Okay. I think I'm gonna go ahead and start. It's 12: 30 here in Virginia.
And I think some people are impatient. We've had 18 people in the room for at least 20 min.
So, Let's go ahead and start. So, Shriya please press record.
Hello everybody. I'm Dr. Maria Elisa Christie. I'm the director of Women and Gender in International Development at Virginia Tech's Center for International Research, Education Development.
Shriya Sathaye is my graduate assistant. She's supporting this discussion series and she's a graduate student.
the School of Engineering here at Virginia Tech. So if you have any technical questions, I saw Kimberly there was an issue with the link so I'm not sure which like I guess You're watching the Zoom, but maybe our website, sometimes not working.
So, if you could kind of see what's going on with that. But anyway, please address technical questions to Shriya and thank you, Shriya, for all your work.
Before during and after the discussion series. So welcome to the virtual women and gender in international development. Discussion series in Virginia Tech.
This is our first event of 2024 this semester and we're happy that you could all join us virtually for today's discussion featuring Dr. Carla Macal
As up just a little while ago we had 67 people registered. For today's event.
So in addition to many diverse folks in the US, we have people who join us from other countries. Including Guatemala, Australia, Kenya, and Zimbabwe.
And besides students, faculty and staff from Virginia Tech, we have folks joining from lots of California universities, UCLA, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara and Cal State.
So welcome to everybody. Please note that our event is recorded. So if and it will be available on our website later so for all participants by staying on now you can send to be recorded you can turn off your camera so that your image if you don't want your image reported.
And still be able to watch the presentation. So. Before introducing the speaker, I invite you to reflect on Virginia Tech's land and labor recognition and, Shriya is gonna put the link to that if you want to see where that is on our, Land acknowledgement.
Virginia Tech acknowledges that we live and work on the Tutelo Monica and people's homeland.
And we recognize their continued relationships with their lands and waterways. We further acknowledge that the moral land-grant College Act of 1862 enabled the Commonwealth of Virginia to finance and found Virginia Tech.
Through the forced removal of Native nations from their lands in western territories. Including what is now California.
We understand that honoring Native peoples without explicit material commitments fall short of our institutional responsibilities.
Through sustained, transparent, and meaningful engagement with the Tutelo Monacan peoples and other Native nations.
We commit to changing the trajectory of Virginia Tech's history by increasing indigenous students, staff, and faculty recruitment and retention.
Diversifying course offerings. And meeting the grilling needs of all Virginia tribes and supporting their sovereignty.
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Owned by members of the Preston family. Between the 1770 s and 1860 s the Prestons and other local white families that owned parcels of what became Virginia Tech also owned hundreds of enslaved people.
We acknowledge that in slave black people generated wealth that finance the predecessor institution to Virginia Tech, the Preston and Olin Institute.
And they also worked on construction of its building, not until 1953, however, was the first black student permitted to enroll.
Through inclusive VT, the institutional and individual commitment to UPM that I may serve in the spirit of community diversity and excellence, we commit to advancing a more diverse, equitable and inclusive community.
So now some brief housekeeping notes. This event will last approximately 45 min. Our speakers presentation will be approximately 25.
Minutes followed by about 20 min of discussion and question and answer for the audience. All the participants will be muted to enable the speaker to present without interruption.
As always, in order for a discussion to be as rich as it can be, we need everyone to be respectful and treat all participants with kindness and consideration without discriminatory behavior.
If anyone is disrespectful, including interrupting the speaker or bringing in off topic issues, they'll be removed from the Zoom Meeting.
We recognize that today's lecture is related to many interesting topics but to respect the time of all participants we'd like you to focus the questions on the stated topics and our speakers expertise.
After our speakers presentation, people joining on Zoom can raise their hands through the virtual buttons. And we will ask you to unmute yourself so you can speak directly to the speaker or If you shy and prefer that I read your questions, you can put them into the chat at any time during the talk and we keep track of them and then I'll read them in the order that they were that they were.
Put in during the during chat and we will We will read those. At the end after the presentation.
But please with the, you know, hands raising your hands and speaking, please wait your turn to speak so that we can avoid interruptions and maintain netticate
Not a funny word. That's good. I think that's very funny. Please wait for your turn to speak so that we can avoid interruptions.
Okay, again the webinars being recorded and you will have access to it. And that usually takes a couple of weeks because Shriya needs to do some work with a transcription So now, I know, Carla, you said we might have some people who are not English speakers joining.
We could not figure out how to do an automatic translation through our side, but at least to enable the captions that might make it a little easier.
There's a information that she is putting on there, but I'm just going to read it. So on the bottom of your screen, you can find option.
You could select. Show captions and you have to select English. You can't select Spanish because It won't translate.
It's just that Carla speaking in English, so you'll have to select what she's speaking in.
So in advance, I'd like you to ask you to please answer the very brief survey that we'll share in the chat at the end of the event.
And we'll also be emailed to you and it's important that's important for us to get your feedback about.
