Author: Brent E. Metz
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 0826338801
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
An ethnographic study of the Ch'orti' Maya of Guatemala and their reformulation of their history and identity.
Ch'orti'-Maya Survival in Eastern Guatemala
Author: Brent E. Metz
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 0826338801
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
An ethnographic study of the Ch'orti' Maya of Guatemala and their reformulation of their history and identity.
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 0826338801
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
An ethnographic study of the Ch'orti' Maya of Guatemala and their reformulation of their history and identity.
Ch'orti'-Maya Survival in Eastern Guatemala
Author: Brent E. Metz
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 082633881X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
Scholars and Guatemalans have characterized eastern Guatemala as "Ladino" or non-Indian. The Ch'orti' do not exhibit the obvious indigenous markers found among the Mayas of western Guatemala, Chiapas, and the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico. Few still speak Ch'orti', most no longer wear distinctive dress, and most community organizations have long been abandoned. During the colonial period, the Ch'orti' region was adjacent to relatively vibrant economic regions of Central America that included major trade routes, mines, and dye plantations. In the twentieth century Ch'orti's directly experienced U.S.-backed dictatorships, a 36-year civil war from start to finish, and Christian evangelization campaigns, all while their population has increased exponentially. These have had tremendous impacts on Ch'orti' identities and cultures. From 1991 to 1993, Brent Metz lived in three Ch'orti' Maya-speaking communities, learning the language, conducting household surveys, and interviewing informants. He found Ch'orti's to be ashamed of their indigeneity, and he was fortunate to be present and involved when many Ch'orti's joined the Maya Movement. He has continued to expand his ethnographic research of the Ch'orti' annually ever since and has witnessed how Ch'orti's are reformulating their history and identity.
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 082633881X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
Scholars and Guatemalans have characterized eastern Guatemala as "Ladino" or non-Indian. The Ch'orti' do not exhibit the obvious indigenous markers found among the Mayas of western Guatemala, Chiapas, and the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico. Few still speak Ch'orti', most no longer wear distinctive dress, and most community organizations have long been abandoned. During the colonial period, the Ch'orti' region was adjacent to relatively vibrant economic regions of Central America that included major trade routes, mines, and dye plantations. In the twentieth century Ch'orti's directly experienced U.S.-backed dictatorships, a 36-year civil war from start to finish, and Christian evangelization campaigns, all while their population has increased exponentially. These have had tremendous impacts on Ch'orti' identities and cultures. From 1991 to 1993, Brent Metz lived in three Ch'orti' Maya-speaking communities, learning the language, conducting household surveys, and interviewing informants. He found Ch'orti's to be ashamed of their indigeneity, and he was fortunate to be present and involved when many Ch'orti's joined the Maya Movement. He has continued to expand his ethnographic research of the Ch'orti' annually ever since and has witnessed how Ch'orti's are reformulating their history and identity.
Reshaping the World
Author: Ana Díaz
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1607329530
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 367
Book Description
Reshaping the World is a nuanced exploration of the plurality, complexity, and adaptability of Precolumbian and colonial-era Mesoamerican cosmological models and the ways in which anthropologists and historians have used colonial and indigenous texts to understand these models in the past. Since the early twentieth century, it has been popularly accepted that the Precolumbian Mesoamerican cosmological model comprised nine fixed layers of underworld and thirteen fixed layers of heavens. This layered model, which bears a close structural resemblance to a number of Eurasian cosmological models, derived in large part from scholars’ reliance on colonial texts, such as the post–Spanish Conquest Codex Vaticanus A and Florentine Codex. By reanalyzing and recontextualizing both indigenous and colonial texts and imagery in nine case studies examining Maya, Zapotec, Nahua, and Huichol cultures, the contributors discuss and challenge the commonly accepted notion that the cosmos was a static structure of superimposed levels unrelated to and unaffected by historical events and human actions. Instead, Mesoamerican cosmology consisted of a multitude of cosmographic repertoires that operated simultaneously as a result of