Tecpan Guatemala: A Modern Maya Town In Global And Local Context (Westview Case Studies in Anthropology) [Paperback]

Edward F Fischer (Author), Carol Hendrickson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 13, 2002 | ISBN-10: 0813337224 | ISBN-13: 978-0813337227

This case study of a highland Guatemala town examines what it means to be Maya in a rapidly changing and globalized world. In providing an historical synopsis of the Kaqchikel Maya from pre-Columbian and Colonial times to the present day, this volume focuses on the dynamics of clutural boundaries in light of the use of the Kaqchikel language versus Spanish, the growing role of Protestantism and the revitalization of Maya religion versus Catholicism, and the effects of violent civil war on social networks. It examines the role of weaving and export agriculture in linking Tecpanecos to larger economic and political orbits and for defining local, regional, and national identities. As a result, this accessibly written book demonstrates that even seemingly traditional Maya cultural forms are actively constructed in the context of intense global connections.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Edward F Fischer is professor of anthropology and director of the Center for Latin American Studies at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of Cultural Logics and Global Economics and the series editor for the Westview Case Studies in Anthropology. Carol Hendrickson is professor of anthropology at Marlboro College and is the author of Weaving Identities.

Product Details

• Paperback: 184 pages
• Publisher: Westview Press (August 13, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813337224
• ISBN-13: 978-0813337227
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #726,287 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #76 in Books > History > Americas > Central America > Guatemala

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Insightful, November 17, 2008

By 

Andrew (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tecpan Guatemala: A Modern Maya Town In Global And Local Context (Westview Case Studies in Anthropology) (Paperback)

I found this book to be very insightful into understanding the historic and social context of Tecpan. I was going to be visiting the town and wanted to learn more about it.

Tecpan is a relatively unimpressive town on the surface, but this book helps you see all the currents and change happening under the surface. I found it fascinating to personally seek out examples of the changing culture that the author writes about. Highly recommended.

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Ethnography of Mayan Everyday Life in an Age of Global Corporatism, March 19, 2006

By 

Robert A. Williams "libertarian" (Oberlin, OH United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tecpan Guatemala: A Modern Maya Town In Global And Local Context (Westview Case Studies in Anthropology) (Paperback)

Professor Fischer of Vanderbilt University and Carol Hendrickson of Marlboro College have combined their several but separate and different participant observations of the Maya in Guatemala to produce this ethnographic case study of Tecpan, a Guatemalan highland town in the region of Chimal Tenango situated about 30 miles northwest of Guatemala City. Much of Fischer's contributions are based on his graduate studies during the 1990s under the auspices of Tulane University's Kaqchikel Language and Culture School, especially from 1993-94 when he and his future
wife Mareike Sattler "lived and worked in Tecpan, based in a two-room former Mennonite school house". Hendrickson's ethnographic researches go back to the 1970s, when "Guatemalan civil war was entering its most intense stage. She also lived and studied in Tecpan from 1980-81. Both authors have returned numerous times since then to stay current in their observations of the activities of the Tecpanecos.

The global context of the author's case study is U.S. foreign policy that supports rightwing dictatorships in Central American countries that pretend towards legitimacy via fraudulent elections, while open destablising democratically-elected governments such as the Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954. Because the Catholic Church is pro-democracy, Catholics are often targets of rightwing violence. U.S. intervention in Guatemala is a constant problem, just as it is in the neigbouring countries of Nicaragua, El Salvador, Grenada, Panama, Costa Rica, and Honduras - or the rest of the world for that matter. For example, during Hendrickson's ethnographic studies of the late '70s and early '80s, Guatemala was ruled by CIA-installed dictators - General Romeo Lucas Garcia (who ruled from '78-'81) and his successor General Efrain Rios Montt. These CIA-installed dictators killed tens of thousands of indegenous Mayans at the behest of their bosses in Washington, District of Criminals. Tecpan did not escape U.S.-generated violence: a Catholic priest was murdered, the town hall bombed, and more than 20 clandestine graves were later uncovered. As a result of past and continuing U.S. intervention, Guatemala is a society of poor people ruled by a U.S.-backed wealthy elite - 2% of the landowners own 70% of the land (and that's the land best suited to agriculture). Fischer and Hendrickson show that this inequality has an ethnic component - none of the U.S.-backed wealthy elite are indigenous people.

The first several chapters of this ethnography provide the reader with an historical context: chapter 1 provides a general introduction to Tecpan; chapter 2 provides the socio-political history of Tecpan, including U.S.-sponsored violence; chapter 3 provides some history of the indigenous Mayan and of the Kaqchikeles who live in Tecpan; chapter 4 discusses the effects of the devastating 1976 earthquake and the subsequent civil war. It is from these chapters, that the reader learns of the murder of Bishop Juan Gerardi on April 26, 1998, two days after his Human Rights Office of the Archbishop of Guatemala published a report entitled "Guatemala: Never Again", which clearly demonstrated "that the overwhelming majority of massacres in the highlands during the early 1980s were the work of government forces". The Bishop's killers were Guatemalan army officers Captain Byron Lima and Sergeant Jose Villaneuva, and accomplice Reverand Orantes, who all received prison terms, while their "intellectual authors of the murder . . . to be found higher up in the army's chain of command" such as Captain Byron Lima's father Colonel Bryon Lima escaping prison terms but not prosecution.

Chapter 5 is titled Kaqchikel Hearts, Souls, and Selves: Competing Religions and Worldviews. We learn that with the arrival of the Spanish not only came the misnomer "Indian" for the Native Mayans but also came Catholicism as state religion, although "Protestants - generally British - entered the Spanish/Catholic landscape of colonial Guatemala on occasion". In 1873, President Justo Rufino Barrios "stripped Catholicism of its status as state religion" and by 1947 there were three Southern Baptist churches. To Tecpanecos, Catholicism means drinking and smoking are accepted religious practices whereas Protestantism is opposed to these practices in addition to dancing. The drinking and smoking are often viewed as necessary crutches to surviving the haunting memories of the U.S.-sponsored "La Violencia" of the '70s and early '80s and that sometimes continues to reoccur as in the assassination of Bishop Girardi.

Chapter 6 looks at the inter-relations of dress and language in the on-going construction of identies in local culture. Chapter 7 examines local agriculture and carnation factory farm that ships globally. This is followed by a short conclusion that wraps up the Tecpan Mayan in the contemporary world: the growing pan-Mayan movement for indigenous rights and self-determination, a culture-based non-violent approach. But just across the border in Mexico, is another Mayan movement for indigenous rights called the Zapatista movement led by non-Mayan former university professor Rafael Guillen Vicente who wears a black ski mask and calls himself Subcomandante Marcos, and thus has become a symbol of Mayan Resistance: resistance is the key to success.

In conclusion, the authors did a competent job of participant observation of Mayan identity struggles in the face of U.S.-sponsored global corporatism. To flesh out the Mayan resistance movement in Guatemala would require covert participant observation, which would be difficult for the authors as non-Mayans to carry out. As a result, the rest of the Mayan story will have to await the work of future historians. In larger context, the plight of Guatemalans as the victims of U.S.-sponsored state terrorism is more than disturbing. It is a story where you can take out the word "Guatemala" and replace it with the word "Pakistan", "Syria", or "Iraq" and it loses none of its consistency. The CIA does not reinvent the wheel - their modus operandi is pre-packaged and transferable to any third world country. This book should be read along with "The 'Terrorism' Industry" by Edward Herman and Gerry O'Sullivan (1989).