The possibility of violence beneath a thin veneer of civil society is a fact of daily life for twenty-first-century Guatemalans, from field laborers to the president of the country. "Crisis of Governance in Maya Guatemala" explores the causes and consequences of governmental failure by focusing on life in two K'iche' Maya communities in the country's western highlands. The contributors to this volume, who lived among the villagers for some time, include both undergraduate students and distinguished scholars. They describe the ways Mayas struggle to survive and make sense of their lives, both within their communities and in relation to the politico-economic institutions of the nation and the world.

Since Guatemala's thirty-six-year civil war ended in 1996, the state has been dysfunctional, the country's economy precarious, and physical safety uncertain. The intrusion of Mexican cartels led the U.S. State Department to declare Guatemala "the epicenter of the drug threat" in Central America. Rapid cultural change, weak state governance, organized crime, pervasive corruption, and ethnic exclusion provide the backdrop for the studies in this volume.

Seven nuanced ethnographies collected here reveal the complexities of indigenous life and describe physical and cultural conflicts within and between villages, between insiders and outsiders, and between local and federal governments. Many of these essays point to a tragic irony: the communities seem largely forgotten by the government until the state seeks to capture their resources--timber, minerals, votes. Other chapters portray villages responding to criminal activity through lynch mobs and by labeling nonconformist youth as gang members. In focusing on the internal dynamics of poor, marginal communities in Guatemala, this book explores the realities of life for indigenous people on all continents who are faced with the social changes brought about by war and globalization.

This ethnography describes the intense contradictions that exist between the cultural values of American life and the cultural values needed to survive in combat, as represented through the experiences of forward-deployed U.S. Army units in Germany during the height of the Cold War. Living in constant military readiness, yet participating in peacetime community and family processes, Army personnel had to tolerate the contradictions and live by both sets of principles. In soldier perception, family life and community activities ought to have been guided by American rather than military values. Yet the military ran the community, and military activities penetrated and disrupted family life.

In Germany the penetration and disruption was much exacerbated by isolation, for these Americans did not generally have the language or cultural skills to escape from the military community. Rather, they were marooned in an intensely judgmental fish bowl community where there was no private life. The resulting scrutiny and the measures people took to avoid it and sustain autonomy corrupted the community, its families, and the units themselves. The scrutiny, with its attendant risks, and the intense contradiction in values led to feelings of profound alienation.

When the traditional meets the modern, nowhere is the impact felt as personally as in the realm of health care. Because practitioners trained in Western science tend to ignore traditional medicine in developing countries, conflict is inevitable.Health Care in Maya Guatemala examines medical systems and institutions in three K'iche' Maya communities to reveal the conflicts between indigenous medical care and the Guatemalan biomedical system. The editors and contributors show how people in this rapidly modernizing society think about traditional practices - and reveal that health conditions in traditional communities deteriorate over time as long-standing medical practices erode in the face of Western encroachment. The contributors first consider cultural, institutional, and behavioral aspects of health care in Guatemala. Then they look closely at the nature and treatment of specific health issues, such as dentistry and mental health - especially depression. Finally they provide new insight on midwifery, nutrition, ethnomedicine, and other topics. As a whole, the volume proposes steps toward a health care system more accessible to Mayas, incorporating K'iche' concepts with Western thought. Representing trends seen throughout the world, it shows the necessity of cultural understanding if poor people are to have access to medicine that combines the best of both local tradition and international biomedicine. Although Western medicine continues to ignore the importance of local culture in its attempt to be ""scientific,"" this book makes a strong argument for giving tradition its due.

Mayas, and indeed all Guatemalans, are currently experiencing the collapse of their way of life. This collapse is disrupting ideologies, symbols, life practices, and social structures that have undergirded their society for almost five hundred years, and it is causing rapid and massive religious transformation among the K'iche' Maya living in highland western Guatemala. Many Maya are converting to Christian Pentecostal faiths in which adherents and leaders become bodily agitated during worship. Drawing on over fifty years of research and data collected by field-school students, Hawkins argues that two factors-cultural collapse and systematic social and economic exclusion--explain the recent religious transformation of Maya Guatemala and the style and emotional intensity through which that transformation is expressed. Guatemala serves as a window on religious change around the world, and Hawkins examines the rapid pentecostalization of Christianity not only within Guatemala but also throughout the global South. The ""pentecostal wail,"" as he describes it, is ultimately an acknowledgment of the angst and insecurity of contemporary Maya.