Undoing Modernity
Linguistics, Higher Education, and Indigeneity in Yucatan
Seiten
2025
University of Texas Press (Verlag)
978-1-4773-3108-8 (ISBN)
University of Texas Press (Verlag)
978-1-4773-3108-8 (ISBN)
Undoing Modernity follows students and their teachers as they upset the seemingly stable ethnic definition of Maya, by studying linguistics and culture in their own language. An erudite and ultimately hopeful work, Undoing Modernity dares to imagine the world on the other side of colonial/modern ideals of Indigeneity.
An ethnography of the decolonization of Maya-ness.
On the Yucatan Peninsula today, undergraduates are inventing a new sense of being Maya by studying linguistics and culture in their own language: Maya. In this bold theoretical intervention informed by ethnographic research, Catherine Rhodes argues that these students are undoing the category of modernity itself. Created through colonization of the Americas, modernity is the counterpart to coloniality; the students, Rhodes suggests, are creating decoloniality’s companion: “demodernity.”
Disciplines like linguistics, anthropology, history, and archaeology invented “the Maya” as an essentialized ethnos in a colonial, modern mold. Undoing Modernity follows students and their teachers as they upset the seemingly stable ethnic definition of Maya, with its reliance on a firm dichotomy of Maya and modern. Maya linguistics does not prove that Maya is modern but instead rejects the Maya-ness that modernity built, while also fostering within the university an intellectual space in which students articulate identity on their own terms. An erudite and ultimately hopeful work of interdisciplinary scholarship that brings linguistic anthropology, Mesoamerican studies, and critical Indigenous studies into the conversation, Undoing Modernity dares to imagine the world on the other side of colonial/modern ideals of Indigeneity.
An ethnography of the decolonization of Maya-ness.
On the Yucatan Peninsula today, undergraduates are inventing a new sense of being Maya by studying linguistics and culture in their own language: Maya. In this bold theoretical intervention informed by ethnographic research, Catherine Rhodes argues that these students are undoing the category of modernity itself. Created through colonization of the Americas, modernity is the counterpart to coloniality; the students, Rhodes suggests, are creating decoloniality’s companion: “demodernity.”
Disciplines like linguistics, anthropology, history, and archaeology invented “the Maya” as an essentialized ethnos in a colonial, modern mold. Undoing Modernity follows students and their teachers as they upset the seemingly stable ethnic definition of Maya, with its reliance on a firm dichotomy of Maya and modern. Maya linguistics does not prove that Maya is modern but instead rejects the Maya-ness that modernity built, while also fostering within the university an intellectual space in which students articulate identity on their own terms. An erudite and ultimately hopeful work of interdisciplinary scholarship that brings linguistic anthropology, Mesoamerican studies, and critical Indigenous studies into the conversation, Undoing Modernity dares to imagine the world on the other side of colonial/modern ideals of Indigeneity.
Catherine R. Rhodes is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of New Mexico. She is a coauthor of Migration Narratives: Diverging Stories in Schools, Churches, and Civic Institutions and associate producer of the ethnographic film Adelante.
List of Images, Tables, and Maps
Introduction
1. Demodern Maya
2. Making ‘the Maya’
3. Speaking Maya, Being Maya
4. Making Maya Linguistics
5. Making Maya Linguists
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index
| Erscheinungsdatum | 29.01.2025 |
|---|---|
| Zusatzinfo | 11 b&w photos, 1 map |
| Verlagsort | Austin, TX |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 152 x 229 mm |
| Gewicht | 454 g |
| Themenwelt | Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie |
| Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie | |
| ISBN-10 | 1-4773-3108-5 / 1477331085 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-4773-3108-8 / 9781477331088 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
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