A classic in the literature on the decipherment of Mayan writing, Phoneticism grew out of the famous Albany conference--a gathering of the leading Mayanists who were working within the modern, linguistically-informed paradigm for the analysis of Mayan hieroglyphic text. The volume contains nine seminal articles and appendixes. Many of the phonetic readings on which current epigraphic work depends are worked out and presented here. Several papers focus on or carefully exemplify rigorous decipherment methodology; others provide primary data on the ancient language forms that lie behind the glyphic representations.

Phoneticism in Mayan Hieroglyphic Writing (IMS Monograph)

History

Campbell, Lyle

Justeson, John J.

Americas

Institute for Mesoamerican Studies

This innovative volume seeks to identify patterns in Mesoamerican symbolic representation that have persistence and coherence across the boundaries of time, space, culture, and language. The collection also includes consideration of recent and powerful arrivals on the Mesoamerican stage, notably, European political, economic, and religious systems.

Symbol and Meaning Beyond the Closed Community: Essays in Mesoamerican Ideas (Studies on Culture and Society)

"CASI NADA is the result of many months that the author shared the lives of the ejidatarios of Guaracha, Michoacan and of his patient reconstruction of the collective memory concerning a half centry of violence and hope. Without a doubt, it will become obligatory reading for those interested in the themes of agrarian reform, peasant reproduction and political control at the local level. The book will also serve to remind us that, if it is true that Mexican peasants never have supported populist inefficiencies, neither will they become enthusiastic supporters of a neoliberal agenda which condemns them to disappear."- Guillermo de la Peña; Director, CIESAS-Occidente; Guadalajara, Mexico

Casi Nada: A Study of Agrarian Reform in the Homeland of Cardenismo (IMS Studies in Culture and Society)

Business & Money

Gledhill, John

Industries

"Brenda Rosenbaum has succeeded in capturing the daily routines of San Juan Chamula men and women in such a way as to reveal the gender subordination implicit in the fabric of this society. Since few of the monographs on this much studied area have addressed the issue of gender relations, this volume is a welcome and valuable addition to the field. Few ethnographers have explored the ambiguous link between ideology and social role performance in as great a depth as Brenda Rosenbaum. With her long commitment to fieldwork in San Juan Chamula she is able to demonstrate how women have been able to overreach a constraining model of behavior defined by men."- June Nash; Distinguished Professor of Anthropology; City University of New York

With Our Heads Bowed: The Dynamics of Gender in a Maya Community (Studies on Culture and Society)

Politics & Social Sciences

Rossenbaum, Brenda

Social Sciences

"The Seventeen papers in this collection deal with various aspects of the relationship between economics and the political units which constituted the Aztec state and its main competitor the Tarascan empire...Until recently Aztec studies were dominated by two rather narrow foci...a preoccupation with the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan coupled with neglect of other cities and the rural countryside, and an over-emphasis on the best-known Native and Spanish chronicles which ignored the vast corpus of lesser known but equally important documentary sources...Fortunately a few archaeologists and ethnohistorians, including the contributors to this volume, insisted on expanding the geographical and conceptual parameters of Aztec studies., They also began to employ recent innovative approaches in archaeology, locational geography, economics, political theory, and history in their quest to understand what really happened in central Mexico during the Postclassic period. The result has been some very exciting new perspectives on this fascinating topic."-Richard A. Diehl; Professor of Anthropology; University of Alabama

Economies and Polities in the Aztec Realm (Studies on Culture and Society)

Economics

Hach Winik may be the last comprehensive study of traditional Lacandon Maya society based on intensive ethnographic fieldwork. Long isolated, culturally conservative, and bearing a mystique of Mesoamerican "primitivism," the Lacandon now live on the brink of cultural disintegration. Their habitat is all but destroyed by lumbering and by the large-scale invasion of other Maya peoples in search of land. In the 1970s and 1980s, Dr. Didier Boremanse collected cultural data and textual materials from two groups of Lacandon who still remained relatively isolated. Hach Winik describes and compares the cultural traditions of these two groups. Topics presented in this volume include the history of Lacandon contact with other peoples as well as settlement patterns, life cycle, social control, residence and marriage, the kinship system, and the ritual expression of these social domains. Statistical data are balanced by a wealth of descriptive detail concerning events and individuals. A number of oral narratives are also presented and include many words and utterances in the original language with English glosses.

