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On Being Maya and Getting By

Heritage Politics and Community Development in Yucatán

by Sarah R. Taylor

Hardcover Price $63.00
Paperback Price $22.95
Ebook Price $18.95
30-day ebook rental price $9.50

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foreword by Walter Little


Copublished with the Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, University at Albany

IMS Studies on Culture and Society series


“This engaging book is important for any study of tourism and sustainable development. . . . Summing Up: Highly recommended.”
—CHOICE

"On Being Maya and Getting By is sure to be a useful text in introductory anthropology classrooms while also appealing to general audiences looking to learn more about the Maya world. . . . These conversations are critical for not just the Maya, but for us all as we consider notions of identity, economics, and getting by today."
—Anthropology Book Forum


On Being Maya and Getting By is an ethnographic study of the two Ek’Balams—a notable archaeological site and adjacent village—of the Yucatán Peninsula. When the archaeological site became a tourist destination, the village became the location of a community-based tourism development project funded by the Mexican government. Overt displays of heritage and a connection to Maya antiquity became important and profitable for the modern Maya villagers. Residents of Ek’Balam are now living in a complex ecosystem of natural and cultural resources where the notion and act of “being Maya” is deeply intertwined with economic development.
 
The book explores how Ek’Balam villagers negotiate and maneuver through a web of social programs, tourists, volunteers, and expectations while living their daily lives. Focusing on the active processes in which residents choose to participate, author Sarah R. Taylor provides insights into how the ideological conflicts surrounding economic development play out in the negotiations between internal community politics and external social actors. The conflicts implicit to conceptions of “community” as a target for development are made explicit through the systematic questioning of what exactly it means to be a member of a local, indigenous, or sustainable community in the process of being developed.
 
On Being Maya and Getting By is a rich description of how one community is actively negotiating with tourism and development and also a call for a more complex analysis of how rural villages are connected to greater urban, national, and global forces.

Sarah R. Taylor is assistant professor of anthropology at California State University, Dominguez Hills. Her research focuses on the sustainability of community-based tourism development, transmission of traditional ecological knowledge, and the cultural drivers of land use and land cover change in rural Yucatán, Mexico.

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Details

  • Hardcover Price: $63.00
  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-60732-771-4
  • Paperback Price: $22.95
  • Paperback ISBN: 978-1-60732-857-5
  • Ebook Price: $18.95
  • 30-day ebook rental price: $9.50
  • EISBN: 978-1-60732-772-1
  • Publication Month: November
  • Publication Year: 2018
  • Pages: 176
  • Illustrations: 42 figures
  • Discount Type: Short
  • Author: by Sarah R. Taylor
  • ECommerce Code: 978-1-60732-771-4

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