Public Memory and Political Power in Guatemala's Postconflict Landscape

Abstract

Landscape interpretation, or "reading" the landscape, is one of cultural geography's standard practices. Relatively little attention, however, has been paid to reading landscapes transformed by insurgency movements or civil wars. Those landscapes can tell us a great deal about past and present political and social relationships as well as continuing power struggles. Guatemala presents a coniplicated postwar landscape "text" in which the struggle for power continues by many means and media, including how the war is portrayed o n memorials, and in which the Catholic Church and the military/state are the two main competing powers. This essay explorcs some of the images and the text presented in Guatemala's postcontlict landscape through contrasting landmarks and memorials associated with the country's thirty-six-year-long civil war that formally ended in 1yy6. Kqwords: Cnt\io!ir Church, Citntcrtidn, nicrtiorids, tniIirmy, posrrorijlict Inndsrapc. ~ ~~~ ~~~~ ~~ ~--. ~ ~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~ ._ % D R . S r e i N e E R r , is an adjunct assistant professor of geography at Louisiana State University, Baton Kouge, Louisiana 70803. DR. TAYLOR is an assistant professor of geography at the University of Denvcr, Denver, Colorado 80208. This (~i~~~.~n~p h i~~d Rrvirw 93 (41: jjp468. Orfoher iooj (:ripyrighf 11 m i 5 by Ihr Ainrrican tietigraphicdl Socicfy of New York

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