Naming security - constructing identity: ‘Mayan-women’ in Guatemala on the eve of ‘peace’

by Maria Stern

How do people seek security in relation to their sense of ‘who they are’? How can one make sense of insecurity at the intersection of competing identity claims? Based on the voices of Mayan women, Stern critically re-considers the connections between security, subjectivity and identity. By engaging in a careful reading of how Mayan women ‘speak’ security in relation to the different contexts that inform their lives, she explores the multiplicity of both identity and security, and questions the main story of security imbedded in the modern ‘paradox of sovereignty.’ Her provocative analysis thus raises vital questions about what might constitute ‘security’, and the ‘insecurity’ that is its inevitable supplement. Her study also offers an innovative methodology that bridges many different disciplines and substantively develops the method of ‘reading’ politics as a ‘textual practice’. It will be essential reading for students of security, identity politics, feminism, and Latin American studies.

232 pages, Hardcover

First published March 17, 2006