INTRODUCTION

Cultural fragmentation and the various experiences of life among people from different generations have propitiated tensions inside the Mayan Chuj⁴ people as regards the way that being a youth is conceived, including the virtues that have to be fostered and the responsibilities to take up over that period of life. For the purpose of understanding this process, in the present article the social representations (SR) of being a youth inside Hakib’al are analyzed. This collective, focused on reasserting its culture, comprises youths from the Chuj Maya people, who have systematically faced the discrimination and denial of their culture. The members of the collective under study come from the municipalities of La Trinitaria and La Independencia, located at the border of the state of Chiapas and Guatemala, from families that experienced enforced displacements due to the domestic Guatemalan armed conflict. In this context, the collective has as an objective to promote the assertion of their ethnic identity by means of invigorating their memory and culture, which attenuates the tensions that such adverse elements represent that make a difference in the ways of conceiving the idea of youth by the Chuj Maya people.

For the development of our analysis, we understand SR as the manifestation of the synthesis the individuals make of the information received from the communication and social thinking of a phenomenon, fact or object that is useful for them to understand the surrounding reality and organize their daily life. To understand the notion of youth this collective builds, we resort to the theoretical-methodological proposal of SR according to the proposal of ^{Moscovici (1979}, ¹⁹⁸¹⁾ and ^{Jodelet (1986}, ²⁰¹¹⁾. Our analysis follows the methodological strategies of the grounded theory (^{Strauss & Corbin, 2002}), and methodological triangulation put forward by ^{Denzin (1970)}, in this case contrasting with the ontoepistemic category of cultural knowledge (^{Limón, 2007}).

We define two concurring aspects: 1) the explanation of theoretical referents that work as an a priori theory, namely SR, cultural knowledge and indigenous youths; and 2) the determination or emergence of in vivo categories, obtained by means of convivencia (coexistence), participant observation and semi-structured interviews with each member of Hakib’al, and quality informers from their communities.

Our analysis was exposed to the collective to have their reactions aimed at their validation and/or correction. Finally, some conclusions that counteract the essentialist vision of the native peoples’ cultures are produced with a view to understanding their dynamism and vitality and distinguishing cultural change processes.

Our conclusions agree with ^{MacIntyre (2001)}, as regards each society must carry out collective deliberation every certain time by means of which the definition of practices, values and virtues that contribute to social flourishing. We want to contribute to each people to take control of its cultural elements, and if possible, decide the incorporation of other elements that are consistent with our subject of study, we offer the theoretical- methodological elements that substantiate our analytical approach.

SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS AND IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION

The theory of social representations (SR) has in ^{Moscovici (1979}, ¹⁹⁸¹⁾ its main precursor. In his proposal, human being must be understood as an active being producer and communicator of information, meanings and representations. Moscovici defines SR as a “particular modality of knowledge, whose function is to elaborate behaviors and communication between individuals” (1979, pp. 17-18). This comprehension has been enriched by a multiplicity of proposals (^{Banchs, 1986}; ^{Gutiérrez, Tuñón, Limón, Morales & Nielsen, 2012}; ^{Jodelet, 1986}; ^{Urbina & Ovalles, 2018}) which orient our work (see table 1).

CULTURAL KNOWLEDGE

Referring to cultural knowledge (CK) means focusing attention on the way of living life from cultural alterity in the context of historic and hegemonic relationships in the spaces inhabited as territories and prominently with a meaning of resistance (^{Limón, 2010}).

By Cultural Knowledge we understand the proper and particular cognitive structure of various peoples and cultural groups, which joins memory and hope, it works as a resistance for context inertias and establishes a dialectical relationship with the way of collective living, providing the latter with a meaning (^{Limón & Pérez, 2019, p. 59}).

^{Urdapilleta (2016)} underscores five characteristic features of CK: 1) they must be seen as a constellation of the existence linked to the past that provides the present with meaning; 2) the particularity from which knowledge about the territory is articulated, signified and re-signified; 3) resistance before hegemonic visions, imposition of alien values and against forgetting; 4) hope as a lucid dream that contests the determinations of the present; and, 5) renovation that refer to the revitalization of meanings of existence and the specific practices with which changes in the generational transition are made evident.

