Chewing gum town thematic park: Mayan social interactions at south state of quintana roo in Mexico

Abstract

If you were traveling by car or bus on the road Chacchoben to Merida you will see to the right a sign with the name "Pueblo Chiclero", a Thematic Park mysteriously closed. The site was strategy planning in a convergence of two points making a touristic circuit: one, Majahual cruise dock, and the other one, Chacchoben archeological site. Both were recently inaugurated, and at the same time, infrastructure was improved with roads expansion and highquality pavement. So, tourist could arrive to Majahual and have also these two cultural touristic options to visit at south state. We were informed during fieldwork that Chewing Gum Town burned and for that reason it was closed to tourist and to everybody in general even people from Chacchoben. Also, they told us front door had a padlock. During our interviews to local population, people told us Chewing Gum Town was burned. But a version of one family was difference from the version of the others. This family members, told us, it was not burned and invited us to visit it. They told us, only one palapa ii burned but the rest of the theme park did not. At the end, we concluded people to hide corruption prefer to say it is burned. Based on Dan Sperber, iii which talk about what socially evoke an event, our objective is to identify what does it means and evoke to local people Park Thematic burned and what are the purpose to maintain socially Thematic Park burned while physically the rest remained intact? In our information analysis process became two theories: some people said was nature, other said was intentionally. Some of them explained i Chacchoben is a Mayan word that means a place where purple corn grows. ii A place where people could be gathered to make different activities such meeting, shopping, eat, dance, etc. It has a roof made of dried palms and wooden supports. Tourist business like this kind of architecture but is very vulnerable because fire and hurricanes end easily with this construction.