Author: Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Anthropology
Languages : en
Pages : 132
Book Description
Research Reports in Belizean History and Anthropology
Author: Everyday Life Matters
Author: Cynthia RobinPublisher:
ISBN: 9780813044996
Category : Archaeology
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
While the study of ancient civilizations has often focused on holy temples and royal tombs, a substantial part of the archaeological record remains hidden in the understudied day-to-day lives of artisans, farmers, hunters, and other ordinary people of the ancient world. The various chores of a person's daily life can be quite extraordinary and, even though they may seem trivial, such activities can have a powerful effect on society as a whole. In this book, the author develops general methods and theories for studying everyday life - methods that are applicable in archaeology, anthropology, and a wide range of disciplines.
Coloniality in the Maya Lowlands
Author: Kasey Diserens MorganPublisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1646422848
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 303
Book Description
Coloniality in the Maya Lowlands explores what has been required of the Maya to survive both internal and external threats and other destabilizing forces. These include shifting power dynamics and sociocultural transformations, tumultuous political regimes, the precarity of newly formed nation states, migration in search of refuge, and newly globalizing economies in the Yucatecan lowlands in the Late Colonial to Early National periods—the times when formal Spanish colonial rule was giving way to Yucatecan and Mexican neocolonial settler systems. The work takes a hemispheric approach to the historical and material analysis of colonialism, bridging the often disparate literatures on coloniality and settler colonialism. Archaeologists and anthropologists working in what are today southeastern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras grapple with the material realities of coloniality at a regional level. They provide sustained discussions of Maya experiences with wide-ranging colonial endurances: violence, resource insecurity, land rights, refugees, the control of borders, the movement of contraband, surveillance, individual and collective agency, consumption, and use of historic resources. Considering a future for historical archaeologies of the Maya region that bridges anthropology, ethnohistory, Indigenous studies, settler colonial studies, and Latin American studies, Coloniality in the Maya Lowlands presents a new understanding of how ways of being in the Maya world have formed and changed over time, as well as the shared investments of historical archaeologists and sociocultural anthropologists working in the Maya region. Contributors: Fernando Armstrong-Fumero, Alejandra Badillo Sánchez, Adolfo Iván Batún Alpuche, A. Brooke Bonorden, Maia C. Dedrick, Scott L. Fedick, Fior García Lara, John Gust, Brett A. Houk, Rosemary A. Joyce, Gertrude B. Kilgore, Jennifer P. Mathews, Patricia A. McAnany, James W. Meierhoff, Fabián A. Olán de la Cruz, Julie K. Wesp
Decolonizing Linguistics
Author: Anne H. Charity HudleyPublisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197755259
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 489
Book Description
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. It is free to read at Oxford Academic and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Decolonizing Linguistics, the companion volume to Inclusion in Linguistics, is designed to uncover and intervene in the history and ongoing legacy of colonization and colonial thinking in linguistics and related fields. Taken together, the two volumes are the first comprehensive, action-oriented, book-length discussions of how to advance social justice in all aspects of the discipline. The introduction to Decolonizing Linguistics theorizes decolonization as the process of centering Black, Native, and Indigenous perspectives, describes the extensive dialogic and collaborative process through which the volume was developed, and lays out key principles for decolonizing linguistic research and teaching. The twenty chapters cover a wide range of languages and linguistic contexts (e.g., Bantu languages, Creoles, Dominican Spanish, Francophone Africa, Zapotec) as well as various disciplines and subfields (applied linguistics, communication, historical linguistics, language documentation and revitalization/reclamation, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, syntax). Contributors address such topics as refusing settler-colonial practices and centering community goals in research on Indigenous languages; decolonizing research partnerships between the Global South and the Global North; and prioritizing Black Diasporic perspectives in linguistics. The volume's conclusion lays out specific actions that linguists can take through research, teaching, and institutional structures to refuse coloniality in linguistics and to move the field toward a decolonized future.
