The Necropolitics of Childhood in the Guatemalan Armed Conflict and Postwar Period

By examining a range of sources, including periodicals, human rights reports, and publications by revolutionary organizations, the paper illustrates how the narratives surrounding Guatemalan children from the 1960s to the present utilized, undermined, or abused the concept of childhood and the figure of children for various political agendas and what the legacies of this have been for postwar Guatemala. It argues that although depictions of childhood reflected the intense sociopolitical climate and climate of fear of war-torn Guatemala, children were also used, often times to their detriment, as tools to advance political and humanitarian agendas by military, revolutionary, and civil society groups concerned with dictating children’s worth. By moving beyond a narrative that posits children as mere casualties of war, this work seeks to highlight the fragility of a postwar state in which stories concerning childhood continue to be riddled with dread, violence, and death.