Environmental Memory and Justice in Post-Conflict El Salvador

Over the past year, Giada Ferrucci – Western University Postdoctoral fellow in the Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador project – has worked with community members to explore how landscapes hold memories of war and environmental change in the departments of Cuscatlán, Chalatenango, San Vicente, Morazán, and Cabañas. This work has been carried out in collaboration with Agustín García from Future Watch.

Through workshops, interviews, and participatory mapping activities focused on the long-term ecological consequences of the civil war — including forest loss, river pollution, and land degradation — Civil War survivors and community leaders reflect on how climate change is intensifying environmental damage that began during the conflict.  Additional workshops on environmental memory were organized through embroidery (bordado) activities with community members in Las Vueltas, Chalatenango, and at the Museo Tierra Prometida [Promised Land Museum] in Morazán, creating spaces for participants to reflect collectively on landscapes, memory, and environmental change through creative practices.

These activities complement the design of an Atlas of Environmental Memories, a bilingual community-based resource that documents ecological knowledge, historical memory, and environmental justice struggles in El Salvador.

The Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador research initiative is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Western University, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and the Ontario Research Fund.