El Salvador’s natural environment continues to suffer the consequences of the state’s scorched earth military tactics, which is now exacerbated by climate change. Furthermore, since the 1990s, neoliberal restructuring in El Salvador has led to economic development models geared toward industrial production, service sectors, extractive industries, and remittances, which have contributed to mass migration, water scarcity, the dominance of large monocultural industries like sugar cane, and the growing dependency of small rural actors on a global economy (Booth et al. 2020). Rural livelihoods in El Salvador have been negatively impacted by droughts, unstable rain patterns, natural disasters, and over-use of agro-toxics. The impacts of climate change are exacerbated by an economic system that facilitates global poverty and inequality, a reality reminiscent of the political struggles of the 1970s and 1980s that culminated in the civil war (Carte et al. 2019; Castellanos et al 2013; FAO 2019). The Surviving Memory team engages primarily with rural populations who have agriculture-based livelihoods. From the outset of our project, members of these communities have identified very strong connections between environmental vulnerability, ongoing conflicts about access to land and water, debates about sustainable economic development, and local historical memory of colonial violence, control of land by the Salvadoran elite, and military ecocide.

It is in this context that our team explores how physical sites of memory and their connections to the environment can activate collective memory and reflections on sustainability in the public sphere (Nora 1989). For example, the collaborative design and construction of the recently-completed Sumpul River Massacre Memorial project emphasizes the rediscovery, understanding, and utilization of historical knowledge about traditional, low-tech, low-impact construction methods (such as adobe, on-site baked roof tiles, and ceramic art) that disrupts the current trend of building predominantly with concrete, steel, and other manufactured materials with questionable environmental, social, and economic impacts. Through our ongoing workshops, we continue to explore the nonhuman victims of the war, environmental reparation, and ongoing environmental challenges.  

In the context of her postdoctoral research, Dr. Giada Ferrucci (Western Postdoctoral Fellow) is working with communities in Chalatenango and Morazán to create an atlas of environmental memories related to the Salvadoran Civil War. The team is also focused on the collaborative preservation of fading knowledge about local environmental resources, which are connected to other research themes on Recovering Traditional Knowledge and Local Economic Reconstruction. This component of the research is premised on Latin American theories of Social and Solidarity Economy (Coraggio 2010; Razeto 2002; Melucci 1999; de Souza Santos 2002; Quijano 2008), which attempt to decolonize socio-economic relations. Proponents of this approach contend that civil society actors can transform society by pluralizing the economy while also critiquing the current capitalist system; the onslaught of neoliberal policies in the Global South; and environmental degradation related to mega projects, mining and other forms of extraction, and industrial farming practices.

Reports on Human Rights and Community Resistance to Mining Projects

Several scholars and activists on the Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador team have collaborated with mining-impacted communities and the Central American Alliance Against Mining (ACAFREMIN) to write reports related to community resistance to extractive projects, environmental harms, and human rights abuses. Our published reports include: The Cerro Blanco Open-Pit Mine in Guatemala (2022) and Guapinol Resists: Origins of the Mining Conflict in Bajo Aguan, Honduras (2020).

Climate Change Workshops

Futurewatch, CCR, and other Surviving Memory partners are collaborating with rural communities to run workshops on the environmental reparation theme, specifically local climate change challenges and opportunities. The goals of these workshops are to identify the impact of environmental destruction and climate change during and after the civil war in El Salvador, and to increase awareness on climate change challenges and solution opportunities by local community members (youth, women, men, seniors). The project activities include consultation meetings with community members, content development, delivering of workshops, recognition of completion event, mentoring and evaluation of the project.