Dignity, dreaming, and desire-based research in the face of slow violence: indigenous youth organising as (counter)development.

This article provides an overview of an autonomous social movement defending and struggling for Indigenous land, dignity, and self-determination in Central America and the postcolonial Caribbean. More precisely, it highlights how Maya communities in Toledo District, Southern Belize are mobilising to protect and continue to breathe life into their culture, customs, cosmovisión, and communities. In doing so, we introduce readers to three of the primary organisations that partially constitute the social movement; the Toledo Alcaldes Association (TAA), Maya Leaders Alliance (MLA), and Julian Cho Society (JCS). In addition to historicising and profiling these groups, their ground-breaking land rights victory, and the unity they have galvanised amongst Maya villages, the piece demonstrates how Indigenous youth are engaging in and actively redefining development within the region. We do this by sharing a synopsis of an action camp that was organised by-and-for Maya youth. Before describing the undertakings and outcomes of the camp, we detail how the gathering was informed and shaped by calls being made for desirebased research. To this end, we explain how our methods and field activities were guided by decolonial, community-based, participatory-action, and creative approaches. Ultimately, the piece reveals how dignity-anchored, dream-driven, desire-based research that is animated and co-created by Indigenous youth not only can contribute to building pathways out of structural and slow violence-but also can at once counter and transform development. Notably, Maya youth are co-authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]