Negotiating Heritage through Education and Archaeology
Author: Alicia Ebbitt McGillPublisher: University Press of Florida
ISBN: 0813057876
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
Through an innovative approach that combines years of ethnographic research with British imperial archival sources, this book reveals how cultural heritage has been negotiated by colonial, independent state, and community actors in Belize from the late nineteenth century to the present. Alicia McGill explores the heritage of two African-descendant Kriol communities as seen in the contexts of archaeology and formal education. McGill demonstrates that in both spheres, Belizean institutions have constructed and used heritage places and ideologies to manage difference, govern subjects and citizens, and reinforce development agendas. In the communities studied here, ancient Maya cities and legacies have been prized while Kriol histories have been marginalized, and racial and ethnic inequalities have endured. Yet McGill shows that at the same time, Belizean teachers and children resist, maintaining their Kriol identity through storytelling, subsistence practices, and other engagements with ecological resources. They also creatively identify connections between themselves and the ancient cultures that once lived in their regions. Exploring heritage as a social construct, McGill provides examples of the many ways people construct values, meanings, and customs related to it. Negotiating Heritage through Education and Archaeology is a richly informed study that emphasizes the importance of community-based engagement in public history and heritage studies. A volume in the series Cultural Heritage Studies, edited by Paul A. Shackel
Household Ecology
Author: Richard R. WilkPublisher:
ISBN: 9780875805757
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280
Book Description
Development and economic change are often seen as destructive to the family and to other traditional forms of social organization. Wilk's study of household ecology reveals that the Kekchi Maya of Belize have responded by creating new forms of family organization, working together to face challenges posed by development. Not merely survivors of an ancient splendor, the Kekchi Maya build upon their rich heritage to approach such problems as ethnic strife and rainforest destruction as creative agents. Wilk combines a wealth of detail on agricultural calendars, hunting practices, land tenure, and labor exchanges in a general interpretation of cultural and ecological transformation. He provides a comprehensive analysis of how tropical farmers survive in the difficult rainforest environment, tracing the ingenuity and adaptability of Mayan culture. Fully incorporating the historical context of ecological processes, he documents the importance of household organization in shaping the trajectory of ecological change and shows how delicate this adaptation can be. Analyzing household response to localized economic and ecological settings, Wilk argues that the transformation of the rural economy and of Mayan culture proceeds through the conjunction of global and local processes. The Kekchi refuse to fit into the models of economic evolution set forth in existing scholarship. This sensitive and well-written study challenges current orthodoxies about economic and social change and suggests new approaches to rural development and household ecology.
The Ancient Maya Marketplace
Author: Eleanor M. KingPublisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816532176
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336
Book Description
Trading was the favorite occupation of the Maya, according to early Spanish observers such as Fray Diego de Landa (1566). Yet scholars of the Maya have long dismissed trade—specifically, market exchange—as unimportant. They argue that the Maya subsisted primarily on agriculture, with long-distance trade playing a minor role in a largely non-commercialized economy. The Ancient Maya Marketplace reviews the debate on Maya markets and offers compelling new evidence for the existence and identification of ancient marketplaces in the Maya Lowlands. Its authors rethink the prevailing views about Maya economic organization and offer new perspectives. They attribute the dearth of Maya market research to two factors: persistent assumptions that Maya society and its rainforest environment lacked complexity, and an absence of physical evidence for marketplaces—a problem that plagues market research around the world. Many Mayanists now agree that no site was self-sufficient, and that from the earliest times robust local and regional exchange existed alongside long-distance trade. Contributors to this volume suggest that marketplaces, the physical spaces signifying the presence of a market economy, did not exist for purely economic reasons but served to exchange information and create social ties as well. The Ancient Maya Marketplace offers concrete links between Maya archaeology, ethnohistory, and contemporary cultures. Its in-depth review of current research will help future investigators to recognize and document marketplaces as a long-standing Maya cultural practice. The volume also provides detailed comparative data for premodern societies elsewhere in the world.
Communities Surviving Migration
Author: James P. RobsonPublisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351729357
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
Out-migration might decrease the pressure of population on the environment, but what happens to the communities that manage the local environment when they are weakened by the absence of their members? In an era where community-based natural resource management has emerged as a key hope for sustainable development, this is a crucial question. Building on over a decade of empirical work conducted in Oaxaca, Mexico, Communities Surviving Migration identifies how out-migration can impact rural communities in strongholds of biocultural diversity. It reflects on the possibilities of community self-governance and survival in the likely future of limited additional migration and steady – but low – rural populations, and what different scenarios imply for environmental governance and biodiversity conservation. In this way, the book adds a critical cultural component to the understanding of migration-environment linkages, specifically with respect to environmental change in migrant-sending regions. Responding to the call for more detailed analyses and reporting on migration and environmental change, especially in contexts where rural communities, livelihoods and biodiversity are interconnected, this volume will be of interest to students and scholars of environmental migration, development studies, population geography, and Latin American studies.
