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Seeking Justice for Gendered Violence

Courts, Communities, and Care in Guatemala

Book

Pages: 332

Illustrations: 22 illustrations

Release Date: September 29, 2026

Subjects
Latin American Studies > Central America, Gender and Sexuality > Feminism and Women’s Studies, Native and Indigenous Studies

Guatemala is one of the first countries in Latin America to codify femicide as a crime and establish separate, victim-centric institutions of justice specializing in Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG), including specialized courts and public prosecutors. Despite these pathbreaking legal reforms, Indigenous women in Guatemala face formidable barriers to seeking justice for, and escaping the multiple, overlapping forms of violence that they confront. Seeking Justice for Gendered Violence dissects the efficacy of VAWG legislative reforms, examining how they challenge and perpetrate vicious cycles of impunity and gender-based violence on the ground. Drawing on extensive case studies built from Erin Beck and Lynn Stephen’s ten years of ethnographic research with an Indigenous research team focused on Indigenous communities, activists, public prosecutors, and government officials, Seeking Justice for Gendered Violence investigates how VAWG reforms in Guatemala exist alongside and interact with preexisting societal structures and local communities, exposing the advances and limits of state-driven solutions while illuminating how Indigenous women leverage grassroots knowledge to survive, resist, and support one another in reformed but flawed systems.

Praise

“Seeking Justice for Gendered Violence? is a groundbreaking book on violence against women and girls in Guatemala, and the efforts of activists, community members, and legal practitioners to obtain justice. Through rigorous evidence-based research, Beck and Stephen assess the gaps between the laws and mandates in print and the reality on the ground for hard-to-reach communities and networks. This book is a critical undertaking, necessary and timely, rigorous, and authentic. It captures the actions and voices of people working for justice that often go unseen and unheard.” - Cynthia Bejarano, Regents Professor, New Mexico State University

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Author/Editor Bios Table Of Contents Rights Additional Information

Author/Editor Bios

Erin Beck is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Oregon.

Lynn Stephen is Philip H. Knight Chair and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oregon.

List of Abbreviations xi
Introduction. From Courts to Communities 1
Part I. Studying and Contextualizing Violence Against Women and Girls in Guatemala
1. Collaborations: Relationships, Processes, and Methods 29
2. Gendered Embodied Structures of Violence in Guatemala 59
Part II. Advances and Limitations of VAWG Laws and Specialized Institutions
3. Pushing for Legal and Institutional Reforms to Address VAWG: Advances and Limitations 83
4. Roadblocks on the Path to Justice: From Local Communities to Specialized Courts 113
5. A Day in Court: Intersecting Inequalities and the Lived Experience of Specialized Justice 143
Part III. Community-Based Perspectives on VAWG and Violence Protection (with Ana María Basilio Juárez, Pedro Maldonado, Argelia Yolanda Poz Mejía, Magdalena Ordóñez, Odilia Jiménez, Diana Rosales, and Carmelina Sam)
6. Women Surviving and Confronting Violence: Obstacles and Strategies 183
7. "We Never Talk About This": Masculinity, Gender Norms, and VAWG Through Men's Eyes 211
Conclusion. Community Care and Accountability and Increasing Access to Formal Justice 247
Acknowledgments 267
Appendix. Demographics and Characteristics of Research Sites 275
Notes 279
References 287
Index

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Sales/Territorial Rights: World

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Additional Information

Paper ISBN: 978-1-4780-3897-9 / Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4780-3342-4 / eISBN: 978-1-4780-6258-5 /