Anthropology and the Politics of Testimony

From Rigoberta Menchú to the "Innocent Victims" of the Guatemalan Civil War
By Karine Vanthuyne
English

The publication of Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans [Stoll, 1998] has stirred vivid debate within North American anthropology departments, around anthropologists modes of engagement with their informants’ speech acts. Drawing on a “networked ethnography, from within” of the “politics of testimony” about the war in Guatemala, this article will shed new light on this debate, by proposing an alternative mode of engagement with our interviewees’ speech acts.

Keywords

  • testimony
  • methodology
  • ethics
  • Rigoberta Menchú
  • Guatemala
Go to the article on Cairn-int.info