE personnel began to approach the community in 1991, many regarded them with suspicion. In part, this was because people feared they would be physically removed from the area with the declaration of the Maya Biosphere Reserve (about which they knew very little). As one man said, “We thought that they [CATIE] wanted to trick us, that it was just government policy [politicas del gobierno] to get us out.” Don Chema17 said he had thought “the president had sold us to the gringos [North Americans]. That is why they were so interested in preventing the destruction of the forest.” Pointing to sustainable development as a peculiar social practice, Don Francisco commented, “it’s very rare that someone says they are concerned about us; it is a little strange. Then they convinced us that, yes. Although I personally don’t really believe them.” CATIE’s initial goal was to involve families in the “sustainable management of the area’s natural resources in a way that permits them to better their quality of life while collaborating in the conservation of nature” (CATIE, 1992: 1). Nonetheless, the community does not figure prominently in CATIE’s Management Plan or other texts. Information about the residents comprises one quarter of page 2 and half of page 4; the rest of the 27 page Management Plan includes technical information about geography, vegetation, soils, timber inventories, markets, and current land use practices. A statement in the management plan is indicative of the relationship envisioned between project staff and community: the “community will gradually gain the experience needed to ensure the sustainable management of the resources under their responsibility” (CATIE, 1994:1). In this sense, the project was conceptualized as a mechanism for discovering and teaching the principles of science-based natural resource management. My ethnographic research in San Geronimo was cut short; however, interviews with a majority of the adult residents suggest that the social relations outlined in the Management Plan are reproduced in the project’s daily practices.18 Don Andre´ s recalled the project’s beginning: At first, they came and they held meetings and gave us talks and they collaborated with us in everything until they succeeded in convincing us of the forestry concession—because the land wasn’t going to be parceled out. In that they told us the truth, although they have tricked us many times. Now we are working on the concession only because they have already involved us, since the benefits from the harvest are minimal.

17

The titles Don and Don˜ a are used in Guatemala to designate respect for grown men and women. I ended my ethnographic research in San Geromino after only 2 months, due to gender-based harassment and discrimination from the extension agents working on the project. I continued to interview the director of the project on a regular basis and later contracted a research assistant with considerable experience working alongside extension agents to complete my interviews focusing on NGO–local relations. 18

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Moreover, the community’s participation in decision-making has been limited. For instance, the president of the Concession Committee indicated that the planning process did not involve locals directly. As he described it, “we were invited to a meeting and they told us what they were doing and asked if it was good, and we approved.” In reference to the construction of a nature trail, Don Andre´ s said it was built “because CATIE is behind us telling us to do it”. Male members of the concession are involved in the project primarily as day laborers and field assistants, carrying out instructions set out by the CATIE staff. Thus, selected members earn daily wages working in demonstration plots and forest management areas; during the timber harvest, a larger number of members and non-members are employed. Interestingly, the project director lamented the community’s lack of participation; as he put it, “They just don’t have a vision of the project as their own. They just don’t have an understanding of this as a business.” From his perspective, the inhabitants of San Geronimo are to blame if they do not take ownership of the project, rather than the project personnel or the mechanisms through which the project was carried out. In their narratives, people in San Geronimo positioned themselves as going along with the project because they obtain benefits from their participation. The principal benefit is perceived to be land tenure security and the right to plant milpa or cornfields. Thus, Don Andre´ s commented that “the land is ours and we are paying taxes to harvest.” Similarly, Don Francisco indicated, “the land is ours. We are paying taxes for it and the concession is for San Geronimo [and three other settlements]. So, we are the only ones that have rights to it.” Don Chema said, “we know that we are renting this land and that they can’t remove us, nor can others come in.” Don Xavier seconded this comment saying, “no one can come and take it away or steal. Because people from other areas are not permitted to enter.” Although people in San Geronimo may achieve goals consistent with their own interests, the project positions them, and they position themselves, as manual laborers; in contrast, the CATIE staff is positioned as responsible for the intellectual architecture of the project. Indeed, 6 years into the project, people in San Geronimo did not see themselves as capable of managing the concession alone. When asked about CATIE’s impending withdrawal in 1997, most people said that they believed the project would not continue without further assistance. As Don Juan remarked, “We need help from people that are educated [preparado].” This comment was seconded by Don Chema; “No [we can’t continue alone], because there are no educated people here.” Don Francisco said, “we need advice from someone who knows about these things. We work, but in written and other things, we can’t do it.” In sum, the project’s daily practices both reflect and reproduce social hierarchies that position uneducated and economically marginalized people as incapable of making decisions about their future. Community members were not able to embody nor enlarge the category of environmental decision-maker and therefore citizen. As such, the daily practices of conservation in San Geronimo did little to strengthen or encourage democratic social relations and institutional procedures.

