This article is a poetic narrative in the spirit of resistance. It is based on an experience of sexual harassment I had at a dentist’s office in Antigua, Guatemala while conducting ethnographic research. I share an autoethnography, which is analyzed through feminist and historical lenses to highlight how the colonial patriarchal system and its coloniality of power continue to provide fertile ground for everyday forms of sexual harassment in Guatemala. In addition, I explore how power relations are malleable, dynamic, and even unpredictable depending on the bodies we inhabit as researchers. This is an invitation to look within and expand our discussions about the implications of experiencing sexual harassment while conducting research whether we are “in” or “out” of the field. Acknowledging these complexities is crucial to our searches for decolonial practices within the field of ethnography and within the process of academic knowledge production.
AdamsT. E.HolmanJ. S.EllisC. (2014). Autoethnography. Oxford University Press.
2.
AguilarY. (2019). Femestizajes: Cuerpos y sexualidades racializados de ladinas mestizas. F&G Editores.
3.
BarrosC. (1993). Rito y violación: Derecho de pernada en la baja edad media. Historia Social, 16(Spring-Summer), 3–17.
4.
BerryM. J.ArgüellesC. C.CordisS.IhmoudS.EstradaE. V. (2017). Toward a fugitive anthropology: Gender, race, and violence in the field. Cultural Anthropology, 32(4), 537–565. https://doi.org/10.14506/ca32.4.05
5.
BisgaardK.StockelJ. T. (2019). Athlete narratives of sexual harassment and abuse in the field of sport. Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology, 13(2), 226–242. https://doi.org/10.1123/jcsp.2018-0036
6.
CareyD.TorresM. G. (2010). Precursor to femicide: Guatemalan women in a vortex of violence. Latin American Research Review, 45(3), 142–164. PMID:21188891. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40926273
Chirix GarcíaE. D. (2013). Cuerpos, poderes y políticas: Mujeres mayas en un internado católico = ch’akulal, chuq’aib’il chuqa b’anobäl: Mayab’ ixoqi’ chi ru pam jun kaxlan tz’apatäl tijonïk/Emma Chirix. Ediciones Maya’ Na’oj.
9.
Chirix GarcíaE. D. (2019). Cuerpos, sexualidad y pensamiento maya. In Icaza GarzaR.SolanoLeyva (Eds.), En tiempos de muerte: Cuerpos, rebeldias, resistencias. Librería La Cosecha.
10.
CumesA. (2009). Multiculturalismo, género y feminismos: Mujeres diversas, luchas complejas. In PequeñoA.compil (Eds.), Participación y políticas de mujeres indígenas en contextos latinoamericanos recientes (pp. 29–52). FLACSO, Sede Ecuador. https://biblio.flacsoandes.edu.ec/libros/digital/41461.pdf.
11.
CumesA. (2015). La presencia subalterna en la investigación social: Reflexiones a partir de una experiencia de trabajo. In LeyvaX.PascalC. (Eds.), Prácticas otras de conocimiento(s): Entre crisis, entre guerras. Tomo I (pp. 135–158). CLACSO - Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvn5tzv7.8
12.
González-LópezG. (2015). Family secrets: Stories of incest and sexual violence in Mexico. NYU Press.
HallStuart (1997). The spectacle of the other. Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices, 7, 223–285.
15.
HansonR.RichardsP. (2017). Sexual harassment and the construction of ethnographic knowledge. Sociological Forum, 32(3), 587-609. https://doi.org/10.1111/socf.12350
16.
HansonR.RichardsP. (2019). Harassed: Gender, bodies, and ethnographic research. University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520970953
17.
HerbenickD.van AndersS. M.BrottoL. A.ChiversM. L.Jawed-WesselS.GalarzaJ. (2019). Sexual harassment in the field of sexuality research. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 48(4), 997–1006. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-019-1405-x
18.
HookerJuliet (2014). Hybrid subjectivities, Latin American mestizaje, and Latino political thought on race. Politics, Groups, and Identities, 2(2), 188–201.
19.
KomisarukC. (2008). Rape narratives, rape silences: Sexual violence and judicial testimony in colonial Guatemala. Biography, 31(3), 369–396. https://doi.org/10.1353/bio.0.0028
20.
LugonesM. (2014). Colonialidad y genero. In EspinosaM. Y.GómezC. D. M.OchoaM. K. (Eds.), Coloquio tejiendo de otro modo: Feminismo, epistemología y apuestas descoloniales en Abya Yala. Editorial Universidad del Cauca.
21.
MenjívarC. (2011). Enduring violence: Ladina women's lives in Guatemala. University of California Press.
22.
MohantyC. (1988). Under Western eyes: Feminist scholarship and colonial discourses. Feminist Review, 30(1), 61–88. https://doi.org/10.1057/fr.1988.42
Oré-AguilarGaby (1997). Sexual harassment and human rights in Latin America. Fordham L. Rev, 66, 631–645.
26.
Pérez-Y-PérezM.StanleyT. (2011). Ethnographic intimacy: Thinking through the ethics of social research in sex worlds. Sociological Research Online, 16(2), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.5153/sro.2310
27.
QuijanoA. (2000). Coloniality of power, eurocentrism, and Latin American, en Nepantla. Views from South, 1(3).
28.
SanfordV. (2008). From genocide to feminicide: Impunity and human rights in twenty-first century Guatemala. Journal of Human Rights, 7(2), 104–122. https://doi.org/10.1080/14754830802070192
29.
ShrierD. K. (Ed), (1996). Sexual harassment in the workplace and academia: Psychiatric issues. American Psychiatric Press.
WitteF. M.StrattonT. D.NoraL. M. (2006). Stories from the field: Students’ descriptions of gender discrimination and sexual harassment during medical school. Academic Medicine, 81(7), 648–654. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.ACM.0000232421.04170.d2
