The Problem

“Solito.” “Alone,” in Spanish diminutive. Speaking from his perspective as a father, health promoter and rural peasant from an indigenous hamlet in Guatemala, a friend describes a pathetic, oppressive feeling of abandonment.

He’s just recounted the entirely preventable death of a neighbor’s malnourished child during a rotavirus outbreak. Child malnutrition is rampant among impoverished Guatemalan indigenes. The national prevalence of chronic malnutrition is the highest in the hemisphere. In the poorest communities where I work, chronic malnutrition under 5-years-old exceeds 60%; infant mortality estimates reach 120 per 1,000 births, about 4 times the already appalling national rate.

The terrible irony is that my colleague’s community of 300-500 households serves as the target of no less than 6 “development” entities that address healthcare, poverty and food security. We foreigners are a common sight here, towering over everyone else. Thus, the persistence of hunger and needless deaths begs the question: how does “development” affect the “target population”?

In part, we hope to help by providing access to Pierre Bourdieu’s, “cultural capital,” which in turn can mobilize economic Capital for “development” and “autonomy.” But can knowledge be turned to power, if childhood malnutrition influences academic attainment and physical labor capacity? Extrapolating on Bourdieu, of what use is cultural capital to people who are sapped of biological capital through illness and death? What do “individual liberties” and “community autonomy” mean here? Does blatantly unnecessary suffering affect “development” discourse and practice?

Regarding the suffering of others also might affect us in a more personal sense. For example, how deeply and durably is the “development” worker (and medical student) affected by the experience of examining a jaundiced, tachypneic newborn and telling the parents—who are friends and collaborators—that their baby is septic and could die?

Thus, two challenges emerge. First, what interventions would make children survive and grow? I believe that profound structural change is required: titles to arable land, potable water systems, food security and a full range of medical interventions commensurate to the severity, prevalence and distribution of disease. To achieve these things, those with more power must be convinced to mobilize it. Here, the second challenge becomes rate-limiting: is it possible to affect the ethical response of “development” workers to such situations?

Here, Sally Falk Moore’s methodological focus on articulating social fields permits a salutary, albeit ambitious, parsimony. The challenges presented above reflect two interpenetrating social fields, inhabited by “us” (“development” workers) and “them” (“the community,” “the poor,” or “the Maya”). Our two challenges fuse into one: faced with the disheartening and enraging stubborness of the material world, how might we muster an equal and opposite stubborness in struggling to embody and implement hopeful imaginaries of humane social realities? Can we operationalize and institutionalize the radical forms of pragmatic solidarity that seem eminently appropriate? By using our understanding of these social fields and their points of articulation, we can release the potential energy in the intersubjective spaces inhabited by development workers and community members, thereby engendering collaborative and transformative social movements.

A challenge for us

A baby died in Quixayá three days ago.

V thought it was rota, as there is an outbreak right now. Diarrhea and vomiting for 2-3 days, so he said they needed to go to the clinic ASAP.

But the mother is a patoja and doesn't have a esposo, she doesn't have any support. She said, thank you for your advice, but I don't have pasaje. So V out of sincerity of his heart gave her pasaje from his own wallet.

The patoja took the baby right away, but it was too late.