Programming and also helps us with fundraising. Okay, you can tweet us by tagging us @WGD_VT
You can put that in the chat. And now finally what you are actually here for.
I think we need to share. The screen share card screen but let me introduce our speaker Dr.
Carla Macal is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Gender and Women's Studies Department at Pamona College.
I was fortunate to come across back to my call last year at the annual meeting of the American Association of Geographers.
While she was still a PhD candidate at the University of Oregon, where I also did my undergraduate master's card.
I don't think I ever told you that. So I have, I'm very, connected to U of O.
But I found your presentation, Carla, very exciting. One of the best in the whole AAG, the whole session was so interesting.
Young people with really Very interesting. New, things that were happening in geography. So I really excited that, Carla accepted to join us at the discussion series.
Now a little bit about her research. Her research delves into the intersection of memory, trauma, and healing through her groundbreaking research on the marginalized native groups of Guatemala.
As the daughter of a survivor, personal connection drives her exploration into intergenerational trauma at its profound impact.
She uncovers the intricate relationship between land, space, and history resulting in her concept of cartographies of healing.
Her research focuses on Guatemalan Women survivors both in their native lab and in the diaspora using a unique body mapping technique to capture their embodied experiences and memories.
Today she will share her findings and demonstrate that transformative power of body mapping in understanding and healing from trauma.
Title of her talk, as you can see, there, on your screen is Healing Cartographies: Body Mapping by Guatemalan women survivors of genocide.
Please welcome Dr. Macal.
Yeah, thank you so much. Maria Lisa for in the invitation. And just so excited to be here with all of you.
So, I'll be presenting part of my research to the women in gender and international development discussion series.
Thank you to everyone who helped organize the talk. And I also want to thank everyone who made it out today, you know, to friends on colleagues.
So to take you on this journey with me, I have this road map. And so I'm gonna be sharing above my positionality, the background of the study, a little bit of historical context, the theoretical framework.
Some of my research questions, will go in detail about body mapping and also I'll share my results and reflections.
So I identify as a Guatemala woman in the diaspora and I greet you from Tonga territory of Los Angeles.
My research is a product of my personal and political story. GuateMaya is a popular concept used by activists in the diaspora to critique the homogenization of what among people and center the Maya population.
GuateMaya is a capacious fluid concept and I'll carefully use it and resist state imposed categoriesations like Hispanic or Latino Latinx that exclude indigenous populations.
So I consider myself an interdisciplinary scholar and every time I share a presentation, I'm by my ancestors and my family with me as you see here in this photo is a photo of my grandmother, my mother and I.
So a little bit of the backward of my study. So my current work is a political project centering the oral and embodied testimonials or testimonies of GuateMaya women survivors of genocide.
Who are currently involved in collective projects to recover Guatemalas historical memory. While Guatemala's feminist groups are connected across the United States, in Mexico and Canada.
My study focuses on the relational testimonials of Guatemaya feminist groups in Guatemala and Los Angeles.
By centering the transnational oral and embodied testimonials of Guatemaya feminist groups in the production of counter cultural and embodied memory, it counters the germonic narratives produced by the state.
By doing so, this research bridges the work of South, North, Indigenous women. The relational testimonials transcend time and space. As the counter memories of the Guatemala feminist groups across the hemisphere are linked to spiritual practices of Maya cosmology.
My cosmology and false life in a continuum creation of non-visible, invisible energy forces.
The groups also create altars and public spaces like you can see in this photo. Art, poetry and campaigns building a collective voice to what I identify healing cartographies, weaving and mapping in the past and present testimonials of women survivors of genocide.
So I, for my research, I went into this 2 case study. So, Guatemala feminist groups, but for this person, I will focus on the Guatemaya group in Guatemala.
And they are the username Ojobihash and their collective supporting the families like you can see in this photo of the 56 Guatemalan girls and survivors of March 8th, 2017.
And just to give you, a brief description of the case. On March 8, 2017, the tragic incident of the Plaza de las Ninas
home fire killed 41 girls between the ages of 13 and 17. This was not an isolated event.
It was a chronicle of a death foretold because of shortcomings of the system had been denounced several times before.
As a community educator and scholar. I was not able to separate myself altogether from this. Terror from this case and the people in both in the search for justice.
So I saw my role as a bridge to connect or should be hash with other Guatemaya feminist groups in the diaspora and spread awareness of the case.
So in terms of historical context, what also connects the group is where they're from, Guatemala I'm also, my family is also from there.
From the participants testimonials it became clear that a majority were victims survivors of the 36 year war from 1960 to 1996 war in Guatemala, forcing some of them to migrate to the US and to other places during the late 1980s and still now.
During the peak of the Cold War in the 1970s and 80s the United States intervened politically and militarily in Central America to stop the spread of so-called communism.
Governmental military forces. Sorry, primarily targeted the Maya people in Guatemala as they perceive them as an enemy and scapegoated them for working with leftist groups.
200,000 of the Maya people were killed, 45,000 people disappeared and 1.5 million were displaced.
