Global megaprojects and indigenous groups in Guatemala: The Ixil Maya responses

Baltazar de la Cruz Rodriguez exposed that the socioeconomic disparities experienced by the Ixil indigenous group in Guatemala are further exacerbated by energy megaprojects, and how the youth within this Ixil community have opted to organize in resistance. To provide greater opportunities to Guatemalan indigenous youth who have been marginalized by the state, Baltazar and other communal ancestral authorities founded the Ixil University. During the public lecture on March 3, 2020 - organized by the Center for Inter-American and Border Studies, Baltazar, an Ixil-Maya Ancestral Authority and co-founder of the Ixil University in Guatemala, talked about the marginalization of this community. He spoke about how the regional initiative at the university is to teach its students Ixil-Maya the values and ways of formulating critical thinking in order to best serve their communities, defend their natural resources, and to reduce the high rates of out-migration within Guatemala. Ixil University founders vision is that marginalized communities will be able to work towards their own socioeconomic development through their own agency rather than serve the neoliberal interests of the state.