Radicalize Multiculturalism? Garifuna Activism and the Double‐Bind of Participation in Postcoup Honduras

Abstract

R e s u m e n En este artículo analizo la resistencia Garífuna ante el golpe de estado contra Manuel Rosales Zelaya. Me baso en entrevistas y conversaciones con activistas y observación participante en las protestas contra el golpe de estado en Tegucigalpa con el fin de explorar el significado y los objetivos de la resistencia cultural Garífuna en el periodo post-golpe. Argumento que la etnopolítica sirve para reforzar y desafiar las representaciones dominantes de la subjetividad folklórica Garífuna, las cuales son ampliamente diseminadas por la propaganda turística y la construcción de la identidad nacional por políticas multiculturales. También subrayo la forma en que los activistas Garífunas articularon sus demandas para la autonomía y los derechos territoriales con los objetivos del movimiento de resistencia nacional. Participación Garífuna en la Resistencia brindó la oportunidad de ser reconocidos como sujetos políticos-no como objetosy para aspirar a otra Honduras dentro de este movimiento multiétnico emergente. A b s t r a c tThis article analyzes Garifuna resistance to the 2009 coup against Manuel Rosales Zelaya. It draws on interviews and informal conversations with activists and participant observation in the anticoup protests in Tegucigalpa in order to explore the significance and aims of Garifuna cultural resistance in the postcoup period. Garifuna ethnopolitics reproduce and challenge dominant representations of Garifuna folkloric subjectivity, which are widely disseminated through tourism propaganda and statist constructions of multicultural national identity. The article also highlights the ways in which Garifuna activists articulated longstanding demands for territorial autonomy and land rights with the goals of the national resistance movement. For many, participation in the Resistance Radicalize Multiculturalism 517 518J o u r n a l o f L a t i n A m e r i c a n a n d C a r i b b e a n A n t h r o p o l o g y 522 J o u r n a l o f L a t i n A m e r i c a n a n d C a r i b b e a n A n t h r o p o l o g y

State Building, Ethnic Land Titling, and Transnational Organized Crime: The Case of Honduras

“…In fact, grassroots organizations that represent the Lenca people, the largest ethnic group in the country, have been demanding territorial rights since the mid-1980s (Mollett 2013;Slack 2009). Despite the Lencas' relentless mobilization to protect their land and ward off hydroelectric and other development projects (Shipley 2016;Loperena 2016), government officials have largely ignored their requests. Rather than titling large macroterritories to the Lencas, the central government has fragmented their territorial claim by titling small communal land plots, reducing their power to resist the government's development projects.…”

“…There is a strong belief that massive titling programs are a reaction to the mobilization strategies that Unity of Mosquitia (Moskitia Asia Takanka, MASTA), an Indigenous political organization, used to obtain greater economic and political participation. However, internationally connected grassroots organizations, such as the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras, COPINH), the Fraternal Organization of Black Hondurans (Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña, OFRANEH), and the Tawahka Indigenous Federation of Honduras (Federación Indígena Tawahka de Honduras, FITH)-all among the oldest and most experienced organizations in the country-have consistently claimed communal land rights by using similar mobilization tactics (Gómez 2004;Anderson 2007;Brondo 2010Brondo , 2013Mollett 2013;Thorne 2016;Loperena 2016;Jokela-Pansini 2016). Rather than being responsive, the government has failed to protect grassroots leaders (Gynther 2016; Global Witness 2017) and purposely fragmented their land claims (Brondo 2007).…”

From Sparks and Embers: Concluding Reflections on Anthropology, Generation, and Central America

“…Introduced by Kay Warren (2001), it probed the enduring character of the indigenous/nonindigenous split and the simpler, more dynamic and flexible relations of everyday life. Garifuna, Creole, and Miskito identities were debated by Mark Anderson (2008), Keri Vacanti Brondo (2010), Jennifer Goett (2011), Christopher Loperena (2016), and Baron Pineda (2001). In these, we see new generations of youthful actors asserting claims on the political life of identity.…”

The Negative Effects of U.S. Imperialism in Central America

“…Additionally, her precoup scholarship on U.S. anticommunist intervention in Honduras’s labor movement during the Cold War made her research region-specific (the North Coast) and focused on the labor movement’s role in the postcoup resistance movement. With the acknowledgment of these limitations, Frank suggests that there are thousands of Hondurans’ stories missing in relation to individual participation and activism in the grassroots solidarity movements that created a new culture of resistance and a new sense of national pride (see also Loperena, 2016). Yet she still thoroughly documents the United States’ role in the coup that has contributed to the merciless horror that Hondurans face.…”