Maya Civilization Research Articles

THE SERVICE-LEARNING APPROACH AS A TOOL TO IMPROVE SUSTAINABILITY IN HOUSES OF A MAYAN COMMUNITY

Service-learning is a hands-on educational approach where students apply the knowledge they acquire in the classroom, while serving in a community. This paper reports the results of applying this approach at the University of Yucatán. During 2014, a “Social Project” was developed in the community of Yaxunah (“Green house”, in Mayan language), Yucatán. Students from several disciplines (engineering, architecture, medicine, biology, social service and agro-ecology) followed an ecosystem approach to improve the health and the environment of the community. The specific goal was to improve the backyards (here after referred as patios) of the houses in the community. In the Mayan culture, the patio is the family’s reunion center, since it has several purposes. In this space are located: the kitchen, bathroom, garden, pet area, and, in many instances, livestock. Faculty, students and community partners worked closely together over six months, finding the best ways to improve their patios and houses using local materials, and their own labor, while taking care of the environment. After the project’s completion, members of the community reported their experiences as a very productive one, helping them to maintain the patios’ sustainability and family health. Participating students answered a questionnaire, reporting that their learning experience was very rewarding.

“Me Gustaría que Habláramos También de mi Cultura”: A Yearlong Case Study of Two Maya English Learners

ABSTRACT This article describes the journey I embarked on as a teacher-researcher to better understand the realities of two of my Maya English learners (ELs) in our learning environment. This yearlong (2018–2019) study took the form of a qualitative case study inquiry whose purpose was to explore how two Maya migrant youth from Guatemala experienced and negotiated language, culture, and identity in a suburban U.S. high school. Findings highlight the need for acknowledging the participants’ Mayan culture, and including academic resources and support in their first languages (Mam and Q’eqchi’), instead of Spanish, to learn English. In addition, recorded conversations with the participants shed light on the complexities dwelling at the intersection of language, culture, and identity in formal education settings and beyond.

Ecological Embeddedness in the Maya Built Environment: Inspiration for Contemporary Cities

Cities nowadays are the most significant source of environmental degradation threatening local and global ecosystems. Interestingly, many ancient settlements present excellent lessons and inspiration for addressing our current urban predicaments, given their environmental stewardship. This research explores how the ecologically embedded settlement patterns, building configurations, urban agriculture and home gardening, and water conservation of the Maya-built environment can offer insights about mitigating contemporary urban sustainability challenges. Mayans’ respect for nature not only guaranteed sustainable habitats but also engendered one of the most remarkable civilizations in a region that did not offer generous support for human accommodation. The Mayan world view promoted the idea of one spirit dwelling in all humans and other-than-human entities in an environment, making everything sacred and kin to everything else. The regional climate was kept under control by protecting the vegetation that also provided other ecological benefits. Land use was mixed, and residences were constructed with native and recyclable materials utilizing natural light and ventilation. The Mayan civilization inspires us to manage and protect plants, not cut them down; conserve water, not waste it; listen to the environmental feedback, not reject it; and, most importantly, it begs us to embrace nature as our own mother, not disown it as something dispensable. These principles have significant implications on urban land-use planning and policies today.

Maya Ruins, Cultural Tourism and the Contested Symbolism of Collective Identities

The more accessible archaeological sites of the ancient Maya have become cultural attractions for international mass tourism. Their development is a function of occupational and economic factors that construct an unrepresentative image of Maya civilization as a modem cultural production. While this image is part of the official heritage of modern nation states, the interaction of mass tourism and cultural resource management is creating a supranational structural framework conducive to the development of Maya ethnonationalism.

Repensando a San Simón, el sincretismo y la autoridad antropológica

The tradition of San Simón in Guatemala has long garnered considerable interest among foreign and national academics, tourists, and Guatemalans in general from a range of backgrounds. Many, though not all, are drawn to the ambiguity and multiple identities often attributed to this deity, including associations with Pedro de Alvarado and Judas Iscariot as well as autochthonous figures such as the Maya deity Mam or other figures from Indigenous history and culture. In this article, based primarily on ethnographic research conducted since 1994, I trace opinions and assessments concerning San Simón, from a range of interlocutors, and consider how these have developed over time. I argue that academics especially need to rethink the concept of syncretism as we go about identifying and interpreting cases of “religious mixture”, noting that considerable reflexivity is required when applying thisterm. For many indigenous Guatemalans, especially at the community level, little if any contradiction or ambiguity is expressed regarding the identity(s) of this deity, which leads to the question “syncretic for whom”? That said, others, especially those involved (often beyond the local level) in the promotion and institutionalization of Maya Spirituality, may work to establish a more stable Maya pedigree for this tradition. The way these various points of view are expressed and placed in dialog with each other speaks to a dynamism and creativity which is typical of Maya culture at present and through time.

