Embodied healing and justice in wounded territories: reflections from feminist and decolonial research-activism in Guatemala

Aisling Walsh

Third World Quarterly, 2024, vol. 45, issue 5, 853-869

Abstract: Cuerpo-territorio (the body-territory) is a concept used by Indigenous feminist activists from Iximulew (Guatemala) to frame their struggles for justice, an end to gendered violence and against extraction in their territories. This paper draws on this concept to explore the legacy of colonial and conflict-related woundings in Guatemala, particularly sexualised and racialised violence. I focus on the primarily Ladinx, urban, largely middle-class population who work and study at the Centre for Training, Healing and Transpersonal Transformation – Q’anil, Guatemala. By centring my enquiry on the reflections of staff and participants from Guatemala and Latin America, through observations and interviews completed as part of my PhD, research this paper explores how attending to the racialised and sexualised wounds of the cuerpo supports individual and collective healing. I argue that Q’anil’s processes, which focus on interrogating desire, reconnecting with the body and recovering the erotic as creative life force, can contribute to healing our broken relationship with the territorio. I ­situate this work within the turn towards a vitalist politics and ask how we might expand our understanding of justice in territories wounded by conflict and (neo)colonialism beyond legal frameworks to envision justice from the cuerpo-territorio?

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2023.2226471

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