historical circumstances and regional variations. These spaces were, and are, dynamic elements shaped, defined, and redefined throughout the course of human history. Indigenous cosmographies could be subdivided and organized in complex and diverse arrangements—as components in a dynamic interplay, which cannot be adequately understood if the cosmological discourse is reduced to a superposition of nine and thirteen levels. Unlike previous studies, which focus on the reconstruction of a pan-Mesoamerican cosmological model, Reshaping the World shows how the movement of people, ideas, and objects in New Spain and neighboring regions produced a deep reconfiguration of Prehispanic cosmological and social structures, enriching them with new conceptions of space and time. The volume exposes the reciprocal influences of Mesoamerican and European theologies during the colonial era, offering expansive new ways of understanding Mesoamerican models of the cosmos. Contributors: Sergio Botta, Ana Díaz, Kerry Hull, Katarzyna Mikulska, Johannes Neurath, Jesper Nielsen, Toke Sellner Reunert†, David Tavárez, Alexander Tokovinine, Gabrielle Vail
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1607329530
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 367
Book Description
Reshaping the World is a nuanced exploration of the plurality, complexity, and adaptability of Precolumbian and colonial-era Mesoamerican cosmological models and the ways in which anthropologists and historians have used colonial and indigenous texts to understand these models in the past. Since the early twentieth century, it has been popularly accepted that the Precolumbian Mesoamerican cosmological model comprised nine fixed layers of underworld and thirteen fixed layers of heavens. This layered model, which bears a close structural resemblance to a number of Eurasian cosmological models, derived in large part from scholars’ reliance on colonial texts, such as the post–Spanish Conquest Codex Vaticanus A and Florentine Codex. By reanalyzing and recontextualizing both indigenous and colonial texts and imagery in nine case studies examining Maya, Zapotec, Nahua, and Huichol cultures, the contributors discuss and challenge the commonly accepted notion that the cosmos was a static structure of superimposed levels unrelated to and unaffected by historical events and human actions. Instead, Mesoamerican cosmology consisted of a multitude of cosmographic repertoires that operated simultaneously as a result of historical circumstances and regional variations. These spaces were, and are, dynamic elements shaped, defined, and redefined throughout the course of human history. Indigenous cosmographies could be subdivided and organized in complex and diverse arrangements—as components in a dynamic interplay, which cannot be adequately understood if the cosmological discourse is reduced to a superposition of nine and thirteen levels. Unlike previous studies, which focus on the reconstruction of a pan-Mesoamerican cosmological model, Reshaping the World shows how the movement of people, ideas, and objects in New Spain and neighboring regions produced a deep reconfiguration of Prehispanic cosmological and social structures, enriching them with new conceptions of space and time. The volume exposes the reciprocal influences of Mesoamerican and European theologies during the colonial era, offering expansive new ways of understanding Mesoamerican models of the cosmos. Contributors: Sergio Botta, Ana Díaz, Kerry Hull, Katarzyna Mikulska, Johannes Neurath, Jesper Nielsen, Toke Sellner Reunert†, David Tavárez, Alexander Tokovinine, Gabrielle Vail
Hemispheric Indigeneities
Author: Miléna Santoro
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496208692
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 448
Book Description
Hemispheric Indigeneities is a critical anthology that brings together indigenous and nonindigenous scholars specializing in the Andes, Mesoamerica, and Canada. The overarching theme is the changing understanding of indigeneity from first contact to the contemporary period in three of the world’s major regions of indigenous peoples. Although the terms indio, indigène, and indian only exist (in Spanish, French, and English, respectively) because of European conquest and colonization, indigenous peoples have appropriated or changed this terminology in ways that reflect their shifting self-identifications and aspirations. As the essays in this volume demonstrate, this process constantly transformed the relation of Native peoples in the Americas to other peoples and the state. This volume’s presentation of various factors—geographical, temporal, and cross-cultural—provide illuminating contributions to the burgeoning field of hemispheric indigenous studies. Hemispheric Indigeneities explores indigenous agency and shows that what it means to be indigenous was and is mutable. It also demonstrates that self-identification evolves in response to the relationship between indigenous peoples and the state. The contributors analyze the conceptions of what indigeneity meant, means today, or could come to mean tomorrow.