Effusive and explosive eruptive history of the Ilopango caldera complex, El Salvador

The Ilopango caldera in central El Salvador is the source of at least 13 voluminous rhyolitic eruptions over the last two million years, including the 431 CE Tierra Blanca Joven (TBJ) which blanketed areas inhabited by the Mayan civilization, and the 1.707 ± 0.022 Ma Olocuilta ignimbrite, one of the largest Quaternary eruptions in Central America. These rhyolitic deposits have been the subject of numerous detailed studies. In contrast, the abundant effusive and monogenetic eruptions at Ilopango have not been studied. These small-volume eruptions range from basalt to rhyolite (49.7–72.8 wt% SiO2) and occur both within the caldera margin and on the south flank of the Antiguo Ilopango stratovolcano. Here we present 28 new 40Ar/39Ar ages and geochemical data from domes, lavas, dikes, and ignimbrites from the Ilopango caldera and the Antiguo Ilopango stratovolcano as well as from adjacent volcanic systems. Collectively, these new data are used to construct a revised eruptive sequence for the Ilopango caldera that spans almost three million years. The new chronostratigraphy for Ilopango is highlighted by two volcanic cycles. Each cycle starts with rhyolite dome effusions, and then a prolonged period of explosive rhyolitic volcanism followed by a ~120–175 kyr period of less evolved eruptions. The spatio- and chemo-temporal patterns in the Ilopango eruptive sequence are similar in many ways to those observed in other well-studied Quaternary silicic centers.

The concept of space in Classic Mayan

The ancient Maya civilization left us a significant corpus of glyphic inscriptions, a large portion of which consists of historical records, meticulously dating events and time elapsed between them – births, accessions and deaths of rulers, wars, ceremonies, visits and family relationships between royal dynasties, etc. (see Martin and Grube 2008). Time being such a prominent topic, the texts contain a number of time-related terms, including (1) event-based expressions (ti ik’ k’in ‘at black day / at dusk / at night’; i pas ‘then at dawn’; si[h]yajiiy ‘(X years) after s/he was born’), (2) conceptualizations which are potentially and likely spatial in nature as they appear both in locative expressions and temporal adverbials (preposition ti ‘in/on/at/with/as; the verb uht ‘to happen’ and deictic verb hul ‘to arrive’; tu paat + date ‘on the back of / after), and finally, (3) non-spatial metaphorical conceptualizations, such as reification and personification of the units of time. Sweetser and Gaby (2017, 626) notice that “crosslinguistically, the single primary historical source for temporal vocabulary is spatial vocabulary” and it is an overwhelming tendency observed in numerous languages around the world. Levinson and Wilkins (2006c, 6) also pose an interesting question how much spatial information is coded in language and how much is inferred from context and our knowledge of the world around us. The concept of space being so basic and significant, surprisingly little has been published on how space was conceptualized in Maya texts of the Classic Period (250-950 CE). Thus, this paper investigates how the domain of space is coded in Classic Mayan, a grapholect recorded in Maya glyphic inscriptions, how the language expresses relationships of containment, contiguity and adjacency, the manner and path of motion events, as well as available frames of reference to locate objects which are separated in space.

Using commodified representations to ‘perform’ and ‘fashion’ cultural heritage among Yucatec Maya women (Mexico)

ABSTRACT The east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula has been a popular tourist destination for many years. To capture the gaze of tourists, promotional tourism literature of Cancún, the Riviera Maya, and the Grand Costa Maya feature common imagery used to promote other tropical environs. To set this destination apart, representations of Mayan Culture, such as archaeological ruins and ‘timeless’ Mayan villages, are used. As the tourism industry seeped its way inland to Valladolid, Maya women from Xocén now have more direct interaction with tourists. With the commodification of various aspects of contemporary Maya culture, Maya women use these representations to sell their heritage to tourists for financial gain. As these commodified aspects are essential components to Maya women’s lives, such as the 'iipil (traditional dress) and the daily work they do in their homes, Maya women can ‘perform’ and ‘fashion’ their heritage to reflect the modern tastes of tourists and themselves. Maya women play an active role in changing these outdated representations of their culture by asserting their modernity and in this process, reap some financial benefit, as well as promote and preserve their heritage.

