Chan Kom Research Articles

Topography of Maya Culture, On the Political and Scriptural Economy of the Modernizing Maya

Este ensayo busca el origen de la caracterización cultural, o sea la metanarrativa y master trope de los mayas de Yucatán como un pueblo "modernizándose". Retoma las representadotes etnográficas de Chan Kom escritas por Redfield y Villa Rojas, y la de Pisté escrita por Morris Steggerda para que, a través de dicha comparación y reconstrucción textual, el autor demuestre, "cómo y por qué es posible que la 'cultura maya' se haya construido textualmente tanto en la imaginación antropológica como en la visión popular como una comunidad-cultural de 'folk' 'progresiva' y que esta representación se haya localizado en un espacio determinado (Chan Kom) y no otro (Pisté)”. La respuesta se ubica en la historia de la intervención de la antropología americana, tanto de los Estados Unidos como de México y de Yucatán. La visión predominante de los mayas yucatecos como cultura en proceso de modernización esta forjada entre la intersección de la política de saber científico y de la política nacional-internacional de la construcción de identidad comunitaria. El análisis concluye con comentarios sobre las deficiencias de la investigación antropológica que se han presentado y se sugiere además cómo rectificar nuestra visión parcial.

Being and Becoming Maya in Chan Kom: Towards Heideggerian Interpretations of Cultural Transformation

Between the years of 1931 and 1950, Robert Redfield, social science researcher and ethnographer from the University of Chicago, and Alfonso Villa Rojas described subtle and explicit cultural changes within Chan Kom, a Maya village in North-Central Yucatan. Using the theoretical framework developed by Martin Heidegger regarding worlds, being and style, this paper explores the social and cultural changes in the Maya village of Chan Kom in order to deepen our understanding of how cultural change occurs more generally. Through this analysis, several aspects of cultural change emerge.

Behind the Scenes of a Visual Ethnography: A Dialogue between Anthropology and Film

Behind the Scenes of a Visual Ethnography:A Dialogue between Anthropology and Film C. Melinda Levin (bio) and Alicia Re Cruz (bio) This article is an ethnographic account of the production of a documentary film about out-migration and tradition in a contemporary Maya community of Mexico. The village of Chan Kom sits about two hours east of the Cancun coastal area in the dense Yucatan jungle. This exodus is a different story from that often told about Mexican migration because this migration is within Mexico itself. Out-migration to the tourist mecca of Cancun and its neighboring "Mayan Riviera" developments is common in the states of Yucatan and Quintana Roo in particular and has prompted reevaluations of traditional lifestyles, gender roles, and community organization within a capitalist economy. Given the ongoing, sometimes controversial subject of immigration, this film sheds a new light on the internal migration practices within Mexico and how they affect socially integrated, traditional communities. The film follows several villagers from Chan Kom who are engaged in migration to Cancun, and it examines the impact of the infusion of cash that results from their labors on the coast. It also observes their neighbors and family members who do not favor migration, prefer-ring the traditional, agricultural lifestyle to the barrios of Mexico's premier tourist destination. The two sides of this community's position on migration are intimately connected to the families of the two founders of Chan Kom: an uncle, Don Epifanio, and his nephew, Don Eustaquio. Over time representatives of these two families have adopted different worldviews and political affiliations directly connected to their opposite positions regarding out-migration. Differentiated Maya worldviews that evolved from the intriguing interconnection of political and socioeconomic positioning regarding out-migration are ultimately linked to issues related to Maya identity. The overarching goal of the film is to provide a glimpse into some of these social and cultural influences affecting the difference of opinion on the "truest" definition of Maya identity. Melinda Levin served as director, camera operator, and editor of the film, and Alicia Re Cruz served as producer, sound recordist, and ethnographic content expert. In the same way that our film was an exercise in visually portraying the intricate cultural processes embedded in the global human experience of crossing geographical and cultural borders, our article's goal is to examine some of the processes involved in the conceptual, fluid journey between film and anthropology. We also present some of the decision-making processes that guided this film [End Page 59] production and, consequently, the personal and professional premises that informed them. The idea of documenting the dialogue and counter-dialogue between Cancun and Chan Kom via Maya migration emerged in 1997, when Levin and Re Cruz began a discussion about the educational importance of visually documenting changing definitions of cultural identity in the midst of powerful globalizing phenomena. We started filming in Chan Kom in the summer of 1998 and concluded principle photography in 2003; during these six years of visits to Chan Kom and Cancun, we reconceptualized the documentary's focus and narrative, based on a complex web of different factors. The analysis and discussion of a few of these factors, at personal and professional levels, constitutes the core of this article. A DVD of The Mayan Dreams of Chan Kom: Tourism, Migration and Changing Identities in the Yucatan is included with this special Film and Anthropology issue of the Journal of Film and Video. Chan Kom, An Ethnographic Icon This documentary project builds on Alicia Re Cruz's anthropological work and ethnographic research on Chan Kom since 1986. Multiple articles by Re Cruz (e.g., "The Thousand and One Faces," "Maya Women," and "Milpa as an Ideological Weapon") and the publication of The Two Milpas of Chan Kom (1996) examine the effects, at different levels, of the globalizing currents within the Yucatan peninsula, mainly through the explosion of Cancun's tourism industry and its repercussions on Maya communities. Chan Kom's reaction to out-migration is not unique but serves as an example of how societies often respond to globalizing currents affecting their culture and traditions. The Carnegie Institute started a series of scientific projects on...

