Tourism and Territory in the Mayan World by Jennifer Ann Devine A
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Tourism and Territory in the Mayan World By Jennifer Ann Devine A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction for the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Geography in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Gillian Hart, Co-Chair Professor Michael Watts, Co-Chair Professor Jake Kosek Professor Rosemary Joyce Fall 2013 Abstract Tourism and Territory in the Mayan World by Jennifer Ann Devine Doctor of Philosophy in Geography University of California, Berkeley Professor Gillian Hart, Co-Chair Professor Michael Watts, Co-Chair In post Peace Accords Guatemala, tourism development is engendering new claims and claimants to territory in a climate of land tenure insecurity and enduring inequality. Through ethnographical research, this dissertation explores the territoriality of tourism development through the empirical lens of an archaeological site called Mirador in the Maya Biosphere Reserve. I develop a process-based understanding of territoriality to analyze tourism related struggles over identity, boundary making, land use, heritage claims, and territorial rule at the frontier of state power. In theorizing tourism’s territoriality, I argue that the intertwined practices of capitalist spatial colonization and the commodification of place uniquely characterize the industry. I identify five manifestations of tourism’s territoriality in the Maya Biosphere: practices of historical and geographical erasure in Mirador tourism imaginaries, territory-based identity production, tourism- enabled practices of enclosure and land dispossession, the “scaling up” of heritage claims through the social construction of global heritage, and the militarization of conservation spaces through tactics of counterinsurgency eco-tourism development. In conceptualizing tourism’s territoriality, this project contributes to the fields of political ecology, critical tourism studies, political geography, and spatial theories of territory. At the chapter level, analytical contributions include analyses of identity formation in contemporary Guatemala, the role of tourism development in driving the global land grab, how implicit ideas of scale in global heritage discourses usurp local claims to natural and cultural resources, and the revival of counterinsurgency methods in the making of paradisiacal places. In Guatemala’s booming post-war tourism sector, this dissertation argues that ongoing struggles over territory are taking deceptively innocuous forms of national park creation, world heritage designation, and environmental conservation. 1 Dedicated to my mother, Marsha Ann Whitmore i TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication i Table of Contents ii List of Figures iii Acknowledgements iv Chapter 1: Introduction El Dorado or Apocalypto? 1 Chapter 2: Ancient Natural Places, Tourism Spaces: Mirador in the Mayan World 23 Chapter 3: Sticky Histories 45 Chapter 4: The Fight For the Mirador Basin 70 Chapter 5: Contesting Global Heritage in the Chiclero Museum 90 Chapter 6: Counterinsurgency Eco-Tourism 112 Chapter 7: Conclusion Tourism and Territory in the Mayan World 128 References 135 ii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: Hero Twins Frieze at Mirador 1 Figure 1.2: Map of Petén, Guatemala 6 Figure 1.3: Juanita and Yamul, Petén 17 Figure 2.1: Map of the Mayan World 25 Figure 2.2: Mirador Monument, San Benito, Petén, Guatemala 26 Figure 2.3: “Mujer Maya” in State Tourism Promotion Materials 27 Figure 2.4: Map of Guatemala, “Heart of the Mayan World” 29 Figure 2.5: “Mujer Maya” in State Tourism Promotion Materials 30 Figure 3.1: Forest Ruins 48 Figure 3.2: Juanita Landscape 53 Figure 3.3: Chiclero Cooking Chicle 55 Figure 3.4: Xate for Export 58 Figure 4.1: The Maya Biosphere Forest Concessions & the Mirador Basin 76 Figure 4.2: Street Protest against Presidential Decree 129 80 Figure 4.3: Protest against Presidential Decree 129 at the National Palace 81 Figure 5.1: Artifacts in the Chiclero’s Museum 92 Figure 5.2 Archaeological sites in the Maya Biosphere 95 Figure 5.3: “Looted” Archaeological Structure 98 Figure 6.1: Maya Biosphere Boundary 124 Figure 6.2: Kailbiles at Maya Biosphere Reserve Boundary 125 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful for the support and generosity I received throughout the process of designing, researching, and writing this dissertation from many individuals and organizations. The Institute for International Education’s Inter-American Grassroots Development Fellowship and the UC Berkeley John L. Simpson Research Fellow in Comparative & International Studies funded this research. Without these resources, this research would not have been possible. I would like to thank my committee members for their support. Each faculty member