So drawing from, interviews with feminist groups, I argue that post conflict gender based violence or at the extreme level feminist side is a continuation of the ongoing state violence stemming from the war from the 36 year war.
I argue that while there's a body of work regarding culture memory and Latin America and how it is produced through testimonies and visuals, less has been researching written about how the human body as a side can connect to memory and heal from trauma.
My research is attentive to the embodied experience of Guatemala and Maya women in the war concerning intergenerational trauma, memory, and healing.
In Guatemala, girls and women's bodies face multiple levels of violence from rape, domestic violence, poverty, and the onto the extreme scale feminist side.
Alarming statistics demonstrate that a woman is killed every 12 hours in Guatemala. And I really appreciate this definition by Victoria Stanford as she writes.
Feminicide refers to the murder of women by men because they are women and points to the state's responsibility for these murders, whether through commission of the actual killing, toleration of the perpetrators acts of violence or omission of state responsibility to ensure the safety of its female citizens.
So the latter part of this definition connects to the case of the 56 girls and how the state continues to emit responsibility.
So to examine the connection between territory bodies and memory and healing, I'm guided by the emancipatory framework of coined by communitarian Maya Shinta Feminis, Lorena Cabnal.
For Cabnal, embodied emotions are vital to evidence and verify what is felt in the body.
So, QUEUE, Potteratorio or Body Territory is a decolonial indigenous feminist concept that declares a body as our first territory and advocates for a communal subject agency.
To assess and analyze my research questions, I used to following intersecting analytic foundation guided by Cabnal. So, says, one, our bodies are systematically affected by oppression such as extractive industries, domestic violence, poverty, sexism.
And are also a product of 2 body and territory our spaces of vital energy that must work in reciprocity collectively with other oppressed bodies.
So to hear some of my research questions, but again, this is part of my dissertation research.
So for this presentation, I will focus on question number one. I'm asking how are transformative memories specifically inscribed in the body public space and other symbolic in material geographies.
So now I will share a little bit more about the research and the methods I used in order to respond to this question.
I did travel to Guatemala in the summer of 2022 with the ground by the University of Oregon Center of Latino Studies and in this first on this second workshop is body mapping workshop, 20 family members participated, which was incredible because much majority of them were mothers of the girls.
They were visiting from different locations such as the Escuintla, Chimaltenango, Villa Nueva, Jutiapa, Esquipulas and these locations are not close that the location of the workshop was in the city of Guatemala.
The location of the workshop was in the city of Guatemala Zona 1, and they travel by like 2 h to an hour.
So, and they travel for like 2 h to an hour. So yeah, so we were able to help them with, some transportation cost.
What I thought it was amazing about this workshop is that children were present. So, they were supervised by 2 psychologists.
You can see in the photo and while they were coloring and playing games, the mothers were attentive to the workshop.
Also another aspect of this process is that it was very collaborative, meaning that OTTI hash, the group, continues to accompany the families, created the flyers so they were in communication with the mothers.
It took us about like 3 months to organize the workshop. But yeah, so that was something that I really enjoyed.
So now onto the method of body mapping. Feminist geographers have centered the body as a side of struggle or resistance, but also healing.
As we know, maps have been used as tools of colonization, of exercising power and violence. However, maps can also be tools of transformation and resistance.
So a side from the verbal testimonies, I'm interested in the embodied testimonies and body mapping here's a general definition.
Has been defined as the process of creating body maps, using drawing, painting or other art based techniques to visually represent aspects of people's lives, their bodies, and the world they live in.
So I throughout my whole dissertation I conducted 2 body mapping workshops one here one in Los Angeles and the other one in Guatemala and I'll be speaking to the one.
About Guatemala, but both were like different, due to the things that each body map covered.
So I'm very much inspired by the work of Elizabeth Sweet and Sarah Ortiz Escalante. Who also use body and community math being with immigrant, immigrant women from Mexico and they say maps.
As storytelling tools reinforce a collectivity among those involved in their making. Body and community mapping our tools that can be used as practices of transformation, self-consciousness, and deconization.
So in the following slides I will share her the body mapping workshop became a sacred space by building trust, reciprocity, and connections with the mothers of some of the 56 girls.
So a sacred space was created by lighting a candle, burning some sage and cobalt to cleanse the space and energy and doing some breathing.
Exercises to initiate the workshop, creating a space where suffering can be heard and shared is essential for the self to be reclaimed.
As Chicana feminist, Christina Garcia Lopez says, where those who carry on their bodies minds and spirits the visceral pain of knowing that their own story is viewed as and worthy of description or attention.
The such narrative spaces can be sacred as listening and responding is central to the power of narrative. So I also borrowed from Sweden Escalante.
They recommend to use a protocol of ethics and safety when conducting the body mapping workshops. So in this workshop I reflect about these ethical elements and we created for example putting a spiritual altar in the middle of the circle doing the breathing exercises and body movements.
Intentionally choosing a community base location where the participants can feel safe. Using popular education tools like providing questions and materials for the participants.
