PUBlic Professor Series | Dr. James MacKenzie
Being Maya: Reflections on Ethnicity, Religion and Place
, Department of Anthropology
From 19th century white explorers to 21st century New Age seekers鈥攚ith platoons of archaeologists and anthropologists in between鈥攊nterest in Maya culture has rarely ebbed. Of course, what comes to mind for most when they hear the word 鈥淢aya鈥 are images of abandoned temples, soaring from rainforest canopies. The inevitable question follows: 鈥淲here did they all go?鈥
The short answer, of course, is nowhere. The Maya (as classified by scholars at least) are among the most populous indigenous peoples of the Americas, with some six million living in and around Guatemala and Southern Mexico (not to mention hundreds of thousands who have migrated to the United States in recent years). It is more interesting, if less dramatic, to reframe the question to ask what a 鈥淢aya鈥 identity means to the people concerned.
In this talk, Dr. MacKenzie reflects upon what he has learned from contemporary indigenous Guatemalans鈥攎any of whom now identify in some way as 鈥淢aya鈥濃攕ince the mid-1990s, when he began researching religion and ethnicity in their country and beyond. For indigenous people themselves, it seems that adopting a Maya identity can involve choices with important consequences which involve religion, politics, and community. Their choices are also informed by the way they are represented, valued and appropriated by non-indigenous others. The global hype surrounding the 2012 Phenomenon (the so-called 鈥渆nd鈥 of the Maya Calendar) quickened these discussions, which continue to resonate in a country where being indigenous can also mean being poor, disenfranchised and subject to the violence of the state and extractive industries.
Jamie MacKenzie was born and raised in Red Deer, and took his BA and MA, both in Anthropology, at the 免费福利资源在线看片 of Alberta. He first travelled to Guatemala in 1994 for Spanish language study and subsequently concentrated his ethnographic research in that country. Since first visiting Guatemala, he has spent close to five years studying and conducting research in that country, including eight months of K鈥檌che鈥 Maya language training, and almost two years of continuous research in the K鈥檌che鈥 community of San Andr茅s Xecul [ShayCOOL], conducted for his doctoral degree which he took at the State 免费福利资源在线看片 of New York at Albany. After graduating in 2006, he expanded his research to include the experiences of economic migrants from Xecul living in the United States and has conducted fieldwork to that end in San Diego, California. He has returned often to Guatemala and has recently expanded his research focus to include the way indigenous Guatemalans relate to members of global New Age networks, as well as activist indigenous religious leaders from outside of Guatemala, in developing their identities and practices.
His work has focussed on issues of religion, politics and ethnic identity, and the way that broad national and global institutions, movements and ideologies intersect with and are transformed by local attachments and experiences. He has been interested in the way plural religious and ethnic landscapes are managed at local levels and beyond. Some of the religious practices he has investigated include shamanism; Evangelical and Charismatic Christianity; a Catholic style of evangelization called 鈥渋nculturation鈥 which seeks to adapt that 鈥渦niversal鈥 religion to 鈥渓ocal鈥 indigenous spirituality and practices; and a revitalized 鈥淢aya Spirituality鈥 which aims to purify and institutionalize traditional community-level indigenous religious practices like shamanism. He has published his research in a wide range of academic journals and is the author of a well-reviewed book, Indigenous Bodies, Maya Minds: Religion and Modernity in a Transnational K鈥檌che鈥 Community, for which he receives no royalties because he didn鈥檛 read the contract closely, and which synthesizes much of this research.
He has worked at the 免费福利资源在线看片 of Lethbridge since 2005, where he has taught courses relating to the anthropology of religion and ritual, as well as ethnographic methods, linguistic anthropology, the cultures of Mesoamerica, popular culture, and a range of advanced seminars treating themes ranging from migration to anarchism. He is currently teaching a seminar on the Anthropology of Death and is planning a new research project to begin following his service as Department Chair, should the powers-that-be grant him Study Leave. Finally, he is familiar with the dark side of Guatemalan shamanic practice, AKA witchcraft, should the powers-that-be choose to be stingy with their decisions.