The practice of morality and the formation of identity among an
indigenous Latin American culture are framed in a pioneering
ethnography of sight that attempts to reverse the trend of
anthropological fieldwork and theory overshadowing one another.
In this vital and richly detailed work, methodology and theory
are treated as complementary partners as the author explores the
dynamic Mayan customs of the Q'eqchi' people living in the cultural
crossroads of Livingston, Guatemala. Here, Q'eqchi', Ladino, and
Garifuna (Caribbean-coast Afro-Indians) societies interact among
themselves and with others ranging from government officials to
capitalists to contemporary tourists.
The fieldwork explores the politics of sight and incorporates a
video camera operated by multiple people-- the author and the
Q'eqchi' people themselves-- to watch unobtrusively the traditions,
rituals, and everyday actions that exemplify the long-standing
moral concepts guiding the Q'eqchi' in their relationships and
tribulations. Sharing the camera lens, as well as the lens of
ethnographic authority, allows the author to slip into the world of
the Q'eqchi' and capture their moral, social, political, economic,
and spiritual constructs shaped by history, ancestry, external
forces, and time itself.
A comprehensive history of the Q'eqchi' illustrates how these
former plantation laborers migrated to lands far from their Mayan
ancestral homes to co-exist as one of several competing cultures,
and what impact this had on maintaining continuity in their
identities, moral codes of conduct, and perception of the changing
outside world.
With the innovative use of visual methods and theories, the
author'sreflexive, sensory-oriented ethnographic approach makes
this a study that itself becomes a reflection of the complex set of
social structures embodied in its subject.
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