And something really amazing is that we ate ceremonial food. So at the end of the workshop we all have had a beautiful lunch and we ate this dish known as the pian, which is a Maya dish in Guatemala.
So now I'm gonna share a little bit about the individual body maps. So I did ask, for example, what place of your body do you remember your daughter loved one and what types of memory come to your body.
So as you can see, in this body map, the mother of Gay Lasageto, she drew a young girl.
Who from the number in her t-shirt seems that she was 10 years old. Instead of drawing instead of the mom drawing her own body the mother chose to draw her daughter's body and many of the body maps post posters look like letters to their daughters the mother wrote justice for the 56 girls in memory of Kayla S.
Salguero I love you sending you a hug from a distance.
And the next body map, this is from Ashley Hernandez's sister Ashley Hernandez was one of the girls who who was who was killed in this shelter in her head.
She wrote, she wrote, I remember my sister, she needed to heal. We used to play with dolls in her hand.
I love nature. I feel at peace in nature. In her heart, my heart hurts for my sister.
She needs to heal and let go. And in her lake she says, I don't feel safe the streets in the streets because of the negative connotation.
She used the word in Spanish, which is "morvo". So it's a little bit like negative connotation being carried.
Women, women being a woman carries and how I dress. So something to also know is that these all these body maps were in Spanish so I used you know like PowerPoint and other templates.
To translate the body maps for an Anglophone audience.
Aside from their bought individual body maps, the group also created a collective body map. Representing the group.
So I asked a group to share work 7% them and it was interesting to observe how the group also focused on how the state identified them and they wrote the on the body like guilty mothers, prostitutes, and also how they feel about the state.
And it was a total of 30 words. So I divided the words and themes into a table into 3 different categories such as state narratives against the girls and Where were they putting these words and those words were like in the chest?
Also collective emotions they were these words were on the stomach and pelvis area and also positive affirmations and those ones were put on the legs as you can see, state narrative such as like criminals, gang members, guilty mothers, collective emotions, anger, guilt, and positive and support each other.
Love, dreams, education. However, something interesting to note about this collective body map is that it doesn't have any feet.
So to me, it was interesting because feed to me symbolized journey, path moving forward, but the mothers in the workshop demonstrated that they're just so exhausted, you know, they're not hearing any, they're not getting any justice from the state.
So I thought that was really interesting. So I also want to share my reflections and my analysis of these body maps.
Just, you know, due to this presentation, there was a total of 20 body maps, but I'm just sharing some of them.
Due to time. But if you're interesting, we can, you can email me and we can chat.
I'm thinking of putting them on a website later. So my analysis comes from Marty's Durkin's cultural memory contributions and Chicana feminisms and spiritual activism of the moon.
goddess, Coyolxauhqui. So one example from Sturgens is that AIDS memorial quilts, which represent people's bodies, memory and stories.
The quilts are naming the dead and produce a body count as their conventions. The image of Coyolxauhqui today has been used by Chicana feminist scholars first developed by Goran Sandoa.
Speak about the ongoing and lifelong process of healing from traumatic events which fragment, dismember, or wound the self.
The concept has been used in various contexts where healing is necessary such as that of identity, cultural, educational, and even historical, making Coyolxauhqui as important and relevant as it was centuries ago.
Chicanas spiritual activism with the moon goddess represents our fragmented selves and I see it with the body maps of how the state even after the girls death continues to inflict emotional violence towards the families.
Coyolxauhqui Medicine affirms our existence in time and as broken as we are, we can go through a transformation and recreate ourselves.
So I wanted to share a little bit about this concept of what is healing cartographies. So my research definitely took a very transnational look.
Across space and time and indigenous women's continental activism conjured the scale of a horizontal scale of connection to each other and to land.
The shifts that geopolitics of international diplomacy and transnational activism that had you raised them and their epistemologies.
So, healing cartographies to me are exemplified by the verbal and body testimonials of what the Maya feminist groups mapping out the plural communication and language through art, songs, poems, and events as a critical recovery of both memory and healing.
I can visualize seeing, healing cartography. So my research and I wanted to put it on to an image on a paper so I asked my cousin, I'm Marina who's an artist who helped me because she's an artist.
So I gather my filled work photos and ask her to add the photos onto an image of a woman's body making the body of a woman a map.
So the women's body, as you can see, has no borders, allowing for the territories to touch and embrace differences but stretching out the territory for participatory change using spiritual technologies like altars.
The red flowers around the collage are carnations as a red carnations represent the everylasting memory of loved ones.
So what is powerful is to document our stories and celebrate the courage, strength, and cardinal. Indigenous women continue to demonstrate amid state injustices.
These examples demonstrate the tenacity of women survivors and their perseverance to gain justice and reparations in post conflict GuateMala.
Thank you so much. Thank you for listening and here's my information. And we can go on to a dialogue and questions.
Thank you.
Great. Well. I'm going to go ahead and read.
I have 2 questions, but I'm going to skip mine first. I, the people speak first.
Okay.