Breath and Smoke: Tobacco Use among the Maya

Tobacco is sacred for Indigenous peoples throughout the Americas. Breath and Smoke delves into tobacco's origins in Maya culture and rituals and traces its residues across space and time. Beginning in the eighth century and moving through the present day, the volume brings together an interdisciplinary range of scholars whose analysis of myths, ethnography, material culture, hieroglyphics, historical documents, healing practices, and chemical residues showcase the myriad ways that mahy (tobacco) has been used, traded, and exalted. By examining tobacco's nexus as a spiritual, medicinal, ritual, and recreational substance, editors Jennifer Loughmiller-Cardinal and Keith Eppich reveal tobacco's significance as more than just a powerful botanical. Maya peoples consider it to be a sentient, godlike substance. While maize, chocolate, and jade have long been recognized as important commodities in ancient and modern Maya cultures, this volume proposes that tobacco held a similar role and continues to be highly prized.The contributors highlight the role of tobacco, originally domesticated in Peru and Ecuador, as a mystical therapeutic intoxicant. Erik Boot (in chapter 2) analyzes similarities in origin stories of tobacco from Pipil, Sauk, and Penobscot peoples. In all three stories, tobacco is derived from a woman. In chapter 3, Martin Pickands's analysis of mythic narratives among Mopan, Q'eqchi’ Maya, Lacandon, and Yucatec Maya peoples reinforces tobacco's feminine origins. These myths reveal that tobacco was considered original medicine derived from the moon goddess. Kevin Groark (in chapter 4) examines contemporary Tzeltal and Tzotzil Maya usage of powdered and masticated tobacco. A detailed folk pharmacology reveals that the tobacco plant, its potency and storage, is highly gendered. Typically found in household gardens because it repels malevolent spirits and animals, cures illness when smeared over the body, and is offered as food in ceremonies to the gods, tobacco garners great respect because it is considered a sentient being, possessing a soul and the ability to act. Michael McBride (in chapter 5) explores tobacco's use in hunting magic across the Americas. He suggests that the altered states of consciousness induced by shamanic magic were critical to sustaining Maya dynastic rule and military dominance. Among Ch'orti’ Maya people today, Kerry Hull shows in chapter 6, not only is tobacco smoke curative, but it is also used in sorcery rites.Like all great analyses of commodities, the volume looks beyond origins to trace tobacco's residues in archaeological and ethnographic contexts. Through a review of the word mahy in hieroglyphic texts, Erik Boot (in chapter 7) finds that tobacco is associated with the glyph may (deer), which thus reinforces tobacco's ties to hunting practices. Vessels to store and gift tobacco were highly prized and labeled with the glyph ’otoot (home), another indication of the reverence bestowed on this plant. We can see this reverence in the snuff bottle buried with Lady K'abel, who ruled the city-state of El Perú-Waka’ in northwestern Petén. Delicately carved with hieroglyphs, the alabaster bottle is a rare find and contains tobacco from the distant city-state of Copán. Keith Eppich and Olivia Navarro-Farr (in chapter 9) suggest that this bottle embodied its owner's wealth as well as shamanic and divine power. Hieroglyphic texts and visual iconography illustrate tobacco's godlike status, but they do not fully capture the scope of tobacco use in daily life and ritual practice. Seeking to unearth new methods for documenting tobacco's significance, Jennifer Loughmiller-Cardinal (in chapter 8) looks at residue analysis in Maya ceramics and in the soil in caves and burials. Collecting tobacco residue from snuff vessels makes it possible to physically trace social relationships and geographic movement. Jeb Card and Ana Claudia María Alfaro Moisa (in chapter 10) offer a detailed analysis of miniature tobacco flasks in El Salvador's Museo Nacional de Antropología Dr. David J. Guzmán. Gifted socially, these flasks map out regional patterns of economic and political influence. Initially developed during the Classic Maya period, snuff containers eventually spread globally.Through this comprehensive overview of tobacco, Breath and Smoke aims to render visible new perspectives on Maya life and culture. Indeed, we are given glimpses into how tobacco has been indigenized, gendered, sexualized, ritualized, and mythologized. The volume does an adroit job of highlighting the continuity between contemporary and ancient Maya practices and of balancing specialized analyses with narrative storytelling. One angle that has been left unexplored is how tobacco and other highly prized commodities are racialized. Anyone who is interested in Maya culture will be riveted by the myths, images, and analyses contained in this volume.

