Lake Atitlan, Guatemala.Unfortunately, I will miss the class on Friday while I am out doing my thesis defense, so I have to use this journal entry to respond to the two articles we read for this week without the benefit of a group discussion. This is especially unfortunate, because I found this first article (Fischer) to be particularly difficult to understand completely. I kept getting bogged down in the language, the unfamiliar terminology (could he please define "constructivism"?), and the l e n g t h of the article. Probably magnified by the fact that in the JStor version I couldn't zoom in on the tiny text, so the reading was not only difficult, but tiresome.
Summary & Reflection: What I took away from the article came more from the analysis portion of the paper...the descriptive bits about Maya cultural identity, and how it is being preserved. I studied International Relations in college, with an emphasis in Latin America, so I have at least a basic familiarity with Mayan culture. I read the book, Yo, Rigoberta Menchú. I had researched the mass killings the took place in the early 80s. Incidentally, this past weekend I had Sunday brunch with a friend and her husband (who is from El Salvador), who told us about his family's near escape from that rash of violence. They had gone on a vacation for Easter, so were not in the village when the School of the America's trained killing squad rolled in. According to José's story, the seemingly benign officers hung flyers and used loudspeakers to announce a town meeting--all residents were to attend, regardless of age. Once the villagers were assembled in the central plaza, a rain of machine gun bullets knocked them down. Among them were José's uncle and several childhood friends.
José's ancestry is Maya, but as he acknowledges, his fair coloring suggests a good helping of European blood as well. He doesn't speak Maya, either, but he speaks both Spanish (native tongue) and English (fluently). He went to part of high school and all of college in various parts of the U.S. (mainly East Coast), and he now lives in Roseville and works for the Federal Reserve bank. His wife is originally from Mexico, and they met in California. Their 2 year-old son bears the anglicized version of his father's name; Joseph.
According to some of the Maya respondents in the Pilkington et al. article, José has crossed over to the ladino side. His k'u'x (heart/soul/essence) lacking "centering" or "balance" with the cosmic processes. In order to re-center, he would return to his town, his three stone hearth, perhaps offer some kind of sacrifice (blood, for example) to the ground, and otherwise participate in Mayan cosmic rites governed by tradition and the Mayan calendar.
José appears uninterested in doing so, however, as his home now is a cute 1 1/2 story house behind the Rosedale Mall. Even the name given to his son reveals his intentions to stay and nurture the roots he has established far from the village of his childhood. He tells me that some of the townspeople (survivors and family of survivors) are just now beginning to return to the village. But it's hard, he says. Everything must be rebuilt. And not just the buildings...everything.
The Cultural logic of the Maya was significantly damaged by that attack, and countless others through post-Columbian history. Questions of rebuilding are at the forefront of indigenous activist movements. But while the longstanding worldview of the Mayan culture was one of fractured, localized groups with mutually un-intelligble dialects, a new pan-Maya movement is attempting to gather up these disparate branches of Maya' identity under a single Maya' identified umbrella. Helping the pan-Maya activists is a shared cultural value/logic among Maya peoples who tend to see unity in apparently divergent groups.
"Cultural logic is defined as generative principles expressed through cognitive schemas that promote inter-subjective continuity and are conditioned by social, political, and economic contingencies. Both change and continuity are integral to the concept of cultural logic, and I present evidence that they are mutually constitutive in lived experience (Fischer, 1999, p. 474). As such, cultural logic is defined as the glue holding cultural elements together. As a visual example of this idea, I think of a brick wall and the mortar or grout between the bricks as the cultural logic. Clearly, the brick wall cannot stand without the mortar, nor can the mortar alone create a wall. All elements depend on each other, supporting eachother, and held together and in place by the surrounding, cohesive glue. For the Maya, cultural logic can be interpreted in various ways, and the Pan-Mayanist movement is attempting to revise the groups' cultural logic in a way that encompasses that immense diversity that exists even within their own ethnic group.
Questions: It was interesting to me to read how problems associated with substance abuse, violence, and mental health, as well as personal choices in religion or language adoption could all be attributed to simply to a "de-centering" or imbalance of the k'u'x. Of course adhering to and espousing this very belief is at the core of Maya identity, and verily, going against it is indeed going against Maya identity. Of course, even if it is seemingly simplistic, it brings up questions for applying such simplistic "prescriptions" for our own cultural de-centering. How can one feel more centered in his or her Mexican identity when living in Minnesota? A trip to a Mexican market? A meal of authentic Mexican foods? Turning the volume up to hear Mexican music while driving in your car? On some level, and to various degrees, all of these activities can relate to an active, prescriptive "centering" of Mexican k'u'x...but since k'u'x is linguistically tied to the Maya alone, let us use another word...alma (soul), identidad (identity), or perhaps, embracing Mexican vernacular, "sabor" (flavor). Perhpas sabor is a great word to describe the kind of centering that happens when living outside of Mexico...a key point of difference between Mexican and U.S. identity, from a Mexican perspective, for the key choice of language (sabor being a commonly used expression to describe personality even moreso than food), and to highlight a perceived "flavorlessness" of the United States Anglo-Saxon...not to mention the tastes and smells of "home" that the word conjures. "Sabor" as an identity aspect can imply the addition of spice, the modification of recipes, and the "art" of cooking--a dash of this, a pinch of that, to create a combination of elements that nourishes, sustains, comforts, and speaks.
Pilkington, H et. al. (2002). Looking west? Cultural globalization and Russian youth culture
Summary & Reflection: Interesting and much easier to read article. Can begin to appreciate the unique situation of Russia, given it's geographical location, caught between East and West, combined with its years of isolation behind the iron curtain, and deeply embedded cultural values that are fundamentally at odds with aspects (both real and perceived) of American life (specifically) and the Western world (in general).
Looking to Russian youth as a benchmark of cultural change is a very smart move on the part of the authors. Because they are still (presumably) actively forming their identities, they will be more likely than older generations to consider the questions posed by the researchers. Of course, looking at this article with the general human ecology model could be very helpful as well (P_O_E_T). Speaking about technology, youth are typically more eager to adopt new technologies, and the article talks about global communications and travel as providing them with a wealth of access to Western influences in the post-Soviet era.
The Russian youth have also apparently conceived of their own unique response to the influence of Western/American culture. What was once (or still is for older generations) perceived as the "forbidden fruit"--ideologically dangerous but fundamentally desireable--is now considered "shallow" and imposing. Russian youth have figured out that the "West" is not a monolith; it is made of up unique countries with unique characters; France and the U.S. are NOT one. Nor are Western Europe and Southern Europe. They have grown in their connossieurship of the west, and are able to live with its "goods", but in greater part they shun its ideology.. Russian things are soulful, spiritual, meaningful. American things are now. They are, simply, to be consumed.
Questions: I'm grateful to this article for highlighting the fact the the U.S. is not the only country to affect influence over other countries. It seems to me a very ethnocentric view of ourselves to assume our own cultural hegemony (the West afterall, is more than just the United States, anyway), while delegitimizing the autonomy of the rest of the world. Russian youth are a good example of this---making it their own in the form of Russian Rap. Who really cares if it's good? You cannot judge it against American rap anyway, having emerged from an intirely different social, political, linguistic, and historical context. The new permutation has merit on its own, and for the very fact of its transglobal influence. If you can look at Russian rap in this way, it opens infinite doors for similar examinations of other phenomena where by globalizing influences, new art forms and means of cultural expression emerge.