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Gendering conservation and citizenship In my analysis of San Geronimo, I did not point to the gendered nature of conservation. However, in CATIE’s project, as in the majority of other projects in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, men are positioned as the primary agents of social and environmental change. Thus, NGOs tend to work with male leaders and male heads of household. Although the USAID (1990: 11) project’s “Social Soundness Analysis” suggests that women should be “key allies in the Maya Biosphere Project”, the majority of institutions have had difficulty working with women. The reasons are many, but all tend to draw from “prevailing cultural notions that assign women to tasks around the house, even though the reality of subsistence life may require them to be in the field or the forest” (USAID, 1990: 10). The Guatemala director of a North American NGO suggested that “even as NGOs try to avoid it, sexism is reproduced”. We do marginalize the position of women. People say that this is a cultural problem, ‘we can’t change cultural patterns’. We say, ‘women don’t want to leave their houses’. Even if they don’t want to, we also don’t search for the mechanisms to find spaces for women. In privileging men and effectively giving them more say over the future of land use in the reserve, conservation projects risk reproducing gender-based inequalities that until the mid-20th century were upheld within the legal system in Guatemala, and indeed throughout Latin America. And yet, as I outline in my second ethnographic vignette, the presence of conservation projects in the reserve also disrupts local power structures and gender relations, thereby creating spaces for new forms of environmental activism and political alliances. International environmental NGOs offer access to new support networks, which provide political and financial assistance to groups whose goals are consistent with their own.19 In addition, individual researchers may play a part in reconfiguring power relations, particularly if and when they place value upon local knowledge and practices and constitute otherwise marginalized groups—and the women within those groups—as legitimate social actors because of their unique knowledge base.

19

The significance of transnational networks for indigenous movements—not in place of, but in addition to preexisting regional or national networks—is increasingly documented (Van Cott, 1994a, b, 2000; Varese, 1996; Yashar, 1998). In this vein, Painter and Philo (1995: 117) point to networks and webs as spatial tactics that enable those outside the formal spaces of citizenship to create new spaces wherein they can both appropriate, and lobby for recognition of citizenship. While it may not be appropriate to presume that the women’s group formed alliances as a spatial tactic, such networks certainly became important to their organization.

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The Women Rescuing Indigenous Medicinal Plants Group

My second ethnographic vignette focuses on alliances between a group of indigenous women and international researchers and organizations, which disrupted the gender biases at the heart of conservation projects in Guatemala and permitted the women to become participants in civil society. The women live in San Timoteo, a historically marginalized Itzaj community positioned on the lower rungs of regional and national socio-economic hierarchies that privilege ladinos and whites. As was the case with other communities, the Itzaj were excluded from the Maya Biosphere Reserve’s formal decision-making circles in the early 1990s. If and when members of the Itzaj community were invited to the table, men represented the community, thereby perpetuating Itzaj women’s lack of representation and participation in formal political processes. The Women Rescuing Indigenous Medicinal Plants Group emerged in 1996, from a research project looking specifically at medicinal plants in San Timoteo. Sam, a European botanist was working closely with women in the community to compile basic data on plant use and collect recipes for specific remedies. In collaboration with Sam, several women started a project combining environmental and cultural conservation goals, with economic strategies that provide income to women. This idea evolved into an “ethno-pharmacy” that would sell traditional remedies gathered and packaged by the women; the group also planned to create a nursery of plant species. Although the primary goal was to rescue medicinal plant use, Rosalia, the group’s first president, suggested that the group had a second goal: “that women succeed in forming a group... women rarely participate and when you see an organization, it is always directed by a man”. I began a collaborative ethnographic research project with the women’s group at the point of their inception in November 1996, and have been able to follow up with them periodically since this time. The research presented here focuses primarily upon the period of the group’s formation and touches only briefly upon the current situation. It is important to note that the number of individuals involved constantly shifts as women negotiate other responsibilities; moreover, conflicts between women have led to divisions in the group. However, the women at the heart of the project probably number around 10. My research suggests that in San Timoteo, women’s gendered identity is constituted in relation to family; a woman’s sense of responsibility to her parents, siblings and children shapes her vision of herself and her future. Thus, participation in the medicinal plants group presented most women with a constant struggle to balance their household demands with the desire to expand their reach outside the home, to participate and take responsibility in the group, and to learn new things. Although many women initially saw the group as a chance to valorize or regain their knowledge of medicinal plants, the daily practices of participation had more significant effects on social relations at the level of family and community. For a number of the women, articulating a priority beyond their immediate families was a significant step. As Don˜ a Flor said, “For a long time, I have wanted to do something for

