Abstract:RESUMEN
Este informe explora la relación entre el conocimiento histórico y el poder en San Juan Chamelco, Guatemala. En Chamelco, los q'eqchi' producen la historia regional por medio de cuentos de Aj Pop B'atz', quien protegió la comunidad q'eqchi' contra la invasión española en el siglo XVI. En 2006, fundé un grupo étnografico colaborativo para analizar los cuentos orales y un documento colonial. Nuestro análisis revela Aj Pop B'atz' como una parte vital de la vida contemporánea q'eqchi'. Este artículo propon… Show more
“…Collaborative ethnography strives to overcome these issues by giving agency to the indigenous communities that participate in ethnographic work, including their voices in the cultural representations that result from ethnographic process. Participating in collaborative ethnographic research sometimes empowers communities (Rivera Cusicanqui ; Vasco ; Rappaport ; Kistler ; Butler ; Hale and Stephen ; Perry and Rappaport ).…”
Section: Bruce Grindal and The Transformation Of Ethnographic Writingmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Community members related that from his birth, it was his destiny to be the last great leader of the Q'eqchi’ people. While little is known about his childhood, community members and scholars of the region alike state that Aj Pop B'atz’ was chosen as leader of the Q'eqchi’ when the Spaniards abducted the region's previous ruler in 1529 (Estrada ; Guerrero Pérez : Kistler ). Sebastian told me:They say that he was 29 when he was elected cacique of the Verapaz region.…”
Section: Collaborative Research In Chamelcomentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Community elders and historical documents state that Aj Pop B'atz’ welcomed three Spanish friars to his home, where they baptized him as Catholic (Resurreción document; Estrada Monroy ; Kistler ). While he welcomed the Spaniards, he refused “to sell out” to them, as a former mayor of Chamelco told me.…”
Section: Collaborative Research In Chamelcomentioning
confidence: 99%
“…While he welcomed the Spaniards, he refused “to sell out” to them, as a former mayor of Chamelco told me. “[He said] ‘I will never sell my people.’ And that is where he didn't accept, he refused to negotiate with them.” Impressed by his actions, the friars invited Aj Pop B'atz’ to travel with them to Spain to meet King Carlos V in 1544 (Estrada Monroy ; Guerrero Pérez ; Kistler ; Resurreción document). Aj Pop B'atz’ made the long journey, travelling by boat with the men to Spain .…”
Section: Collaborative Research In Chamelcomentioning
confidence: 99%
“…As I've argued elsewhere (Kistler , ), Aj Pop B'atz’ is a symbol of Q'eqchi’ value, identity, and kinship for many Chamelqueños. Doña Valeria shared, “One cannot erase the story of [Aj Pop B'atz'] very easily, for all the work that he did.” She elaborated, “Chamelco is very important, because of its leader.…”
Section: Collaborative Research In Chamelcomentioning
The works of Bruce Grindal teach us many things about anthropology's humanistic tradition. With examples such as Redneck Girl and "Postmodernism as Seen by the Boys at Downhome Auto Repair," Bruce Grindal demonstrated how we can creatively engage our ethnographic writing to reflect lived experiences. In this article, I examine Bruce's influence on my ethnographic writing and collaborative research in the Maya community of San Juan Chamelco, Guatemala. Since 2006, I have worked collaboratively with a group of Chamelqueños to investigate the story of their local hero, Aj Pop B'atz'. In the 16th century, Aj Pop B'atz' welcomed Spanish invaders to Chamelco in peace, avoiding the death and destruction suffered by indigenous communities elsewhere. Today, he is revered as a model of indigenous identity. Throughout our work together, my collaborators and I sought outlets to share the information learned through our research with the community. In 2012, we co-wrote a bilingual children's book about Aj Pop B'atz' for use in Chamelco's schools. This book offered school children a chance to reconnect with their history, lost through decades of state-sponsored violence. The Aj Pop B'atz' project, inspired by Bruce Grindal's legacy, reveals that ethnographic writing can inform creative collaborative projects, making them accessible to those outside of academia and those with whom we work in the field. [Ethnographic writing, humanism, collaborative research, Maya, Guatemala]The marimba played loudly as I looked around the table at which I sat with my friends and colleagues, nestled in the side of the municipal hall of San Juan Chamelco, Guatemala. On this cool night in June 2012, we joined Chamelco's political leaders and most prominent residents at a gala celebrating the town fair. The event, sponsored by the municipal government each year, celebrates Chamelco's history and honors a select group of Chamelqueños who have contributed to the preservation of Q'eqchi'-Maya culture. The event was an important one not only for residents of Chamelco but also for my colleagues and me who had begun our collaborative research more than six years before. My return to Chamelco twenty-four hours before the gala was fortuitous: we had not anticipated the invitation to present our work-a bilingual children's book about Chamelco's founder-at the event. When news of our project reached the mayor, we received an invitation to speak at the gala.As I sat with my friends, nervously waiting for the moment we would speak to the crowd, I took in the scene around me. The marimba played cheerfully to mark the occasion. The aroma of the pine branches decorating the room bs_bs_banner
“…Collaborative ethnography strives to overcome these issues by giving agency to the indigenous communities that participate in ethnographic work, including their voices in the cultural representations that result from ethnographic process. Participating in collaborative ethnographic research sometimes empowers communities (Rivera Cusicanqui ; Vasco ; Rappaport ; Kistler ; Butler ; Hale and Stephen ; Perry and Rappaport ).…”
