Guatemala, Part 1: Whose land is it anyway?

When you buy a bag of coffee labelled fifth-generation family farm, it feels like a good choice. But in Guatemala, that label might actually be a signal for a more uncomfortable truth. This episode explores how land has been understood, used, and eventually fought over in Guatemala for centuries between indigenous people, Europeans and those in-between. It’s a story of what happened immediately after Guatemala won independence from Spain. This pivotal period of history gets less attention in the history books, but the suffering of the indigenous people of Guatemala gets arguably even worse. Fair warning: it's a dark story, and it will make you think twice about what you're really choosing when you pick up a bag of coffee from Central America. Please spread the word about A History of Coffee!

You can listen to Guatemala, Part 1: Whose land is it anyway? online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Guatemala, Part 1: Whose land is it anyway? is an episode from Filter Stories - Coffee Documentaries by James Harper.

This episode is 43:50 long.

This episode was published on Apr 20, 2026.

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