Conference
Mayab
Bejlae/Yucatan Today: Language, Education, Health,
Migration and Indigeneity
April
21–23,
2006 |
Schedule
Friday
April 21, Gifford Room, 221 Kroeber Hall, UC Berkeley
Session
I. 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
“The
Meanings of ‘Maya’ and
Questions of Indigeneity”
Juan
Castillo Cocom, Ph.D.
Session
II. 2:00 – 4:00 pm
“Health,
Language and Development in Rural Yucatan ”
Professor
Miguel Güemez Pineda
Evening
Talk 6:00 – 8:00 pm
“Los
Mayas en el Pensamiento de José Marti”
Professor
Carlos Bojórquez Urzáiz
Saturday
April 22, Gifford Room, 221 Kroeber Hall, UC Berkeley
Session
III. 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
“Mayan
Children’s
Education”
Professor
Graciela Cortes Camarillo and Gisela Leo Peraza
Session
IV. 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm
“Language
as Political Artefact”
Michal
Brody, Ph.D.
Session
V. 4:30 – 6:30 pm
“Education
and Migration”
Professor
Anne Whiteside, City College of San Francisco
Sunday
April 23,
Mission Presbyterian Church at the Corner of
23rd and Capp St. , San Francisco
1:00 – 3:00
pm
Academic
Roundtable
4:00 – 6:00
pm
Community
Roundtable Workshop
7:00 – 10:00
pm
Vaquería:
dance and dinner
Speakers
Dr. Juan A. Castillo Cocom (
Ph.D. Florida International University ) deals with constructions
of indigeniety through the exploration of identity and identification
of “being
Maya.” Critical appraisals of the anthropological production
of knowledge of “the Maya” are engaged by ethnographically
analyzing party politics of Maya identity in Yucatán
, Mexico .
Dr. Michal Brody (Ph.D.
University of Texas, Austin) will seat his paper in current
discussions of linguistic ideologies and will deal specifically
with the alphabet(s) used to write Maya. There will be a
brief historic survey of the language’s 500 years
of alphabetic writing. The session topics will focus on
ideologies of scientism, traditionalism, and cultural authenticity
in 20 th century Maya alphabets, and orthographic strategies
and intuitions based on research with Maya-speaking elementary
school students.
Carlos
Bojórquez Urzáiz (UADY)
will present a paper on the Cuban writer José Martí and
his writings about the Maya. Unlike his first-world contemporaries,
who insisted that the Maya came from any number of places,
Martí reiterated that the Maya came from themselves.
Dr.
Graciela Cortes Camarillo (Escuela
Normal Rodolfo Menéndez Peña) will give an assessment
of the Mexican educational system as a frame that situates
Yucatec Maya children in critical pedagogy, thus connecting
sociopolitical relations to education in terms of equity and
quality.
Dr.
Miguel Güemez Pineda (UADY) aims
to create the conceptual and practical bases for an appropriate
understanding on the politics of linguistic and cultural development
directed to contemporary Peninsular Maya population. In order
to achieve this it is necessary to reflect on and analyze
diverse topics related with language, culture, identity and
development; diverse experiences must allow the widening of
horizons for the principal actors.
Anne Whiteside (UC
Berkeley Doctoral Candidate) will present research on multilingualism
in the Yucatec population in San Francisco , including results
of a participatory language and literacy survey designed
and carried out with a team of Maya-speaking students at
City College of San Francisco. She will discuss some implications
of the findings, raising questions about how legal immigration
status affects the right to speak, including the right to
speak one’s first language.
Roundtable
Discussants: William F. Hanks, Patricia Baquedano-Lopez
and Jose Rabasa
For more information, or if you are interested in becoming
involved, please contact:
Beatriz
Reyes-Cortes mireya18@berkeley.edu
Timoteo
Rodriguez iknal@berkeley.edu
