BookMaya market women: power and tradition in San Juan Chamelco, Guatemala
Author
Title
- Maya market women: power and tradition in San Juan Chamelco, Guatemala.
Published
- Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2014.
HLAS annotation
HLAS annotation
- As acculturative pressures threaten cultural maintenance in many areas of Mesoamerica, Kistler presents a case study of a community where traditions have strengthened Q'eqchi Maya women's ability to mediate between the local indigenous identity and practices and the larger global world through their marketing abilities. Women empowered by their economic and political power manage to both incorporate changes and maintain traditions without undermining the ways of the ancestors. This well-written ethnography elaborates how this is done, an inspiration for sympathetic scholars and indigenous people alike.
More Information
Description
- 160 p.: appendix, bibl., index, photos, tables.
HLAS subjects
LC subjects
- Kekchi women--Guatemala--San Juan Chamelco--Economic conditions.
- Kekchi women--Guatemala--San Juan Chamelco--Social conditions.
- Women merchants--Guatemala--San Juan Chamelco.
- Kekchi Indians--Industries--Guatemala--San Juan Chamelco
- Kekchi Indians--Guatemala--San Juan Chamelco--Economic conditions.
- Kekchi Indians--Guatemala--San Juan Chamelco--Social life and customs.
- San Juan Chamelco (Guatemala)--Social life and customs.
Notes
- "As cultural mediators, Chamelco's market women offer a model of contemporary Q'eqchi' identity grounded in the strength of the Maya historical legacy. Guatemala's Maya communities have faced nearly five hundred years of constant challenges to their culture, from colonial oppression to the instability of violent military dictatorships and the advent of new global technologies. In spite of this history, the people of San Juan Chamelco, Guatemala, have effectively resisted significant changes to their cultural identities. Chamelco residents embrace new technologies, ideas, and resources to strengthen their indigenous identities and maintain Maya practice in the 21st century, a resilience that sets Chamelco apart from other Maya towns. Unlike the region's other indigenous women, Chamelco's Q'eqchi' market women achieve both prominence and visibility as vendors, dominating social domains from religion to local politics. These women honor their families' legacies through continuation of the inherited, high-status marketing trade. In Maya Market Women, S. Ashley Kistler describes how market women gain social standing as mediators of sometimes conflicting realities, harnessing the forces of global capitalism to revitalize Chamelco's indigenous identity. Working at the intersections of globalization, kinship, gender, and memory, Kistler presents a firsthand look at Maya markets as a domain in which the values of capitalism and indigenous communities meet"--Provided by publisher.
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
Series
- Interpretations of culture in the new millennium
ISBN
- 9780252038358 (hardback)
- 9780252079887 (paper)
Incorrect ISBN
- 9780252096228 (ebook)
HLAS topic/discipline search
HLAS volume records
HLAS contributor
- Duncan Earle