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Political Science Caribbean & Latin American

Dealing with Peace

The Guatemalan Campesino Movement and the Post-Conflict Neoliberal State

by (author) Simon Granovsky-Larsen

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Apr 2019
Category
Caribbean & Latin American, Comparative Politics, Developing Countries
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781487501433
    Publish Date
    Apr 2019
    List Price
    $74.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781487513177
    Publish Date
    May 2019
    List Price
    $74.00

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Description

Dealing with Peace presents the struggles of the Guatemalan campesino (peasant) social movement during the country’s post-conflict transition from 1996 to the present, focusing on efforts to obtain land and improve livelihoods within a shifting, yet consistently hostile, political-economic environment. With special focus on the relationship between the movement and the neoliberal state, Simon Granovsky-Larsen asks whether the acceptance of neoliberal resources – in this case, support for land access in Guatemala provided by the World Bank-funded Fondo de Tierras – reduces the potential for social movements to continue to work for transformative change.

 

Positioned in contrast to studies warning that social movements cannot maintain their original vision after accepting such support, this book argues that organizations within the Guatemalan campesino movement have engaged strategically with neoliberalism, utilizing available resources to advance visions of social change. Using a wealth of primary data collected over more than a year of fieldwork, it contributes significantly to the study of Guatemalan politics and advances understandings of the grounded operation of neoliberalism. Exploring both the dynamics of a national neoliberal transition and the ways in which these play out within civil society, Dealing with Peace reveals the long-term and often contradictory negotiation of political and economic transitions.

About the author

Simon Granovsky-Larsen is an associate professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of Regina and an associate fellow of the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean at York University.

Simon Granovsky-Larsen's profile page