We consider it fundamental not to take SR on their own, but enrich them with CK. Since they are cognitive mechanisms, they may go from complementary to contradictory, being the former the prevailing forms in the context, whereas the latter disclose resistances and actual alterity construction mechanisms and critique from cultural diversity (specifically in the case of subordinated cultures). And it becomes more relevant as we verify, namely:

Resorting to cultural knowledge is resorting to a cognitive corpus whose content, validity and currency is strongly contested, particularly from schools and media, promoters of modernity and developmentalism with their hegemonic power. However, in the face of the overwhelming context, their presence remains, offering a deep meaning of existence and orienting all the interactions (^{Limón & Pérez, 2019, p. 66}).

INDIGENOUS YOUTHS

In Latin America, anthropology and cultural studies by and large started researching on youth by the end of the eighties. However, studies on indigenous youths appeared by the end of the century (^{Cruz, 2012}; ^{Pérez, 2008}; ^{Urteaga, 2008}). ^{Duarte (2012)}, underscoring the condition of diversity and plurality that referred to youth and that there are various ways of living it, points out that their comprehension refers to a stage of life, a social group and even, an attitude for life. For ^{Cruz (2012)}:

Indigenous youth as a XXI-century category refers a stage, a process, a result or a condition of life recently identified among indigenous peoples and in social sciences. It is structured by gender differentials and by generational transitions in Latin American ethnicities (^{Cruz 2012, p. 157}).

^{Urteaga (2008)} identifies various XX-century research works for instance, some with Zapotecos and Huicholes from Nayarit, which conclude that in their life cycles these indigenous peoples have no similar phase to that conceived as youth in occidental societies. For his part, ^{Pérez (2008)} points out that:

In the populations where the concept of youth exists in the own tongue language, in general, it is a social category that defines a stage of life that starts with the individuals’ biological maturity and concludes with social maturity. That is to say, it begins with the acquisition of certain biological features –those of puberty– and concludes with the incorporation of the youth into adult life, which is recognized because it is when the individual takes up a series of commitments associated to marriage, with the responsibility of having and supporting a family and acquiring social responsibilities with the community (^{Pérez, 2008, p.12}).

Furthermore, in research with Q’anjob’al Guatemalan refugees, ^{Ruiz (2011)} remarks that such category does exist, but it goes beyond referring a dimension of biological development, it is related to the process of responsibility acquisition. In like manner, in the studies with Akateco youths, ^{Ruiz (2011)} analyzes how the youth category has changed and how it has been made complex due to the historic displacement process, context, interactions with other peoples, experiences of the new generations (labor migration and because of studies) and the set of elements that cross the construction of their identity (migrant, indigenous, young, Guatemalan, and so on). Ruiz’s research works show us contexts and experiences very similar to those of Hakib’al, as the author worked with youths of the two first generations born in Mexico who have experienced enforced displacement, asylum or discrimination by the Mexican state and other cultural groups.

The suggestions made by ^{Ruiz (2011)} and ^{Pérez (2008)} have oriented us to take the self-perception and self-denomination of these indigenous groups into account, considering their tensions, contradictions, changes and dynamics, for only so will we be able to enhance the study categories, surpassing the preponderantly adult-centric and ethnocentric positions. To round this section up, we make it explicit that our analysis does not correspond to a relative generalization for the Chuj youth, but exclusively for what is lived and expressed by the members of the Hakib’al collective. With their reasserting endeavors, this case offers a contribution to the debate and comprehension of indigenous youths.

METHODOLOGY

The present research, of qualitative nature, is conceived from the logic of Participatory Action Research (PAR) (Anisu and ^{Fals, 1992}; ^{Fals, 1979}); while field data were build by means of interaction and complicity with Hakib’al and its collective project.

