Outside of Social Movements: Dilemmas of indigenous handicrafts vendors in Guatemala

1. Outside of Social Movements: Dilemmas of indigenous handicrafts vendors in Guatemala Walter Little

2. THE MAYA MOVEMENT • Objective: to Politically unify Mayas on the basis of shared ethnicity & cultural identity • Then why did Maya handicraft vendors reject the Maya Movement?

3. Maya handicraft vendors • Have sold handicrafts to international tourists since the 1930s • But the military government & civil war of the 1980s curtailed most of their activities • Social & political changes in the late 1980s & early 1990s contributed to growth of vending again • With the end of the war, the tourism commission promoted international tourism

4. In 1992,the city government suspended the Sunday handicrafts market and relocated vendors to a monastery • Vendors created an artisans’ association for economic & political actions

5. Artisans’ association • To prevent being expelled from their marketplace • Make the marketplace attractive to tourists • Lobby the city government for services • Convince tourists the marketplace was clean & safe • Show city officials they were organized & unified • Agreed to sell only handmade crafts

6. The politics of Mayan identity • Vendors use identity, but it is in part in response to tourists’ interests • …and to vendors’ economic & political interests • Global tourism helps them in their struggle against political problems & discrimination at national & local levels • Ladinos discriminate against them • They don’t create revenue for the city, so the mayor’s office charges them for non-existent services • Police harass them & fine them

7. Tactics used • Politics of representing Maya cultures • Vending as a theatrical performance • Selling identity via dramatization • Use code-switching to keep Ladinos & tourists from understanding them • Maya language (Kaqchikel) establishes their Mayanness to tourists • Weaving on backstrap loom • Use of colorful traje to create image of the Mayan woman

8. Most successful vendors are women • They contribute to maintenance of their households, yet are relatively wealthy • Tourists seek out images of Maya women they have seen in guidebooks • Vendors hide their radios, calculators • Essentialized identities—as Mayan Indians for tourists and as “artisans” for Ladinos

9. The maya movement • To build a national movement & unite all Mayans • Based on culture & identity • Maya intellectuals denounce racism & foreign scholarship due to their representations of Mayan culture

10. “maya vendors, working between international tourism & essentializedmaya& ladinos’ racializedindian identities, are reluctant to embrace the maya movement” • The Maya Movement dictates which traits make up Maya identity • Vendors shift identity depending on who they are dealing with • Ladinos & tourists equate Mayans with a pre-Columbian past • “We can be Mayas for tourists, if they want” • “The Maya Movement doesn’t know anything about business” • Vendors unite over marketing (economic) issues • “We are artisans” (vs. vendors); a more neutral identity when dealing with city officials & police • they use “Maya” only when dealing with tourists

11. The Maya Movement does not address unemployment or health care • Vendors use identity to help them earn a better living in the global economy