Maya Women Research Articles

Secondary Analysis Assesses Dietary Diversity Changes among Maya Guatemalan Women Post-Nutrition Interventions.

This study aimed to evaluate the change in the Dietary Diversity (DD) Index of Maya women of reproductive age living in rural areas of the Western Highlands of Guatemala after nutrition, health, and agroecology interventions. This is a secondary analysis study on DD from two matched groups from three villages in the Lake Atitlan area in the department of Sololá. The first cohort was recruited in 2017 (sample of n = 77). The second cohort was recruited in 2020 (sample of n = 61). Both were followed until 2021. The program provided various resources for assistance for food production and home improvements (sessions from 2018 to 2022). Agroecology sessions were conducted in the test farm. Due to the COVID-19, adjustments were made to continue the education and training sessions. Both cohort samples had a statistically significant increase in participants who consumed at least 15g from five groups of foods (2017: p = .00002; 2020: p = .045). There was a statistically significant increase in mean food groups consumed daily (2017: p < .00001; 2020: p = .005). Implementing interventions that include nutrition, health, and agroecology practices in the long term has demonstrated a statistically significant increase in the Dietary Diversity Index of Maya women in their reproductive years living in rural villages in the Western Highlands.

Reframing sexual violence against Indigenous women as genocide: Mayan women’s experiences of sexual offenses during Guatemala’s Armed Conflict

ABSTRACT Judgment of sexual violences against Mayan women during the Armed Conflict in Guatemala remains neglected. Justice processes have yearned harassment of victims and judges, sentences overruled, and epistemological barriers distancing the Western judiciary system from Mayan women’s experiences of sexual violence. Judiciary expert reports suppose a dialogue opportunity between epistemic margins and Western hegemony, as they play the role of objectifying the experiences of victims via scientific research methods. Here, I show how using decolonial and communitarian feminism theoretical-methodological approaches builds epistemic bridges. I discuss that sexual offences targeted a subject whose existence supposes a threat to the State’s patriarch-colonialist, and misogynist-racist interests: Mayan women or Ixoq. I argue that sexual violence targeted against Mayan women must be understood as genocide, for it aims at Ixoq’s annihilation in the context of the Ladino Nation Project in 1980s Guatemala. This novel cartographic approach helps building epistemic bridges to ensure hermeneutic justice.

U T’aan Nukuch Máak (‘Words of the Elders’): Defining a Yucatec Maya ‘Speech’ Genre

Yucatec Maya orality has been a popular topic of study of scholars from a wide array of disciplines. These studies often rely on academically generated categories of speech that have often been stylized in forms that descend from Western thought. The generated speech categories may overlook more performance-based forms that are more common of Indigenous knowledge systems. Most of the collected and analyzed Maya oral literature appears to be recounted by men, leaving women’s orality and their unique ways of interpreting the world largely under-documented. In this paper, I expand our understanding of Yucatec Maya women’s oral literature by providing a systematic documentation and description of u t’aan nukuch máak, words of the elders, a ‘speech’ genre that relies largely on performance. The performance of u t’aan nukuch máak are an embodiment of my female collaborators’ culture, as they occur in their daily routines. U t’aan nukuch máak are performed (or uttered) in the context of certain bodies, objects, times, and spaces that index concepts that reflect the strength of Maya cultural memory.

Training university teachers in an urban context to educate future teachers in rural Mayan environments: an international cooperation project

Training university teachers in an urban context to educate future teachers in rural Mayan environments: an international cooperation project

Lost in Translation? Agency and Incommensurability in the Transnational Travelling of Discourses of Sexualized Harm

