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In the 2013 documentary film Gold Fever, an audiovisual registry of environmental harms, human rights violations, and repression caused by Goldcorp Inc.'s mining operation in the western highlands of Guatemala, Noam Chomsky says, "You cannot say the mining companies are responsible for General Efraín Ríos Montt's slaughter but they are benefiting from the structures that were left in place after those many years of savagery and violence and repression" (Haines & Haines, 2013, minute 14:30).
For Indigenous peoples in Guatemala, contemporary mining practices are experienced within a lingering legacy of colonialism and genocide (see Lovell & Lutz, 1996; Solano, 2005).
Testimonio narrates the history of mining in Guatemala—one of emblematic impunity—and raises the voices and stories of the resilience of Indigenous communities who are dialectically defined by the history of injustices they have faced, even after transitioning from a military dictatorship to a multicultural democracy.
The postwar context shaped many aspects of the current Guatemalan anti-mining movement. The Peace Accords of 1996 allowed activism to proliferate, but, as the book shows, the legacies of genocides remain latent.
Testimonio is made up of contributions from independent journalists, media practitioners, and community leaders engaged in a collective sharing of usually complex and violent events concerning the four main mining-resistance struggles in Guatemala: Goldcorp Inc.'s Marlin mine in the Western Highlands of Sipakapa; Tahoe Resources' Escobal mine in eastern Guatemala; HudBay Mineral's Fénix mining project in the Guatemalan Caribbean; and Radius Gold/Kappes, Cassiday & Associates' El Tambor mining site in La Puya.
The broad geographical reach of the comparative case studies makes Testimonio foundational and critical reading for the study of democracy and development in Guatemala.
In the wake of the ever-expanding multinational extractive practices in ancestral territories, Indigenous authorities across the country are mobilizing to defend their communities and livelihoods. Testimonio is proof that by reclaiming the community as a socio-environmental nexus, the anti-mining movement is asking for a redistribution of political power, mainly in relation to ethnic and class inequalities that have organized Guatemalan society for decades (Martínez-Peláez, 2009; Velásquez Nimatuj, 2019).
Grassroots environmental movements, linked by solidarity networks that bridge anti-mining struggles, also demand more inclusive practices within political-administrative governance structures provided by the institutions of a more open civil society.
The preface explains the accusation of defamatory content and unsubstantiated material by the previous publisher, Springer-Nature, which unilaterally canceled the book contract despite the truthful information about serious issues and the fact-based analysis of each piece included in the volume.
The book then presents a compelling argument. Environmental damage is being foisted onto Guatemala by Canadian mining companies, juggernauts of exploitation, triggering inter-generational harm.
Testimonio's intended audience is citizens in the Global North, primarily Canadians. As insurgent research (Gaudry, 2011), Testimonio creates accountability: The interlocking themes of globalization and capitalism raise awareness that the Canadian government supports an economic development model based on extractive practices while turning a blind eye or openly denying any wrongdoing by corporations. The volume powerfully asserts that Canadian corporations knowingly work under these conditions with an undemocratic ally.
Thematically, the illustration of a local-global partnership of elites governing these extractive projects' planning, construction, and enactment underlines the contested morality of so-called partnerships in relations between Indigenous communities and mining companies.
When victims and survivors speak about their suffering and losses, they rely on their interlocutors to respond: Testimony demands acknowledgment and redress. Canadian mining must follow a "transnational understanding" and "recognize the need to turn around and face the connections with Guatemala's genocidal past and violent present" (p. 7).
The volume posits an underlying critique of extractive development (see Bebbington & Bury, 2013; Escobar, 2005). It is not possible to operate a large-scale mine in Guatemala—or large-scale economic development projects in the sectors of hydroelectric dams, garment sweatshops, and export-led production of African palm oil, sugar cane, bananas, and other agricultural commodities—"without participating in and benefitting from human rights violations and repression, corruption and impunity" (p. 33).
The foreword finishes the critique by offering a reflection on the iterative cycles of settler-colonial projects launched during three particular periods of state-sanctioned exploitation: the era of coffee capitalism, the decades of state terror, and the irruption of multinational extractivism following neoliberal reforms.
This edited volume compiles valuable essays for readers in multiple disciplinary fields, seeking to understand the imbrications of time, space, and identity.
For cultural geographers and others interested in qualitative research issues, Testimonio offers a collection of essays that are positively aware of the political and social implications of their research and reporting. Moreover, the metanarrative of the publication brings to the surface lingering questions about academic freedom and the degree to which a critical perspective can highlight human rights and corporate violations when it is branded as "defamatory content with unsubstantiated claims" (p. xix).
These landscapes of resistance provide sobering evidence of the growing presence of individual and collective testimonies in mobilizing Indigenous recourse to domestic and international law.
Vaclav Masek
University of Southern California
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