Paper short abstract:

This paper uses the concept of precarity to understand why Poqomam Maya residents have remained in Chinautla despite river contamination and earthquake damage, arguing that their decision to stay put was linked to the bioregion forming an integral part of their individual and collective identities.

Paper long abstract:

This paper investigates how the Poqomam Maya bioregion of Chinautla has engaged with regular flooding and water contamination from the Rio Las Vacas, a result of faulty urban planning in the nearby capital of Guatemala City. Then in 1976, an earthquake exacerbated this disaster, reigniting debates about relocating the town. While some residents left and formed a new town nearby, others exercised the politics of staying put. I utilize the concept of hierarchies of precarity to understand how residents understood the threats they faced and acted in accordance with which precarities they viewed as most threatening. I view precarity as a condition that is historically constituted, contextual, and a matter of perspective. Though tied to working conditions, precarity occasions other forms of political and social marginalization. The Chinautla bioregion tells a story of various growing precarities, not just economic precarity resulting from the informalization of the local economy but ontological precarities that threatened Poqomam cultural and spiritual practices that were inherent parts of individual and collective identities. I argue that chinautlecos who refused to leave based their understanding of precarity not solely on economic conditions but rather attached more holistic meaning to this concept, one that was intrinsically linked to the meanings they attributed to their bioregion. Finally, the paper explores how contemporary Poqomam water rights activists continue to press for the state to rectify the environmental injustice caused by the river’s contamination, thus continuing the exercise of the politics of staying put based on hierarchies of precarity.