Milpa As an Ideological Weapon: Tourism and Maya Migration to Cancún

The article analyzes the phenomenon of tourism within the current globalizing and postmodern contexts. It is based on the cultural relationship between Chan Kom, a Maya community in the Yucatán Peninsula, and Cancún, the international tourist emporium. The tourist culture of Cancún embeds rules of production and consumption radically different from those encapsulated in the milpa or cornfield ideology that Maya experience in their communities. The study presents a dialogue between Chan Kom's social fragmentation due to out-migration to Cancún and the Mayanization of the socioeconomic and cultural landscape of the international Cancún. The goal is to discover the kaleidoscopic representations of Cancún as a tourist market product through the prism of the Maya ideological and socioeconomic presence.

The Social Life of Pre‐Sunrise Things

Centuries before the creation of archaeology as a scientific discipline in the modern West, indigenous people in Mesoamerica developed their own interpretations for the physical remains of their past. This study draws on archaeological, ethnographic, and historical sources to explore a tradition of indigenous Mesoamerican archaeology. By resorting to the culturearea concept of Mesoamerica, an interpretive structure of the long term is outlined. This framework is used to explore the social life of objects and places from the past in three paired locations: the Classic site of Teotihuacan and the 16thcentury Mexica Aztec capital of Tenochtitln; the Classic site of Yucuudahui and the 16thcentury Mixtec community of Chachoapan; and the Postclassic site of Chichen Itza and the 20thcentury Yucatec Maya community of Chan Kom. Shifting between wide and narrow perspectives in time and space, this study considers archaeology as a social practice, inventions and revisions of tradition, and the productivity of regional generalizations and structures of the long term.

Tlie Two Milpas of Chan Kom: A Study of Socioeconomic and Political Transformations in a Maya Community:Tlie Two Milpas of Chan Kom: A Study of Socioeconomic and Political Transformations in a Maya Community.

Tlie Two Milpas of Chan Kom:. Study of Socioeconomic and Political Transformations in. Maya Community. Alicia Re Cruz. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. 203 pp.

The Two Miipas of Chan Kom: A Study of Socioeconomlc and Political Transformation In a Maya Community

The Two Miipas of Chan Kom:. Study of Socioeconomlc and Political Transformation In. Maya Community. Alicia Re Cruz. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. xii. 203 pp., figures, tables, references, notes, index

Maya Women, Gender Dynamics, and Modes of Production

This paper provides a perspective on theconnection between the roles performed by Yucatec Mayawomen and global economic trends, particularly thosefocused on the increase of migration and incorporation of women into wage-labor employment. Theanalysis is founded on the gender dynamics in the MayaYucatec society. The fieldwork sites for this study werethe Maya village of Chan Kom and the developing resort area of Cancun. The discussion centerssocioeconomic and ideological implications of theresponses of Maya women to the increasingly complexexpansion of global capitalism and its acceleratingvolatility. Maya women, associated with the domestic andprivate realm, are also believed to serve as guardiansof tradition. Maya women who migrate, leaving theirvillages, face a social and economic challenge. The discussion frame of this studyleads to arevision of the anthropological agendas traditionallypresented in Chan Kom's ethnographic record. Assumptionsabout power and authority have misrepresented women as part of the labor force in the Mayaproductive system. The tension between peasant andmigrant Maya roles and world-wide economic trends isforging a negotiated space for Yucatec Mayawomen.

