The Fourth Invasion

Based on more than a decade of ethnographic research, The Fourth Invasion examines an Ixil Maya community’s movement against the construction of one of the largest hydroelectric plants in Guatemala. The arrival of the Palo Viejo hydroelectric plant (built by the Italian corporation Enel Green Power) to the municipality of Cotzal highlighted the ongoing violence inflicted on Ixils by outsiders and the Guatemalan state. Locals referred to the building of the hydroelectric plant as the “fourth invasion” for its similarity to preceding invasions: Spanish colonization, the creation of the plantation economy, and the state-led genocide during the Guatemalan armed conflict. Through a historical account of cyclical waves of invasions and resistance in Cotzal during the four invasions, Giovanni Batz argues that extractivist industries are a continuation of a colonial logic of extraction based on the displacement of Indigenous Peoples and the destruction of their territories and values that has existed since Spanish arrival in 1524.

“A wonderfully insightful and powerful book, which vividly captures the continuity of colonialism and the way the past presses on the future. I strongly recommend it.” — Greg Grandin, author of The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America

“This extraordinary, detailed account of Maya-Ixil framings of five hundred years of struggle is a remarkable achievement for the author and the Ixil communities with which he collaborates.”— Carlota McAllister, coeditor of War by Other Means: Aftermath in Post-Genocide Guatemala

“This brilliant book illuminates how Indigenous world-making ideas shape contemporary resistance to megaprojects. Its deep and careful collaboration with Mayan communities in Guatemala is a model for scholars and activists alike.” — Elizabeth Oglesby, coeditor of The Guatemala Reader: History, Culture, Politics

Giovanni Batz (Maya K’iche’) is Assistant Professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.