Beyond Repair? Mayan Women’s Protagonism in the Aftermath of Genocidal Harm is a book for the serious mind and the open heart. Alison Crosby and M. Brinton Lykes accompanied 54 Q’eqchi’, Kaqchikel, Chuj, Poptı́, and Mam women for 8 years (2009–2017) in a collaborative, feminist, postcolonial, participatory action research (PAR) project. The women sought justice, following the state-sponsored violence perpetrated against them and their communities, in the early 1980s, during the 36-year (1960–1996) genocidal war in Guatemala. The authors begin with a victory: The February 26, 2016, Guatemalan High Risk Court “A” verdict against Esteelmer Reyes Girón and Heriberto Valdéz Asij for crimes against humanity—sexual slavery, sexual and domestic violence— perpetrated against the Maya Q’eqchı́ women. In the ensuing chapters, the authors tell the stories of 54 women “protagonists,” 15 of whom were plaintiffs in the trial. The authors use the word “protagonism” to challenge dominant “damage-centered research,” and the gendered binaries of victims and perpetrators, which “remain disturbingly intact within feminist understandings of war and violence” (p. 11). Through analysis of the structural violence of poverty, genocidal racism, natural resource extraction, and land theft through colonization, Crosby and Lykes show that the 54 women are not “victims of war” but are dynamically agentic, vigorously resistant, and actively engaged in dialogic (not individualistic), embodied (not only rational) praxis. This PAR study also included “intermediaries”—researchers, lawyers, psychologists, and transnational human rights activists—who accompanied the 54 women and language interpreters, many who were also victims of violence. Together, and within their distinct (in geography, language, dress, and customs) indigenous communities, this “community of women” formed dialogical relationships. They engaged in conversations, workshops that employed creative arts (drawings, storytelling, collage), and embodied practices (drama, massage), that helped the protagonists form new meanings of Mayan women, for whom “the individual ‘I’ is always bound to the social ‘we,’ the living to the dead, and the absence to the presence, which is all the more profound when the dead are disappeared” (p. 6). Collaboratively, they critiqued (“member checks”) the papers the two White university-based scholars wrote to document how the community of women sought truth and justice. This is a complex and challenging book because the authors (and readers) are limited by the vocabulary and constructs of our Western, individualistic, patriarchal, and racist society. For example, a K’iché intermediary challenges the notion of feminism as identity: “The Mayan cosmovision is a life project, a political project. I don’t call myself a feminist. I am a Mayan woman. I embrace feminism as a system of analysis but not as my identity” (p. 202). The authors refuse to simplify the multifaceted experiences of women within their Mayan cosmovision and their collective and individual histories and familial lives. And I (we?) read this book limited by our Western constraints on understanding the knowledge generated from this massive project of research, activism, resistance, recovery, and justice-seeking. At the heart of the book is the question: “Is it possible to repair the psychological, embodied, material, individual, and collective harm left by the experience of racialized, gendered, genocidal violence through actions administered by the very state that was primarily responsible for perpetrating this social suffering?” (p. 202). This question is germane to the #BlackLivesMatter and the #MeToo movements. Those communities will develop different knowledge and insights, but like the accounts of the 54 protagonists, they will inform human rights and legal processes. Human rights scholars and activists will plumb this rich text for insights into the limitations of our legalistic understanding of human rights. Psychologists will find inspiration in the curative aspects of indigenous practices. Researchers will reevaluate how to conduct feminist, postcolonial PAR work. Feminists will rethink our work on identity and activism. And all of us will reach a fuller understanding of the human capacity for resistance and recovery from gross injustices and atrocities.

中文翻译：

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书评：无法修复？玛雅妇女在种族灭绝伤害后的主角

无法修复？玛雅妇女在种族灭绝伤害之后的主角是一本面向严肃思想和开放心灵的书。艾莉森·克罗斯比 (Alison Crosby) 和 M.布林顿·莱克斯 (M. Brinton Lykes) 在合作、女权主义、后殖民、参与式行动研究 (PAR) 项目中陪伴了 54 名 Q'eqchi'、Kaqchikel、Chuj、Poptı́ 和 Mam 妇女长达 8 年（2009-2017 年）。在 1980 年代初期，危地马拉长达 36 年（1960-1996 年）的种族灭绝战争期间，在国家支持对她们及其社区实施的暴力之后，这些妇女寻求伸张正义。作者以胜利开始：2016 年 2 月 26 日，危地马拉高风险法院对 Esteelmer Reyes Girón 和 Heriberto Valdéz Asij 的“A”判决，因为他们对玛雅 Q'eqchı 妇女犯下危害人类罪——性奴役、性暴力和家庭暴力. 在接下来的章节中，作者讲述了 54 位女性“主角”的故事，其中 15 位是审判中的原告。作者使用“主角”一词来挑战占主导地位的“以损害为中心的研究”，以及受害者和肇事者的性别二元对立，它们“在女权主义对战争和暴力的理解中仍然完好无损”（第 11 页）。通过对贫困、种族灭绝种族主义、自然资源开采和通过殖民化造成的土地盗窃等结构性暴力的分析，克罗斯比和莱克斯表明，这 54 名妇女不是“战争的受害者”，而是充满活力、积极反抗并积极参与对话（不是个人主义的），体现（不仅是理性的）实践。这项 PAR 研究还包括“中间人”——研究人员、律师、心理学家、和跨国人权活动家——他们陪同 54 名妇女和语言翻译，其中许多人也是暴力的受害者。在他们独特的（地理、语言、服饰和习俗）土著社区中，这个“女性社区”形成了对话关系。他们参与了对话、采用创造性艺术（绘画、讲故事、拼贴）和具体实践（戏剧、按摩）的工作坊，帮助主角形成了玛雅女性的新含义，对她们来说，“个人‘我’总是被束缚社会的“我们”，死者的生者，以及在场的缺席，当死者消失时，这一点更加深刻”（第 6 页）。通力合作，他们批评（“成员检查”）这两位怀特大学学者写的论文，这些论文记录了女性社区如何寻求真理和正义。这是一本复杂且具有挑战性的书，因为作者（和读者）受限于我们西方、个人主义、父权制和种族主义社会的词汇和结构。例如，K'iché 中介挑战了将女权主义视为身份的概念：“玛雅宇宙观是一个生活项目，一个政治项目。我不称自己为女权主义者。我是玛雅女人。我将女权主义视为一种分析系统，而不是我的身份”（第 202 页）。作者拒绝简化女性在玛雅宇宙观及其集体和个人历史以及家庭生活中的多方面体验。我（我们？）阅读这本书时，受到西方限制，无法理解从这个庞大的研究、激进主义、抵抗、恢复和寻求正义项目中产生的知识。这本书的核心是一个问题：“是否有可能通过主要负责的国家采取的行动来修复因种族化、性别化、种族灭绝暴力而造成的心理、身体、物质、个人和集体伤害？犯下这种社会苦难？” （第 202 页）。这个问题与#BlackLivesMatter 和#MeToo 运动密切相关。这些社区将发展不同的知识和见解，但就像 54 位主角的叙述一样，它们将为人权和法律程序提供信息。人权学者和活动家将研究这本丰富的文本，以深入了解我们对人权的法律理解的局限性。心理学家将在土著实践的治疗方面找到灵感。研究人员将重新评估如何进行女权主义、后殖民时期的 PAR 工作。女权主义者将重新思考我们在身份和激进主义方面的工作。我们所有人都将更全面地了解人类抵抗和从严重的不公正和暴行中恢复的能力。