Weaving Generations Together: Evolving Creativity in the Maya of Chiapas (Resident Scholar) [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Patricia Marks Greenfield (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2004

For centuries, the Zinacantec Maya women of Mexico have woven and embroidered textiles that express their social and aesthetic values and embody their role as mothers and daughters. Boasting more than two hundred striking and detailed photographs of Zinacantec textiles and their makers, this innovative study provides a rare long-term examination of the cognitive and socialization processes involved in transmitting weaving knowledge across two generations. Author Patricia Marks Greenfield first visited the village of Nabenchauk in 1969 and 1970. Her return in 1991 and regular visits through 2003 enable her to combine a scholarly study of the impact of commercialization and globalization on textile production and sales, acculturation, and female socialization with poignant personal reflections on mother-daughter relationships, creativity, and collaboration. Her collection of data and range of approaches make this book a major contribution to studies of cognition and socialization, the life cycles of material culture, and the anthropology of the Maya. Weaving Generations Together will appeal to both the academic specialist and anyone who admires Maya weaving and culture.

Editorial Reviews

Review

[A] major contribution.... The book is worth it for the photographs alone. --Logan Doyle, Jr., Southwest Book Views

...Impressive. I don't know of any other study that looks at creativity-in-the-process-of-change. --Howard Gardner, Harvard University

[The book] is a pleasure to read….It will be of interest to anthropologists and…many readers interested in weaving and creativity in the weaving process….[as well as] developmental psychology. --Frank Cancian, University of California, Irvine

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: School of American Research Press; illustrated edition edition (September 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 193061828X
• ISBN-13: 978-1930618282
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #242,170 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Maya weaving and education, April 17, 2006

By 

E. N. Anderson (Riverside, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Weaving Generations Together: Evolving Creativity in the Maya of Chiapas (Resident Scholar) (Paperback)

If you visit the wholesale markets around Mexico City--quite a voyage--you will notice that some of the burliest and proudest truckers, hauling some of the biggest rigs, are wearing flaming-red ponchos that clearly say--or shout--"trucker elite here, as fine as it gets." These men are from Mayas from Zinacantan, a county in Chiapas, and their wives and daughters produce some of the finest and most blazingly eye-dazzling fabrics on earth.
For over 3 decades now, Patricia "Meg" Greenfield has been studying the women, their weaving methods, and above all how they teach their children to weave. Children learn by intensely involved watching and by practice (at first on toy looms). Mothers provide minimal verbal instruction; older peers provide more. The teacher/pupil ratio is 1:1 or better. Greenfield contrasts this learning-by-doing with schoolroom teaching, a rather new thing for Maya girls. Linear thinking and classroom drills can be hard to deal with after learning textile arts.
Until recently, the Zinacantan trademark was a red-and-white-striped fabric that goes back to pre-Spanish times. A very similar item around 700 years old turned up in a dry cave in the mountains near Zinacantan. Today, with some modest (and unevenly distributed) local affluence, and with tourists on the Pan-American Highway to buy pieces, creativity has blossomed, and far more red dye and fine embroidery are used. The results often make it to first-rank museums in Mexico, Europe, and the USA.
Meg Greenfield's work is part of a larger universe of studies of Maya education (Jean Lave, Barbara Rogoff-who also studies weaving--Becky Zarger, Rick Stepp...), and these in turn are part of one of the most successful projects in anthropology: the Chiapas Project begun and managed by the late Evon Vogt of Harvard University. A tireless organizer, Vogt sent hundreds of researchers to Zinacantan and nearby communities, at first to find ancient Maya traditions, later to find out absolutely everything. The research on education is thus thoroughly contexted in wider knowledge.
The implications for education are not spelled out in detail here; Rogoff has done more, in several books. Teachers and education planners ignore the findings at their peril. The benefits of traditional watch-and-do learning are profound, especially for nonverbal skills. We of the "modern" world are losing a very great deal by shifting increasingly to mindless drills tested by mindless multiple-choice machine-graded tests. We are losing all the brilliance and creativity and producing mechanized students.
Thus, I hope this book will not languish on the anthropology or (worse) the "traditional art" shelf. It should be required reading for educators.
It should also have an even wider appeal among anyone who loves photographs. The book illustrations are incredible. They are wonderfully printed; the trademark flame-red color shows up in its full subtlety, complexity, and artistic sophistication, rather than looking garish. Most of the shots are by Meg's daughter Lauren, with several by the legendary photographer and Maya scholar Frank Cancian.
My favorite photo, though, is one of Meg's: on p. xvi, Lauren poses next to a Maya girl (already, at nine years old, a good weaver). Lauren has a graceful smile for the camera, but Paxku has already perfected the grave, dignified, serious look that grown Maya think proper for public space. She is looking straight through the camera into the eyes of the viewer, with the calm self-confidence that has carried the Maya through five thousand eventful years.