Oh, there's like. I can't step in there's just a science and I'll go ahead and ask my question but so Dominic.
Go here Virginia Tech. This is Carter. Thank you so much. Dominic, do you prefer to raise your hand?
Do you prefer to speak yourself?
Yes.
Hi, sure. I can speak. Can you hear me? Okay, with my office that they are on.
Thank you.
Thank you so much. Your presentation was amazing. I still get to hear all of your work and Sounds like a lot and it's essential like I said important.
Okay.
I'd love to email with you later, by the way. I went to Pittsburgh.
Oh yes.
Extra excited to see the Claremont College is represented. Yeah, small world.
Oh.
So I had a question about, the manifestation and the body parts. I know that they're obviously Western ideas of grief and chess and things like this, but.
Hmm.
I'm thinking of like, or even in patio things that, are Mesoamerican and kind of continue.
Hmm.
If there's any particularly Maya. Concepts of where kind of grief sits. In the body or where it manifests physically that might be either carry over continuation of Mesoamerican or particularly Maya.
Ways of manifesting physically.
That's a really good question. Thank you. Yeah, I know I use, which is like a stick, but I'm trying to move to my Maya traditions.
So I think that's a good question. Obviously, like I taught a class at the, one about theories of the body and as we know, like you mentioned, the body is a very like Western concept, you know, thinking about like Freudian, and all these theories.
So in my research I was really careful and not to go into like Mmm, how can I put it?
Like, do you like, co-optation of like Mayan spiritual practices so I'm still very late.
Careful because in my tradition like you would need to be an acique which is like a healer and I'm and I'm not in that position.
So yeah, I'm still working on that and and yeah, maybe like you mentioned like where grief where people hold grief and talking to like many of the women and the group obviously like our womb is also like a place you know that holds a lot of grief.
And also like our throat you know so There's a lot of that because in Guatemala, that's why it started with the war.
There's a lot of silences, right, like Lacy, Albert Go, she talks about like, like silences in our communities.
And so I think that it was it was in our communities and so I think that it was it was beautiful to to use body mapping because it's a technique where we can also kind of like voice and draw like our communities.
And so I think that it, it was beautiful to, use body mapping because it's a technique where we can also kinda like voice and draw like our feelings instead of using our voice sometimes because people are still scared of until, 2024 they're still afraid you know my my family there's it's really hard for us for them to continue talking about this.
So, but yeah, but thank you for your question. And yeah, we should definitely connect.
Okay, I'm gonna ask that Sharan to unmute themselves and then I wasn't sure.
I, I texted you directly because I saw that you had your hand up first but, go ahead, Sharan, please.
Hi, thank you so much. That was really, really interesting. I was actually wondering if like, if any, I don't know, obviously this is very like difficult for all the women.
But have any of them like told you that. They would like continue to body. Map and that they would like.
That it was a very like healing experience for them and you know, like. Hopefully that using art as as a form I don't know.
Yeah.
If like the state isn't gonna do anything that they would do it themselves, I guess.
Yes, thank you so much for that question. So, so I don't I don't share but I'm also social worker so I think that discipline also helped me like.
Build that trust, right? And like, I always think about the self-determination of the, of the centering the self-determination of the survivor.
So yes, absolutely. Like they were just really happy. Like, you know, they've gone through so much and like after the workshop like they were smiling you know I don't I'm writing I'm actually writing a paper about this and I do share that it was very cathartic because one of the women for 30 min she just cried so we were just like like that's what I mentioned about the sacred space because she was just
like crying and like screaming so we just let her you know like you know sharing her emotions. So post of the body map I did reach out to an elder and then she told me that she wanted to continue meeting with the women.
I am planning to go back to Guatemala maybe for the seventh anniversary of the girls death. So we are thinking of connecting.
But even here in LA, you know, they want me to do a workshop with women who are doing like a lot of reproductive justice.
Work in Tijuana like in San Diego, Tijuana at border area. So yeah, so it is becoming very, great, you know, to bring these methods because I see that body map is being used in Abia, Latin America a lot and not so much here in the States.
Aside from Elizabeth Sweet, you know, the people that I mentioned. So yeah, so it is traveling up north.
Yeah, that's awesome.
So it's also nice that we can do it here. But thank you for your question.
Okay, and Jess.
Yes.
Hmm.
For other ways.
Can you hear me? Okay, I have a quick question just kind of I know your focus is on the like body cartography and the healing maps, but I guess I was just wondering if you got to think about or hear from the woman about different ways that they can be supported or other ways we can help them in healing other than just the body cartography to kind of like keep their story out there and you know to Let it
be known in a sort of way.
Yes, thank you. So I'm gonna put it on the chat. So let me if you are interested in following on.
Oh, on Instagram. It's called North Dweil and Sequenti says, but there was a camp like a global campaign in 2018 with different artists but they were focusing more on the girls on the 56 girls and I know one of the members of the group of, they want to do a book about they want to do a book about the girls like they want to do a book about the girls like stories because a lot of
times Like I mentioned, like the state continues to see them as criminals, right, like criminalizing them.
