Beyond translation: Truth and Rigoberta Menchú

Indigenous voice, community, and epistemic violence: The ethnographer's "interests" and what "interests" the ethnographer

“…Most importantly, I believe that we must attend to an analysis of power in order to explain the dynamics of settings. Like William G. Tierney (2000), I avoided looking for an "absolutist reading of events, histories and circumstances that are inevitably contested." I was attempting to engage in "the creation of the real" (p. 112).…”

The problem of truth in educational research: The case of the Rigoberta Menchú ‘Controversy’

“…I have no difficulty with this distinction except when narrative truth is passed off as historical truth (p. 133). Tierney (2000), rightly notes that truth is not to be found in the unquestioning reading of a narrative, Menchú's or anyone else's, but through our own engagement in the challenges which narratives present. We question, we probe, we criticise what the narrative says because we are determined to get to the bottom of it, we want to ascertain whether the narrative is true or, compared to its rivals, is more likely to be true than they.…”

“…Tierney (2000) reminds us, for example, Binjamin Wilkomirski's Fragments (1996) is purportedly a memoir of his living as a child in a concentration camp during the Holocaust, but he has been accused of living in Switzerland during the war as a nonJewish child.…”

“…Was the conflagration at the Spanish Embassy which killed 35 people, including peasant protestors, hostages and Menchú's father, caused by the military with government backing or by revolutionary suicide? (Lincoln 1999, McLaren and Pinkney-Pastrana 2000, Tierney 2000.…”

Mujeres autorizadas: Women's empowerment programs as a form of community development in Guatemala.

“…As villages were destroyed, men were interrogated, tortured and killed. The women and children were relocated to strategic hamlets along with the few men who had 'turned' during questioning (Archdiocese of Guatemala 1999, Green 1995, Wearne 1994 Tierney (2000), Bus (1999) and Zimmerman (1991: 31), Menchu's personal history ties her to most of the major events of the 'Indian' resistance movement.…”