Abstract
This deeply stirring ethnography offers the reader a glance into the everyday experiences of violence among Ladina women living in Eastern Guatemala. Menjívar identifies her main objective early on to unearth the misrecognized violence that women routinely experience in familiar, commonplace spaces …. I seek to unveil the violence that is difficult to see and to measure (and therefore often to define as violence) because it is not confined to individual acts or horrific crimes that can be reported or tabulated. (p. 4)
While multiple studies have been undertaken to investigate the political violence that has affected war-torn Guatemala in recent years, Menjívar’s study of violence in “postwar” Guatemala focuses on less recognized forms of structural violence in the region. Her work is unequivocally about illuminating the larger systemic forces of violence that perpetuate myriad forms of interpersonal, symbolic, and psychological violence in women’s everyday lives. The overarching structures of violence reinforce the systemic oppression of all women in Guatemala, and especially poverty-stricken women living in the Oriente region, collectively referred to as “Ladinas,” a term that encompasses both ethnicity and social class.
Aptly titled, Enduring Violence relays stories of strength and suffering. Menjívar discusses the participants’ frequent use of multiple forms of the word aguantar (to endure): “This verb conveyed an underlying, steady suffering in the women’s lives but also resignation and acceptance; it also implied that everyone went through it, and thus it was nothing out of the ordinary” (p. 18). Menjívar highlights the widespread acceptance of gendered violence as a way of life in Guatemalan society. Viewing overt and covert forms of violence and oppression as being inextricably tied with femininity, and to a lesser extent, poverty, the Ladina women recount tales of endurance through adversity. They describe their experiences with intimate partner violence; oppression by males; character defamation; and extreme restriction of choice concerning their bodies, minds, and actions. Accounts of tremendous resilience are juxtaposed against the simultaneous acceptance and internalization of the oppressive social order.
Thoughtfully organized, the introductory chapters provide the reader with background information on Guatemala, delivering pertinent details regarding the social and political climate. The author then describes the theoretical framework for analyzing violence in the women’s lives, to which she tightly adheres. The next five chapters discuss gendered violence, as it affects women in relation to their bodies and minds, marital unions, child-rearing, working outside of the home, and religious practices. The work concludes with the author’s revisiting the thesis and a reflexive analysis of her position as a researcher.
The book is of primary interest to scholars and practitioners interested in gender and/or violence studies. Social workers concerned with intimate partner violence may find this work helpful in attaining a deeper understanding of the culture-bound conceptualizations of domestic violence. The author devotes a fair amount of space to the interpretation of both short quotations and longer passages from the interviews, giving this academic work a pervasive tone of humanity.
Using ethnographic research methods involving extensive rapport building and cultural immersion, Menjívar successfully earned the trust and confidence of her study participants. Through the interpretation of revealing interviews, she was able to extract the experiences of violence and endurance among Ladina women. While maintaining a steady theoretical lens throughout the volume, she allows her participants to be in the forefront; their voices are preeminent. The women’s reflections carry their stories from page to page, with Menjívar’s voice in the background, bridging the gaps between them. To that end, it is the women’s words that will be remembered, as their narratives linger well beyond the confines of the bound pages.