So we do want to put like, what did they like? You know, where they like their stories out there.
So that has helped the mothers. But yeah, the mothers do need a lot a lot of support.
I know some of us here have sent even like money, right? Like for them to like, you know, like go have go to the different events or the visuals for them because they, if you, I don't know if you go to Guatemala, on the main.
Like the plaza, where the Yeah, the main space. There's a, altar for the girls.
In it's called Plasma Las Nina. So I'm also writing about this altar and so that has helped so not just like you mentioned the body match but also a physical Beautiful.
Altar with 41 crosses. And it's there like anyone can go visit so, them their memory is not forgotten, you know.
So yeah, so that also has been helping. Thank you.
Thank you.
Would you like to
Hello.
Hi, yes. I want to turn my camera too. Hi. Nice meeting you and this was a very beautiful, moving, exciting presentation and happy, good opportunity to meet you.
And I am also very interested in thatpping and. Embodiment as way of black feminine is knowing.
So I was very excited to see that. How you were using and specifically sitting in your work. And I was also more curious about the methodologically, how you engage with mapping, you know, as the practice of mapping, you know, you mentioned the limitations of, you know, the Western kind of colonial approach to mapping versus other ways of, engaging with territory and space.
And embodiment that maybe go beyond the demarcation of like specific limits that are kind of constrained with this idea.
So I'm interested about. I've heard a little bit about, but I haven't had the opportunity to study it yet.
But I am just interested about how you approach that in this like the tension between like the physical representation of demarcated boundaries and how maybe that was, yeah, about that kind of tension of mapping, how you engage with that and.
Also their understanding of the bud in itself and just kind of What is possible to represent and maybe if there is any embodied practices that were supporting that engagement with analytic pardon or the memory part of.
Examining how something benefits in the body and whether We can demarcate it or like if you do not demarcate it, how does it kind of exist and how it's possible to document in an embodiment or in the territory and in memory.
So there are a lot of the questions that have to do with being excited about the cartographic questions that have to do with being excited about the, of the catra, how have to do with being excited about the, of the catrag, how the questions about representation and, the limitation that sometimes.
Goes with that. So. Thank you.
Definitely, I think, in terms of the limitation, like I shared, a lot of the mothers didn't, they didn't draw their own bodies.
So that's also interesting to me, right? How they focused on their daughters or something else, you know, away from themselves.
But in terms of like, like you mentioned, the tension of mapping. So I did come to geography later in my career.
So I did come to geography later in my career. So, I, I know, you know, a lot of disciplines are very like colonial and I think They're also said in a very like mind over body approach.
So in terms of my work, I really wanted to center like emotions and you know, emotions are very connected to our body.
So there's a section in my dissertation where I do write kind of like this like literature review on like how disciplines are so and feminist geographers talk about this you know and since the 1990s Oh, I could if you want I could send you some articles so because I was so focused on the emotions I think that's why I was drawn to like this approach of body mapping.
And I think if Body Mapping is so beautiful because there's different approaches like I've seen people like do huge body maps and also use post-its and like you can do like you're draw your emotions right and but in my particular area I was interested in place right the places that that hold you know like fear or negativity and onto our bodies and memory.
So yeah, so there's different approaches, but definitely you can email me and we can continue the conversation.
Yes, I will definitely reach out. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Yes.
Good.
Okay. Okay, good. Go ahead, Christine. And then, Oh, it's Nick.
Yeah.
It's not Christine.
Okay.
Yeah, this is actually. Thank you. What a beautiful talk. I'm, so moving and it connects to many things.
Yes.
I also, I do work with Guatemalan communities, in defensive territory. And so, and I've heard about the reimagination of territory happening at multiple scales.
And I'm really interested, and I know you mentioned it earlier. But I would like to ask you to talk a little bit more maybe about How does this relate to a broader reimagining of territory in relationship to different kinds of development or extractivism.
Where these conversations are intersecting at different at different places. I know this, was involved in a lot of dialogue around these questions.
Cause I wanna, yeah, I just wanna think about, have you talked more about the reimagining of territory in general?
As well.
Wow. Yeah, that's a really good question. Especially in terms of like transformative memory.
So something that I'm working on and I can share a little bit more on the workshop here in Los Angeles with Guatemala people in the diaspora.
A lot of them were focusing on like borders. So as you can see, like the body of the woman, right?
Like the map? It didn't, it was interesting to me because subconsciously even my custom like we didn't put any borders right on the on the map so I think that's one way of like reimagining you know like our territory so as you can imagine many like indigenous communities like they don't think in terms of like property of borders or borders.
So I think that's where my work is probably. I'm just finishing an article with catalyst and publishing on on these the idea of like weaving memory throughout the hemisphere across settler colonial borders.
Yeah.
Thank you. Thank you very much. I look forward to reading more of your work. This so
Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you.
So, my first question is very related to what Nick said, although it's more theoretical and that is This is a, I'm a geographer, so this is a very geography kind of angle.