This article argues for incommensurability, incoherence, and difference as the grounds through which to think about sexualized harm and its redress. It seeks to remove the “me” from the “too”, and to instead consider the structures of white supremacy and neocolonial power that have facilitated white Western feminists’ ability to participate in shaping a hegemonic discourse of sexualized harm and its transnational travelling. The article traces the author’s personal genealogy of rights work in the context of shifts in international jurisprudence in relation to wartime sexualized violence. It looks back and reflects on an eight-year feminist participatory action research project that accompanied 54 Mayan women protagonists who survived a multiplicity of harm, including sexual violence, during Guatemala’s 36-year genocidal war. The project documented the protagonists’ engagement with transitional justice mechanisms, including a paradigmatic court case and a national reparations program, as part of their struggles for redress. The concept of “protagonism” is used to understand agency in the aftermath of genocidal violence as relational, co-constructed, and imbued with power. The meaning of sexualized harm is always “in-translation” between Western and Mayan onto-epistemological positionings, as Mayan women seek to suture land-body-territory in their multifaceted strategies for redress that engage but always exceed rights regimes.

Clothing, Gender, and Sociophonetic Perceptions of Mayan-Accented Spanish in Guatemala

Perceptual sociophonetic work on Guatemalan Spanish has demonstrated that listeners are more likely to link male voices with traditional Maya clothing, the traje típico, when their speech includes features of Mayan-accented Spanish. However, as Maya women are more likely than men to wear the traje típico, this matched-guise study investigates native Guatemalans’ perceptions of Mayan-accented Spanish produced by female voices. The results demonstrate that guises with features of Mayan-accented Spanish were more likely to have traje típico as a response than guises without these features. When compared to the previous studies with male-voiced guises, the findings suggest an interaction between gender and Mayan-accented Spanish. Traje típico responses were more common for female-voiced guises than male-voiced guises and occurred at the highest rate among female-voiced guises with features of Mayan-accented Spanish. Thus, gendered and cultural practices are reflected in the indexical fields of Mayan-accented Spanish in Guatemala, regardless of the gender or ethnicity of the listener. That is, the visual body–language link is significantly more essentialized for the identity of a woman than for the identity of a man in Guatemala, suggesting that gendered stereotypes, language ideologies, and embodied practices mutually reinforce one another in the collective consciousness of the region.

Reducing inequities in maternal and child health in rural Guatemala through the CBIO+ Approach of Curamericas: 8. Impact on women’s empowerment

BackgroundIndigenous Maya women in the rural highlands of Guatemala have traditionally faced constraints to decision-making and participation in community affairs. Anecdotal experiences from previous Curamericas Global projects in Guatemala and Liberia have suggested that interventions using the CBIO+ Approach (which consists of implementing together the Census-Based, Impact-Oriented Approach, the Care Group Approach, and Community Birthing Centers), can be empowering and can facilitate improvements in maternal and child health. This paper, the eighth in a series of 10 papers examining the effectiveness of CBIO+ in improving the health and well-being of mothers and children in an isolated mountainous rural area of the Department of Huehuetenango, explores changes in women’s empowerment among mothers of young children associated with the Curamericas/Guatemala Maternal and Child Health Project, 2011–2015.MethodsKnowledge, practice, and coverage (KPC) surveys and focus group discussions (FGDs) were used to explore six indicators of women’s empowerment focusing on participation in health-related decision-making and participation in community meetings. KPC surveys were conducted at baseline (January 2012) and endline (June 2015) using standard stratified cluster sampling. Seventeen FGDs (9 with women, 3 with men, 2 with mothers-in-law, and 3 with health committees), approximately 120 people in all, were conducted to obtain opinions about changes in empowerment and to identify and assess qualitative factors that facilitate and/or impede women’s empowerment.ResultsThe KPC surveys revealed statistically significant increases in women’s active participation in community meetings. Women also reported statistically significant increases in rates of participation in health-related decision-making. Further, the findings show a dose-response effect for two of the six empowerment indicators. The qualitative findings from FGDs show that the Project accelerated progress in increasing women’s empowerment though women still face major barriers in accessing needed health care services for themselves and their children.ConclusionThe Project achieved some notable improvements in women’s decision-making autonomy and participation in community activities. These improvements often translated into making decisions to practice recommended health behaviors. Traditional cultural norms and the barriers to accessing needed health services are not easily overcome, even when empowerment strategies are effective.

