Politique du tourisme d’après-guerre au Guatemala: identités contestées, histoires et futures

Abstract

The Guatemalan tourism industry is a contested terrain of post-war politics where state officials, indigenous Maya, and ex-guerilla brigades compete to define post-war national identity, historical memory, and future possibilities. I use the analytic of territory to show how the state and civil society groups use tourism development to pursue unexpected political ends. First, I track changes in state marketing practices to suggest the Guatemalan government has used tourism to redefine post-war national identity and the place of Maya within the nation. I then turn to the Maya village of San Juan la Laguna to examine how the Maya Tz’utujil reassert their Tz’utujil identity and claims to San Juan as Tz’utujil space through community tourism. Lastly, I explore how ex-guerillas practice solidarity tourism to carve out alternative spaces of life and livelihood through cooperative living. This paper comparatively examines the territorial practices of state tourism, indigenous and ex-guerilla tourism to illustrate the tourism industry’s political stakes and possibilities in Guatemala.