The analysis of data is inductive and systematic, after the proposal of Grounded Theory (GT) put forward by ^{Strauss and Corbin (2002)} and the methodological triangulation exposed by ^{Denzin (1970)}. The process consisted in a priori identifying categories –what we have exposed so far about SR, CK and indigenous youths— that were the starting point to analyze key testimonies, offered by the respondents. With the testimonies we produced analytical tables with a view to, by means of axial codification, associating some scores that accounted for situations of presence or absence of in vivo categories (in brackets, with an “a” in case of absence, a posteriori placed). After multiple revisions in which we constantly compared the various testimonies, we identified emergent categories (also underscored by means of scores), which we ordered in the form of first-order (central nucleus of SR) and second-order (peripheral elements) categories.

The result of this analysis was integrated into an interpretative section where we identify the three dimensions of SR: information, representational field and attitude. We support on the analytical sequence broken down by ^{Limón (2011)} to understand what is assumed by being a Chuj youth inside Hakib’al, and contrast it with the relative notion of what full life is they received inside their Chuj towns.

The field research process that supports the present analysis started in January 2018, when the bases, objectives and procedures to do it were presented to Hakib’al. Though, our relationship and accompaniment of their process has been from its inception in 2013. We have been with the collective in its meetings (monthly assemblies and anniversary celebrations) and individually with each of its members in their daily dynamics, both in their communities of origin (municipalities of La Trinitaria and La Independencia) and where they reside in order to study (San Cristóbal de Las Casas) (Map 1).

Source: own elaboration based on data from ^{INEGI (2010)}.

Map 1. Location of residence and life places of the members of Hakib’al​ 

Over nine months we met several times in the places where they live due to studies, and we visited each community about 12 times for two weeks approximately. Over these stays we were together and, when convenient, we accompanied them in their tasks. Likewise, we devised an observation guideline, carried a daily registration in field diaries and held 19 standardized conversational interviews with the members, some relatives and elderly people. The standardized interviews dealt with youth and its relation with other existential aspects such as being members of Chuj people and this collective, the relationship and comparison of life between generations, migrations, studies and some personal experiences.

HAKIB’AL (OUR ROOTS)

Hakib’al is a collective comprised by Chuj youths, plus a female member of Q’anjob’al people. Most of them belongs to Guatemalan-Mexican families displaced from Guatemala, refuged and later naturalized as Mexicans, who live in the towns of Tziscao, Santa Rosa el Oriente, San Lorenzo, Nuevo Porvenir and Nueva Loma Linda, in the municipalities of La Trinitaria, La Unión and La Independencia. The collective is composed of 14 members (eight women, six men) aged between 18 and 29 years; most of the members hold a degree, one studies high school and there is an individual who holds postgraduate studies. In order to study, they had to migrate inside the state of Chiapas (to San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Las Margaritas, Comitán or La Trinitaria); two migrated temporarily to Jalisco and Quintana Roo because of work. Most of them plans to return to their communities after they conclude their studies, which may be modified by employment opportunities or affective relationships.

This collective has its inception in Sociedad de Solidaridad Social Los Lagos de Colores, SSS Lagos [Los Lagos de Colores Social Solidarity Society], seated in Tziscao, which motivated the creation of a number of organizational and self-management projects such as the cooperative Productores Alternativos de la Selva, PAS [Alternative Producers of the Rainforest]. Economically supported by the Maya Educational Foundation, in 2007, PAS started to provide student scholarships for education above the basic (the education level for most of the Chuj population back then). By the time of the fieldwork, there was the first generation of graduated Chuj youths (^{Limón, 2015}). The participation of those youths in PAS assemblies was the initial stimulus to autonomously organize and approach collective interest topics of cultural nature (^{Limón, 2015}).

They identify October 26, 2013, as the day when they decided to organize to support themselves in their studies, motivate themselves to speak Chuj (more than a half did not speak it, even though their parents did) and recover and promote their culture (Hakib’al, a registration made by the collective in 2015).

The organization base is the performance of monthly assemblies that change venue between the communities, in which, in addition to broadening their horizon about the Chuj way of life (their localities and respective organizational modes), they make friends, discuss interchange experiences, while tasks and responsibilities are assigned. The participation of chichimtak-ichamtak (wise elderly individuals)⁵ is intended for them to offer guidance and share their wisdom-word (syal sjelanil), a product of their life experiences and thinking (Hakib’al, record made by the collective in 2015 and information gathered in 2017 assemblies).