Stuck with Tourism: Space, Power, and Labor in Contemporary Yucatán

Stuck with Tourism: Space, Power, and Labor in Contemporary Yucatán

Victimization and Distress in Indigenous Maya Women: A Qualitative Investigation of Gender-Based Violence and Mental Health Outcomes in Rural Guatemala.

There is currently scant research exploring Indigenous Guatemalan women's experiences of gender-based violence and mental health outcomes, but existing research suggests further exploration in this area is necessary. The current study aimed to address this gap by analyzing the experiences with violence and subsequent well-being of Indigenous Maya women in rural Guatemala. Data were collected in an ethnographic project on mental health in Panajachel, Guatemala, consisting of a cross-sectional survey on violence exposure and mental health history, followed by semi-structured interviews to elaborate on the experiences. Interviews with seven Kaqchikel Maya women who had been exposed to violence provided the qualitative basis for this study, supplemented by the survey results. Descriptive statistics of survey results and thematic analysis of interviews are presented. The survey results pointed to a deep relationship between violence victimization and mental health issues. Recurring themes in the interviews included symptoms of post-violence emotional distress including fear, sadness, physical ailments, and suicidal ideation; the role of the women as mothers; lack of legal and mental health support; and the importance of spirituality and religion. These results highlight the importance of examining emotional distress as separate from diagnostic psychiatric disorders in addressing women's mental health post-violence. This exploratory study provides examples of violence exposure, mental health, and resource availability among Guatemalan Maya women and suggests possibilities for future investigation.

Women in Conflict and Post-conflict Situations: An Anthology of Cases from Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Other Countries

Women in Conflict and Post-conflict Situations: An Anthology of Cases from Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Other Countries

From rainforest to table: Lacandon Maya women are critical to diversify landscapes and diets in Lacanjá Chansayab, Mexico

From rainforest to table: Lacandon Maya women are critical to diversify landscapes and diets in Lacanjá Chansayab, Mexico

Communitarian Organising: Maya Women’s Lived Experiences through Decolonial Feminist Theory

Communitarian Organising: Maya Women’s Lived Experiences through Decolonial Feminist Theory

Indigenous Women's Perspectives on Contraception in Rural Guatemala.

In rural, Indigenous Guatemala, women's healthcare is fragmented and inadequate. Our interdisciplinary, multinational research team aimed to 1) describe reproductive health in one rural Indigenous community; 2) explore contraceptive use; and 3) learn about and prioritize Indigenous Maya women's reproductive health beliefs and needs. Our study team conducted mixed-methods surveys with 62 women, led focus groups with 20 community health workers, and analyzed data using concurrent mixed methods analysis. We found that 51% of women surveyed reported current family planning, with 33% using a biomedical method. We found high mean fertility, 6.9 live births per woman aged 40-49 (national average 4.7), with significant socioeconomic variation. We also found that poverty correlated with total fertility, while education inversely correlated. Our research found that contraceptive use had a strong association with access to healthcare and with women's reported sexual autonomy (which we instrumentalized based on women's answers to the question "can you refuse to have sex with your husband?"). Many women we spoke to feared contraception, specifically concerned it could cause cancer. Overall, Guatemalan Indigenous women expressed unease seeking reproductive healthcare within health systems that have historically and currently excluded and mistreated Indigenous communities. Our research documented unexplored influences on contraceptive use, including the relationship between sexual autonomy and contraception and widespread concern of cancer with contraceptive use. We conclude, moving forward, that we and other researchers should continue to collaborate with communities to improve Indigenous women's reproductive healthcare.

