GeoJournal 55: 59–67, 2001. © 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. 59 Transnational ruptures and sutures: questions of identity and social relations among Guatemalans in Canada Catherine L. Nolin SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow, Geography Program, University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC), Prince George, British Columbia, V2N 4Z9 Canada (Phone: 250-960-5875; Fax: 250-960-5538; E-mail: nolin@unbc.ca) Key words: Canada, geography, Guatemala, refugees, social spaces, transnationalism Abstract This article examines the ruptures and sutures of Guatemalan refugee transnationalism in the context of settlement in southern Ontario, Canada in the 1980s and 1990s. Political violence became deeply imbedded in ‘community’ relations and subsequently ruptured the social fabric of Guatemala. Through the optic of transnationalism, this research examines the ways in which Guatemalans in Canada work to transform, rely on, and create new primary social relations that stretch across borders when face-to-face ‘community’ connections are no longer possible. Transnational ruptures rather than transnational flows are evident due to varying legal status, the continuing instability, impunity, and insecurity associated with living conditions in Guatemala. Ruptures are reinforced by low income levels (in both countries) leading to lack of communication, and the physical distance between the two countries that inhibits regular travel. Introduction Though historically quite isolated from each other, Canada and Guatemala are now two countries of the Americas connected through refugee movement, immigration, trade, and policy. In the last thirty years, Guatemalans suffered the violent loss of over one million women, men, and children through death, disappearance, and departure. The geography of Guatemala’s loss came to encompass Canada, particularly in the mid-1980s, as a place of refuge and se- curity and over time as a place of long-term settlement. Through the optic of transnationalism, this paper draws on multi-sited, transnational research with indigenous and non- indigenous Guatemalan refugees who arrived in southern Ontario, Canada between 1979 and 1999 as well as with their families who remained in Guatemala. Interviews conducted in Canada and Guatemala during 1998 and 1999 reveal how political violence became deeply imbedded in ‘commu- nity’ relations and subsequently ruptured the social fabric of Guatemala. Additionally, interviews highlight the ways that Guatemalans in Canada work to transform, rely on, and cre- ate new primary social relations that stretch across borders when face-to-face ‘community’ connections are no longer possible. A transnational focus demands an examination of the po- litical context of both the sending and receiving countries as well as the experiences of the refugees and (im)migrants themselves along with those they have left behind and/or remain connected to in their country of origin. My de- sire to conduct research in Canada and Guatemala grows out of a responsibility to address the simultaneity of mi- gration experiences rather than symptoms and outcomes inadequately discussed in isolation. Through an examina- tion of their migration experiences and negotiations of two national contexts, the many ruptures and sutures of iden- tity and social relations are identified. I am interested in how political violence and new refugee spaces in Canada work together across multiple scales to create particular kinds of social space constituted by a mix of ruptures, connections, yearning to return, denial of the past, new op- portunities, concocted life stories, identity re-negotiation, and recognition. Guatemalan political violence and canadian refuge It is useful to provide a basic historical overview of Guatemalan political violence of the late 1970s to the early months of 2001 before examining the ensuing transna- tional connections forged by thousands of Guatemalan (im)migrants and refugees. Recent investigations by the Hu- man Rights Office of the Archdiocese of Guatemala/Oficina de Derechos Humanos del Arzobispado de Guatemala (ODHAG, 1998) and the United Nations-sponsored Com- mission for Historical Clarification/Comisión para el Es- clarecimiento Histórico (CEH, 1999a, b) into human rights violations during Guatemala’s 36-year civil war (1960– 1996) confirm the military strategies of socially disintegrat- ing ‘communities of association’ such as unions and student organizations and the dismembering of physical ‘communi- ties’, such as towns and villages. Of course, contemporary political violence must be viewed as but the most recent cycle of conquest endured by Guatemala’s people (Lovell, 1988).