Okay.
But hopefully you'll speak in a way that makes sense to every normal human. So how do people engage in healing transnationally?
You refer to people feeling transnational. So what are the challenges as a researcher of jumping from the scale of the body to national to transnational scales?
So your first question is how are they engaging in healing transationally?
Yeah, but yes, but more how are you conceptualizing that as a researcher because you're jumping from the from embodiment but literally from the scale of the body.
And then body emotions and experience. Jumping to. Literally national and then transnational with a diaspora.
Yes, yes.
So. Okay, the dissertation, did you figure out a way to, you know, talk about scale in that?
Yeah, IA little bit. I think, yeah, I think in terms of scale, you know, we could also see like power dynamics.
You know, in the groups and I think one way what's happening you know in Guatemala and a lot of Central American countries is the force migration.
So I don't I did share in my dissertation I don't share them the presentations but 2 actually 3 of the members of were forced to migrate to that repression, were forced to migrate to the repression, the political repression in Guatemala against the group because they know a lot, right?
Like they, you know, security. So. Unfortunately, in terms of like transnational healing, like I know they couldn't be present in the body mapping workshop, but a lot of them have also asked for me to do like virtual.
Like virtual like body maps and I think that's one way you know to answer your question about how do we engage transnationally?
I would love to write a paper on digital feminism, like digital, like ways of doing or using these tools and just being in conversation with one another because a lot of the people that did migrate, like they're depressed, you know, like who do they talk to?
They feel alone. So yeah, so there's I'm thinking about those yeah It's good.
Thank you for your question.
Okay, so my other one is actually your question. You listed your dissertation questions and the second one.
You said you were gonna have time to talk to about, but you actually do. And I'm just curious, it's a broad question of body mapping as a tool of transformation.
Okay, so yeah, I think. I think body mapping, you know, it you know it has to like what I've learned you know doing these workshops it's not it's not just like a 1 hour thing it has to do like like 5 hour, it became like a retreat and also having like this dynamic of different elements, not just like and like the doing your body map, but also like having
a spiritual altar and like really guided by what the people believe right like their spirituality and also like building community.
So I think that's where the transformation is going, you know, not just seeing it as a researcher or a tool.
A research method, sorry, but more of this like encompassing like different elements, if that makes sense.
So it'll be great if I can create a curriculum. And people can join me in doing this, but that's the way how I see it as a transformative method.
Okay, anybody else have a hand up? I don't think that we've missed any questions in the chat, but we still have almost 50 min, so please join in the conversation.
Don't be shy.
We have, yeah, we have a lot of people on here that I'd love to hear from.
I'm not gonna.
And yes, go ahead, I'm Jason.
This is a little off topic, but it's just something I'd like to understand a little bit more because I know you briefly covered it at the start.
Thank you. Oh, I had more time. Yes.
I had I'm not sure if the 2 are similar or they relate in any sort of way. But I remember in high school I was talking to my parents, specifically my dad was my Guatemalan side of the family and he told me about the genocide in Guatemala, the civil genocide is kind of how he described it.
Hmm.
And so I was wondering, is this like, is that, but that was like, you described it a really long time ago.
Is that connected to this current situation in this sort of way?
That's a good question. Well, that's my argument, right? That it's a continuation, like the like feminist side and gender based violence or what happened to the 56 girls is a continuation of this war like I will what the, I don't know if you know but there was peace accords in December of 1996.
Those it didn't provide so much like peace to the to the community, right? And it was it wasn't so long ago, right?
Like it was until 1996. So it was a 36 year war like and and I'm sharing this because that's like 36 year war like and and I'm sharing this because that's like you like I didn't know like I had to do my own research in this dissertation in order for me to learn like I had to do my own research in this dissertation in order for me to learn about
this war and this dissertation in order for me to learn about this war and even now like I'm searched in this dissertation in order for me to learn about this war.
And even now, like, I get very emotional because I can't, but you know, we see what's happening in Palestine, right?
Like we are living through ongoing genocides right now and and it continues to happen, right? And it's against like.
Subjects like it was against the Maya population, people were forced like my ground, my great grandfather was disappeared.
So yeah, so it wasn't so long ago, but just to answer your question, yeah, I feel like it continues.
Thank you.
So yeah. Okay.
Okay, so Christine slash. Nick.
Yes, we're doing, we're doubling up. And I just have, maybe kind of a methods question a little bit or just have maybe kind of a methods question a little bit or just a curiosity.
And, I just have, maybe kind of a methods question a little bit or just to curiosity, Carla and also just thank you for this incredible talk.
This was. So fantastic. I was kind of curious about like what kinds of questions participants might have asked.
I'm thinking about like, Did they perceive any kind of limitation, to the exercise?
So did they say things like, Oh, can we do this? You know, can we write words or, could I build something or, you know, like did they try to do anything else, that wasn't available, you know, sort of tools wise or just, yeah, I guess I was just curious about whether they wanted to change or add to the exercise at all.
