Guatemala is one of the first countries in Latin America to codify femicide as a crime and to establish separate victim-centric institutions of justice to address Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG), including specialized courts and public prosecutors. Despite these pathbreaking legal reforms, Indigenous women in Guatemala face formidable barriers to seeking justice for and escaping the multiple overlapping forms of violence that they confront. Seeking Justice for Gendered Violence dissects the efficacy of VAWG legislative reforms, examining how they both challenge and perpetuate vicious cycles of impunity and gender-based violence on the ground. Drawing on extensive case studies developed over Erin Beck and Lynn Stephen’s ten years of ethnographic research with an Indigenous research team focused on Indigenous communities, activists, public prosecutors, and government officials, Seeking Justice for Gendered Violence investigates how VAWG reforms in Guatemala interact with preexisting societal structures and local communities, exposing the advances and limits of state-driven solutions while illuminating how Indigenous women leverage grassroots knowledge to survive and resist violence, and to support one another in reformed but flawed systems.

Erin Beck is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Oregon.

Lynn Stephen is Philip H. Knight Chair and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oregon.

List of Abbreviations  xi
Introduction. From Courts to Communities  1
Part I. Studying and Contextualizing Violence Against Women and Girls in Guatemala
1. Collaborations: Relationships, Processes, and Methods  29
2. Gendered Embodied Structures of Violence in Guatemala  59
Part II. Advances and Limitations of VAWG Laws and Specialized Institutions
3. Pushing for Legal and Institutional Reforms to Address VAWG: Advances and Limitations  83
4. Roadblocks on the Path to Justice: From Local Communities to Specialized Courts  113
5. A Day in Court: Intersecting Inequalities and the Lived Experience of Specialized Justice  143
Part III. Community-Based Perspectives on VAWG and Violence Protection (with Ana María Basilio Juárez, Pedro Maldonado, Argelia Yolanda Poz Mejía, Magdalena Ordóñez, Odilia Jiménez, Diana Rosales, and Carmelina Sam)
6. Women Surviving and Confronting Violence: Obstacles and Strategies  183
7. "We Never Talk About This": Masculinity, Gender Norms, and VAWG Through Men's Eyes  211
Conclusion. Community Care and Accountability and Increasing Access to Formal Justice  247
Acknowledgments  267
Appendix. Demographics and Characteristics of Research Sites  275
Notes  279
References  287
Index