Dissertation Research: Development and Ethnicity in Guatemala

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This project involves the dissertation research of a student from Stanford University, studying how a grassroots indigenous development organization in Guatemala uses ethnic cultural practices to transform the goals and effects of development. Based in the municipality of Totonicapan, the project will examine a large development project, the `Cooperation for Western Rural Development`, to assess how local ethnic identities are reflected in the design and practice of development activities. The methods will include intensive participant observation in the development organization as well as a census of eight local communities to assess their involvement in development projects, more intensive studies in two communities, one where projects are established and one where they are just being institutionalized. This research is important because most development projects implicitly or explicitly assume that local ethnicity will give way towards more Western, European, middle-class values and practices. Yet new development organizations are contesting that model, forging new approaches to join the best of local ethnic identity with developed institutions. This project will advance our knowledge of this new approach as well as contribute to the training of a young social scientist.