Hach Winik: The Lacandon Maya of Chiapas, Southern Mexico (IMS Monograph)

Boremanse, Didier

This archaeological site report presents new in sights on an important but poorly-studied Mesoamerican culture-the Classic period of the Mexican Gulf Coast. Stark discusses her excavations at several sites in the Mixtequilla region, describes the deposits and artifacts encountered, and provides interpretations of the sites and their significance within a wider context. Her analysis of the ephemeral remains of perishable houses is innovative and contains one of the most sophisticated treatments of site formation processes yet carried out in Latin America. Particularly important is the identification of some of the earliest spindle whorls in Mesoamerica, leading to new views of the importance of cotton textiles in the changing economies of the Late Preclassic and Classic periods. Superb artifact illustrations, detailed descriptions, and an ample use of data tables, make this a valuable reference work. Mesoamericanists will find much of interest in this book, as will readers interested in tropical lowland settlement patterns, household archaeology, and site formation processes.

Classic Period Mixtequilla, Veracruz, Mexico: Diachronic Inferences from Residental Navigations (IMS Monograph)

Stark, Barbara L.

This valuable collection assembles essays by leading experts in transnationalism, highlighting emerging trends in this newly developed field. The contributions focus on the construction of transnational identities and how these identities form and change in the context of processes of migration and displacement. The book addresses the ways in which nations and states frame identity formation through labels, politics of exception, and racialization through an interdisciplinary and multi-methodological perspective, which permits the student of transnational processes to access diverse constructs through multiple angles. The volume includes concrete ethnographic examples of identities in the making, documentation of the effects of exile and displacement, reflexive accounts by writers who have direct experience with transnationalism, and incisive theoretical arguments that highlight the ways in which race, citizenship, nation-states, and neo-colonialism create images and actions of individuals and communities. The examples include discussions about Latinos in the United States, individuals and communities along the borders, indigenous peoples in migration, and identity construction in international workplaces.

Identities on the Move: Transnational Processes in North America and the Carribean Basin (IMS Studies in Culture and Society)

Goldín, Liliana R.

"Dr. Robert M. LaughIin, one of the world's greatest students of native language and culture, has produced a "historical anthropology" that is both captivating and illuminating. Like a mystery novel, the reader is led from the accidental discovery of a Tzotzil-Maya nineteenth-century text, found in the very building where Laughlin works (the Smithsonian Institution), through the bizarre and dramatic history of events surrounding the 1812 Cortes in Spain and an obscure proclamation sent to the officials of the American colonies. Through Laughlin's detailed accounts of these historical events that took place in Spain, New Spain, Peru, Guatemala, and Chiapa, the reader learns the meaning of the proclamation for the Creoles and Indians to whom it was addressed. In the best tradition of the "microhistorian," the proclamation and its Tzotzil text are historically and culturally contextualized rather than explained. As Laughlin himself states in his introduction: 'The pages that follow present a theater of the absurd, a fabulous history with myriads of details as if set in the Milky Way. The reader will not be comforted with an historical 'argument'.' The prose is wonderful, the characters alive, and the plot intriguing. And along the way, the reader is treated to an inside perspective on the vicissitudes and small triumphs of colonial Indians in one small corner of the Mesoamerican world."- Robert M. Carmack, Professor Emeritus, University at Albany

Beware the Great Horned Serpent!: Chiapas under the Threat of Napoleon (Studies on Culture and Society)

Laughlin, Robert M.

This timely report presents new archaeological data on Postclassic sites (11th through 16th centuries, AD) in one of the key regions of Mesoamerica. The Pacific coast of Soconusco was at the forefront of cultural developments from the time of its earliest farmers in the Formative period through the Spanish conquest. Yet until now the Postclassic archaeology of this region has remained poorly known. This book presents the results of archaeological fieldwork at the political center Acapetahua and other key Postclassic sites in Soconusco by two leading Mesoamericanist archaeologists. The authors' analyses of artifacts shed light on subsistence activities, the production of textiles and other craft items, commercial exchange, and the social context of life in this area. The Late Postclassic period was a dynamic and innovative time when peoples from all parts of Mesoamerica were drawn together by processes of commercial and stylistic interaction. Until recently, however, Postclassic archaeological data has been limited to a few areas. Postclassic Soconusco Society now adds a key region to the overall picture. This work will serve as both a basic reference on the Postclassic archaeology of a key region and a case study in the local impacts and manifestations of ancient empires and world-systems.

Postclassic Soconusco Society: The Late Prehistory of the Coast of Chiapas, Mexico (Institute for Mesoamerican Studies Monograph 14 (SUNY Albany))

Voorhies, Barbara

Gasco, Janine

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