| Sumario: | For many of the international experts, humanitarian professionals, and newly appointed state workers determined to implement peace in Guatemala between 1996 and 2006, the imperative was clear: prevent further killing and protect human lives. For many Guatemalans, who continued to live with death as a part of their ordinary lives, this sort of peace was simply unimaginable. This article illuminates how powerful institutional forms of the state--dirty wars, the work of activism and impunity, and neoliberal reform--reconfigure deadly struggles and their aftermath. I conclude that an alternative way to evaluate peace processes is to consider their relationship to life, after the peace, where violent death is accepted as a condition of being.
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