Abstract

RODRIGUEZ LOPEZ, María Teresa  and  CABALLEROS HERRERA, Álvaro Eduardo. Beyond the Border. Mobility and Family Reconfigurations Between the Chuj of Mexico and Guatemala. Frontera norte [online]. 2020, vol.32, e1972.  Epub Feb 10, 2021. ISSN 2594-0260.  https://doi.org/10.33679/rfn.v1i1.1972.

In 1981, thousands of indigenous Guatemalans fled the civil war in their country, taking refuge in the first instance in Chiapas, Mexico, near the border line. In 1996 the Peace Agreements were reached, and part of the refugee population returned to Guatemala, while another fraction remained in Mexico, in localities of the states of Chiapas, Campeche, and Quintana Roo. This triple process –refuge, return, and/or definitive settlement in Mexico– resulted in new dynamics of movement and cross-border mobility, as well as in the reconfiguration of family and parental groups based on differentiated citizenship status. In this article, we provide analytical elements associated with these dynamics, based on the ethnographic observation carried out in the returnee village of Yalambojoch, in the department of Huehuetenango, municipality of Nentón, Guatemala, and in Santa Rosa el Oriente, a town in Chiapas that received refugees.

Keywords : Chuj; southern border; refuge; Mexico; Guatemala.

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