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496208692
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 448
Book Description
Hemispheric Indigeneities is a critical anthology that brings together indigenous and nonindigenous scholars specializing in the Andes, Mesoamerica, and Canada. The overarching theme is the changing understanding of indigeneity from first contact to the contemporary period in three of the world’s major regions of indigenous peoples. Although the terms indio, indigène, and indian only exist (in Spanish, French, and English, respectively) because of European conquest and colonization, indigenous peoples have appropriated or changed this terminology in ways that reflect their shifting self-identifications and aspirations. As the essays in this volume demonstrate, this process constantly transformed the relation of Native peoples in the Americas to other peoples and the state. This volume’s presentation of various factors—geographical, temporal, and cross-cultural—provide illuminating contributions to the burgeoning field of hemispheric indigenous studies. Hemispheric Indigeneities explores indigenous agency and shows that what it means to be indigenous was and is mutable. It also demonstrates that self-identification evolves in response to the relationship between indigenous peoples and the state. The contributors analyze the conceptions of what indigeneity meant, means today, or could come to mean tomorrow.
Violence and Crime in Latin America
Author: Gema Santamaría
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806158808
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 380
Book Description
According to media reports, Latin America is one of the most violent regions in the world—a distinction it held throughout the twentieth century. The authors of Violence and Crime in Latin America contend that perceptions and representations of violence and crime directly impact such behaviors, creating profound consequences for the political and social fabric of Latin American nations. Written by distinguished scholars of Latin American history, sociology, anthropology, and political science, the essays in this volume range from Mexico and Argentina to Colombia and Brazil in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, addressing such issues as extralegal violence in Mexico, the myth of indigenous criminality in Guatemala, and governments’ selective blindness to violent crime in Brazil and Jamaica. The authors in this collection examine not only the social construction and political visibility of violence and crime in Latin America, but the justifications for them as well. Analytically and historically, these essays show how Latin American citizens have sanctioned criminal and violent practices and incorporated them into social relations, everyday practices, and institutional settings. At the same time, the authors explore the power struggles that inform distinctions between illegitimate versus legitimate violence. Violence and Crime in Latin America makes a substantive contribution to understanding a key problem facing Latin America today. In its historical depth and ethnographic reach, this original and thought-provoking volume enhances our understanding of crime and violence throughout the Western Hemisphere.
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806158808
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 380
Book Description
According to media reports, Latin America is one of the most violent regions in the world—a distinction it held throughout the twentieth century. The authors of Violence and Crime in Latin America contend that perceptions and representations of violence and crime directly impact such behaviors, creating profound consequences for the political and social fabric of Latin American nations. Written by distinguished scholars of Latin American history, sociology, anthropology, and political science, the essays in this volume range from Mexico and Argentina to Colombia and Brazil in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, addressing such issues as extralegal violence in Mexico, the myth of indigenous criminality in Guatemala, and governments’ selective blindness to violent crime in Brazil and Jamaica. The authors in this collection examine not only the social construction and political visibility of violence and crime in Latin America, but the justifications for them as well. Analytically and historically, these essays show how Latin American citizens have sanctioned criminal and violent practices and incorporated them into social relations, everyday practices, and institutional settings. At the same time, the authors explore the power struggles that inform distinctions between illegitimate versus legitimate violence. Violence and Crime in Latin America makes a substantive contribution to understanding a key problem facing Latin America today. In its historical depth and ethnographic reach, this original and thought-provoking volume enhances our understanding of crime and violence throughout the Western Hemisphere.
Breath and Smoke
Author: Jennifer A. Loughmiller-Cardinal
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
ISBN: 0826360920
Category : Mayas
Languages : en
Pages : 280
Book Description
Breath and Smoke explores the uses of tobacco among the Maya of Central America, revealing tobacco as a key topic in pre-Columbian art, iconography, and hieroglyphics.
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
ISBN: 0826360920
Category : Mayas
Languages : en
Pages : 280
Book Description
Breath and Smoke explores the uses of tobacco among the Maya of Central America, revealing tobacco as a key topic in pre-Columbian art, iconography, and hieroglyphics.
Religious Transformation in Maya Guatemala
Author: John P. Hawkins
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
ISBN: 0826362257
Category : Mayas
Languages : en
Pages : 436
Book Description
Drawing on over fifty years of research and data collected by field-school students, Hawkins argues that two factors--cultural collapse and systematic social and economic exclusion--explain the recent religious transformation of Maya Guatemala and the style and emotional intensity through which that transformation is expressed.
