Mayan Identities: Escaping from Status, Presence, and Absence
| Start: | |
|---|---|
| End: | |
| Venue: | FIU Modesto A. Maidique Campus, SIPA 100 |
| Start: | |
|---|---|
| End: | |
| Venue: | FIU Modesto A. Maidique Campus, GL 220 |
Lecture by Juan Ariel Castillo Cocom, PhD
Professor, Universidad Intercultural Maya de Quintana Roo, Mexico
Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2014 12:15 PM. FIU Maidique Campus SIPA 100 Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2014 12:00 PM FlU Maidique Campus 1 GL 220
Maya people of Yucatan have a common sense understanding of corporal space. This is known as their iknal (roughly, ‘place’). This concept is a philosophical principle regarding the constant presence of and unending absence. It is always in perpetual motion as the awareness and perception of our shared and individuated body's space coupled to our perceptions, opinions, and attitudes.
Iknal is both context and product of practical identity strategies in “ethnoexodus”. This is a critique on the idea of “ethnogenesis” that maintains that “Maya” identity, and identity formation in general, is related to the production of ethnos. Ethnoexodus focuses on how a social actor can “exit” a temporal “point” of identity suture without having necessarily ever been “in” that identity suture. Simultaneously, ethnoexodus conveys how an individual/social actor “enters” fictional territories of identities that multiply his or her already numerous fictitious identity formations in an apparent “genesis of the ethnos”.
Sponsored by the and the Global Indigenous Group, the FIU Global Indigenous Forum, and the Latin American and Caribbean Center
