ABSTRACTARTICULATIONS OF IDENTITY THROUGH STRUGGLE AMONG THE CH’ORTI’ MAYA OF COPÁN, HONDURASByFredy Rodriguez-MejiaThis dissertation examines the articulation of identities among the Ch’orti’ Maya in the municipal region of Copán Ruinas in Western Honduras. It traces the different categories or labels used to define the indigenous sector of Copán since the time of the colony (in the 1500s) until the emergence of indigenous activism (in the 1990s) during which indigenous people began to mobilize using the ethnic category Ch’orti’ Maya. I look at how and why, during this period of mobilization, indigenous people have constructed and performed certain identities in their encounters with non-indigenous society (including public officials, tourists, and landowners) and other indigenous people. It also examines the different ways these identities are contested, the kinds of identities that are relevant in indigenous communities, and the role that the state, the tourism industry, and activism have played in the kinds of identities that are articulated. The research for this dissertation took place over the course of 11 months between June, 2012 and August, 2013. My population sample (totaling 101 participants) included: 1) Ch’orti’ Maya activists who work with the Ch’orti-Maya Indigenous Council of Honduras (CONIMCHH), 2) Ch’orti’ Maya villagers from 3 different communities, and 3) non-indigenous people who work with indigenous leaders and communities. This last group included workers of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), activists, and government officials. I used demographic surveys, participant observation, individual interviews and group interviews. In examining how and why certain identities are articulated and performed I draw from Foucault’s (1982:212) notion that an individual is both marked by and bounded to his/her own identity by “conscience or self-knowledge,” and also a subject to other forces he/she depends on or is controlled by. This approach is relevant to understanding how forces such as the state, the tourism industry, and activism influence ethnic identity performances and articulations (through their expectations of indigeneity). However, I argue that beyond these articulations of ethnicity, as individuals navigate different kinds of struggles, they evoke diverse (gendered, classed, racial, and ethnic) identities that more adequately represent their realities. I found that in response to non-indigenous society’s expectations of indigeneity and ethnicity, indigenous people performed certain practices marked or narrated as Ch’orti’ Maya in order to assert their legitimacy as an ethnic group and also gain access to land and other resources. Beyond the performance of narrated practices, however, people’s understandings and enactment of identity reflect the intersection of multiple categories that shape one another as individuals navigate different encounters and struggles. In examining people’s struggles more carefully, we can understand not only how and why an individual may inhabit multiple identities (Medina 2004), but also how our expectations of people’s actions (based on categorizations) may lead us to overlook other important non-narrated practices. Although these practices are not narrated as Ch’orti’ Maya, they are important to community members and also address communities’ struggles on a different dimension.
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