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
ISBN: 0826362257
Category : Mayas
Languages : en
Pages : 436
Book Description
Drawing on over fifty years of research and data collected by field-school students, Hawkins argues that two factors--cultural collapse and systematic social and economic exclusion--explain the recent religious transformation of Maya Guatemala and the style and emotional intensity through which that transformation is expressed.
Maguey Journey
Author: Kathryn Rousso
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816526982
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 183
Book Description
The name "maguey" refers to various forms of the agave and furcraea genus, also sometimes called the century plant. The fibers extracted from the leaves of these plants are spun into fine cordage and worked with a variety of tools and techniques to create textiles, from net bags and hammocks to equestrian gear. In this fascinating book, Kathryn Rousso, an accomplished textile artist, takes a detailed look at the state of maguey culture, use, and trade in Guatemala. She has spent years traveling in Guatemala, highlighting maguey workers’ interactions in many locations and blending historical and current facts to describe their environments. Along the way, Rousso has learned the process of turning a raw leaf into beautiful and useful textile products and how globalization and modernization are transforming the maguey trade in Guatemala. Featuring a section of full-color illustrations that follow the process from plant to weaving to product, Maguey Journey presents the story of this fiber over recent decades through the travels of an impassioned artist. Useful to cultural anthropologists, ethnobotanists, fiber artists, and interested travelers alike, this book offers a snapshot of how the industry stands now and seeks to honor those who keep the art alive in Guatemala.
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816526982
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 183
Book Description
The name "maguey" refers to various forms of the agave and furcraea genus, also sometimes called the century plant. The fibers extracted from the leaves of these plants are spun into fine cordage and worked with a variety of tools and techniques to create textiles, from net bags and hammocks to equestrian gear. In this fascinating book, Kathryn Rousso, an accomplished textile artist, takes a detailed look at the state of maguey culture, use, and trade in Guatemala. She has spent years traveling in Guatemala, highlighting maguey workers’ interactions in many locations and blending historical and current facts to describe their environments. Along the way, Rousso has learned the process of turning a raw leaf into beautiful and useful textile products and how globalization and modernization are transforming the maguey trade in Guatemala. Featuring a section of full-color illustrations that follow the process from plant to weaving to product, Maguey Journey presents the story of this fiber over recent decades through the travels of an impassioned artist. Useful to cultural anthropologists, ethnobotanists, fiber artists, and interested travelers alike, this book offers a snapshot of how the industry stands now and seeks to honor those who keep the art alive in Guatemala.
The Oxford Handbook of Central American History
Author: Robert Holden
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190928360
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 705
Book Description
Interpreting the History of a Region in Crisis / Robert H. Holden -- Land and Climate: Natural Constraints and Socio-Environmental Transformations / Anthony Goebel McDermott -- Regaining Ground: Indigenous Populations and Territories / Peter H. Herlihy, Matthew L. Fahrenbruch, Taylor A. Tappan -- The Ancient Civilizations / William R. Fowler -- Marginalization, Assimilation, and Resurgence: The Indigenous Peoples since Independence / Wolfgang Gabbert -- The Spanish Conquest? / Laura E. Matthew -- Spanish Colonial Rule / Stephen Webre -- The Kingdom of Guatemala as a Cultural Crossroads / Brianna Leavitt-Alcántara -- From Kingdom to Republics, 1808-1840 / Aaron Pollack -- The Political Economy / Robert G. Williams -- State Making and Nation Building / David Díaz Arias -- Central America and the United States / Michel Gobat -- The Cold War: Authoritarianism, Empire, and Social Revolution / Joaquín M. Chávez -- Central America since the 1990s: Crime, Violence, and the Pursuit of Democracy / Christine J. Wade -- The Rise and Retreat of the Armed Forces / Orlando J. Pérez and Randy Pestana -- Religion, Politics, and the State / Bonar L. Hernández Sandoval -- Women and Citizenship: Feminist and Suffragist Movements, 1880-1957 / Eugenia Rodríguez Sáenz -- Literature, Society, and Politics / Werner Mackenbach -- Guatemala / David Carey Jr. -- Honduras / Dario A. Euraque -- El Salvador / Erik Ching -- Nicaragua / Julie A. Charlip -- Costa Rica / Iván Molina -- Panama / Michael E. Donoghue -- Belize / Mark Moberg.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190928360
