Through the Lenses of Q’eqchi Maya: (Re)Framing the Story of Development in a Guatemalan Indigenous Community Through Participant-Created Photographs
Abstract
The question of evaluations of development projects has been widely debated within
the field of international development, with scholars and development practitioners
calling for increased community-driven evaluations. However, there has been a paucity
of research in community-led project evaluations, and a largely absent investigation
utilizing visual anthropology/sociology methodologies.
This paper seeks to shift this power by giving voice to the intended beneficiaries
of an eco-tourism project in a rural indigenous Guatemala village. Through photographs
taken by community members and corresponding interviews, this paper shows the way
in which community members have and continue to reframe the idea of development in
their village. Specifically, my analysis reveals how residents see changing forms
of access, how they reframe ideas of beauty and modernization, and how they reframe
their relationship to the land through Western conservation and private property ideals.
This research thus provides an alternative narrative to the Western NGO’s evaluations
and knowledge production, especially in respect to development and indigenous knowledge.
By showing how community members are reframing the story of development, this paper
demonstrates the usefulness of using participatory documentary photography in community-led
evaluations, and helps balance the playing field by providing a much-needed alternative
narrative of project evaluation.
Type
Honors thesisDepartment
Program IISubject
Participatory documentary photographyGuatemala
Q'eqchi
Eco-tourism
Development
Visual Anthropology
Project Evaluation
Indigenous Voice
Maya
Photo Voice
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https://hdl.handle.net/10161/12678Citation
Funk, Lara (2016). Through the Lenses of Q’eqchi Maya: (Re)Framing the Story of Development in a Guatemalan
Indigenous Community Through Participant-Created Photographs. Honors thesis, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/12678.Collections
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