The predicaments of development work in Guatemala’s Ch’orti’ Maya area

In this article, we examine how local development workers confront the contradictions of daily development practice in the Ch’orti’ region of Guatemala. Following a history of state neglect, unequal ethnic relations, and uncoordinated international cooperation, local development specialists are immersed in a bureaucratic culture where distant donors establish project expectations and local routines. While local development experts are formally encouraged to understand Ch’orti’ realities, in practice they feel constrained by both donor and Ch’orti’ modus operandi. A climate of competition exists between NGOs working for the same objectives in the same communities, and development workers are frustrated that Ch’orti’s hold on to subsistence agriculture and reject new forms of social organization. Our research suggests that development is best understood as a site of tension and contradiction where top-down priorities are negotiated vis-à-vis local needs.