Indigenous Movements and their Critics: Pan-Mayan Activism in Guatemala Available to Purchase

Kay B. Warren’s inspiring book is both a personal confession and a public revelation. From its overture, the author admits that it is not possible anymore to write about social movements, ethnic politics, and indigenous people struggle for autonomy without becoming totally submerged in the movement. Such an option would put the researcher at risk of losing some of the alleged “scientific objectivity” and thus weakening the scholarly credibility of anthropology which, for more than a century, has been based on its obstinate refusal to become politically involved with the causes of the people it studied. “I knew this would not be a restudy in any classical sense because ethnic politics, Guatemala, ‘Indian’ communities, cultural anthropology and Kay Warren had changed so dramatically … Self-proclaimed pan-community Maya groups were springing up throughout the country. Maya academics and activists confronted Western scholars with pointed critiques of politics, research practices, and published...