The pan-Maya movement in global and local context
Description
This dissertation examines the articulation of macro and micro processes in relation to the pan-Maya movement in Guatemala. I argue that the form of the pan-Maya movement is not determined solely by its internal structures, as theories of nativism and revitalization would suggest, nor solely by global processes, as a world system approach would predict. Rather, the pan-Maya movement is shaped through the articulation of national, local, and global systems The pan-Maya movement operates at a national level in Guatemala, and the actions of the Guatemalan state, particularly its security forces, restrict the range of pan-Mayanist activism. Nonetheless, pan-Maya activists have taken advantage of changes in the post-Cold War global political economy to colonize a space for themselves in the competitive Guatemalan political arena. Pan-Maya leaders promote an ideology of cultural and ethnic pride, hoping to unite the diverse Maya groups into an effective political constituency. The cultural goals of pan-Mayanists fall outside of the confrontation between the Guatemalan Left and Right, and thus are largely seen by political and military leaders as innocuous The urban-based, educated leaders of the pan-Maya movement have been seen by many analysts as far removed from the realities of daily life in Maya communities. In comparing local cultural forms in Patzun and Tecpan to the national ideology of pan-Mayanism, however, I find many points of convergence. I explain these findings by postulating the existence of certain essential paradigms of Maya culture, shared by urban pan-Mayanists and rural Maya agriculturalists alike. These persistent paradigms provide the foundation for cultural innovation at the local as well as the national level, and result in the pan-Maya ideology being consistent with local cultural strategies The fact that culture can provide the basis for mobilization at various levels of aggregation is particularly relevant to the field of development. The pan-Maya movement shows that cultural issues can act to vertically integrate segments of a population, thus allowing development strategies formulated at a national level to harness cultural energy through grassroots participation