Section: Bruce Grindal and The Transformation Of Ethnographic Writingmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Community members related that from his birth, it was his destiny to be the last great leader of the Q'eqchi’ people. While little is known about his childhood, community members and scholars of the region alike state that Aj Pop B'atz’ was chosen as leader of the Q'eqchi’ when the Spaniards abducted the region's previous ruler in 1529 (Estrada ; Guerrero Pérez : Kistler ). Sebastian told me:They say that he was 29 when he was elected cacique of the Verapaz region.…”
Section: Collaborative Research In Chamelcomentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Community elders and historical documents state that Aj Pop B'atz’ welcomed three Spanish friars to his home, where they baptized him as Catholic (Resurreción document; Estrada Monroy ; Kistler ). While he welcomed the Spaniards, he refused “to sell out” to them, as a former mayor of Chamelco told me.…”
Section: Collaborative Research In Chamelcomentioning
confidence: 99%
“…While he welcomed the Spaniards, he refused “to sell out” to them, as a former mayor of Chamelco told me. “[He said] ‘I will never sell my people.’ And that is where he didn't accept, he refused to negotiate with them.” Impressed by his actions, the friars invited Aj Pop B'atz’ to travel with them to Spain to meet King Carlos V in 1544 (Estrada Monroy ; Guerrero Pérez ; Kistler ; Resurreción document). Aj Pop B'atz’ made the long journey, travelling by boat with the men to Spain .…”
Section: Collaborative Research In Chamelcomentioning
confidence: 99%
“…As I've argued elsewhere (Kistler , ), Aj Pop B'atz’ is a symbol of Q'eqchi’ value, identity, and kinship for many Chamelqueños. Doña Valeria shared, “One cannot erase the story of [Aj Pop B'atz'] very easily, for all the work that he did.” She elaborated, “Chamelco is very important, because of its leader.…”
Section: Collaborative Research In Chamelcomentioning
The works of Bruce Grindal teach us many things about anthropology's humanistic tradition. With examples such as Redneck Girl and "Postmodernism as Seen by the Boys at Downhome Auto Repair," Bruce Grindal demonstrated how we can creatively engage our ethnographic writing to reflect lived experiences. In this article, I examine Bruce's influence on my ethnographic writing and collaborative research in the Maya community of San Juan Chamelco, Guatemala. Since 2006, I have worked collaboratively with a group of Chamelqueños to investigate the story of their local hero, Aj Pop B'atz'. In the 16th century, Aj Pop B'atz' welcomed Spanish invaders to Chamelco in peace, avoiding the death and destruction suffered by indigenous communities elsewhere. Today, he is revered as a model of indigenous identity. Throughout our work together, my collaborators and I sought outlets to share the information learned through our research with the community. In 2012, we co-wrote a bilingual children's book about Aj Pop B'atz' for use in Chamelco's schools. This book offered school children a chance to reconnect with their history, lost through decades of state-sponsored violence. The Aj Pop B'atz' project, inspired by Bruce Grindal's legacy, reveals that ethnographic writing can inform creative collaborative projects, making them accessible to those outside of academia and those with whom we work in the field. [Ethnographic writing, humanism, collaborative research, Maya, Guatemala]The marimba played loudly as I looked around the table at which I sat with my friends and colleagues, nestled in the side of the municipal hall of San Juan Chamelco, Guatemala. On this cool night in June 2012, we joined Chamelco's political leaders and most prominent residents at a gala celebrating the town fair. The event, sponsored by the municipal government each year, celebrates Chamelco's history and honors a select group of Chamelqueños who have contributed to the preservation of Q'eqchi'-Maya culture. The event was an important one not only for residents of Chamelco but also for my colleagues and me who had begun our collaborative research more than six years before. My return to Chamelco twenty-four hours before the gala was fortuitous: we had not anticipated the invitation to present our work-a bilingual children's book about Chamelco's founder-at the event. When news of our project reached the mayor, we received an invitation to speak at the gala.As I sat with my friends, nervously waiting for the moment we would speak to the crowd, I took in the scene around me. The marimba played cheerfully to mark the occasion. The aroma of the pine branches decorating the room bs_bs_banner
German coffee planters in nineteenth-century Alta Verapaz, Guatemala were also ethnographers, archaeologists, and geographers who published their works in Germany, the United States, and Guatemala. Their published works, as well as coffee plantation records, government correspondence, judicial records and other archival materials reveal how German coffee planters-cum-ethnographers drew upon ethnographic knowledge and representations to forge a reliable labor force. Like ethnographers in Britain's colonies, German settlers in Alta Verapaz understood the potential symmetry between ethnography and the governance of indigenous peoples. Their ethnographic knowledges also push us to reconsider distinctions drawn between German cosmopolitan ethnographic traditions and British functionalist ones and demonstrate how ethnographic knowledge and cultural difference could be deployed to forge new kinds of racial capitalism. In Guatemala, the intimate relationship between the rise of capitalism and ethnography shaped the anti-communism of mid-twentieth-century anthropology in the region.
In San Juan Chamelco, Guatemala, the Q'eqchi' redefine history through narratives of Aj Pop B'atz', the sixteenth-century Q'eqchi' leader. Chamelqueños trace their strength of character and the perseverance of indigenous practice to his legacy. This article examines Aj Pop B'atz' as a model of Q'eqchi' kinship. In Chamelco, Q'eqchi' junkab'als, ''families,'' consist of individuals connected through biological or social ties. Stories of Aj Pop B'atz' are part of the shared substance that binds them as kin. By grounding the contemporary family in Q'eqchi' history, Chamelqueños define their indigenous identity in a time of global challenges and political unrest (Maya, kinship, ethnohistory, shared substance).
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