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Contesting Global Heritage in the Chicle Workers' Museum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2022

Jennifer A. Devine
Jennifer A. Devine*
Affiliation:
Texas State University
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Abstract

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In the village of Ch'umil in northern Guatemala's Maya Biosphere Reserve, competing heritage claims to Maya archaeological sites and artifacts politicize the region's cultural and ecological landscapes. Using a geographical understanding of the production of space (Lefebvre 1991), I ethnographically unpack Ch'umil residents' definitions of cultural and ecological heritage that reflect village-level histories of living and laboring in forests and archaeology sites surrounding Ch'umil. Villagers' definitions of heritage contrast sharply with the spatial claims made by global heritage advocates who campaign to designate the region as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Analyzing the politics of scale underpinning these conservation practices reveals that when global heritage advocates speak on behalf of a universal humanity, they often render local-level heritage claims invisible and illegitimate. This article urges heritage managers and cosmopolitan theorists who debate the ethics of mitigating global and local heritage claims to reconsider this spatial binary altogether.

Resumen

Resumen

En el pueblo de Ch'umil en el norte de Guatemala, los reclamos conflictivos del patrimonio de los sitios y artefactos mayas politizan los paisajes culturales y ecológicos de la región. A través de un conocimiento geográfico sobre la producción del espacio, identifico lo que llamo el “patrimonio de lugar” de los residentes de Ch'umil que reflejan las historias locales de vivir y trabajar en el bosque, y los sitios arqueológicos que rodean la aldea. El patrimonio de lugar de Ch'umil contrasta fuertemente con las declaraciones espaciales hechas por los defensores del patrimonio mundial, quienes abogan por designar la región como Patrimonio de la Humanidad por la UNESCO. Con el uso de la etnografía para analizar la política de escala en el manejo del patrimonio, este artículo argumenta que los partidarios del patrimonio mundial “magnifican” sus reclamos a las antigüedades mayas desde el nivel local hasta el mundial, lo que hace invisibles e ilegítimas las definiciones del patrimonio de lugar de Ch'umil. De este modo, este artículo urge a los administradores del patrimonio y teóricos cosmopolitas que debaten la ética de mitigar los reclamos sobre el patrimonio mundial y local de acabar de usar estos binarios espaciales completamente.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 51 , Issue 3 , 2016 , pp. 101 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by the Latin American Studies Association

Footnotes

I would like to thank the Inter-American Foundation Grassroots Development Fellowship for funding this research, and Rosemary Joyce, Jason Pribilsky, Kimberley Kinder, Abigail Andrews, Lisa Munro, and three anonymous reviews for LARR for their feedback on previous drafts. All errors in fact and interpretation are mine. Pseudonyms are used for people and places.

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