Approaches to Monumental Landscapes of the Ancient Maya
Author: Brett A. HoukPublisher: University Press of Florida
ISBN: 0813057345
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 497
Book Description
This volume brings together a wide spectrum of new approaches to ancient Maya studies in an innovative exploration of how the Preclassic and Classic Maya shaped their world. Moving beyond the towering temples and palaces typically associated with the Maya civilization, contributors present unconventional examples of monumental Maya landscapes. Featuring studies from across the central Maya lowlands, Belize, and the northern and central Maya highlands and spanning over 10,000 years of human occupation in the region, these chapters show how the word “monumental” can be used to describe natural and constructed landscapes, political and economic landscapes, and ritual and sacred landscapes. Examples include a massive system of aqueducts and canals at the Kaminaljuyu site, a vast arena designed for public spectacle at Chan Chich, and even the complex realms of Maya cosmology as represented by the ritual cave at Las Cuevas. By including physical, conceptual, and symbolic ways monumentality pervaded ancient Maya culture, this volume broadens traditional understandings of how the Maya interacted with their environment and provides exciting analytical perspectives to guide future study. A volume in the series Maya Studies, edited by Diane Z. Chase and Arlen F. Chase
The Ancient Maya of the Belize Valley
Author: James GarberPublisher:
ISBN: 9780813026855
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 417
Book Description
"An admirable contribution to the growing literature on Maya settlement research initiated by Gordon Willey in the Belize Valley in the 1950s."—Shirley B. Mock, University of Texas, San Antonio Over half a century ago, the late Gordon Willey began his research in the Belize Valley, and ten years later he published a synthesis of his data that is recognized today as a classic study of ancient Maya settlement patterns. This new volume looks at the abundant research that has taken place in the region since the 1950s (and includes a new retrospective chapter from Willey that was submitted shortly before his death in April, 2002). The Ancient Maya of the Belize Valley represents an attempt to present in one volume the extensive data from the diverse sites in this part of Mesoamerica, one of the richest archaeological areas in the Maya world. The collection provides a key to understanding the valley's ancient political and social organization by highlighting the interconnectedness of the region's settlements. Contents 1. The Archaeology of the Belize Valley in Historical Perspective, by Arlen F. Chase and James F. Garber 2. Retrospective, by Gordon R. Willey Part 1. The Central Belize Valley 3. Middle Formative Prehistory of the Central Belize Valley: An Examination of Architecture, Material Culture, and Sociopolitical Change at Blackman Eddy, by James F. Garber, Jaime J. Awe, M. Kathryn Brown, and Christopher J. Hartman 4. Archaeological Investigations at Blackman Eddy, by James F. Garber, M. Kathryn Brown, W. David Driver, David M. Glassman, Christopher J. Hartman, F. Kent Reilly III, and Lauren A. Sullivan 5. Major Center Identifiers at a Plazuela Group Near the Ancient Maya Site of Baking Pot, by James M. Conlon and Terry G. Powis 6. Ancient Maya Settlement in the Valley of Peace Area, by Lisa J. Lucero, Scott L. Fedick, Andrew Kinkella, and Sean M. Graebner Part 2. The Upper Belize Valley 7. Cahal Pech, Belize: The Middle Formative Period, by Paul F. Healy, David Cheetham, Terry G. Powis, and Jaime J. Awe 8. The Role of "Terminus Groups" in Lowland Maya Site Planning: An Example from Cahal Pech, by David Cheetham 9. Buenavista del Cayo: A Short Outline of Occupational and Cultural History at an Upper Belize Valley Regal-Ritual Center, by Joseph W. Ball and Jennifer T. Taschek 10. Xunantunich in a Belize Valley Context, by Richard M. Leventhal and Wendy Ashmore 11. The Royal Charter at Xunantunich, by Virginia M. Fields 12. Buenavista del Cayo, Cahal Pech, and Xunantunich: Three Centers, Three Histories, One Central Place, by Jennifer T. Taschek and Joseph W. Ball Part 3. The Belize Valley: Neighboring Connections 13. The Ancient Maya Center of Pacbitun, by Paul F. Healy, Bobbi Hohmann, and Terry G. Powis 14. Defining Royal Maya Burials: A Case from Pacbitun, by Paul F. Healy, Jaime J. Awe, and Hermann Helmuth 15. Integration among Communities, Centers, and Regions: The Case from El Pilar, by Anabel Ford 16. The Classic Maya Trading Port of Moho Cay, by Heather McKil lop Part 4. The Belize Valley: Intergration 17. Problems in the Definition and Interpretation of "Minor Centers" in Maya Archaeology with Reference to the Upper Belize River Valley, by Gyles Iannone 18. The Emergence of Minor Centers in the Zones between Seats of Power, by W. David Driver and James F. Garber 19. The Terminal Classic to Postclassic Transition in the Belize River Valley, by James Aimers 20. Polities, Politics, and Social Dynamics: "Contextualizing" the Archaeology of the Belize Valley and Caracol, by Arlen F. Chase 21. Diverse Voices: Toward an Understanding of Belize Valley Archaeology, by Diane Z. Chase James F. Garber is professor of anthropology and field school director at Southwest Texas State University. He is the author of Archaeology at Cerros Belize, Central America, volume 2, The Artifacts.