“Yo soy Guatemalteco”. Postmemory and identity of students in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala.

Abstract

This thesis is about students of the public university of Guatemala in one of its campuses in the second largest city of the country, Quetzaltenango. Guatemala suffered a 36-year long civil war, during which a genocide was committed upon the indigenous people of the country. The civil war left its mark on the society of Guatemala, concluding its memory. Guatemala is currently in an era of commemoration, however an institutionalized forgetfulness is implemented by the government. The students of San Carlos university are affected by memory of earlier generations and cultural memory, only how? In this thesis I state that the student have “postmemory”: memory of the second or third generations about events, that were so traumatic so that the (in this case) students find it necessary to constitute memory in their own right. The main question within this research is “how does the postmemory of the civil war affect the identity of students of San Carlos university in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala?” In answering this question I will link postmemory to identity and furthermore politics.