And if you if you have thoughts or just could tell a little bit about that because it's just sounds like such an interesting way to be with research participants.
Yeah.
Or you know. Just research participants, but yeah, I was just wondering about what they wanted to do.
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I think, yeah, a lot of them didn't know the way they were coming, right?
But it was just so amazing that it was like 20 relatives. but yeah, some of them, I wish I can show you all the body maps.
But the once I show, you know, like the first one seem more like a letter, like, these letters like it was like whatever they couldn't express to their daughter, right?
Like if it seemed like they were expressing it in this type of method, again, not drawing their own bodies, us other folks like the younger generation.
So it was very intergenerational as well. The younger did draw their whole complete body from head to toes.
While the older generation like didn't. So that's also interesting to me in terms of like generational like the way we see our own bodies, right?
Like how the maybe the younger generations, they they're okay, you know, with their bodies and the older they feel a little embarrassed.
But, but yeah, so that was interesting to me how these change this method of more of like the body to letters.
Yes, that was interesting.
Thank you. Thank you for your question.
Thank you.
Okay. And then.
Okay, in the coffee, well here, Tom, we have 2 Toms. 2. His geography and the head of CIRED
There's also a question on the chat if you'd like me to respond.
Yeah, I don't I don't see it.
Yes.
Yeah.
Okay.
This is can you talk more about your identity as a Guatemalan born in the US. S. Centre colony?
How does this play out in dynamics with relatives and what am I like such? Yes, I must.
Oh cool, I must have adorn born in the US and send you a hug. Thank you, Edward.
I don't know if I'd heard is still here. Oh yes, here.
Yes, okay. We can talk. So yeah, so like I mentioned like some of us are identifying more with the GuateMaya concept, you know, like being here, I learned that I do have like my, concept. You know, like being here, I learned that I do have like my ancestry, right?
Like my great grandmother is from. And she migrated on a mule to Guatemela in 1920s so yes so I was I migrated my mom brought me here when I was 4 so I'm like the 1.5 generation as they they call us.
So yeah, it's the dynamic. It's interesting because a lot of my family was in Guatemala
I think I'm kinda crazy that I'm spending so much time. I think I'm kind of crazy that I'm spending so much time.
Wanting to learn about my history and like like they don't they're like why do you want to see that I'm spending so much time wanting to learn about my history and like they don't they're like why why do you want to know and they keep asking me that yeah so So yeah, I think to me it's just a reclamation.
I kinda like how the Guatemaya and I am part of one of the groups so it's also this part of recovering our own memory and not what the state says because up until like I want to say like 10 years ago, 2011, I believe, Guatemala denied the genocide, you know, until they, they went, they took the sheer women to court and they testify.
they finally said, oh yeah, there was a genocide, right? Like they would call it a civil war, right?
But it is it was a genocide. So yeah, so thank you in the same in El Salvador, like the diaspora here, we, they are, I have, friends who could who also do the same.
The same work, right? But it is difficult and the dynamics can, who also do the same, the same work, right? But it is difficult and the dynamics can be, yeah, there can be some tension.
So thank you.
Okay, we don't know.
Welcome.
I'm missing any hands or text messages. Well, is there anything else that you want to save and it's been raised by some of these concerns or things that you didn't think you could fit into your 20.
I think, I'm gonna put my, website and my email address on the chat if anyone wants to email me or to connect because I know there was like about 2 people that wanted to connect and that's okay.
Let me see.
Hmm, this is my personal. Hmm. No, but I'm always so happy to share about this.
You know, it is my story. It's my story about this. You know, it is my story.
It's my disserting, it's my district, in my research, but, but yeah, I'm always like so excited to share.
Sorry, I did get emotional, but I think it's part of the process that healing process as well.
So thank you Maria for inviting me and I to get emotional but I think it's part of the process that healing process as well so thank you Maria for inviting me and
Oh, I think let's see. Let's say you take the hand in Dominique. Just hand this up.
She's talking, yeah. Thank you.
Did you not take it down before or no she's clapping. Okay. Okay, let me just say a few file words.
So thank you so much, Carla, and thank you all for attending and participating. This was a wonderful presentation and I knew it would be and I'm very excited about your work and yes I also will be watching.
Okay.
What you do so Where we're sharing a short survey in the chat so perhaps Shriya has put it in there please please respond to it and our next event is gonna be a very special women's month event and it will be hybrid.
So if you're on campus, you can come to the multi-purpose room and if not you can join on Zoom but Dr.
Neeti Aryal Kanal is an assistant professor at the Department of sociology and gender studies at Tribune University in Nepal.
And she will be here and she'll be talking about the intersection out of vulnerabilities, multiple marginalized experiences of women and girls with disabilities in Nepal.
Don't miss this one. And check out our website for other events and let us know in the survey if you want to be added to our listserv so you get reminders.
About our events and so that is all I have to say other than have a wonderful day and we hope to see some of you on March fourteenth and I'll follow up with you.
Carla, thank you so much.
Thank you everyone. Have a good day. Take care. Bye.