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humanity.” She had wanted to pursue a career as a young girl, but did not have the opportunity, as she explains below: We women always occupy ourselves with the house, and only the men leave to work. And a woman can work like men, I mean we don’t have the [physical] strength they have, but we have the capacity... At home, when you have finished the housework, you may want to go somewhere, but there is no where to go. If I go out in the street, people will say, ‘that woman just wanders around.’ ...But with this responsibility [in the group] I have somewhere to go. More importantly, the group gave women the opportunity to speak their minds and to become decision-makers. Several participants identified a women-only environment as critical to fostering the confidence and assertiveness needed to take such steps. In interviews, the women explained why. In Don˜ a Flor’s words, “Between women we talk. With a man there, we will give him the prerogative to speak and he ends up directing.” Don˜ a Margarita, a middle-aged mother of three girls including Rosalia, criticized those parents who discouraged their daughters’ participation. As she put it, “they don’t give their daughters support by saying, ‘look daughter—this is good, you got involved and now you will have more opportunities and God willing, will learn things that I did not learn’.” “As a result,” she continued, “there are girls who do not lose their fear and embarrassment [pena].” Rosalia concluded that, “I think women are afraid to speak because they have never done so.” Rosalia indicated that she accepted her nomination to the presidency of the medicinal plants group so that she could encourage the women to acquire confidence. After several meetings, the group chose not to work with any of the international NGOs in the Maya Biosphere Project for fear they would be co-opted and their decision-making power would be reduced. However, through Sam, they eventually found support in EcoLogic Development Fund, a US-based NGO that offers handsoff financial assistance.20 With this financial support, the group offered a salary to one of its members, who served as coordinator and liason with other institutions for 1 year. Since 1996, participation in the group has enabled its participants to take on new kinds of responsibilities, to meet other women involved in grassroots organizations, and to travel. In addition, the group fulfilled its goal of establishing a plant nursery; they also built a meeting center. With this infrastructure in place, the group is able to store their materials, produce tinctures and soaps, host events, lead tours and coordinate volunteers (primarily Spanish-language students). Furthermore, the support from outsiders has given the medicinal plants group a certain legitimacy and status in the community that extends to the individual participants. This case is significant on two levels; one, the Women Rescuing Indigenous Medicinal Plants Group emerged as a participant in civil society and is now linked to a network of other (indigenous) women’s organizations striving for a voice in the process of democratizing Guatemala. At a second, more intimate level, each individ-

20

Visit EcoLogic Development Fund at http://www.ecologic.org. See Newsletter 6(Fall) 1997.

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ual woman as well as the group as a whole took significant steps to speak, assume responsibility, and make decisions, thereby re-configuring who counts as a political actor and decision-maker in their home and community. While democratization is usually measured in terms of formal institutions, this case points to the importance of analyzing changes in every day practices that enlarge and transform the category of citizen.

