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Articles about "dispossession"
Realidades socioculturales
Vol 2 No 3 (2019)
Social research and political action in the context of violence. Reflections on my experience in Community Press in Guatemala
- Santiago Bastos
Keywords: communities, dispossession, Guatemala, collaborative research.
Dfter the genocide of the 1980s and the peace process in Guatemala, a process of territorial dispossession was launched linked to the activity of extractive industries and megaprojects. The response was a mobilization of the affected communities that became the axis of the indigenous and anti-neoliberal organization in the country, to which the State has responded with the delegitimization, repression and criminalization of leading activists and community authorities. In this context, a group of activists invited me to participate in a political project to support these communities through analysis, dissemination and reflection. The same context forced the project to end up becoming an alternative communication initiative - Community Press - and actions against criminalization. In this text I reflect on my experience in this space and this process, as a case of political use of the profession of social researcher. I dwell on the challenges and possibilities that the processes in which the social sciences are transformed into tools for communicative and legal action pose, and I show the tensions that were present.