Sergio Palencia Frener

Background

I am a Guatemalan and Central American anthropologist and sociologist. Before joining the College of William & Mary, I have taught at the City University of New York, Universidad Rafael Landivar, and Universidad Del Valle, Sololá campus, in the Maya highlands of Guatemala. My research brings together three important strands of native studies, interethnic relations, and political economy in the Americas: a longue-durée understanding of indigenous experiences of state and plantation formation in Mesoamerica (Central America and Mexico); Maya communal politics and relations with nonindigenous sectors during the Guatemalan war in 1954–1996; and contemporary indigenous experiences under increasing commodification (electricity, land) and diasporic reconfigurations in the 21^st century.

I have published three books in Mexico and Guatemala and several articles in journals in Latin America and the United States, both in Spanish and English. My book Rebelión estamental y el origen del Estado finquero en Guatemala (Caste Rebellion and the Origins of the Guatemalan Plantation State, 1780-1940) traces the relationship between state formation, the coffee plantation economy, and the history of Maya indigenous displacement and communal resistance. Since 2010, I have worked on Indigenous memories, narratologies, and multifarious experiences of Cold War Guatemala. Through oral stories, kinship analyses, and fieldwork in Akateko, Kaqchikel, Ixil, and Ladino towns, I reconstruct the histories of village organization, labor experiences in plantations, and rebellion during the Guatemalan War in 1954-1996.

I have worked on revisiting 20^th century intellectual traditions and ethnographies in Mesoamerica. My book (2013) Racismo, capital y Estado en Guatemala [Racism, Capital, and the State in Guatemala] explores the conceptualizations of power, racial division, and labor from the revolutionary context in 1970 Guatemala to the emergence of multiculturalism and neoliberal politics in the 1990-2000s. Through the concept of domination flux, I analyze the historical interrelation of racism, state formation, and capitalism, and the possibilities of emancipatory activity. In the book chapter (2014) “Mesoamérica, concepto y lucha” [Mesoamerica: Concept and Struggle], I delve into the politics of several ethnographies of Guatemalan, Salvadoran, and American authors between 1920–2010.

I co-authored Hacia una interpretación del genocidio en Centroamérica [Towards an Interpretation of Genocide in Central America]. This book explores the use of genocide as a legal concept to describe, analyze, and denounce agrarian and state violence in the isthmus between 1954 and 1984. Other ongoing projects: (1) A comparative analysis of Indigenous politics and the expansion of plantations in Nahual, Maya, Nasa, Quechua, and Aymara territories between 1860-1990; (2) A visual anthropology research on the photography of the Guatemalan Maya highlands.  (3) Neoliberal commodification of electricity in Guatemala and its impact on K’iche’ Indigenous communities of Totonicapán.

Education

2023    PhD in Anthropology             The Graduate Center, City University of New York

2020    MA in Anthropology              The Graduate Center, City University of New York

2020    Certificate in Critical Theory The Graduate Center, City University of New York

2013    MA in Sociology                     Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla

2009    B.A. in Sociology                   Del Valle University, Guatemala

2008    B.A. in Social Science            Del Valle University, Guatemala

Courses Taught

ANTH 250      Introduction to Native Studies
ANTH 350      Indigenous Politics and Plantations in Latin America

Selected Publications

Articles, chapters, and prefaces

“'There Was a Time of Dancing' —Visual Memory of the Maya Uprising in Guatemala, 1980–1981.” Visual Anthropology, 35(4–5), 2022: 319–343.

“One Day in the Guatemalan War: The Rebel Occupation of Nebaj, 21 January 1979.” Dialectical Anthropology, 45(3), 2021: 205–231. 

“The Lives of Those Who Died.” North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), Oct. 17, 2022.

“Dianna Ortiz, Survivor and Witness of the Guatemalan Genocide (1958-2021).” North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), Feb. 26, 2021.

“Memory and Forgetting in Guatemala: Maya Catechists during the Cold War.” Open Democracy, June 6, 2021.

Prefaces to Vols. 3, 4, and 6 The Collected Works of Ricardo Falla, “Al atardecer de la vida.” Guatemala: Universidad Landivar, AVANCSO. Editorial Universitaria USAC, 2015-2018.

“Mesoamérica, concepto y lucha. Aproximación histórico-social desde la teoría crítica.” Del sujeto subalterno al sujeto cosmológico: un espejo para transformarnos, Edited by Sergio Palencia, Mónica Salazar, and Marcelo Zamora. Guatemala: Universidad Rafael Landivar, 2014.

Books and co-authored books

Rebelión estamental y el origen del Estado finquero en Guatemala, 1780-1940. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Centro de Investigaciones sobre América Latina y el Caribe, pp. 417, 2020.

Hacia una interpretación del tema de genocidio en Centroamérica. Co-authored with Eva Orduña, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. CIALCA, 2021.

Racismo, capital y Estado en Guatemala. Análisis de las relaciones de poder desde la teoría crítica. Instituto de Estudios Humanísticos, Universidad Rafael Landivar, 2013.

Media

Book Launch and Discussion: Caste Rebellion, The Origins of the Guatemalan Plantation State, 1780-1940:

New York (English). Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies, City University of New York. Participants: Mary Roldán (Hunter College), Marc Edelman (Hunter College), 2022.

Mexico (Spanish). Instituto Alfonso Vélez Pliego, Puebla University. Participants: Coralia Gutiérrez (BUAP), Mario Vázquez (UNAM), Ramón González Ponciano (Stanford University), 2021.

Costa Rica (Spanish). University of Costa Rica. Participants: Sofía Mendoza (UCR) and María José Guillén (UCR), 2021. 

“Fotografías del altiplano rebelde: Guatemala, 1980-1982.” Conference of Central American Cultural Studies, Universidad Rafael Landivar, Guatemala, 2021.

“La crisis del mundo finquero-gamonal: Flavio Herrera (Guatemala) y José María Arguedas (Perú) en 1935.” XV Andean Conference of Latin American Literature (JALLA), 2022.

“El origen de la guerra en Guatemala: precedentes y anulación de la Reforma Agraria en El Quiché, 1946-1970.” Maria Sibylla Center for Advanced Latin American Studies, CALAS, 2022.

Comments to book: Motines de indios. La violencia colonial en Centroamérica y Chiapas, by Severo Martínez Peláez. Instituto Alfonso Vélez Pliego, Puebla University, 2022.

Indigenous Memories and Songs of Fernando Hoyos and Domingo Sánchez Poma. Primavera del Ixcán, Guatemala. Red Tz’ikin, 2017.