Localization of structures under the forest canopy through three-dimensional imagery acquired with remote sensing

Numerous ancient cultures in Mexico (e.g., Maya, Zapotec, Olmec, etc.) disappeared, leaving behind their legacy. These cultures inherited temples and archaeological remains, discovered in some cases by chance or through scientific expeditions. Most of the discovered structures were covered by vegetation layers, which made them very difficult to identify. By instance, Mexico’s south-east, where the Mayan culture settled, is known for being a densely forested area. The tropical forest ‘Selva Lacandona’ is located in this region. Consequently, this work suggests using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) tomography (TomoSAR), as a technique for searching structures under the forest canopy. TomoSAR retrieves three-dimensional imagery from illuminated scenes. When an adequate wavelength is chosen (i.e., L-, P-band), TomoSAR detects the several vegetation layers in forested areas and the topography beneath. Furthermore, TomoSAR is also capable of locating structures hidden under the forest canopy, which could be the case of ancient temples or archaeological vestiges.

Leaving the Quiet Jungle Path: Introduction to Maya Anthropological Archaeology

In her book Maya Cultural Heritage: How Archaeologists and Indigenous Communities Engage the Past (Roman and Littlefield 2016), Patricia McAnany urges archaeologists who work in the Maya region (i [...]

Mayan Traditional Knowledge on Weather Forecasting: Who Contributes to Whom in Coping With Climate Change?

Despite international commitments to integrate indigenous peoples and their Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) in actions combating climate change, their inclusion remains limited. Integrating TEK with scientific knowledge has become particularly important in sectors such as agriculture, which both contributes to and is affected by climate change. While there is a general recognition that integrating TEK will contribute to climate change adaptation, agricultural interventions have made little progress in achieving this due to the assumption of a clear divide between TEK and scientific knowledge. This paper considers that knowledge integration is already occurring, but in contexts of economic, sociocultural, and political inequalities. We elaborate on the case of traditional weather forecasting methods used by Mayan indigenous farmers in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula to propose a social justice perspective for knowledge integration in climate change interventions. Using information from three studies conducted between 2016 and 2019, we first explain the importance of weather and traditional weather forecast methods for indigenous Mayan farmers. Later we describe in detail both these methods and their links with Mayan cosmology. Findings show how weather phenomena such as drought and hurricanes are main concerns for milpa farming. They illustrate the diversity of traditional short, medium, and long-term weather forecast methods based on observations from nature and the sky. Farmers also perform rituals that are related to their Mayan gods and goddess. As TEK not only defines agricultural calendars but also reproduces Mayan culture, we discuss what is needed for its integration into actions combating climate change. We use a rights-based approach that considers the economic, cultural, and political scales of justice to equally allocate resources and benefits for traditional knowledge systems, recognize indigenous values and worldviews avoiding cultural harms, and accomplish indigenous self-determination through equal representation. As a result, we hope to incentivize development actors engaged in agricultural interventions on climate change to critically reflect and examine power dynamics and relations when working with indigenous communities.

Cultural appropriation in fashion: Critiquing the dispossession of Mayan culture in Guatemala

Cultural appropriation in fashion: Critiquing the dispossession of Mayan culture in Guatemala

Molecular evidence for human population change associated with climate events in the Maya lowlands

The analysis of faecal stanols in lake sediment cores offers a novel opportunity to reconstruct human population change, assuming that variability in faecal stanol concentration is a reliable proxy for relative human populations. The ancient lowland Maya of Mesoamerica represents an important ancient society whose demographic dynamics in many locations remain uncertain. We apply the faecal stanol proxy to a sediment core retrieved from a lake adjacent to the archaeological site of Itzan, an ancient population centre in the southwestern Maya lowlands. The sedimentary faecal stanol record from Laguna Itzan implies substantial centennial- and millennial-scale changes in local human populations from 3300 cal years BP to the present. Variability in faecal stanol concentrations is broadly consistent with archaeological evidence for regional societal change across the Maya lowlands, but also implies an earlier presence of humans at this site than is currently indicated in the Itzan archaeological record. We find evidence for high-frequency variability in coprostanol concentrations during the Maya Preclassic period, which we infer represents centennial-scale shifts in settlement patterns associated with changes in agricultural and land use patterns. Given Preclassic-period faecal peak stanol concentrations, we observe lower-than-expected Classic-period faecal peak stanol concentrations, and these may partly be a result of either use of human waste for fertiliser or reduced soil erosion or both. Three periods of inferred population decline are associated with palaeoclimate evidence for a drying climate, specifically during the Terminal Classic (1220-1050 cal yr BP) and the Protoclassic 2 (1860-1670 cal yr BP), as well as the less well-studied drought between 3330 and 2900 cal yr BP during the Early to Middle Preclassic periods. An additional decline and hiatus in coprostanol input coincides with a period of anomalously wet climate in the Late Preclassic. These linkages suggest that climatic change and variability could have played a role in demographic change at multiple points in the evolution of Maya civilisation. Our work shows that faecal stanols are valuable proxies for past human population dynamics, and their relation to climatic change, in Mesoamerica.

