Ben Wallace Fallaw
Colby College (Waterville, ME 04901-8840)
FT-61649-14
Summer Stipends
Research Programs
|
[Media coverage]
Totals:
$6,000 (approved)
$6,000 (awarded)
Grant period:
6/1/2014 – 7/31/2014
|
|
Between the Maya and the Mexican Revolution: Bartolome Garcia Correa (1893-1978) and Mestizo Politics in Yucatan
Ethnobiographies (slave narratives, Rigoberta Menchu's) usually explore racism and ethnic self-discovery, central themes in the human experience of the Americas. My ethnobiography of Bartolome Garcia (1893-1978), mestizo (mixed race) governor of Yucatan, Mexico, reveals his conflictive public and private relationship with indigeneity, a dilemma shared by mestizos across the hemisphere. Garcia pioneered mestizo politics, celebrating a romanticized Maya past in architecture, archaeology, literature, even opera, while promoting the assimilation of contemporary indigenous people. To analyze his life and its historical context, I engage interdisciplinary discussions of indigeneity, mestizaje (racial and cultural mixing), state formation, modernity, and the politics of cultural production. By exploring the Maya's struggle to preserve community and culture, the book will contribute to the ethnohistory of the Americas as well.
|