1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910780326503321

Autore

Fischer Edward F. <1966->

Titolo

Cultural logics and global economics [[electronic resource] ] : Maya identity in thought and practice / / Edward F. Fischer

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Austin, : University of Texas Press, 2001

ISBN

0-292-79826-1

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (302 p.)

Disciplina

305.897/415207281

Soggetti

Mayas - Guatemala - Ethnic identity

Mayas - Guatemala - Politics and government

Cakchikel Indians - Ethnic identity

Cakchikel Indians - Politics and government

Guatemala Politics and government 1985-

Guatemala Economic conditions 1985-

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [261]-280) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Figures -- Acknowledgments -- PART I Contexts of Study -- 1 Maya Culture and Identity Politics -- 2 Tecpán and Patzún -- PART II Global Processes and Pan-Maya Identity Politics -- 3 Guatemalan Political Economies and the World System -- 4 The Rise of Pan-Maya Activism -- 5 Constructing a Pan-Maya Identity in a Postmodern World -- PART III Maya Identity as Lived Experience in Tecpán and Patzún -- 6 Souls, Socialization, and the Kaqchikel Self -- 7 Hearth, Kin, and Communities -- 8 Local Forms of Ethnic Resistance -- 9 Economic Change and Cultural Continuity -- PART IV Conclusion -- 10 Convergent Strategies and Cultural Logics -- Notes -- Glossary -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

As ideas, goods, and people move with increasing ease and speed across national boundaries and geographic distances, the economic changes and technological advances that enable this globalization are also paradoxically contributing to the balkanization of states, ethnic groups, and special interest movements. Exploring how this process is playing out in Guatemala, this book presents an innovative synthesis of the local and global factors that have led Guatemala's indigenous Maya



peoples to assert and defend their cultural identity and distinctiveness within the dominant Hispanic society. Drawing on recent theories from cognitive studies, interpretive ethnography, and political economy, Edward F. Fischer looks at individual Maya activists and local cultures, as well as changing national and international power relations, to understand how ethnic identities are constructed and expressed in the modern world. At the global level, he shows how structural shifts in international relations have opened new venues of ethnic expression for Guatemala's majority Maya population. At the local level, he examines the processes of identity construction in two Kaqchikel Maya towns, Tecpán and Patzún, and shows how divergent local norms result in different conceptions and expressions of Maya-ness, which nonetheless share certain fundamental similarities with the larger pan-Maya project. Tying these levels of analysis together, Fischer argues that open-ended Maya "cultural logics" condition the ways in which Maya individuals (national leaders and rural masses alike) creatively express their identity in a rapidly changing world.