Using the Human Rights Framework as a Mobilizing Tool. The Case of Indigenous Women’s Movements in Post-Conflict Guatemala

This article examines the evolution and the nature of indigenous women’s rights activism in post-conflict Guatemala. I analyze the work of the Organización de Mujeres Mayas de Kaqla, which has developed a type of women’s rights activism that is firmly rooted in Mayan cosmovisión and in women’s direct experiences. Building on their experience in the revolutionary movements of the war period the women of Kaqla seek to localize the allegedly universal discourse of women’s rights and to use it as a resource for change. I apply the perspectives of social movement spillover and of localizing human rights respectively to structure the findings, and argue that both perspectives can be insightful in understanding certain dimensions of this multi-faceted kind of activism, but that there are certain dynamics which these perspectives fail to grasp. I ask how the case of Kaqla can enrich both our understanding of how social movements can adapt to changing environments, and of how transnational discourses can become localized. The analysis also highlights the North-South power dynamic and suggests that processes of discursive adaptation are not fundamentally open.