ABSTRACT
Central America, and the nation state of Guatemala in particular, occupy a somewhat paradoxical position in the history of the Anthropology of Disasters. The limited development of the Anthropology of Disasters in Central America must be understood within the broader context of the history of anthropology in Latin America as a whole. The early colonial period in New Spain is often credited with the emergence of proto-anthropologists; that is, Iberian-born chroniclers and documentarians from the religious orders who set out to document the lifeways and economic systems of indigenous peoples. Disaster and the development of a Guatemalan tradition of anthropology, then, are intimately intertwined. The key hazards that affect the Guatemalan population are floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, and landslides. Guatemalan anthropologists have also explored the meanings their compatriots give to historical processes of spatial, economic, ethnic, and political exclusion, especially when these old wounds of exclusion are reopened by the occurrence of earthquakes, mudslides, hurricanes, and volcanic eruptions.
