The Generation of the Coup: Honduran Youth at Risk and of Risk

Abstract

In this article, we show how generation as a category is an important analytic for understanding social and political dynamics in Honduras. We argue that coming of age in the post‐coup d’état era in Honduras has shaped young Honduran's sense of their own life chances, what they can expect from society and government, and what kinds of possibilities they imagine for their futures. Drawing from ethnography conducted in Honduras and with Hondurans during the 2018 and 2019 migrant caravans, we show how the category of youth is a potential source of risk for the regime in Honduras and, simultaneously, it puts those who are in it at risk. The article concludes with reflections on the legal limitations of generation as category and the lethal consequences of this limitation.

Putting climate-induced migration in context: the case of Honduran migration to the USA

“…Adding to the complexity of this problem was the June 2009 coup d’etat against President Manuel Zelaya Rosales, which ushered in a period of political upheaval and widespread corruption, which some scholars argue, has led to increased levels of out-migration. Frank-Vitale and Martínez d’Aubuisson ( 2020 ) argue that post-coup Honduras was marked by a pervasive culture of corruption and violence, which created a sense of hopelessness and despair among the young and poor, fueling migration, particularly from violent urban areas. Former President Juan Orlando Hernández has been charged in the USA with leading a drug trafficking conspiracy over more than a decade, and he was detained in Honduras and is likely to be extradited to the USA for trial (Associated Press 2022 ).…”

“… 1 Frank-Vitale and Heidbrink ( 2021 ) focus on the U.S. government’s role in producing crime, corruption, and poverty over centuries of involvement in Central America. Frank Vitale’s work has focused on violent crime, poverty, and political dysfunction as the major drivers of recent Honduran migration (Frank 2018 , Frank-Vitale and Martínez d’Aubuisson 2020 ). …”

Introduction: Social Struggle in Neoliberal Central America

“…Today’s Central American liberatory movements may not be as well-known or well-understood in the United States as their predecessors four decades ago. However, as is indicated by much of the recent overlapping scholarship dealing with contemporary Central American social struggles (e.g., Almeida, 2014; Ybarra, 2017; Shipley, 2017; Broad and Cavanagh, 2022; Nolin and Russell, 2021; Frank, 2018; Roux and Geglia, 2019; Phillips, 2015; Fúnez-Flores, 2020; Sagot Rodríguez, 2012; Murcia, 2020; Barahona, 2018; Díaz Arias and Viales-Hurtado, 2021; Velásquez Nimatuj, 2005; Burrell and Moodie, 2020; Manz, 2008; Pine, 2013) and analyzing regional and broader processes of human mobility in the neoliberal context (e.g., Chomsky, 2022; Stoll, 2012; McGuirk and Pine, 2020; Walia, Estes, and Kelley, 2021; Miller, 2017; Pérez-Rocha, 2021; Díaz-Barriga and Dorsey, 2020; Dahlstrom, Loor, and Sherman-Stokes, 2019; Holmes, 2013; Mendiola, 2021; Menjívar and Walsh, 2019; Coutin, 2010; Frank-Vitale and Martínez d’Aubuisson, 2020; Hanlon and Nolin, 2021; Burrell and Moodie, 2019; Castillo, 2019; Garibo García and Call, 2020), many of them are arguably operating in even more hostile territory.…”

“Everything I Have Seen There, That I Know …”: Witnessing the Colombian armed conflict through refugees’ narratives of implication

“…However, legal scholars have critiqued this definition, particularly the ambiguity and constriction of “particular social group” (Blake, 2015; Marouf, 2019; Sternberg, 2016), for excluding people whose lives are at risk in ways that this definition does not explicitly encompass. For example, in their article on the “Generation of the Coup,” Amelia Frank‐Vitale and Juan José Martínez d'Aubuisson make an argument for understanding young Honduran men as a particular social group, and conclude their article by asking: “If, analytically, we can make an argument that generation can be considered a social category in the same way as ethnicity, race, religion, gender, then, what implications could this have for generation as category in the realm of law?” (2020, 565, italics in original).…”

“…I ask a similar question about the witness: Can we understand “witness” as a social category whose members are inherently at risk for persecution? Just like young Honduran men who are targeted “because of their status as young men ” (Frank‐Vitale & Martínez d'Aubuisson, 2020, 565), witnesses to violence in Colombia are targeted due to their status as witnesses . The ethnography in this article supports an expansive understanding of “particular social group” and application of the refugee category.…”