Green Wars - by Megan Ybarra (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Green Wars challenges international conservation efforts, revealing through in-depth case studies how "saving" the Maya Forest facilitates racialized dispossession. Megan Ybarra brings Guatemala's 36-year civil war into the perspective of a longer history of 200 years of settler colonialism to show how conservation works to make Q'eqchi's into immigrants on their own territory. Even as the post-war state calls on them to claim rights as individual citizens, Q'eqchi's seek survival as a people. Her analysis reveals that Q'eqchi's both appeal to the nation-state and engage in relationships of mutual recognition with other Indigenous peoples -- and the land itself -- in their calls for a material decolonization."--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

Global conservation efforts are celebrated for saving Guatemala's Maya Forest. This book reveals that the process of protecting lands has been one of racialized dispossession for the Indigenous peoples who live there. Through careful ethnography and archival research, Megan Ybarra shows how conservation efforts have turned Q'eqchi' Mayas into immigrants on their own land, and how this is part of a larger national effort to make Indigenous peoples into neoliberal citizens. Even as Q'eqchi's participate in conservation, Green Wars amplifies their call for material decolonization by recognizing the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the land itself.

From the Back Cover

"Bold, raw, and discomforting, Green Wars plainly documents contradictions, expulsions, and abject violence in the Maya Forest. Indigenous communities, for whom peace in Guatemala never came, have been rendered illegal and criminal through acts of conservation and narco-control. To make real change, we will need to pass through the truthful darkness at the heart of Megan Ybarra's account."--Paul Robbins, author of Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction
"Green Wars is a theoretically rich and sophisticated analysis of conservation politics in Guatemala that advances significantly our current understanding of such conflicts. Drawing on indigenous studies, feminist political ecology, and postcolonial and critical race theory, Megan Ybarra illuminates the hemispheric dynamics that created Mayan dispossession, how the Maya are typically misread, and how we might begin to forge a new future. A must-read!"--Laura Pulido, author of Black, Brown, Yellow, and Left: Radical Activism in Los Angeles

About the Author

Megan Ybarra is Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Washington.