Concluding discussion My research on the Maya Biosphere Reserve suggests that environmental protection and democracy intersect in complex and contradictory ways in Guatemala. On the one hand, democratization created an opening for an elite environmental movement to influence the creation of new conservation policies. On the other hand, those implementing the reserve assumed an authoritarian and exclusionary approach to environmental protection. Key to these paradoxes, I argue, lay entrenched social hierarchies that restrict who counts as a political actor, environmental decisionmaker, and therefore citizen. Deemed incapable of appropriate environmental decision-making, the reserve’s resident population were said to oblige the reserve’s administrators and the NGOs “to act in anti-democratic or even coercive ways”. Ethnographic research in two reserve communities reveals how different groups dealt with such an exclusionary social system, with contradictory outcomes in each case. In San Geronimo, ladino and indigenous migrant campesinos were excluded from participating in the intellectual architecture of a sustainable development project that transformed their lives. However, community leaders went along with the project plans because it accomplished goals consistent with their wants and needs. In this case, the project reflected and reproduced exclusionary practices even as the community obtained rights to land. In contrast, my study of the Women Rescuing Indigenous Medicinal Plants Group suggests that the presence of conservation projects in the area disrupted local power structures, while researchers provided access to new networks of political and financial support. In this case, indigenous women became decision-makers and participants in civil society—a truly significant step in Guatemala. Although this paper outlines a set of outcomes in Guatemala that are subject to change through time, my analysis points to the need for empirical research that begins by questioning—rather than presuming—the linkages between democracies and environmental protection. In short, the existence of democratic regimes and formal institutions do not guarantee that environmental projects will be implemented through democratic means. As suggested here, this is because regimes and institutions are constituted in turn by social relations and cultural imaginaries. In the case of Guatemala and indeed other Latin American countries, such relations and imaginaries create barriers to inclusion and restrict specific groups from embodying the category of citizen and exercizing citizenship rights and responsibilities. Placing notions of citizenship at the center of my analysis of environmental protection and democracy allows me to consider how citizens and institutions are constituted in the action of

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social relations, rather than presuming such identities before the action gets started.21 Such an approach also shifts the focus of analysis to daily practices at multiple geographical scales: the home, conservation projects, and environmental institutions. Ultimately, my research in Guatemala suggests that democratizing environmental protection depends upon a simultaneous process of re-conceptualizing who counts as a political actor. Indeed, new social movements, which mobilize around alternative notions of politics, citizenship, identity, and nature seem to offer the most promising signs of democratization in Latin America. How this social transformation occurs and under what conditions is best analyzed through geographically situated empirical research. Acknowledgements First and foremost, I thank the individuals and communities in Guatemala that gave of their time and energy to answer my questions and allowed me to observe and participate in their lives. Also I am very grateful to Karl Zimmerer for inviting me to the Globalization and Geographies of Conservation Conference at the University of Wisconsin, where I presented a previous version of this paper and benefited from audience interest and questions. Last but certainly not least, I wish to thank the thoughtful comments provided by two anonymous referees; their suggestions significantly enriched the paper. References Alvarez, S., Dagnino, E., & Escobar, A. (1998a). Cultures of politics/politics of culture: Re-visioning Latin American social movements. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Alvarez, S., Dagnino, E., & Escobar, A. (1998b). Introduction: The cultural and the political in Latin American social movements. In S. Alvarez, E. Dagnino, & A. Escobar (Eds.), Cultures of politics/politics of culture: Re-visioning Latin American social movement (pp. 1–29). Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Azpuru, D. (1998). Peace and democratization in Guatemala: Two parallel processes. In D. Arnson (Ed.), Comparative peace processes in Latin America (pp. 97–125). Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bebbington, A., & Thiele, G. (1993). Non-governmental organizations and the state in Latin America, rethinking roles in sustainable agricultural development. London: Routledge. Bell, D. (1995). Pleasure and danger: The paradoxical spaces of sexual citizenship. Political Geography, 14, 139–153. Berger, S. (1997). Environmentalism in Guatemala: When fish have ears. Latin American Research Review, 32, 99–115. Bianchi, C., Hale, C., & Murga, G. (Eds.). (1999). ¿Racismo en Guatemala? Abriendo el debate sobre un tema tabu´ . Guatemala City, Guatemala: AVANSCO. Blacklock, C., & Macdonald, L. (2000). Women and citizenship in Mexico and Guatemala. In S. Rai (Ed.), International perspectives on gender and democratisation (pp. 19–40). London: Macmillan. Bulmer-Thomas, V. (1996). The new economic model in Latin America. London: ILAS/Macmillan. Cabrera, M. (1991). Informe del viaje realizado a la comunidad de El Naranjo-Frontera, Municipio la Libertad, El Pete´ n, Durante las fechas 28 febrero al 2 de marzo 1991. Internal report, CECON, Guatemala City, Guatemala.

21 Here, I am drawing on Donna Haraway’s (1997) discussion of how science constitutes gender relations.

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