No abstract

This study, based on fieldwork in rural Lanquín, Guatemala, discusses cultural continuity and the sense of historicity through agricultural rituals and worship of the agricultural deity Tzuultaq’as. The place, Lanquín, and the Q’eqchi’ Maya peasant farmers are situated within a two-fold tension and contradiction. Geographically remote in relation to the economic centers in Guatemala, and marginal in infrastructural development, while their cash crop harvests never fail to be effected by the fluctuations of the global market. From the eclectic stance merging both theories of cultural essentialism and constructivism, by juxtaposing the emblematic event of the anti-Monsanto Law movement in 2014 in Guatemala, and by the calendrical cycles of ritual events, routines, and ceremonials in rural Lanquín, the subsistence practices of milpa (corn field) cultivation emerge as a central theme for cultural survival and continuity. The aggregated clusters of ritual processions and the system of symbolism used manifest the Q’eqchi’ peasant thought and practice of sustainability and conservancy in their construction of a modern cultural identity that maintains congruency with the cultural essence of a nativist identity.

This chapter is an epic look at teachers' paths through teacher education, public school teaching, and teacher educators' work in a regional university. One teacher narrative intersects with the history of the teaching profession, on how this life is shaped and is also shaped by the social construction of an American education. Ideologies of patriarchy, economic development of human capital including the corporate culture in the university are examined. The discussion reveals the everlasting urgency for radicalization in the teaching profession through the illustration of a teacher development of critical consciousness, resistance, and the struggle against the institutionalized disciplined docility in the teaching profession. The examination of life in schools and in the university reveals a dialectic between contradictions of institutional oppression and a teacher's development of pedagogy.

The pandemics of COVID-19, racial injustice, and inequality have brought the country to a screeching halt. Minoritized faculty at the intersection of race, class, gender, linguistic identity, and national origin have been impacted in profound ways. The researchers here discuss the ongoing challenges using Roy’s Portal metaphor and Freire’s political and ideological clarity to shed light on the failure of institutions of higher learning and on the opportunities of this historical moment to reexamine and recalibrate our praxis of liberation.

No abstract