Agrotropolis: Youth, Street, and Nation in the New Urban Guatemala by J.T. Way

Abstract

Reviewed by: Agrotropolis: Youth, Street, and Nation in the New Urban Guatemala by J.T. Way Gaye Ozpinar Agrotropolis: Youth, Street, and Nation in the New Urban Guatemala. By J.T. Way. Oakland: University of California Press, 2021, p. 328, $29.95. J.T. Way's Agrotropolis traces the ground level historical changes in Guatemala from the end of the genocide in 1983 to the end of 2012 through an examination of youth counterculture and music in the agrourbanizing landscapes. The focus is that of an urban and cultural history that goes well beyond the capital city considering landscapes that are "agrarian-yet-urban, provincial-yet-urbane" (4). In light of this approach, J.T. Way creates the term "agrotropolis" in order to refer to the landscapes that have been profoundly urbanized without losing their agricultural backbone. Way also contends that such urbanization has gone hand in hand with neoliberal policies that put commercialization, consumerism, and capital expansion above all else and continued to marginalize poor people. Through this monograph, Way contributes to the newly emerging field of planetary urbanization that problematizes and rejects the neat divide between the rural and the urban within the neoliberal context. Aside from creating new terminology (i.e., agrotropolis), the monograph is also uniquely creative in the way it utilizes a hybrid language, something quite rare in academic scholarship. Through combining words and idioms from both Spanish and English, Agrotopolis punctuates the hegemony of English in academic writing. For example, towards the beginning Way introduces the phrase "de a pie" and its translation as "everyday" and then uses the phrase "de a pie people" throughout the book when referring to everyday, ordinary people. J.T. Way has visited Guatemala regularly since 1991 and lived in Guatemala year-round from 2002 to 2012. He has been imbued with Guatemalan mannerisms and colloquialisms in ways that a scholar studying the country from outside cannot begin to comprehend. He writes from a place where he can aptly comment on cultural nuances. He uses the term chapín or chapina, a moniker Guatemalans use to identify themselves, which some people find racist and politically incorrect. However, Way contends that the people themselves have reappropriated the term and have invoked chapinismo as a new national imaginary with a sense of humor. Although not a work of ethnomusicology or a music history, Agrotropolis extensively narrates popular music counterculture with a focus on Guatemalan rock nacional – genres including heavy metal, grunge, and rock-folk fusion. Viewed as a gateway to the understudied youth cultures and countercultures that remain on the fringes of political transformations, Way analyzes the lyrics of several songs in the context of their cultural and historical period. As chapters evolve chronologically, it is no surprise that each chapter title contains lyrics of a popular rock/heavy metal song. One cannot help but find oneself listening to the songs while [End Page 237] reading Agrotropolis. Aside from music, the monograph draws on a varied archive of sources including novels, poems, rock fan magazines, Facebook discussion groups, guerrilla memoirs, websites, photos, interviews, and newspapers. In many ways, Agrotropolis stands to disrupt the discourse about unruly urban youth turning into antisocial, apolitical dropouts whose fascination with violence and death led to a rise in violent crime and street gangs in Guatemala. Like Deborah Levenson's Adios Niño, J.T. Way's Agrotropolis connects social, cultural, and political factors and views the violence evoked by urban youth as a continuum of state terror, counterinsurgency, and genocide. Agrotropolis ultimately argues that urban youth "rejected codes of servility and gave rise to a more inclusive alternative popular nationalism." (25) The book also includes ample narrative on the rise of the insurgency in the aftermath of CIA-led invasion of 1954, and how the leftist guerrilla organizations strategized against the army and paramilitary groups throughout the war and over the course of peace negotiations. Equally helpful are sections on the commercialization of agriculture through the introduction of "non-traditional agro-exports" (or NTAs) and the transformation of highland agriculture, with the ultimate end of opening channels to U.S. and European markets for exports. These transformations are taken up along with cultural transformations within...