Paper short abstract:

Through an ethnographic exploration of justice practices in the region of Santa Cruz del Quiché, Guatemala, this paper analyses the ways in which indigenous peoples’ practices of alternative forms of justice –or sovereign claims- affect the nature of the postwar state.

Paper long abstract:

A constructivist perspective points to the ways in which states are historically constituted by a combination of ideas, material practices and outcomes. By considering the interplay between past and present ideas and practices of justice and governance in postwar Guatemala, this paper hopes to contribute to wider debates about violence and the contemporary state in Latin America. Through an ethnographic exploration of justice practices in the region of Santa Cruz del Quiché, the paper describes some of the social forces that compete to exercise sovereignty within a context of social violence and impunity in Quiché, including both indigenous communal authorities who assert specifically "Mayan" forms of justice by appealing to alternative epistemologies and common ethnic identity, and "mob justice" or vigilante acts of spectacular violence in response to perceived insecurity. Drawing on research that seeks to understand sovereignty from an anthropological perspective together with recent theoretical contributions to the anthropology of the state, it reflects on the implications of these sovereign claims for the nature of the postwar Guatemalan state.