Tropical wetland persistence through the Anthropocene: Multiproxy reconstruction of environmental change in a Maya agroecosystem

Wetlands epitomize all forms of the proposed Anthropocene era because they record both past and recent human environmental interaction and because of their abundant resources. This is especially true for tropical wetlands, and a growing body of research demonstrates their important connections with past and Indigenous societies. Maya culture, for example, provides an extraordinary example of wetland use in the “Early Anthropocene”. Through excavations and lidar survey, we demonstrate that ancient Maya farmers managed riparian wetlands in northwestern Belize to a much greater spatial extent than previous estimates. This paper provides new evidence from soil geomorphic and palaeoecological excavations within the Birds of Paradise wetland in Belize. We focus on the timing, extent, and intensity of human management as well as soil pedogenesis and ecological changes over the last c. 2000 years. Bayesian modelling of radiocarbon dates show the transformation of the wetland from a natural to an agricultural system, starting as early as c. 2100 BP. The Maya were constructing berms on the margin of the wetland by c. 1600 BP, and widespread clearing and canal construction began by c. 1350-1290 BP. These periods coincide with population growth and decline and urban construction and abandonment in this region. This clearing, farming, and channelization ended as late as c. 690-620 BP based on canal sedimentation, pollen evidence reflecting tropical forest replacing cultivars like maize, and soil carbon isotope ratios that reflect C4 plants like maize shifting to more mixed and C3 plants. We demonstrate the complexity and scale of human engineering and modification of soil and water resources, provide a new chronology for ancient wetland use, and present new evidence for the farming of economic plants as well as the succession of tropical wetlands after intensive anthropogenic manipulation ceased.

Improving the method of grinding substances to a nanostate

At the end of the 20th century, a theory was put forward, suggesting that with the help of universal molecular robots, it would be possible to collect any objects from improvised molecules according to a given program. The process was called "nanotechnology". The term «nano» comes from the Greek word "nanos" (dwarf) and corresponds to one billionth of a unit. Nanotechnology is the most modern and advanced direction of science and technology development. The excavations of archaeologists prove that nanomaterials were widely used in the ancient world, for instance, the Mayan civilization used clay, the structure of which contained nanofragments. In ancient Mesopotamia, weapons and glasses painted with metal nanoparticles were produced. In 2007, the state corporation "Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies" was officially registered in Russia. For the implementation of processes occurring at the molecular level, it was necessary to develop methods for grinding substances to design new substances with super-efficient properties. Due to the introduction of nanotechnology to science, technology, medicine and other fields, there will be significant changes in people's lives. Recently, the problem of introducing nanotechnology into medicine and pharmacology to obtain effective medicines of superhigh quality is especially urgent. One of the main issues nanotechnologists are facing is the problem of grinding substances to a nanostate. The existing processes of grinding substances often require not only high energy costs and labor intensity, but also do not allow achieving the desired result. The article presents an original method of grinding various substances to the molecular level by grinding the molecules of the substance with the particles of the complex "carbyne-cyclic ion-ligand" during the rotation of the complex under the influence of an external electric field. The conducted laboratory tests confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Genetic diversity, structure, and admixture in Mayans from Guatemala and Mexico based on 15 short tandem repeats.

