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Watching Lacandon Maya Lives
About this book
Although romanticized as the last of the ancient Maya living isolated in the forest, several generations of the Lacandon Maya have had their lives shaped by the international oil economy, tourism, and political unrest.
Watching Lacandon Maya Lives is an examination of dramatic cultural changes in a Maya rainforest farming community over the last forty years, including changes to their families, industries, religion, health and healing practices, and gender roles. The book contains several discussions of anthropological theory in accessible, jargon-free language, including how the use of different theoretical perspectives impacts an ethnographer's fieldwork experience. While relating his own mishaps, experiences of community strife, and conflicts, Jon McGee encourages students to shed the romantic veil through which ethnographies are usually viewed and think more deeply about how events in our own lives influence how we understand the behavior of people around us.
New to the Second Edition:
Revised Introduction incorporates the author's recent work with the Lacandon and discussions of anthropological writing, culture theory, and how events in the author's personal life have changed his approach to anthropological fieldwork.Revised chapter, "Finding an Income in the Lacandon Jungle" focuses on families who have shifted from a subsistence farming economy to earning revenue by renting facilities to tourists, owning small community stores, working as hired labor for archaeologists, or make use of a variety of government rural aid programs created in the last two decades (Chapter 5).New chapter, "Forty Years Among the Lacandon: Some Lessons Learned," discusses what the author's 40 years of experience as an ethnographer has taught him about the discipline of anthropology and the concept of culture (Chapter 8)
Watching Lacandon Maya Lives is an examination of dramatic cultural changes in a Maya rainforest farming community over the last forty years, including changes to their families, industries, religion, health and healing practices, and gender roles. The book contains several discussions of anthropological theory in accessible, jargon-free language, including how the use of different theoretical perspectives impacts an ethnographer's fieldwork experience. While relating his own mishaps, experiences of community strife, and conflicts, Jon McGee encourages students to shed the romantic veil through which ethnographies are usually viewed and think more deeply about how events in our own lives influence how we understand the behavior of people around us.
New to the Second Edition:
Revised Introduction incorporates the author's recent work with the Lacandon and discussions of anthropological writing, culture theory, and how events in the author's personal life have changed his approach to anthropological fieldwork.Revised chapter, "Finding an Income in the Lacandon Jungle" focuses on families who have shifted from a subsistence farming economy to earning revenue by renting facilities to tourists, owning small community stores, working as hired labor for archaeologists, or make use of a variety of government rural aid programs created in the last two decades (Chapter 5).New chapter, "Forty Years Among the Lacandon: Some Lessons Learned," discusses what the author's 40 years of experience as an ethnographer has taught him about the discipline of anthropology and the concept of culture (Chapter 8)
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Yes, you can access Watching Lacandon Maya Lives by R. Jon McGee in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Anthropology. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- The Myth of Lacandon Origins
- Reconstructing the Historical Lacandon
- Watching Life in a Lacandon Community
- 1970-2020
- Finding an Income in the Lacandon Jungle
- Decline of Non-Christian Religion
- Changing Healing Practices
- Forty Years Among the Lacandon
- Glossary
- References
- Index