Differential fetal growth rates mediated by sociodemographic factors in Yucatan, Mexico: an epidemiological study

Background Fetal growth restriction (FGR) may be related to ethnicity. Additionally, ethnic groups experience adverse socioeconomic circumstances that increase FGR risk. However, the dearth of evidence of the interaction between socioeconomic factors and FGR highlights the need for additional research. Objective To analyze the association between socioeconomic factors and FGR in Maya and non-Maya populations in Yucatan, Mexico. Methods A total of 21,320 singleton births in 2017 in Yucatan were analyzed. The student’s t-test and the chi-square test were used to compare the means and proportions of maternal and perinatal variables between the FGR group and the birthweight appropriate for gestational age (AGA) group. Path analysis was performed to identify the direct and indirect effects of socioeconomic factors on FGR and mediators between predictors and FGR. Results The prevalence of FGR at birth was 9.06%; this rate was higher in the Maya population (12.4, 95% CI 11.3–13.5), without differences between socioeconomic levels. Path analysis revealed sociostructural variables (ethnicity and poverty) are reliable predictors of FGR at birth mediated by maternal education (β = −.152, p < .001) and teenage pregnancy (β = .065, p = .037). The proposal path model had a good fit index CFI = .968, TLI = .920, RMSEA = .046. Conclusion The prevalence of FGR was higher among Maya women than non-Maya women The socioeconomic conditions associated with FGR at birth were ethnicity, poverty, maternal education, and teenage pregnancy. Maternal education and teenage pregnancy act as mediators between sociostructural variables and FGR at birth.

The use of formative research to culturally adapt a psychosocial support program for perinatal Mayan women in Guatemala

Indigenous Mayan women in Guatemala are at increased risk for perinatal psychological distress due to higher base rates of anxiety, depression, and PTSD linked to oppression, poverty, and a legacy of femicide. This paper discusses the process of adapting the Thinking Healthy Program (THP), a task-sharing intervention that targets perinatal depression, for use within a community health organization serving indigenous, Tz'utujil Mayan families in the Sololá region of Guatemala.The cultural adaptation of scalable psychological interventions conceptual framework was used throughout the adaptation process. A formative, mixed-methods approach triangulated findings from 1) qualitative key informant interviews with perinatal community health workers (PCHWs) and local mothers, 2) observational mock-role plays between PCHWs and distressed perinatal women, 3) a self-report questionnaire examining stigma and culturally-sanctioned help-seeking approaches, and 4) consultation with local stakeholders.Results of this study suggest that the THP can be adapted for Tz'utujil Mayan women by centering the adaption on the cultural idiom of Qajnaq ruchojq'aq’ (low force/energy). The explanatory model of Qajnaq ruchojq'aq’ is interpersonal in nature, thus the integration of techniques from a low-intensity interpersonal therapy intervention are indicated. Symptoms of Qajnaq ruchojq'aq’ were largely cognitive and behavioral, thus the primary treatment elements of the THP are well-aligned. Training adaptations were also identified, including addressing safety concerns and mental health stigma in the community. The next step is to pilot the adapted intervention, making iterative changes as necessary to best meet the psychosocial needs of Tz'utujil Mayan women. This model of adaptation, and findings regarding implementation of interpersonal elements and aspects to address safety, should be considered in future psychosocial programming for perinatal women in Latin American indigenous contexts.

For Mayan women seeking redress for unthinkable harm, whose justice?

For Mayan women seeking redress for unthinkable harm, whose justice?

Ethnic and sociodemographic correlates of developmental dysplasia of the hip in newborns from Yucatan, Mexico.

To provide an insight of the incidence of congenital developmental dysplasia of the hip in newborns from Yucatan born between 2015 and 2019 and analyze its association with maternal sociodemographic characteristics and neonatal, pregnancy and delivery related aspects. Retrospective, population-based study from Birth Registries database in Yucatan, Mexico between 2015 and 2019. Presence of hip dysplasia was described and analyzed considering three aspects (I) Maternal information (II) Pregnancy and birth (III) Neonatal examination. We obtained incidence rates from each year and the complete studied period. Association between hip dysplasia and maternal, neonatal and pregnancy/delivery variables was analyzed using logistic regression, unadjusted odds ratio and an adjusted model. Hip dysplasia occurred in 13 per 10 000 live births. Significant associations were found between hip dysplasia and maternal place of residence in a city <50 000 inhabitants, without a local clinic. Propensity to give birth to a neonate with hip dysplasia increased with maternal age and ethnicity, in female newborns and when total number of pregnancy consultations summed <5. Newborns with hip dysplasia were heavier and less susceptible to be delivered vaginally. Congenital developmental hip dysplasia was comparatively more frequent among offspring of Mayan women and suboptimal access to medical care during pregnancy. Female neonates were affected the most, those first-borns. Neonates with hip dysplasia were heavier and more susceptible to be born by cesarean section. Maternal, neonatal, and perinatal factors are associated with DDH in Yucatecan infants born during 2015-2019. Factors that describe living conditions seems to have a more important effect on the presence of this condition.

