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Imagining Cross-Border Belonging: Maya-Mam Collective

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Imagining Cross-Border Belonging: Maya-Mam Collective IMAGINING CROSS-BORDER BELONGING: MAYA-MAM COLLECTIVE IDENTIFICATION ACROSS THE GUATEMALA-MEXICO BORDER by JEFFREY A. GARDNER (Under the Direction of Patricia Richards) ABSTRACT Many indigenous peoples span state borders, yet little research has analyzed how indigenous cross-border nations are actually constructed and how contemporary state borders are implicated in that process. This dissertation begins to address that puzzle by focusing on how the Maya-Mam, an indigenous people divided by the Guatemala- Mexico border, are actively imagining and constructing nationhood across state borders. Although state borders socially, culturally, and politically divide the pueblo Mam, the Mam are engaged in denaturalizing such borders in their efforts to seek collective rights as a cross-border nation. This dissertation highlights how leaders of Mam councils, Mam organizations, and also individuals in their everyday lives who self-identify as Mam are denaturalizing state borders through three processes. First, I address how the Mam define their symbolic boundaries of collective identification in relation to spatial boundaries of different scales. Second, I analyze how cross-border experiences (i.e., social interactions among Mam councils and individuals from opposite sides of the border) are shaping Mam collective identification as a cross-border nation. And third, I address how the Mam are counter-mapping their ancestral territory by producing geographic and political representations that challenge state maps and the nation state framework. I suggest that these three processes have an interwoven character (i.e., they feed into each other), which I refer to as imagining cross-border belonging. I conceptualize imagining cross-border belonging as an active reconstruction of space (both physical and symbolic) across state borders. I argue that imagining cross-border belonging constitutes a symbolic struggle with material, and even spatial, consequences linked to the collective rights of cross- border nations. INDEX WORDS: Indigenous Peoples; Collective Identification; Border Politics; Maya-Mam; Nation-building; Boundary Work IMAGINING CROSS-BORDER BELONGING: MAYA-MAM COLLECTIVE IDENTIFICATION ACROSS THE GUATEMALA-MEXICO BORDER by JEFFREY A. GARDNER BA, Brigham Young University-Idaho, 2008 MA, University of Georgia, 2012 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2017 © 2017 Jeffrey A. Gardner All Rights Reserved IMAGINING CROSS-BORDER BELONGING: MAYA-MAM COLLECTIVE IDENTIFICATION ACROSS THE GUATEMALA-MEXICO BORDER by JEFFREY A. GARDNER Major Professor: Patricia Richards Committee: Pablo Lapegna David Smilde Electronic Version Approved: Suzanne Barbour Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia May 2017 iv DEDICATION I dedicate this work to my incredible wife, Lindsey, and our three inspiring daughters (Maya Dante, Lily Ali, and Zion Marley). You have supported me in every stage of this research, even when I was conducting fieldwork far from you. I will always cherish the memories of our adventures together in Guatemala and Mexico. You are my family and I adore you! v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the many people who contributed to this project. Foremost, I am very fortunate to have a brilliant advisor, Patricia Richards, who has consistently supported me in this research and throughout my graduate studies. I am thankful that she is always willing to read my drafts and to encourage me to push my analyses further. I thank my other committee members, Pablo Lapegna and David Smilde, for their wise guidance on my research endeavors over the past seven years as well. I am also thankful for enduring friendships with researchers and activists who are engaged in the collective rights struggles of the pueblo Mam, including: Aída Hernández Castillo, Ajb’ee Jiménez, José Gómez, Victor Sales, Alfonso Morales, Rolando López, Jovita Pérez, Diego Toj, Esteban Bravo, Rodolfo Marroquín, Anna López, Mario Aguilón Cris, and Elmer Geovanny, to name a few. I thank the Mam councils who frequently invited me to attend and conduct research in various social, cultural, and political settings. In particular, I express my gratitude to leaders from the Consejo Mam Saq Tx’otx’ and from the Consejo Regional Indígena Maya-Mam del Soconusco. Several families and individuals in Guatemala and Mexico made this project possible by willingly sharing their time with me and many stories from their lives with me. I especially thank Carlos Citalán, Noemi Chávez, Doña Dori, Joel López, Magali Villalobos, and the Ochoa Pérez and Marroquín Valiente families for their support in this project. vi Different phases of this research have been financially supported by the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute, the Graduate School, and the Department of Sociology at the University of Georgia and by the US Department of Education. Select portions of this dissertation, particularly chapter three, will appear in a forthcoming Social Problems article as “The Spatiality of Boundary Work: Political-Administrative Borders and Maya-Mam Collective Identification,” by Jeffrey A. Gardner and Patricia Richards. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................v LIST OF IMAGES ............................................................................................................. ix CHAPTER 1 THE BORDER POLITICS OF MAM COLLECTIVE IDENTIFICATION ....1 Collective Identification and Border Politics ...............................................4 Methods......................................................................................................18 Chapter Roadmap.......................................................................................21 2 A CONTESTED HISTORY OF THE GUATEMALA-MEXICO BORDER AND THE PUEBLO MAM.............................................................................26 The Guatemala-Mexico Border and Ancestral Territories ........................29 Discrimination and Resistance ...................................................................42 Conclusion .................................................................................................55 3 THE SYMBOLIC AND THE SPATIAL: DEFINING THE BOUNDARIES OF MAM COLLECTIVE IDENTIFICATION ...............................................57 Mam Boundary Narratives .........................................................................59 Weaving In and Out of Scalar Boundaries ................................................80 Conclusion .................................................................................................90 4 CONSTRUCTING SOCIO-POLITICAL TIES THROUGH CROSS- BORDER EXPERIENCES ..............................................................................92 viii Planning Cross-Border Experiences ..........................................................97 Challenges to Crossing the Border ..........................................................106 Collective Cross-Border Experiences ......................................................122 Conclusion ...............................................................................................161 5 COUNTER-MAPPING TX’OTX’ .................................................................164 State Maps and Counter-Maps .................................................................169 From State Maps to Mam Counter-Maps ................................................181 Counter-Mapping Beyond the Map .........................................................208 Conclusion ...............................................................................................231 6 INTERWEAVING THE FABRIC OF A CROSS-BORDER NATION .......235 Imagining Cross-Border Belonging .........................................................236 Conclusion ...............................................................................................254 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................259 ix LIST OF IMAGES Page Image 1: Guatemala-Mexico Border .................................................................................10 Image 2: Pab’en Qul Accord by the Council of the Mam Nation, April 11-12, 2011 .......53 Image 3: Twilight view from Pavencúl, Mexico of Sierra mountains to the coast ...........69 Image 4: Council of the Mam Nation document ...............................................................98 Image 5: Guatemala-Mexico border monuments ............................................................132 Image 6: Map of Chiapas, MX displayed on school wall in Pavencúl, MX1 ..................171 Image 7: Map of Guatemala displayed at meeting for indigenous organizations ............172 Image 8: Guatemala military sign appropriating Mayan symbols ...................................173 Image 9: ALMG counter-map of Mam territory across Guatemala-Mexico border .......182 Image 10: ALMG counter-map of Mam territory across Guatemala-Mexico border .....187 Image 11: Ministry of Education counter-map of San Marcos, Guatemala ....................205 Image 12: Ministry of Education counter-map mobilized through curriculum ...............207 Image 13: Volcano Tacaná divided by the Guatemala-Mexico border ...........................213 Image 14: Defining territory as tx’otx’: mountains across
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