Rigoberta Menchú and the Last-Resort Paradigm

Abstract

David Stoll teaches anthropology at Middlebury College. His other books include Fishers of Men or Founders of Empire? (1982), Is Latin America Turning Protestant? (1990), and (with Virginia Garrard Burnett) Rethinking Protestantism in Latin America (1993).Many people have asked whether I am surprised by the furor over my book. The answer is no, not really-except for the reaction from some of my colleagues in Latin American studies. I am surprised that, 17 years after Rigoberta told her story and 2 years after the Guatemalan peace agreement was signed, Carol Smith, Victoria Sanford, Norma Chinchilla, and Georg Gugelberger object to my reexamination of I, Rigoberta Menchú. Ordinarily a Nobel peace laureate is subject to scrutiny much earlier in her career. In Rigoberta's case, she expects to run for president of her country. Truth commissions, exhumations, and the declassification of state documents are providing courtroom-quality evidence about the violence that turned her into an international figure. When it comes to the army's crimes, my critics welcome the search for facts. But they have doubts about interrogating the single most widely read book about Central America. While they expect Guatemalan army officers to consent to being tried for mass murder, they do not think Rigoberta should have to face the fact that she went to middle school.On second thought, there is no reason to be surprised. After returning from a year of fieldwork in northern Quiché Department in 1989, I was full of what violence survivors had told me so many times. They wanted the war to end.

The search for the complicit native: Epistemic violence, historical amnesia, and the anthropologist as ideologue of empire

“…He betrays little appreciation for the manner in which the heterotopicality of Rigoberta' s tesitimonio can complicate, interrupt, and displace the Orientalism of the Western observer. Stoll (1999c) accepts the recent suggestion of Gary Gossen that Rigoberta' s text be considered an epic, rather than a testimonio , because a testimonio``carries a strong connotation of eyewitness truth ' ' (p. 78). Stoll prefers to follow Gossen in describing Rigoberta' s book as epic narrative because it is``about a time of tribulation, has a basis in historical fact, and is told from a very partisan point of view yet becomes a charter for national identity' ' (1999, p. 79).…”

Ambiguous Authorship and Uncertain Authenticity: A Cataloger's Dilemma

“…Liberals argue that Stoll's book, Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans, is an attempt to discredit Menchú and her cause, a claim that Stoll denies. 7 Menchú's book has also provoked a scholarly discussion of genres, one that plunges us into complex concepts of identity and truth. Some scholars have suggested that "testimonio" most nearly reflects the nature of this book.…”

Wetenschap, moraal en politiek

“…Tussen 1993 en 1995 deed hij aanvullend onderzoek en het duurde uiteindelijk tot 1998 voor zijn boek gepubliceerd werd. 36 Hij verklaarde lang gewacht te hebben uit angst de gerechtvaardigde strijd tegen het militaire terreurbewind in gevaar te brengen.…”