| Abstract | In discrete and relatively brief moments, societies in different parts of the world have developed an intense collective need to remember their past as a precondition for facing the future. Evidence is mounting that Guatemala has entered such a phase. In December 1996, the guerrilla organization and the Guatemalan government signed a definitive peace agreement putting an end to an armed conflict that began some 35 years ago, well before the majority of Guatemalans were born. Although many observers are disappointed in the agreement's specific provisions for bringing the perpetrators of political crimes to justice, few would deny that the broader conditions surrounding the peace negotiations have fostered collective efforts to remember. Teams of forensic anthropologists have begun systematically to study massacre sites, the Catholic church will soon complete a nationwide participatory project to document community-level experiences of violence, and, most impressive, communities themselves have taken the initiative, proceeding on the premise that publicly to remember a terrible, traumatic past is to help heal its wounds.
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