Competition, Cooperation, and the Folk Society

Critiques based on Redfield's analysis of peasant communities imply that societies with the characteristics of his ideal folk society do not exist. This paper argues that Tusik, the most isolated of the communities in Redfield's multi-community study in Yucatan, is a folk society in Redfield's sense and compares Tusik with Chan Kom, a peasant village in the same study. Although differences between them in internal social cohesion cannot be adequately explained by the degree of relative isolation from the city, as Redfield argued, they can be so explained by the focus of aggressive competition, which can in turn be related to aspects of social organization. It is concluded that societies with the characteristics of Redfield's folk society are primitive, unstratified, segmentary societies, differing as a class from stratified societies, of which peasants are a part.

Class Conflict and Cacique in Chan Kom

Previous articleNext article No AccessClass Conflict and Cacique in Chan KomVictor GoldkindVictor Goldkind Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 22, Number 4Winter, 1966 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/soutjanth.22.4.3629457 Views: 3Total views on this site Citations: 18Citations are reported from Crossref Journal History This article was published in the Southwestern Journal of Anthropology (1945-1972), which is continued by the Journal of Anthropological Research (1973-present). Copyright 1966 Department of Anthropology, The University of New MexicoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Francisco Delfín Gurri, Wilma Ruiz-García, Mirna Isela Vallejo-Nieto, Dolores Ofelia Molina-Rosales Effect of seasonality on food access in subsistence and cash dependent Maya households in large and small rural communities in Yucatan, Mexico, Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems 46, no.11 (Jun 2021): 56–81.https://doi.org/10.1080/21683565.2021.1930623Quetzil E. Castañeda The 'Past' as Transcultural Space: Using Ethnographic Installation in the Study of Archaeology, Public Archaeology 8, no.2-32-3 (Jul 2013): 262–282.https://doi.org/10.1179/175355309X457277 Rani T. Alexander Maya Settlement Shifts and Agrarian Ecology in Yucatán, 1800-2000, Journal of Anthropological Research 62, no.44 (Oct 2015): 449–470.https://doi.org/10.3998/jar.0521004.0062.401Quetzil E. Castaneda "We Are Not Indigenous!": An Introduction to the Maya Identity of Yucatan1, Journal of Latin American Anthropology 9, no.11 (Jun 2004): 36–63.https://doi.org/10.1525/jlat.2004.9.1.36Quetzil E. Castañeda “We Are Not Indigenous!”: An Introduction to the Maya Identity of Yucatan, Journal of Latin American Anthropology 9, no.11 (May 2008): 36–63.https://doi.org/10.1525/jlca.2004.9.1.36 Byron Hamann The Social Life of Pre‐Sunrise Things: Indigenous Mesoamerican Archaeology Hamann, Current Anthropology 43, no.33 (Jul 2015): 351–382.https://doi.org/10.1086/339526Francisco Gurri, Emilio Moran Who is Interested in Commercial Agriculture?: Subsistence Agriculture and Salaried Work in the City Among Yucatec Maya from the State of Yucatan, Culture <html_ent glyph="@amp;" ascii="&"/> Agriculture 24, no.11 (Mar 2002): 42–48.https://doi.org/10.1525/cag.2002.24.1.42Quetzil E. Castañeda 'The Progress that Chose a Village', Critique of Anthropology 15, no.22 (Jul 2016): 115–147.https://doi.org/10.1177/0308275X9501500201Alice Littlefield, Larry T. Reynolds The putting-out system: Transitional form or recurrent feature of capitalist production?, The Social Science Journal 27, no.44 (Jan 1990): 359–372.https://doi.org/10.1016/0362-3319(90)90013-APaul Shankman A journalistic odyssey through the third world, Reviews in Anthropology 10, no.33 (Jul 2010): 73–84.https://doi.org/10.1080/00988157.1983.9977643JOHN S. THOMAS the socioeconomic determinants of political leadership in a Tojolabal Maya community, American Ethnologist 8, no.11 (Oct 2009): 127–138.https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.1981.8.1.02a00080Henry Bernstein, Guy Standing, Pat Caplan, Barbara Harriss, William R. James, C. T. Kurien, Ruth McVey, Robert H. Taylor Book reviews, The Journal of Peasant Studies 8, no.22 (Feb 2008): 247–267.https://doi.org/10.1080/03066158108438137Malcolm K. Shuman , Psychiatry 43, no.44 ( 1980): 359.https://doi.org/10.1080/00332747.1980.11024083Alice Littlefield The expansion of capitalist relations of production in Mexican crafts, The Journal of Peasant Studies 6, no.44 (Feb 2008): 471–488.https://doi.org/10.1080/03066157908438086 Letters to the Editor, Human Organization 35, no.22 (Jun 1976): 201–205.https://doi.org/10.17730/humo.35.2.c0675t0512872507FRANS JOZEF SCHRYER Village factionalism and class conflict in peasant communities, Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie 12, no.33 (Jul 2008): 290–302.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1755-618X.1975.tb00050.xR.M. Berndt, Lee Sackett, W.H. Douglas, Charles Dortch, Leonard Freedman, R.L. Rooksby, Peter Lawrence, Marie Reay, Dan W. Jorgensen, K.O.L. Burridge, James R. Bell, Mario D. Zamora, Francis J. Murray, R. Hammer, Catherine H. Berndt, Eric ten Raa, Michael C. Howard, Bengt Anell, David B. Allbrook Book reviews, Anthropological Forum 3, no.3-43-4 (May 2010): 331–362.https://doi.org/10.1080/00664677.1973.9967285Eugene Giles, Asael T. Hansen, John M. McCullough, Duane G. Metzger, Milford H. Wolpoff Hydrogen cyanide and phenylthiocarbamide sensitivity, mid-phalangeal hair and color blindness in Yucatán, Mexico, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 28, no.22 (Mar 1968): 203–212.https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.1330280217