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 705
Book Description
Interpreting the History of a Region in Crisis / Robert H. Holden -- Land and Climate: Natural Constraints and Socio-Environmental Transformations / Anthony Goebel McDermott -- Regaining Ground: Indigenous Populations and Territories / Peter H. Herlihy, Matthew L. Fahrenbruch, Taylor A. Tappan -- The Ancient Civilizations / William R. Fowler -- Marginalization, Assimilation, and Resurgence: The Indigenous Peoples since Independence / Wolfgang Gabbert -- The Spanish Conquest? / Laura E. Matthew -- Spanish Colonial Rule / Stephen Webre -- The Kingdom of Guatemala as a Cultural Crossroads / Brianna Leavitt-Alcántara -- From Kingdom to Republics, 1808-1840 / Aaron Pollack -- The Political Economy / Robert G. Williams -- State Making and Nation Building / David Díaz Arias -- Central America and the United States / Michel Gobat -- The Cold War: Authoritarianism, Empire, and Social Revolution / Joaquín M. Chávez -- Central America since the 1990s: Crime, Violence, and the Pursuit of Democracy / Christine J. Wade -- The Rise and Retreat of the Armed Forces / Orlando J. Pérez and Randy Pestana -- Religion, Politics, and the State / Bonar L. Hernández Sandoval -- Women and Citizenship: Feminist and Suffragist Movements, 1880-1957 / Eugenia Rodríguez Sáenz -- Literature, Society, and Politics / Werner Mackenbach -- Guatemala / David Carey Jr. -- Honduras / Dario A. Euraque -- El Salvador / Erik Ching -- Nicaragua / Julie A. Charlip -- Costa Rica / Iván Molina -- Panama / Michael E. Donoghue -- Belize / Mark Moberg.
After the Coup
Author: Timothy J. Smith
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252094026
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 186
Book Description
This exceptional collection revisits the aftermath of the 1954 coup that ousted the democratically elected Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz. Contributors frame the impact of 1954 not only in terms of the liberal reforms and coffee revolutions of the nineteenth century, but also in terms of post-1954 U.S. foreign policy and the genocide of the 1970s and 1980s. This volume is of particular interest in the current era of the United States' re-emerging foreign policy based on preemptive strikes and a presumed clash of civilizations. Recent research and the release of newly declassified U.S. government documents underscore the importance of reading Guatemala's current history through the lens of 1954. Scholars and researchers who have worked in Guatemala from the 1940s to the present articulate how the coup fits into ethnographic representations of Guatemala. Highlighting the voices of individuals with whom they have lived and worked, the contributors also offer an unmatched understanding of how the events preceding and following the coup played out on the ground. Contributors are Abigail E. Adams, Richard N. Adams, David Carey Jr., Christa Little-Siebold, Judith M. Maxwell, Victor D. Montejo, June C. Nash, and Timothy J. Smith.
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252094026
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 186
Book Description
This exceptional collection revisits the aftermath of the 1954 coup that ousted the democratically elected Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz. Contributors frame the impact of 1954 not only in terms of the liberal reforms and coffee revolutions of the nineteenth century, but also in terms of post-1954 U.S. foreign policy and the genocide of the 1970s and 1980s. This volume is of particular interest in the current era of the United States' re-emerging foreign policy based on preemptive strikes and a presumed clash of civilizations. Recent research and the release of newly declassified U.S. government documents underscore the importance of reading Guatemala's current history through the lens of 1954. Scholars and researchers who have worked in Guatemala from the 1940s to the present articulate how the coup fits into ethnographic representations of Guatemala. Highlighting the voices of individuals with whom they have lived and worked, the contributors also offer an unmatched understanding of how the events preceding and following the coup played out on the ground. Contributors are Abigail E. Adams, Richard N. Adams, David Carey Jr., Christa Little-Siebold, Judith M. Maxwell, Victor D. Montejo, June C. Nash, and Timothy J. Smith.