Decolonial Feminist Geographer
My dissertation closely presents the case studies of two GuateMaya feminist groups that are challenging state-dominant narratives of the Guatemalan 36-year- war (1960-1996) and foregrounding counter-narratives with art, Maya cosmovision spirituality, and gendered embodied memory production. The groups are also denouncing contemporary feminicide cases through the cosmo-political praxis of cuerpo-territorio. Cuerpo-territorio declares the body as our first territory and advocates for a communal subject agency. I develop this deeply embodied framework to examine how 8 Tijax and GuateMaya Mujeres en Resistencia-Los Angeles (GMR-LA) are challenging the state’s hegemonic memory by actively engaging in embodied transformative memory experiences, or what I describe as healing cartographies. I assert that such healing cartographies at the scale of the intimate contribute to hemispheric decolonial solidarity.
These healing cartographies contradict and actively challenge the Guatemalan state’s claims of what can be remembered or erased when the evidence is embodied and reiterated, told through stories, and brought into being by active remembrance. I use a community-based participatory approach and feminist ethnographic methods to both examine and support the transnational affective solidarity connecting GuateMaya women throughout the hemisphere. My dissertation is a political project of unearthing the counter memory, silences, fear, and intergenerational trauma from the oral and embodied testimonios of GuateMaya women survivors of genocide who are currently involved in collective projects to recover Guatemala’s historical memory. While GuateMaya feminist groups are connected across the United States, Mexico, and Canada, the focus of my study is on the relational testimonios of GuateMaya feminist groups in Guatemala and Los Angeles.
Group photo with 8 Tijax and the mothers of the 56 girls in Guatemala City.
Altar placed at Memories of El Monte community space for a body mapping workshop.
Macal, C. and Miranda, K. (2023). Care Praxis in Los Angeles’ Anti-Gentrification Movement: On-the-ground Womxn of Color Geographies. Professional Geographer Journal
PUBLISHED WORK:
Macal, C. “Memories of Collective Resistance and Embracing GuateMaya Diaspora Through Ancestral Traditions” Centroamerica 1989: 30 Años Edited by Enrique Ochoa University of Arizona Press
Macal, C. Sanando: a testimony on healing intergenerational trauma Anthology: Engendering U.S. Central American Women’s Testimonies Editors: Karina Alma, Alicia Ivonne Estrada, Ester E. Hernandez, and Yajaira Padilla, Arizona University Press