They started as an organization working in gardens of vulnerable members of the communities, conversing with the chichimtak-ichamtak of the places, visiting the high- schools they studied in to share their experiences and analyses, keeping a collective garden of medicinal plants in the plot of PAS (Hakib’al, record made by the collective in 2015). In a text drafted by the collective as part of its minutes, the following was stated regarding their main goal:

We are a group of youths who work and hope for the reassertion of our people by means of our individual and collective actions, learning and practicing the cultural knowledge that our grandparents have been teaching us for thousands of years (Hakib’al collective, personal communication, February 29, 2016):

Among their main interests are recovering the community way of life, reasserting the historic memory that roots collective identity, raising awareness among the Chuj youths of school and building a world of bonds of solidarity and mutual respect, with a view to accomplishing what they call junk’olal kob’a (we in peace, joy and harmony) (Hakib’al Collective, personal communication, February 29, 2016). They have propitiated and participated in coexistence spaces among Chujes, with youths from other peoples and with mestizos, looking to build liberating, horizontal critical intercultural relationships.

CHUJ PEOPLE IN MEXICO

Before approaching SR for being a Chuj youth in the collective Hakib’al, we offer an approximation to the situation and experiences of Chuj people in Mexican territory.

The Chuj Maya people inhabits a space, which is its territory before the boundary was defined between the two countries, that ranges from northeastern Guatemala, in the department of Huehuetenango, in the north slope of Sierra de los Cuchumatanes, in the municipalities of San Mateo Ixtatán, San Sebastián Coatán and Nentón, occupying a sizeable proportion of Comitan’s plateau, in Chiapas, México. After experiencing the genocide violence of the conquest, dispossession and their congregation in a single place (San Mateo Ixtatán, presently the Department of Huehuetenango, Guatemala) (^{Limón, 2008}, ^2009a; ^{Lovell, Lutz & Krame, 2016}; ^{Piedrasanta, 2006}, ²⁰⁰⁹), the consolidation of prejudices based on ethnic discrimination (^{Martínez, 2009}) over the colonial period (1521- 1824) and that in the liberal period the privatization of indigenous lands was promoted (^{Böckler & Herbert, 1970}), all of these social and economic policies in detriment to the indigenous population and their territories, with particular affectations to Chuj people (Piedrasanta, 2014), over the last period a process we may call re-expansion was undertaken by Guatemalan Chuj families searching for lands (^{Hernández 1998}; ^{Limón, 2009}; ^{Piedrasanta, 2014}). Owing to ignorance of the history of this people and as they were identified as Guatemalan families, the Chuj population that lived this re-expansion in Mexico is identified as parvenu, even though they are living in their own ancestral territory.

In the 1980’s, enforced displacement took place due to Guatemala’s internal armed conflict; the armed forces directly attacked indigenous communities and peoples, including the Chuj, deploying a policy of “scorched earth” under general and president Efraín Ríos Montt. This conflict, in addition to being genocide, very strongly marked the social fabric (^{Doyle, 2009}; ^{Herrera, Giracca, Díaz, Mayén & Cahuec, 1997}; ^{Limón, 2008}; ^{López, 2012}). Many exiled families settled down in localities in Chiapas and camps under the control of official agencies. By the end of such armed conflict, some families opted for remaining in Mexico; such is the case of most of the families of the members of collective Hakib’al. With this they had to start their procedures and with this their sociocultural naturalization process (^{Limón, 2008}; ^{López, 2012}; ^{Pérez, 2015}; ^{Ruiz, 2018}).

IDENTITY IMPLICATIONS OF NATURALIZATION

If for the set of native Mexican peoples, the implementation of indigenist policies and more recently, neoliberal, were bloody, for the peoples of the border zone (which includes a high percentage of naturalized individuals) has been doubly cruel because, as it has been very well analyzed by ^{Hernández (1998)}, they were forced to assimilate into a mestizo culture from a commoditizing logic. This way, they were subjected by means of resorting to incisively Mexicanizing discriminatory logics that produced sociocultural fragmentation regarding the rest of their respective peoples on the Guatemalan side.

