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The Production of Maya Scientific Expertise and Models of Personhood in the Yucatan Today

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The Production of Maya Scientific Expertise and Models of Personhood in the Yucatan Today University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2016 Making Maya Linguistics, Making Maya Linguists: The Production Of Maya Scientific Expertise And Models Of Personhood In The Yucatan Today Catherine R. Rhodes University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Latin American Languages and Societies Commons, Latin American Studies Commons, Linguistics Commons, and the Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies Commons Recommended Citation Rhodes, Catherine R., "Making Maya Linguistics, Making Maya Linguists: The Production Of Maya Scientific Expertise And Models Of Personhood In The Yucatan Today" (2016). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2548. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2548 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2548 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Making Maya Linguistics, Making Maya Linguists: The Production Of Maya Scientific Expertise And Models Of Personhood In The Yucatan Today Abstract In this dissertation, I explore what it means to be Maya in the Yucatan today. I focus my research on a higher education program in Maya linguistics where Maya is used as a language of instruction. To do this, faculty and students are creating the words and concepts with which to talk about linguistics ich maaya ‘in the Maya language’, something previously only done in other languages, like Spanish. This is about expanding the conceptual work that can be done in the Maya language, but it also about creating new scientific objects—new linguistics terminology; new categorizations of the language; and a new category of persons, native-Maya-speaking linguists. Through an eighteen-month ethnography, I follow linguists and their students to show how disciplinary linguistics knowledge is being created in the Maya language and how its creation produces and contests categories of Maya personhood. I begin broadly by exploring what it means to be Maya in Yucatan today through an analysis of diacritics of Maya personhood. I show how certain behaviors are linked to ideas about who Maya people are. For example, participation in advanced formal education is not widely associated with models of Maya personhood, thus when individuals pursue higher education, it can call their Mayaness into question. In light of this, some Maya individuals engage in practices to re-associate themselves with widely circulating diacritics of Maya personhood, such as speaking Maya in a way that is perceived to be more authentic. This brings me to interrogate a register of the Maya language, jach maaya, that many highly educated Maya individuals use. I then focus my attention on the creation of linguistics ich maaya, discussing its practice in the classroom and the one text published in Maya on a linguistics topic. Finally, I turn my attention to the creation of Maya linguists to look at the important identity work participation in higher education in the Maya language is affording students. Throughout, I take up notions of linguistic purism, language ideologies, and processes of social identification. I also situate the creation of linguistics ich maaya within broader discourses about indigeneity and modernity. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Education First Advisor Asif Agha Keywords Anthropology of education, Linguistic anthropology, Personhood, Social identification, Social studies of science, Yucatec Maya Subject Categories Latin American Languages and Societies | Latin American Studies | Linguistics | Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2548 MAKING MAYA LINGUISTICS, MAKING MAYA LINGUISTS: THE PRODUCTION OF MAYA SCIENTIFIC EXPERTISE AND MODELS OF PERSONHOOD IN THE YUCATAN TODAY Catherine R. Rhodes A DISSERTATION in Education and Anthropology Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2016 Supervisor of Dissertation _________________________ Asif Agha, Professor of Anthropology Education Graduate Group Chairperson Anthropology Graduate Group Chairperson _________________________ _________________________ J. Matthew Hartley, Associate Dean for Deborah A. Thomas, R. Jean Brownlee Academic Affairs Term Professor of Anthropology Dissertation Committee Dr. Asif Agha, Professor of Anthropology, Dr. Stanton E.F. Wortham, inaugural Charles F. University of Pennsylvania Donovan, S.J., Dean of the Carolyn A. and Peter S. Lynch School of Education, Boston College Dr. John A. Lucy, William Benton Professor, Dr. Gregory Urban, Arthur Hobson Quinn Professor University of Chicago of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania MAKING MAYA LINGUISTICS, MAKING MAYA LINGUISTS: THE PRODUCTION OF MAYA SCIENTIFIC EXPERTISE AND MODELS OF PERSONHOOD IN THE YUCATAN TODAY COPYRIGHT 2016 Catherine R. Rhodes This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-ny-sa/2. iii To my mother, who chose to spend time with her children instead of pursuing a PhD, and who helped me obtain mine iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To express my gratitude to all of the people who and institutions that have helped me make this work possible, it makes the most sense to begin at the beginning, with my parents—Mary Alice and Terry. Without you, none of this would have been possible. From an early age, my parents encouraged me to pursue graduate study—undergraduate study was a given; graduate study was the goal. When I think about this and the students whose participation made this research possible—all of whom are first-generation college students, I am overwhelmed by the privilege it is not only to be able to pursue graduate education, but also to take pursuing it as an expected course of action. I am immensely grateful for the opportunity to study at the graduate level, with the top scholars in my field, and for the expectation from my parents that I would do so and for their commitment to support me at every step of the way. I also grateful to my sister, Meghan. Selecting a program of graduate study, however, was not a task taken lightly. My parents were emphatic about the fact that I should not go to graduate school until I knew why I would be going. I needed to find my calling, and then pursue it. It took time to get there; what helped me was their encouragement of my exploration of a question that had been nagging me since I was a little girl—why do I feel different when I speak a different language? While this is not the question I pursued in this dissertation, it did take me to Whorf’s work, then on to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and eventually to John Lucy’s work. This led me to a Master’s degree at the University of Chicago. I took every linguistic anthropology course offered during my time there and knew that I had found my calling. My MA at the UofC was one of the most challenging and exhilarating v experiences I have ever had—I could literally feel my brain grow. Special thanks to Robin Shoaps and Cécile Vigouroux for mentoring me during my time at the UofC. At Chicago, John Lucy and Suzanne Gaskins’ unwavering support of my work helped me find my way into doctoral study. While I did not stay at Chicago with John—to this day I am grateful for the invitation to do so—he graciously continued mentoring me. Stanton Wortham at the University of Pennsylvania offered me the opportunity to engage in joint studies of Education and Anthropology. There I would also be able to participate in ongoing, ethnographic research with him—an opportunity that not only trained me for conducting my own ethnographic fieldwork, but also positioned me to present and publish on our collaborative research before I had the opportunity to conduct my own, solo work. This positioned me to be successful at earning grant monies for my own work, at designing and conducting my own research, and made me an attractive candidate on the job market. For this I am eternally grateful. Stanton is a true mentor who understands the importance of positioning his students to be successful in the world of academia. His generosity in collaborating with students makes all the difference for our professional academic futures. I cannot thank you enough for your vision and support. At Penn, I was also given the opportunity to work with Asif Agha, who became my chair in Anthropology. I had poured through Asif’s defining text, Language and Social Relations, at the UofC. Now I had the opportunity to learn from the man who wrote it. Asif further trained me in linguistic anthropology and provided me with opportunities to challenge and refine my ideas. In fact, it was his initial encouragement of the idea for this project that led me to this final product. I am grateful for your support of vi this work at every stage and for your support in helping me secure my first academic job. John and Suzanne Gaskins helped prepare me for the field—both in terms of what to wear, how to behave, and how to speak. I studied the Maya language with them and spent time with them in the summers in the Yucatan. Their expert Maya language skills and local savvy made all the difference in my ability to successfully realize this project. They guided me in different ways—John focused on technical aspects of the Maya language and my research design, while Suzanne provided me with much-needed advice and support on a wide range of personal and professional matters. I offer my deepest thanks to Asif, Stanton, and John for their willingness to mentor, train, engage, discourse with, challenge, and enlighten me throughout my graduate school career. It has been a privilege and an honor to work with each of you— you are all kind, generous people with truly brilliant minds.
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