played an integral role in seeing this dissertation to fruition at varying stages. Gillian Hart and Michael Watts were exceptional co-chairs and I feel so lucky to have worked closely with them. Thank you both for your mentorship over the last six years. Jake Kosek played a key role in the project’s formulation and in smoothing out the bumps of graduate school. Rosemary Joyce was the best committee member I could have hoped for and a complete inspiration. Donald Moore, Nelson Graburn, Natalie Vonnegut, and Majorie Ensor all played important roles guiding this process as well. I would also like to thank the graduate students in the Geography Department at the University of California, Berkeley. It was an absolute privilege being part of such an amazing cohort of scholars. In particular, I would like to thank the following individuals for their friendship and for reading chapter drafts of this dissertation: Kimberley Kinder, Diana Negrín, Jennifer Greenburg, Greta Marchesi, Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern, Shannon Cram, Jennifer Casolo, Sapna Thottahil, Adam Romero, Alex Tarr, Sarah Knuth, Erin Collins, and Nicole List. Thank you as well to Claire Sarraille for her cartographic work and dedication to this project, and Lydia Collins for her excellent editorial contribution. I would also like thank the scholars and organizations working in Guatemala who have influenced this project, have opened research doors, and continue to work tirelessly for social justice in the country: Jeremy Radachowsky, Marcedonio Cortave, Lorena Melcor, Megan Ybarra, Roan Balas, Jose Luis Morales, David Ventura, Byron Castellanos, Patricia Cinfuentes, Richard Hansen, Claudia Rosales, Josie Thompson, Liza Grandia, and Norman Schwartz. The villages of Juanita and Yamul opened their hearts to me, and for that I am forever grateful. Thank you to all my neighbors who shared their stories, hopes, and fears. I would especially like to thank the Juanita Cooperative and the Yamul Civil Association for their support. Fieldwork in these places was one of the most rewarding experiences in my life. I have used pseudonyms in this dissertation for the villages and individual research participants. Last, but not least, thank you to my family. Erik Lukehart is the best research partner I could hope for, and I am happy to have added two new family members to our team over the course of this project: Leif Devine Lukehart and Dane Devine Lukehart. I owe special thanks as well to Deborah and John Tedeschi, who have taught me that friends are like family. iv Chapter 1 EL DORADO OR APOCALYPTO? Tourism and Territory in the Mayan World “People have searched for Atlantis and Shangri-La, to no avail. But if it's lost cities you seek, look no further than the Mirador Basin in northern Guatemala. The area is home to some of the largest pyramids in the world and the largest ancient freeway system in the Western hemisphere, and it's the cradle of Mayan civilization. The basin contains dozens of pre-classic Mayan cities — the oldest in existence — most of which remain unexcavated” (Himmelsbach, 2009) Over 2,000 years ago in the lowland forests of northern Guatemala, the Mayan metropolis of Mirador ruled over hundreds of miles, one million inhabitants, and dozens of urban cities (Hansen et. al 2002; Hansen & Guenter, 2005). Mirador reigned as the capital of this vast empire now laying under a blanket of old growth forest in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, part of the largest tract of tropical forest in Central America. Mirador is famous among archaeologists, Mayanists, and global heritage conservationists for many reasons beyond its impressive political history. Mirador’s great pyramid, La Danta, is perhaps the world’s largest by volume, and is but one of thirty in the imperial city. Mirador boasts the oldest Mayan glyphs and exquisite works of art, including a stucco frieze depicting the earliest representation of the Popul Vuh, the Mayan creation story of the universe. These distinguishing attributes motivated archaeologists working in the area to call northern Guatemala the “cradle of the Mayan civilization” (Hansen, 2012). Figure 1: Hero Twins Frieze at Mirador Source: Author 1 Most visitors reach the Mayan archaeology site of Mirador in the tropical forests of northern Guatemala by trekking two days through dense, humid, lowland tropical forests. Tourists often describe the five-day trek to Mirador as a trip of a lifetime. It easy for visitors to see the tourism potential of this majestic place characterized by seemingly endless forest, charismatic species, like jaguars and scarlet macaws, and a landscape dotted by Mayan archaeological sites. The grandeur of the archaeology combines with the surrounding old-growth forest to make this place truly breathtaking. However, despite housing the oldest and largest structures of the Pre-Columbian