At present, the native peoples who live in Mexico but whose cultural center is in Guatemala face the pauperization of their daily life and the lack of guarantee for their rights, including access to land and resources that secure their social reproduction. There also exists a noticeable generation fracture that appeared during their refuge and naturalization process in Mexico, the elderly were forced to an acculturating integration that entailed the denial and forgetting of cultural resources and the expedite communication of their CK. In point of fact, a widespread familial strategy of protecting against discrimination was their identity self-denial, stopped talking (and teaching) Chuj and the abandonment, as already mentioned, of the very diverse practices that revealed them (^{Limón, 2008}, ^2009a; ^{López & Limón, 2016}).

To a large extent, the dynamic above made younger generations stop practicing emnakil (basic category of their axial structure, which may be translated as loving-humble respect) toward their elders, so the opinion of the latter is that more schooling makes youths “behave badly”. This places responsibility on the education system, which we consider has been the main ideological imposition tool of the Nation State .

Another element that stresses this forgetting is labor migration, which largely takes place toward Cancun and Playa del Carmen, in Yucatan and Quintana Roo, but also toward states in the center and north of the country (Jalisco, Michoacan, Mexico City) and even toward the US (Alabama, Atlanta, Florida), which have distanced the new generations from community life, particularly work in the land, with the consequential deepening of the fracture between generations (^{Limón, 2008}, ^2009a, ²⁰¹⁵; ^{López & Limón, 2016}).

Seeing that self-denial is still noticed and counteracted inside the collective, whose members reaffirm and recognize themselves and intend to dignify their ket chonhab' kob'a (the way of identify one another as Chuj; it literally means “we are from the same people ”) and search for possibilities for the compatibility of being Chuj, Mexican and student, against the grain and in opposition to the surrounding discourses (^{Limón, 2008}), maintaining any practice that reveals emnakil toward their people, with an emphasis on the elderly.

CONFIGURATION OF SR ON BEING A CHUJ YOUTH IN THE HAKIB’AL COLLECTIVE

After exposing the above and in order to approach the construction of the identity and SR of the individuals in the Hakib’al collective, it is necessary to start from the already recorded fact (^{Limón, 2009}) that the three categories most repeatedly exposed as essential and which substantiate, structure and unite CK in the Chuj people are: emnakil (respect as constructive inter-subjectivity), tas kojtak (“what we know” –knowledge as a favorable being for life), and lajti’ (“history – what has been said” –communication, under the logic of heading understanding toward agreement); the first is the principle of Chuj ethics and support for their community life.

It is convenient to underscore it since for the process of identity construction in question inside Hakib’al, go to meet (chalajb’ahil) grannies-grandpas and mothers-fathers to dialogue (lajti’) is the mechanism that, expressed, is par excellence exposed to weave (yamanb’ahil) their culture and asserting it. With our analysis we identified that effectively each of these elements has been part of the nucleus of the SR that defines their identity: these are notions that constantly resound in their minds and hearts, in their chamna’ab’il (their thinking and feeling before acting).

An instance of the above is the following testimonial (table 2) in which a youth recreates the way in which, by means of counsel, his father tried to transmit him meaning of life for Chuj people and the particular way in which this becomes by means of emnakil.

As a central value, emnakil (respect) is reaffirmed in the following classification that we make for the stages of life for Chuj people. By means of interviews and collective discussions, we found out that such stages divide into unin anima (childhood; tender aged person), kob’estak/kelemtak (being a young woman / man), ek’um ix/ek’um winak (being a middle-aged woman / man), chichim ix/icham winak (being a mature woman / man) and chichim/icham (being elderly) (table 3). More than age issues, they match activities and interpersonal relationships that are acquired and built, all of which are heavily marked by the realization of practices that lead people to cultivate the virtue of emnakil: strength, humility, responsibility, maturity, knowledge and practice of land work and community life. This last is to a good extent the most encouraged over the construction of their juvenile identity (heb’ unin anima) and as individuals (heb’ anima).

IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION OF KOB’ESTAK AND KELEMTAK (SINGLE YOUNG WOMEN / MAN) IN THE COLLECTIVE HAKIB’AL

As previously mentioned, in order to identify the dimensions (information, representational field, attitude), elements (central nucleus and peripherals) and moments (objectification and anchoring) that characterize SR, we used the proposals by ^{Banchs (1986)} and ^{Gutiérrez et al. (2012)} as guidelines.

The main information sources inside Hakib’al about being heb’ unin anima (being a young Chuj) are the conversations, mainly with their parents/grandparents, but also with the collective members and their interactions with other cultural groups (indigenous and mestizos) and the links fostered by social media (mainly Facebook), though the latter to a lesser extent.

The representation field of being young has notions such as having no commitments and gradually taking up responsibility. The case of Hakib’al verifies that nuclear elements that underscore certain group homogeneity around values, norms and characteristics, though in their case they add it to the one they enthrone as the main: attention to their studies. And they underscore elements that do not correspond to the findings of the rest of individuals from their people (young and adult people) such as enjoying life, having fun, go out with friends and going to places. Indeed, it is remarked as a learning stage, but what for? Their common answer underscore two aspects: start to make decisions regarding their future (which includes their professional profile under construction) and execute the right to have an opinion of their own, even though it is divergent. This may be due to the fact of having a broadened informational corpus, a result of their emigration experience and their condition of university students. In their relationships, these two profiles send them to their families and communities, but also to society at large.

It is possible to recognize some attitudes (as peripheral elements –individual and/or contextual characteristics that generate a differentiation in experience), for instance, adopting the traditionally role assigned to men being women and taking up the responsibility of supporting themselves or making a family. These facts reassert them without contravening their being youths assuming that their current apprentice state and without fully assuming social expectations for someone who have procreated or made family. The foregoing points at the remarking that youth is not only a transition stage, but a period that allows certain permissibility in function of living a moment and learning process for which there are certain expectations and which is assigned some demands (as it will be clarified). In this regard, Kixtup⁶ affirms: “what supports my youth is that I don’t know the 12 trades”, making a reference to the line that divides kob’estak/kelemtak from ek’um ix/icham winak” (personal communication, April 3, 2020) (table 3). This affirmation makes it evident the tension between the established (in function of not having assumed certain responsibilities and remain learning) and their personal search to be considered “youths”, though at present they have made a family of their own.

Likewise, the voice of nun chichim and mam icham (wise elderly people) has a theological weight around what a “good Chuj youth” is, which accounts for the heaviest nuclear element inside the collective to build SR (table 4).

This testimony enables us to notice the emergence of the categories Trust and responsibility, which we consider to have dialectical relationship between them that expresses the tension on the continuity of the Chuj people’s CK. In specific, talking about community posts and services, Kixtup exposes how youths were trusted for fundamental aspects in which they demonstrated their responsibilities in caring about tradition (symbolized by the candle and prayer) and the society dynamic, learning vital functions in community services as midwives, herbalists, bone healers (once they are publicly and socially recognized to have dexterity or ability to carry out such tasks of importance and responsibility).

The antipode of a good Chuj youth is the one “who does not respect” (the elders or the land), who on the contrary are “misbehaved” (frequently associated to those who are at intermediate schooling), “no longer practice the customs” (foods, healing, dressing, working, language, community life) and “do as they want” (carelessness and egotist individualism, do what they want with no consultation), according to the phrases shared by Kixtup, Dory and A.R.G.F as regards the words their elders tell them (Kixtup, personal communication, April 3, 2020; A.R.G.F, personal communication, March 9, 2020).

Within this context regarding the good Chuj youth (which is a weighty category), and thereby, in opposition (bad Chuj youth), proposed the moment of objectification, it allows us to also identify the third dimension of this SR: attitude, which manifests as a definer for behavior. By promoting the reassertion of their culture, Hakib’al insists on reverting the intergenerational fragmentation. For Hakib’al, responsibility goes beyond efficiently fulfilling tasks, it takes a deep meaning when it is the concretion of a conscious act: “we in Hakib’al have a job out of consciousness, now I’m young and if grandparents are saying that we’re ruining our culture, I have to find out with which tools they can trust in us” (Kixtup, personal communication, April 3, 2020). This statement, for its part, sheds some light on anchoring, that is to say, that which leads the way for their behavior.

Furthermore, differences also propitiate a tension that is being reflected about; it is so referred by the female members of Hakib’al in table 5.

The fragment above evinces the critical look with which young women from Hakib’al contest the SR related to gender assignations. For them, socially defined roles have a discrimination and submission load. Conversely, men are those who define the regulation and degrees of freedom on the basis of gender. Facing this, instead of detonating a radical rupture, female members of Hakib’al take a stake on the renovation of their own CK. Due to the work in the collective, and studying outside their homes, they have fostered dialogue with their fathers, mothers and the elderly so as to practice respect as a way to recognize the ‘possibility of developing at the household and also professionally’. This was referred by A.R.G.F. and Dori (table 6):

Furthermore, for the men and women members of the collective, even if they are aware that studying outside their communities produces a distancing as regards the stereotype of the good Chuj youth, the daily cultural and community life, at once there are other factors that favor a counterweight. Specifically, it is their collective interest to reassert their culture to return to their communities, not to forget, or in their cases, learn their language, to practice respect and revert the intergenerational fracture approaching the elderly to dialogue of all that which they were not talked about (evidence as well of the anchoring process).

In like manner, holding an undergraduate degree (sociology, sustainable development, language and culture, elementary education, nursery, management) or a master (cultural studies, pedagogy of the individual, and educational practices) has largely favored them in their interest in cultural reassertion, in their desire to learn and thus help their communities solve problems. By and large, it denotes a deep interest in living in their communities once again, though with a renewed vision of the communal forms and practices. An example of this is the stake on gender equality, identified as an emergent category which gives a broader meaning to the a priori category of emnakil.

As a complement, and to summarize, in table 7, we show the elements we were able to identify, which characterize being good or bad Chuj youth on the basis of the various answers of the collective.

As regards the identity construction of the members of the Hakib’al collective, an essential element is feeling part of a transborder culture: for instance, know they are Chuj born in Mexico and at the same time to be Guatemalan with all the implications it entails: discrimination by the others and its counterpart, their personal search for their reassertion as essential part of their being youths of Chuj People. This we see in the following elaborations:

The pangs we have endured because were Chuj, not only discrimination. I still lived it at university. When we arrived and introduced ourselves the three of us as Chuj, and the professor said: “I think you’re from Guatemala”, “yeah” was out answer; and a classmate said: “they are Chapines”, laughing. We couldn’t say a thing, we couldn’t defend ourselves. That was when we started university, when we introduced ourselves. We didn’t have the knowledge we have now to defend ourselves, we just remained silent. For me, Guatemala is the place where my grandparents, parents were born, my family is there. I have a sort of roots in Guatemala, I lived there for a year; it is like my hometown. Mexico is my present, the place where I live; but sometimes, they are the same for me because I go often to Guatemala to visit my uncles, my Guatemalan uncles. The only difference is that I live in Mexico and my life will be here, but I have it clear that my origin and roots are in Guatemala. The border is just a line that is there, but is worthless, it does not mean that much because I can come and go from Guatemala when I want. I go to visit my relatives in San Mateo, Gracias a Dios, Las Palmas, to visit my granny and sometimes I feel I cross no border when I go there (Check, personal communication, February 28, 2020).

Above things, Guatemala is the place where our root is, where we live, where we come from. It is important for us, we don’t see it as an alien country. Guatemala has everything of us. We came here because of a political problem [but] it is our space, our land. It is special for us […] sacred spaces, culture; that is important for me […] The border is only a division between peoples, but that doesn’t mean such part isn’t mine. This way, land doesn’t belong to one people, they divide us by the political rules of each state […] I have relatives on the other side, but that doesn’t mean we’re divided. I don’t agree with borders, I don’t like them (authors’ emphasis) (Cheli, personal communication, March 11, 2020).

