Event overview
A lecture by Aura Comes
Like the rest of Latin American states, the Guatemalan state serves to reproduce a system of colonial domination. A great deal of ancient Maya heritage was for a long time either destroyed or disregarded by it. However, as it realised that appeals to this Mayan past could generate generous sources of revenue as a tourist attractions, the state has engaged in a campaign to steal this heritage from Mayan people, by turning into “national heritage”. In this way, in the same way that natural resources are being extracted from Indigenous peoples, heritage is being commodified in a way that neither benefits nor involves them. This is, for example, the case of the sacred city of El Mirador in El Petén, in the North of Guatemala, which is currently being claimed by Guatemalan oligarchs with the support of a North American archaeologist that describes himself as the one who “discovered” the city.
Aura Cumes is a Maya kaqchiquel from Guatemala, a thinker, writer, teacher and activist. She holds a PhD in Anthropology from the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS) México, DF an MA in Social Sciences from the FLACSO Guatemala and a BA in Social Work from the Universidad Rafael Landivar. She is the co-editor of La encrucijada de las Identidades, feminismos y mayanismos en diálogo (2006) and co-author of Mayanización y vida cotidiana, el discurso multicultural en la sociedad Guatemalteca (2007). She has published numerous articles and presented papers internationally.
Please join us on zoom if you cannot make it in person: https://gold-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/95779241909?pwd=WDU4R2RvVHNUb2hld2JIekd2TnlhUT09
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 2 Nov 2023 | 5:15pm - 7:00pm |
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