You Could See Rage”
Visual Testimony in Post-Genocide Guatemala
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12967046 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lacey Schauwecker (Center for the Study of Equity and Governance in Health Systems, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 18-34 |
| Publication date | 2018-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Genocide Studies and Prevention (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1911-0359 • E-ISSN: 1911-9933 |
| Publisher | International Association of Genocide Scholars (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.5038/1911-9933.12.2.1529 |
| OpenAlex | W2896233774 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 8 |
Since the Guatemalan genocide against Maya populations (1981-1983), domestic and international human rights groups have organized truth commissions, forensic exhumations, and legal cases. These efforts to secure justice have achieved minimal success, prompting a reconsideration of the relationship among narrative testimony, visual testimony, and institutional standards of truth. Engaging the ideas of visual studies scholar, Nicholas Mirzoeff, I argue for the political importance of testimony that is critical of such standards, including those enforced by human rights’ legal paradigm. Following Mirzoeff’s understandings of “visuality” and “countervisuality,” I analyze “visual testimony” as that which acknowledges the dynamic interplay between word and image, as well as various power relations. More specifically, I explore how genocide survivor Rigoberta Menchú and performance artist Regina José Galindo employ this type of testimony to express rage, which I associate with witnesses’ right to testify on their own terms, beyond institutional processes and imperatives
Art · Criminology · Economic Justice · Epistemology · Genocide · Human rights · Literature · Maya · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Rage (emotion · Sociology · Law · Law in Society and Culture · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Philosophy · Photography and Visual Culture · Psychology · Social Psychology
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.13 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2018 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |