S James Anaya
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199235605
- eISBN:
- 9780191696664
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199235605.003.0020
- Subject:
- Law, Public International Law
This chapter presents an example of how a claim for reparations is to be submitted before a court. It is based on two separate claims, which were actually filed by representatives and members of the ...
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This chapter presents an example of how a claim for reparations is to be submitted before a court. It is based on two separate claims, which were actually filed by representatives and members of the indigenous Maya villages of Conejo and Santa Cruz to the Supreme Court of Belize on 3 April 2007. It presents the skeleton argument prepared for the claimants, who alleged that the government of Belize violated their constitutionally recognized customary land rights. It is a ‘living’ example of how historical evidence, cultural arguments, international law, and domestic law may be combined in order to build a solid argument which may prove strong enough to convince a court that the communities concerned are to be granted actual redress for the torts suffered.Less
This chapter presents an example of how a claim for reparations is to be submitted before a court. It is based on two separate claims, which were actually filed by representatives and members of the indigenous Maya villages of Conejo and Santa Cruz to the Supreme Court of Belize on 3 April 2007. It presents the skeleton argument prepared for the claimants, who alleged that the government of Belize violated their constitutionally recognized customary land rights. It is a ‘living’ example of how historical evidence, cultural arguments, international law, and domestic law may be combined in order to build a solid argument which may prove strong enough to convince a court that the communities concerned are to be granted actual redress for the torts suffered.
S. Ashley Kistler
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252038358
- eISBN:
- 9780252096228
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252038358.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Latin American Cultural Anthropology
As cultural mediators, Chamelco's market women offer a model of contemporary Q'eqchi' identity grounded in the strength of the Maya historical legacy. Guatemala's Maya communities have faced nearly ...
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As cultural mediators, Chamelco's market women offer a model of contemporary Q'eqchi' identity grounded in the strength of the Maya historical legacy. Guatemala's Maya communities have faced nearly five hundred years of constant challenges to their culture, from colonial oppression to the instability of violent military dictatorships and the advent of new global technologies. In spite of this history, the people of San Juan Chamelco, Guatemala, have effectively resisted significant changes to their cultural identities. Chamelco residents embrace new technologies, ideas, and resources to strengthen their indigenous identities and maintain Maya practice in the 21st century, a resilience that sets Chamelco apart from other Maya towns. Unlike the region's other indigenous women, Chamelco's Q'eqchi' market women achieve both prominence and visibility as vendors, dominating social domains from religion to local politics. These women honor their families' legacies through continuation of the inherited, high-status marketing trade. This book describes how market women gain social standing as mediators of sometimes conflicting realities, harnessing the forces of global capitalism to revitalize Chamelco's indigenous identity. Working at the intersections of globalization, kinship, gender, and memory, the book presents a firsthand look at Maya markets as a domain in which the values of capitalism and indigenous communities meet.Less
As cultural mediators, Chamelco's market women offer a model of contemporary Q'eqchi' identity grounded in the strength of the Maya historical legacy. Guatemala's Maya communities have faced nearly five hundred years of constant challenges to their culture, from colonial oppression to the instability of violent military dictatorships and the advent of new global technologies. In spite of this history, the people of San Juan Chamelco, Guatemala, have effectively resisted significant changes to their cultural identities. Chamelco residents embrace new technologies, ideas, and resources to strengthen their indigenous identities and maintain Maya practice in the 21st century, a resilience that sets Chamelco apart from other Maya towns. Unlike the region's other indigenous women, Chamelco's Q'eqchi' market women achieve both prominence and visibility as vendors, dominating social domains from religion to local politics. These women honor their families' legacies through continuation of the inherited, high-status marketing trade. This book describes how market women gain social standing as mediators of sometimes conflicting realities, harnessing the forces of global capitalism to revitalize Chamelco's indigenous identity. Working at the intersections of globalization, kinship, gender, and memory, the book presents a firsthand look at Maya markets as a domain in which the values of capitalism and indigenous communities meet.
Patrick Roberts
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- November 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198818496
- eISBN:
- 9780191917264
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198818496.003.0005
- Subject:
- Archaeology, Environmental Archaeology
Friedrich Wöhler was referring to the field of organic chemistry during the early 1800s when he wrote the above but his comments would not be out of place in the ...
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Friedrich Wöhler was referring to the field of organic chemistry during the early 1800s when he wrote the above but his comments would not be out of place in the context of embarking upon a global study of past and present human relationships with tropical forests. Dense vegetation, difficulty of navigation, issues of preservation, political and health concerns, poisonous plants, animals, and insects, and the prospect of carrying out sampling or excavation in high humidity have all meant that our knowledge of human history and prehistory in these environments is under-developed relative to temperate, arid, or even polar habitats. There have been theoretical questions as to what kind of human activity one would even expect to find in tropical forest environments, which seem hostile to human foraging (Hart and Hart, 1986; Bailey et al., 1989) let alone thriving agricultural or urban settlements (Meggers, 1971, 1977, 1987). This has, until relatively recently, left the state of archaeological tropical forest research in a similar position to popular conceptions of these environments—untouched, primeval wilderness. Public ideas of an archaeologist investigating a tropical forest are probably synonymous with someone in a shabby-looking leather hat being chased, if not by a large stone boulder then by a group of Indigenous people with blowpipes, as they wade through dense undergrowth and vines while clutching a golden discovery that has been lost to the western world for thousands of years (Spielberg, 1981). The more recent development of the best-selling Uncharted video game series has done little to change these ideas amongst the next generation of media consumers, with players taking on the role of Francis Drake’s mythical ancestor in search of long lost treasure, frequently hidden within caves and ruins surrounded by vines and dense canopies (Naughty Dog et al., 2016). The idea of treasure hidden within tropical forest is also not a modern conception. The long-term myth of El Dorado, a city covered in gold, fuelled exploration of the tropical forests of South America by renowned individuals, including Sir Walter Raleigh, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries (Nicholl, 1995).
Less
Friedrich Wöhler was referring to the field of organic chemistry during the early 1800s when he wrote the above but his comments would not be out of place in the context of embarking upon a global study of past and present human relationships with tropical forests. Dense vegetation, difficulty of navigation, issues of preservation, political and health concerns, poisonous plants, animals, and insects, and the prospect of carrying out sampling or excavation in high humidity have all meant that our knowledge of human history and prehistory in these environments is under-developed relative to temperate, arid, or even polar habitats. There have been theoretical questions as to what kind of human activity one would even expect to find in tropical forest environments, which seem hostile to human foraging (Hart and Hart, 1986; Bailey et al., 1989) let alone thriving agricultural or urban settlements (Meggers, 1971, 1977, 1987). This has, until relatively recently, left the state of archaeological tropical forest research in a similar position to popular conceptions of these environments—untouched, primeval wilderness. Public ideas of an archaeologist investigating a tropical forest are probably synonymous with someone in a shabby-looking leather hat being chased, if not by a large stone boulder then by a group of Indigenous people with blowpipes, as they wade through dense undergrowth and vines while clutching a golden discovery that has been lost to the western world for thousands of years (Spielberg, 1981). The more recent development of the best-selling Uncharted video game series has done little to change these ideas amongst the next generation of media consumers, with players taking on the role of Francis Drake’s mythical ancestor in search of long lost treasure, frequently hidden within caves and ruins surrounded by vines and dense canopies (Naughty Dog et al., 2016). The idea of treasure hidden within tropical forest is also not a modern conception. The long-term myth of El Dorado, a city covered in gold, fuelled exploration of the tropical forests of South America by renowned individuals, including Sir Walter Raleigh, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries (Nicholl, 1995).