Abstract
AbstractCell phones are vehicles for creating and transforming sociality in peer networks (Coleman 2010; Wallis 2010). In the last decade, increased access to cell phones has radically changed courtship practices among Mayan youth of Zinacantán, Chiapas, and México as young couples now text clandestine romantic relationships, unmediated by elders. Since there is essentially no vocabulary for romantic love in Mayan Tzotzil, couples now rely on Spanish expressions gleaned from the media and other sources and have created a genre of romantic texting. The current study analyzes the textual microprocesses of dialogical construction of romance from a database of ten thousand WhatsApp text messages. Both microlevel practices and macrolevel forces are considered in shaping new landscapes of love, showing how texting affords new technological, linguistic, and literacy skills that are significantly changing repertoires of identity (Kroskrity 1993, 2000) and new expressions of agency and affect among Mayan youth. [Youth, cell phones, romance, love, digital communication, literacy, Mayan]
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