Cosmopolitan World View and Counterinsurgency in Guatemala

Abstract

Guatemala, like much of Central America today, is wracked by civil war. This paper uses an anthropological perspective to examine problem of insurgency and counterinsurgency in one region of Guatemala, Ixil area of northern Quiche province. In this paper, I examine contraposition of Utopia and State and establish an argumentfor existence ofa universalist cognitive rural-urban dichotomous The forms matrix for both agrarian and state ideologies, those respectively guiding insurrectionist movements and counterinsurgency responses. The paper spec/ically analyzes rural-urban from perspective of Guatemala's counterinsurgents-the officers and soldiers of army. By describing urban and state orientation of army members, in contrast to rural agrarianist ideology of rural guerrilla movement in Ixil region, thepaper argues that army counterinsurgency operations fundamentally derive from a cosmopolitan world view. Through descriptive illustration of officers' and soldiers' 'folk ideas, the paper attempts to show how a cosmopolitan world view guides 'folk model constructs in elaboration of specfic counterinsurgency measures.