By Edward F. Fischer
As rules, items, and other people flow with expanding ease and pace throughout nationwide limitations and geographic distances, the industrial alterations and technological advances that allow this globalisation also are ironically contributing to the balkanisation of states, ethnic teams, and distinctive curiosity events. Exploring how this procedure is taking part in out in Guatemala, this e-book offers an leading edge synthesis of the neighborhood and international elements that experience led GuatemalaaEURO(t)s indigenous Maya peoples to claim and shield their cultural identification and strong point in the dominant Hispanic society. Drawing on fresh theories from cognitive experiences, interpretative ethnography, and political economic climate, Edward F. Fischer seems to be at person Maya activists and native cultures, in addition to altering nationwide and foreign strength kin, to appreciate how ethnic identities are built and expressed within the sleek global. on the worldwide point, he indicates how structural shifts in diplomacy have opened new venues of ethnic expression for GuatemalaaEURO(t)s majority Maya inhabitants. on the neighborhood point, he examines the procedures of identification development in Kaqchikel Maya cities, TecpA!n and PatzA * n, and exhibits how divergent neighborhood norms bring about assorted conceptions and expressions of Maya-ness, which still proportion sure basic similarities with the bigger pan-Maya undertaking. Tying those degrees of study jointly, Fischer argues that open-ended Maya aEUROoecultural logicsaEURO situation the ways that Maya contributors (national leaders and rural plenty alike) creatively convey their id in a speedily altering global. Edward F. Fischer is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Vanderbilt college.
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Extra resources for Cultural Logics and Global Economies: Maya Identity in Thought and Practice
Example text
In Part 3 (‘‘Maya Identity as Lived Experience in Tecpa´ n and Patzu´ n’’), I relate the macrocontext of the world system and pan-Maya identity politics to the lived experi- Name /T1732/T1732_CH01 08/22/01 06:11AM 30 ✹ Plate # 0-Composite Contexts of Study ence of culture in Tecpa´ n and Patzu´ n, showing how the ‘‘invention of tradition’’ is constrained by cultural forms maintained and adapted through concrete social actions. In examining cultural models of the heart and soul, I find salient principles of metaphysical balance (Chapter 6).
This cultural sensibility, in turn, rests on shared generative cultural logics. Maya cultural logics provide only a broad underlying foundation for comprehending and producing thought and behavior; they are productive and generative while ensuring continuity; and though by nature idiosyncratically internalized, their specific social instantiations may be deemed rational or irrational by others based on consensual norms, indicating their shared, normative quality. Such cultural logics, because they are cognitively deep, change at a much slower pace than surface elements.
Additional data come from extensive surveys (covering 10% of each town’s households) administered with the help of four local assistants in 1994. The role of the anthropological fieldworker in the community he or she studies is a tenuous one. On the one hand, s/he seeks to be an impartial observer of the actions of others. Observation, however, always involves participation, and in participation, one’s impartiality becomes compromised. In Tecpa´n, my wife and I went to great pains to remain neutral in the context of divisive local political and social relations.