To analyze the genetic origin, relationships, structure, and admixture in Mayan Native American groups from Guatemala and Mexico based on 15 autosomal short tandem repeats (STRs) loci commonly used in human identification (HID). We genotyped 513 unrelated Mayan samples from Guatemala based on 15 STR loci (AmpFlSTR® Identifiler kit). Moreover, we included 4408 genotypes previously reported, as following: Mayas from Guatemala and Mexico (n = 1666) and from Latin American, European, and African (n = 2742) populations. Forensic parameters, genetic distances, admixture, and population structure were assessed. Forensic parameters of the 15 STRs in different Mayan groups from Guatemala were reported. Low (Fst = 0.78%; p = 0.000) and non-significant differentiation (Fst = 1.8%; p = 0.108) were observed in Mayas from Guatemala and Mexico, respectively. The relative homogeneity observed among Mayan groups supported theories of extensive pre-Columbian gene flow and trade throughout the Mayan Empire. The distribution of the three Native American ancestries among these Mayan groups did not support the presumable Guatemalan origin of Tojolabal and Lacandon people (South, Mexico). The nonsignificant differentiation between Ladinos and Mayas suggests a relative panmixia in Guatemala. Mestizos from southeastern Mexico and Guatemala constitute a core of Native American ancestry in Latin America related to the Mayan Empire in Central America. The higher European admixture and homogeneity in Mexican Mayas of the Yucatan Peninsula suggest more intensive post-Columbian gene flow in this region than in Guatemalan Mayas.

Conocimiento y aprovechamiento tradicional de vertebrados silvestres en la comunidad maya de Zavala, municipio de Sotuta, Yucatán, México

The relationship between Mexican ethnic groups and wildlife is known by its use for nutritional and medicinal purposes. Particularly, in the Maya culture ornamental and ceremonial uses have been attributed to the fauna. Similarly, different beliefs, stories and legends have been developed around it. The studies conducted to document these relationships in the state of Yucatan are scarce; therefore this work was raised to determine the uses and beliefs of the wildlife in the Maya town of Zavala. 174 semi-structured interviews were conducted among men and women of different ages. The significant species were then divided into seven categories of use: food, medicine, pets, ornamental, ceremonial, mythical, and ominous. 54 species related with the worldview of the residents were identified, and divided into three classes, 20 orders, 38 families, and 54 genera. The birds were the most represented with 30 species, followed by Mammalia class with 19, and Reptilia with 5. Mammals were the group with the highest general use index. With this work, it was concluded that the inhabitants of Zavala preserve in their daily activities the ancestral uses and knowledge of the wildlife. Likewise, the information collected contributes to the knowledge of ethnozoology in Yucatán.

Languaging to trigger change: second-order intercultural conversations with urban youth of Maya descent

The paper presents an applied research project that looks into whether the Yucatec Maya language can become an identity factor for the urban youth of Maya descent inhabitants of a marginal urban area in southeastern Mexico, against the entropic tendency towards the Yucatec Maya language loss in the urban environment. Our starting point is Maturana’s idea that through languaging and emotioning human worlds are built and maintained; our lives are intertwined in interactional networks, therefore we only exist as human beings through conversations we hold with other human beings. We go on to explore the types of connection to the Maya culture and language in the case of the young men and women who took part in a workshop “My life and the Maya culture: roots and relations”, and how this connection is constructed through languaging and emotioning whithin their families, personal networks, and the workshop itself. The conversations –that emerge through languaging and emotioning– are seen as potential triggers of changes in representations and attitudes towards the minorized language and culture. We also maintain that for the changes to be sustainable, the rest of the local society, viewed as a cultural multiverse (Krotz, 2004), is to recognize Maya speakers as legitimate others (Maturana & Nisis, 2014), so that the non-Maya groups are also to engage to ensure the structural coupling between the diverse parts that conform the multiverse. Our role as researchers, then, is not that of external observers; we assume our part in the cultural multiverse as participants in its construction who by languaging, emotioning, and subsequent acting, seek to contribute to a broader acceptance and respect towards the minorized language and its speakers.

The social construction of difference for the reproduction of inequality: Maya youth in Yucatán

ABSTRACT We propose to analyze how difference is constructed in order to produce diverse inequalities along the lines of ethnicity, social class, generation, and gender, in Yaxcabá, a Maya village in Yucatán. We show how the people of Yaxcabá differentiate themselves ethnically through the use of surnames associated with either Maya or Spanish descent. This interethnic classification system emerges from a collective imaginary that employs a supposed cultural difference to reproduce social, economic, and symbolic inequalities. These are then used to justify discriminatory practices by Yaxcabá people who claim Spanish origin against other community members who are identified as of indian origin. These practices are expressed through a complex social organization between family groups, linking and confronting different collective, essentialized, and stigmatized identities, which serve to establish social and prestige positions. We show how other inequalities are compiled on top of this ethnic differentiation, such as generational inequality and gender inequality. Women of Maya origin suffer a compounded inequality, rooted in Mayan language and culture, which subordinates them to men. All of this motivates young men and women to desire to change their social situation.