Abstract

KUPPRAT, Felix A.. Memorialize Culture: Ways to Mantain and Form Modern Mayan Identities. Estud. cult. maya [online]. 2011, vol.38, pp.145-166. ISSN 0185-2574.

Memory has been a keyword for the peace process in Guatemala in the last fifteen years. According to theories on collective memory it shapes group identities and is crucial for the construction and maintenance of culture. Contrasting maya cultural activism and local commemorative strategies dealing with human rights violations during the civil war, this paper aims to connect ethnicity on an inter-regional and ethnic identity on a local level. Therefore a division will be made between synchronous and asynchronous ethnic markers of pan-maya identity, associating the former with cultural elements on a local level and the latter with revitalization processes. Finally it is proposed that structural features such as cultural memory should be considered crucial ethnic markers on both levels: the local and the inter-regional.

Keywords : Collective Memory; Maya Ethnicity; Cultural Identity; Rio Negro; Guatemala.

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