Do Maya women have the chance to improve their quality of life?

Background: Maya families suffered greatly during the henequen industry in the Yucatan, but the lives of the Maya women at the time were perhaps worse than anywhere in the world. Changes in Maya body height over the 20th century were assessed in order to show secular changes. The use of the sexual dimorphism index (SDI) allowed for the evaluation of the living conditions prevailing during the existence of the henequen haciendas to the Mexican revolution and a gradual improvement of these conditions by the end of the 20th century. Methods: In 1994, 364 men and 320 women aged 20-98 years were studied in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico. They were divided into six age groups and by sex: 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69 and 70+ years. Stature for both sexes, and age at menarche for women were considered. SDI in stature was calculated to assess living conditions. Results: There were smaller (0.25 cm/10 years) changes in height in men than in women (0.9 cm/10 years) and no significant changes in acceleration of maturation. SDI results showed changes from 9.9 to 7.6, and this may indicate a constant, but very small improvement of living conditions. The age at menarche of women did not show statistically significant acceleration with age. Conclusions: In the colonial period of the late 19th century until the Mexican Revolution, women were worse off than men. Previous research has shown that when living conditions change, men always react faster than women, e.g. by lowering or increasing body height. Our study of the Maya population in the 20th century showed otherwise; female height increased more than male height. This may reflect that the living conditions of Maya men have not changed over the 20th century, but have improved for women.

Never Obsolete: Private Household Workers and the Transaction of Domestic Work

Faced with the most up to date washing machine, the undocumented Rosa, newly arrived from Guatemala to Los Angeles, does what many resourceful Mayan women would: She handwashes clothes and lays them on the lawn to dry.1 Played for comic relief in the 1983 movie El Norte, this confrontation of the domestic worker with the machine represents how, presumably in the face of dirty wars in Latin America and rising labor force participation of mothers with small children in the United States, well-to-do households had it both ways: They purchased the latest appliances and relied upon the labor of immigrant women. Recent migrants appeared more tractable than the African Americans who historically had worked in other women's homes. New models superseded old Maytags, but domestic workers never became obsolete, despite the predictions of sociologists and the panicked laments of would-be employers.

Do Maya women have the chance to improve their quality of life?

Background: Maya families suffered greatly during the henequen industry in the Yucatan, but the lives of the Maya women at the time were perhaps worse than anywhere in the world. Changes in Maya body height over the 20th century were assessed in order to show secular changes. The use of the sexual dimorphism index (SDI) allowed for the evaluation of the living conditions prevailing during the existence of the henequen haciendas to the Mexican revolution and a gradual improvement of these conditions by the end of the 20th century. Methods: In 1994, 364 men and 320 women aged 20-98 years were studied in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico. They were divided into six age groups and by gender: 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69 and 70+ years. Stature for both genders, and age at menarche for women were considered. SDI in stature was calculated to assess living conditions. Results: There were smaller (0.25 cm/10 years) changes in height in men than in women (0.9 cm/10 years) and no significant changes in acceleration of maturation. SDI results showed changes from 9.9 to 7.6, and this may indicate a constant, but very small improvement of living conditions. The age at menarche of women did not show statistically significant acceleration with age. Conclusions: In the colonial period of the late 19th century until the Mexican Revolution, women were worse off than men. Previous research has shown that when living conditions change, men always react faster than women, e.g. by lowering or increasing body height. Our study of the Maya population in the 20th century showed otherwise; female height increased more than male height. This may reflect that the living conditions of Maya men have not changed over the 20th century, but have improved for women.