In 21st-century Guatemala transnational gangs (or maras) have become erstwhile emissaries of extreme peacetime violence, distilling in spectacular fashion the fear, rage, and trauma swirling around out-of-control crime. Young gang members (or mareros) are drawn in by and work hard to recreate the phantasmagoric figure the maras cut in social imaginaries, linking the acts of violence gangs perform to the ways gang members – and myriad others – make sense of this violence. This article traces how collective fantasies about gangs are essential in the making of the ‘real’ marero by engaging with the oral history of a single informant: a former member of the Mara Salvatrucha named Andy who became a protected witness for the Guatemalan government. Through Andy’s life and violent death, it illuminates how essential shared fantasies and falsehoods are in the production of knowledge about criminal terror, as well as in the production of violence itself.
BairdA (2012)
Negotiating pathways to manhood: Rejecting gangs and violence in Medellín’s periphery. Journal of Conflictology3(1): 30–41.
2.
BrennemanR (2012) Homies and Hermanos: God and Gangs in Central America.
New York:
Oxford University Press.
3.
CarterJH (2014)
Gothic sovereignty: Gangs and criminal community in a Honduran prison.The South Atlantic Quarterly113(3): 475–502.
4.
CruzJM (2010)
Central American Maras: From youth street gangs to transnational protection rackets. Global Crime11(4): 379–398.
5.
FarmerP (1992) Aids and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame.
Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press.
6.
FarmerP (2004)
An anthropology of structural violence.Current Anthropology45(3): 305–325.
7.
FeldmanA (1991) Formations of Violence: The Narrative of the Body and Political Terror in Northern Ireland.
Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press.
8.
FontesA (2018) Mortal Doubt: Transnational Gangs and Social Order in Guatemala City.
Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press.
9.
FreudS (1961) Civilization and its Discontents, trans. Strachey J.
New York:
W. W. Norton & Company.
10.
GaltungJ (1969)
Violence, peace, and peace research.Journal of Peace Research6(3): 167–191.
11.
GambettaD (2011) Codes of the Underworld: How Criminals Communicate.
Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
12.
GrassiP (2014)
Territorial conflicts and gangs in Guatemala. Etnografia e ricerca qualitative. Il Mulino3: 445–462.
13.
Gutierrez RiveraL (2013) Territories of Violence: State, Marginal Youth, and Public Security in Honduras.
New York:
Palgrave Macmillan.
14.
HackfordT (dir.) (1993) Blood In, Blood Out. Hollywood Pictures, Touchwood Pacific Partners, Vato De Atole Productions, USA.
15.
HerreraP (2017)
Identifican a testigo. Prensa Libre, 30 June, p. 4.
16.
HoffmanD (2005)
Violent events as narrative blocs: The disarmament of Bo, Sierra Leone.Anthropological Quarterly78(2): 328–353.
17.
JonesGARodgersD (eds) (2009) Youth Violence in Latin America: Gangs and Juvenile Justice in Perspective.
London:
Palgrave Macmillan.
18.
KurtenbachS (2008) Youth Violence as a Scapegoat: Youth in Post-War Guatemala [Working Paper 5].
Diusberg:
Social and Political Fractures after Wars: Youth Violence in Cambodia and Guatemala Project, Institute for Development and Peace, University of Duisberg-Essen.
19.
LevensonD (2012) Adiós Niño: The Gangs of Guatemala City and the Politics of Death.
Durham, NC:
Duke University Press.
20.
ManwaringMG (2005) Street Gangs: The New Urban Insurgency.
Carlisle Barracks, PA:
Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College.
Martínez D’AubuissonJJ (2013) Ver, oír, callar: En las profundidades de una pandilla salvadoreña.
San Salvador:
AURA Ediciones.
23.
O’NeillKL (2010)
The reckless will: Prison chaplaincy and the problem of Mara Salvatrucha. Public Culture22(1): 67–88.
24.
O’NeillKL (2015) Secure the Soul: Christian Piety and Gang Prevention in Guatemala.
Oakland, CA:
University of California Press.
25.
OppenheimerJCynnC (dir.) (2012) The Act of Killing. Documentary film, Final Cut for Real and Docwest, Denmark.
26.
PineA (2008) Working Hard, Drinking Hard: On Violence and Survival in Honduras.
Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press.
27.
PortelliA (1990) The Death of Luigi Trastulli, and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History.
Albany, NY:
State University of New York Press.
28.
RobbenACGM (1996)
Ethnographic seduction, transference, and resistance in dialogues about terror and violence in Argentina.Ethos24(1): 71–106.
29.
RodgersD (2006)
Living in the shadow of death: Gangs, violence and social order in urban Nicaragua, 1996–2002.Journal of Latin American Studies38(2):267–292.
30.
RodgersD (2007)
Joining the gang and becoming a broder: The violence of ethnography in contemporary Nicaragua.Bulletin of Latin American Research27(4): 444–461.
31.
RodgersD (2009)
Slum wars of the 21st century: Gangs, mano dura and the new urban geography of conflict in Central America.Development and Change40(5): 949–976.
32.
RodgersD (2016)
Critique of urban violence: Bismarckian transformations in Managua, Nicaragua.Theory, Culture, & Society33(7–8): 85–109.
33.
SkarbekD (2014) The Social Order of the Underworld: How Prison Gangs Govern the American Penal System.
New York:
Oxford University Press.
34.
SullivanJP (1997)
Third generation street gangs: Turf, cartels, and net warriors. Transnational Organized Crime3(3): 95–108.
35.
TaussigM (2003) Law in a Lawless Land: Diary of a Limpieza in Colombia.
Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press.
36.
Vargas LlosaM (1996) Making Waves.
New York:
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
37.
WardTW (2013) Gangsters without Borders: An Ethnography of a Salvadoran Street Gang.
New York:
Oxford University Press.
38.
ZilbergE (2004)
Fools banished from the kingdom: Remapping geographies of gang violence between the Americas (Los Angeles and San Salvador).American Quarterly56(3): 759–779.
39.
ZubillagaV (2003)
Un testimonio reflexivo sobre la experiencia de construir historias de vida con jóvenes de vida violenta [A reflexive testimony on the experience of constructing the life histories of youths with violent lifestyles].Revista Mexicana de Sociología65(2): 305–338.
