 | Enclosed: Conservation, Cattle, and Commerce Among the Q’eqchi’ Maya Lowlanders Subjects: Kekchi Indians -- Land tenure; Kekchi Indians -- Migrations; Kekchi Indians -- Economic conditions; Culture and globalization -- Guatemala; Free trade -- Guatemala; CAFTA (Free trade agreement) (2005); Guatemala -- Economic policy; Guatemala -- Economic c; This impassioned and rigorous analysis of the territorial plight of the Q'eqchi Maya of Guatemala highlights an urgent problem for indigenous communities around the world - repeated displacement from their lands. Liza Grandia uses the tools of ethnography, history, cartography, and ecology to explore the recurring enclosures of Guatemala's second largest indigenous group, who number a million strong. Having lost most of their highland territory to foreign coffee planters at the end of the 19th century, Q'eqchi' people began migrating into the lowland forests of northern Guatemala and southern Belize. Then, pushed deeper into the frontier by cattle ranchers, lowland Q'eqchi' found themselves in conflict with biodiversity conservationists who established protected areas across this region during the 1990s. Liza Grandia is assistant professor of Native American studies at UC Davis. |
