Textures of Terror: The Murder of Claudina Isabel Velasquez and Her Father's Quest for Justice

by Victoria Sanford

Overview

Investigating the unsolved murder of a female law student and the pervasive violence against Guatemalan women that drives migration.

Part memoir and part forensic investigation, Textures of Terror is a gripping first-person story of women, violence, and migration out of Guatemala—and how the United States is implicated. Accompanying Jorge Velásquez in a years-long search for answers after the brutal murder of his daughter Claudina Isabel, Victoria Sanford explores what it means to seek justice in "postconflict" countries where violence never ended.

Through this father's determined struggle and other stories of justice denied, Textures of Terror offers a deeper understanding of US policies in Latin America and their ripple effect on migration. Sanford offers an up-close appraisal of the inner workings of the Guatemalan criminal justice system and how it maintains inequality, patriarchy, and impunity. Presenting the stories of other women who have suffered at the hands of strangers, intimate partners, and the security forces, this work reveals the deeply gendered nature of power and violence in Guatemala.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520393455
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	05/09/2023
Series:	California Series in Public Anthropology , #55
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	230
Sales rank:	1,105,127
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Victoria Sanford is a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow and Professor of Anthropology, City University of New York. She has given expert testimony on the Guatemalan genocide in international courts and authored seven books, including Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala.

Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments 
List of Illustrations 
List of Abbreviations 
Dramatis Personae 

Introduction
1 The Night Claudina Isabel Did Not Come Home 
2 Esperanza’s Story: Sold at 12 
3 Cycles of Violence 
4 #TengoMiedo (#IAmAfraid) 
5 Paradise for Killers 
6 Marked Women 
7 Bittersweet Justice 

Notes 
References 
Index 

Editorial Reviews

"Sanford has woven Textures of Terror into a testimonio that draws on the emotional power of the stories she witnessed to demand a response to the larger tragedy of feminicide in Guatemala, and the ongoing refusal or impossibility of the government to address it."

NACLA

"A scathing critique of a dysfunctional justice system, the willful incompetence of those charged with upholding women’s rights and a cast of institutional actors who seem hostile to the very idea of justice."

ReVista

"In spite of the dark and heavy issues addressed in Textures of Terror: The Murder of Claudina Isabel Velásquez and Her Father’s Quest for Justice, the book is both engaging and accessible. . . .The insights from Claudina Velásquez’s murder, Jorge Velásquez’s pursuit of justice, and the book’s analysis of the historical and contemporary contexts, can add critical new emphasis for conflict resolution, human rights advocacy, and ethnographic research."

Journal of International Affairs