Guatemala is a very symbolical place for me, it is the place of my origin, my history, I connect a lot my life and history; it is there the origin of my history, it is the country where my parents grew, that nurtured them. There is this connection that Guatemala is a fundamental part of our life. If I want to continue strengthening as Q’anjob’al, I want to find out more about the cultural concepts, celebrations, how to burn the candles; I have to go to Guatemala to live the experience, because here in Mexico, it cannot be. Every single Q’anjob’al who wants to live that must go to Santa Eulalia. Many families go there to light candles. This is why Guatemala is very important in my life (María Elena Felipe Simón, personal communication, March 25, 2019).

In spite of being born in Mexico, for María Elena, Guatemala entails elements that become part of their identity construction (family, our space, land and culture) and represents their origin and history, while Mexico is their present. The border is an arbitrariness (it does not represent, is not felt, worthless).

Finally, we retake ^{Villoro’s (1998)} proposals for Latin American native peoples underscoring the importance of identifying similarities and differences in spatialities and temporalities regarding the relationship with the other. In Hakib’al, it is by taking and reflecting on their interaction with youths from other cultures (indigenous and mestizos) they have been able to identify the elements that distinguish and help them to produce their identity: territory, demography, culture and historic memory.

Mestizo youth is the alterity most confronted by the members of Hakib’al . Recognizing the exceptions, they state that most of the mestizos study to make money for themselves, they are cocky (arrogant), libertine and disrespectful and usually discriminate; plus, they eat meat, processed and packed food. For their part, the members of the collective see schooling as an opportunity to acquire tools that enable them to help their families and communities. They remark keeping a humble attitude, being respectful to everyone, listen and think before speaking. As regards their foods they restate their conviction –as individuals of their people– to eat herbs, maize, bean, unprocessed foods, fruits and vegetables.

As regards the indigenous youths of other groups, the respondents also point at certain differences. Among the Chuj, emnakil is the most distinguishable value, while for Tzotzils, for example –and with whom they are most in contact with–, it is a’tel (labor). This way, they underscore their own history, which contains the experience lived after the war in Guatemala, the period as refugees and transborder life (aspects they share with Qʼanjobʼales and Akatecos). For their part, they find common identification points such as the discrimination lived in the broad social context, which is common for indigenous peoples.

CONCLUSIONS AND FINAL REFLECTIONS

Historically and culturally, unlike other people such as Zapotecos or Huicholes, from Nayarit, among Chuj the category of youth (kob’estak/kelemtak) has been present, implying a clear way identifying and describing themselves. The SR of being a Chuj youth has been modified on the basis of new life experiences. In the case of Hakib’al, migrating and studying university moves them away from the possibility of practicing and learning functions which are generally performed at this stage of life (e.g., the 24 and 12 trades referred as traditional). At the same time, their own conviction and collective claim, their genuine interest in favor of cultural reassertion and conversation with the elderly are straightforward counterweights.

A clear instance of this is the way female youths contest gender relationships, or how youths in general ask for confidence to take up leadership in the community in the future and being considered reliable subjects who may take up responsibilities.

The findings of the present analysis referring to SR and the identity of being a Chuj youth in the Hakib’al youth collective evince the tensions, agreement and restructuring that help the essentialist vision of native peoples –frequently considered statistical- and recognize their dynamism and vitality. The conclusions we underscore are as follow:

Some of these elements verify that despite living in spaces saturated with inequality, power and domination, they are part of a generation that has the capacity for political resistance as referred by ^{Urteaga, Cruz, and López (2020)}. Finally, we recognize that among the reflections, questions, dialogue and tensions, the youths in Hakib’al confirm and look for the values of the Chuj axiological structure that are useful to build their being a Chuj youth, and by and large to reinforce their being a Chuj. In like manner, they put forward the construction of a SR of being a different Chuj youth, who does not break with the hope of continuity for the central elements of being a Chuj and of the Chuj culture in general, but favors the reassertion of such elements as mechanisms to restate and live their culture as something dynamical, which for their part enable them to face alienation processes effectively perceived by contemporary youths.