Social Stratification in the Peasant Community: Redfield's Chan Kom Reinterpreted1

Social Stratification in the Peasant Community: Redfield's Chan Kom Reinterpreted¹

Viking Fund Medalists 1954

THE AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION medalist for 1954 is distinguished for the breadth of his interests and the stimulation this has given to the entire profession. Publications of his field researches represent creative pioneer studies in many areas. Tepoztlan (1930) was one of the earliest community studies. Chan Kom (co-authored with Alfonso Villa in 1934) initiated a series of studies of Yucatecan communities which culminated in The Folk Culture of Yucatdn (1941)-the major statement of his theoretical position to that time. His subsequent works are noteworthy for extending anthropological horizons to the broadest historical and philosophical problems. A Village That Chose Progress (1950) offers observations, after a return to Chan Kom, on the conditions and consequences of acceptance of social change. In The Primitive World and Its Transformations (1953), Dr. Redfield turns his attention to the study of values, and of civilization and the moral order. The Little Community (1955) considers the problem of relating to the study of complex civilizations research on their component parts. Dr. Redfield's influence has been many-directional. As teacher, author, and lecturer, as administrator and participant in interdisciplinary councils, he has carried the influence of anthropology to diverse fields of scholarship, including all of the social sciences and humanities interpreting each to the others.

A VILLAGE THAT CHOSE PROGRESS: CHAN KOM REVISITED. By Robert Redfield. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950. 187 pp. $2.75

Journal Article A Village That Chose Progress: Chan Kom Revisited. By Robert Redfield. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950. 187 pp. $2.75 Get access John J. Honigmann John J. Honigmann New York University, Washington Square College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Social Forces, Volume 29, Issue 3, March 1951, Pages 341–342, https://doi.org/10.2307/2572443 Published: 01 March 1951