Edward F. Fischer is a professor of anthropology at Vanderbilt University who writes on political economy, development, and culture. [1] He is a cited expert on well-being, [2] the Maya of Guatemala, [3] and the German social economy.
Fischer holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham along with a Master of Arts and Ph.D. from Tulane University. He currently directs the Vanderbilt Center for Latin American Studies.
Fischer has written numerous books, including: Cultural Logics and Global Economies (a 2002 Choice Outstanding Academic Title), Broccoli and Desire, and Cash on the Table. He starred in The Teaching Company's Great Course series “Peoples and Cultures of the World,” [4] has been featured on BigThink.com, [5] and is often cited in media outlets. [6] [7] [8] [9] He was the executive producer of the film Música Campesina by Alberto Fuguet. [10]
In 2009, Fischer founded Maní+, a social enterprise in Guatemala that develops and produces locally sourced complementary foods to fight malnutrition. [11] He also consults with private companies and public agencies. [12]
A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasants existed: non-free slaves, semi-free serfs, and free tenants. Peasants might hold title to land outright, or by any of several forms of land tenure, among them socage, quit-rent, leasehold, and copyhold.
The Maya are an ethnolinguistic group of indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. The ancient Maya civilization was formed by members of this group, and today's Maya are generally descended from people who lived within that historical region. Today they inhabit southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras. "Maya" is a modern collective term for the peoples of the region; however, the term was not historically used by the indigenous populations themselves. There was no common sense of identity or political unity among the distinct populations, societies and ethnic groups because they each had their own particular traditions, cultures and historical identity.
David Matthew Stoll is an American cultural anthropologist. His research has focused on the indigenous peoples of modern Latin America, and especially on the Mayas in Guatemala. He has been a professor of anthropology at Middlebury College since 1997.
Arthur Andrew Demarest is an American anthropologist and archaeologist, known for his studies of the Maya civilization.
Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area that begins in the southern part of North America and extends to the Pacific coast of Central America, thus comprising the lands of central and southern Mexico, all of Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, and small parts of Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. As a cultural area, Mesoamerica is defined by a mosaic of cultural traits developed and shared by its indigenous cultures.
Cancuén is an archaeological site of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization, located in the Pasión subregion of the central Maya lowlands in the present-day Guatemalan Department of Petén. The city is notable for having one of the largest palaces in the Maya world.
Aguateca is a Maya site located in northern Guatemala's Petexbatun Basin, in the department of Petén. The first settlements at Aguateca date to the Late Preclassic period. The center was occupied from about 200 B.C. until about 800 A.D., when the city was attacked and ransacked. Because the city was rapidly abandoned by its population, Pompeii-style assemblages were left scattered on the floors of elite residences. Horizontal excavation of these residences has revealed ancient elite activity and household level craft production areas. Aguateca sits on top of a 90 metres (300 ft) tall limestone bluff, creating a highly defensible position. This steep escarpment overlooks Petexbatun Lagoon in the Southwestern Guatemalan lowlands and is accessible by boat. There is an extensive system of defensive walls that surrounds the city, reaching over 3 miles (4.8 km) in length. Its center consisted on the Palace Group, which was probably a royal residential compound, and the Main Plaza. These monumental complexes were connected by a causeway, along which was a densely occupied elite residential area. During the reign of Tan Te' K'inich the city was invaded and burned. The city was completely abandoned around 830 AD. A 6-metre (20 ft) tall temple at the site was left unfinished, the centre of the city was destroyed by fire, valuables were left scattered in elite residences, and ceramics were left in their original domestic positions, all of which demonstrate the sudden abandonment of the city. The ruins of Aguateca are considered to be among the best preserved in Guatemala.
The Mirador Basin is a hypothesized geological depression found in the remote rainforest of the northern department of Petén, Guatemala. Mirador Basin consists of two true basins, consisting of shallowly sloping terrain dominated by low-lying swamps called bajos; one draining into the San Pedro River and the other into the Candelaria River. The basin is surrounded by rugged karstic limestone hills on the east and south, forming a triangular geographical "trough" covering more than 2,169 km2 (837 sq mi). The geological formation of the landscape, as well as the significance of the formation, are the subject of some controversy in Northern Guatemala. NASA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) data indicate no depression in the area.
Stephen Douglas Houston is an American anthropologist, archaeologist, epigrapher, and Mayanist scholar, who is particularly renowned for his research into the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica. He is the author of a number of papers and books concerning topics such as the Maya script, the history, kingships and dynastic politics of the pre-Columbian Maya, and archaeological reports on several Maya archaeological sites, particularly Dos Pilas and El Zotz. In 2021, National Geographic noted that he participated in the correct cultural association assigned to a half-size replica discovered at the Tikal site of the six-story pyramid of the mighty Teotihuacan culture, which replicated its Citadel that includes the original Feathered Serpent Pyramid.
Christianity has dominated Guatemalan society since its Spanish colonial rule, but the nature of Christian practice in the country has changed in recent decades.
Richard D. Hansen is an American archaeologist who is an adjunct professor of anthropology at the University of Utah.
Guatemalan Americans are Americans of full or partial Guatemalan descent. The Guatemalan American population at the 2010 Census was 1,044,209. Guatemalans are the sixth largest Hispanic group in the United States and the second largest Central American population after Salvadorans. Half of the Guatemalan population is situated in two parts of the country, the Northeast and Southern California.
Qʼeqchiʼ are a Maya people of Guatemala and Belize. Their indigenous language is the Qʼeqchiʼ language.
The Mopan people are an indigenous, sub-ethnic group of the Maya peoples. They are native to regions of Belize and Guatemala.
Simon Martin is a British epigrapher, historian, writer and Mayanist scholar. He is best known for his contributions to the study and decipherment of the Maya script, the writing system used by the pre-Columbian Maya civilisation of Mesoamerica. As one of the leading epigraphers active in contemporary Mayanist research, Martin has specialised in the study of the political interactions and dynastic histories of Classic-era Maya polities. Since 2003 Martin has held positions at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology where he is currently an Associate Curator and Keeper in the American Section, while teaching select courses as an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania.
Robert M. Carmack was an academic anthropologist and Mesoamericanist scholar who was most noted for his studies of the history, culture and societies of contemporary Maya peoples. In particular he conducted extensive research on the K'iche' (Quiché) Mayas of the Guatemalan Highlands in the context of the infiltration and migration of Nahuatl speaking peoples into the Maya cultural areas.
Indirect presidential elections were held in Guatemala on 5 June 1993. They were sparked by the 1993 Guatemalan constitutional crisis in which President Jorge Serrano Elías had attempted a self-coup. The result was a victory for Ramiro de León Carpio, who won unopposed in the second round of voting, whilst the army-backed Arturo Herbruger was elected vice-president.
The 1993 Guatemala constitutional crisis took place in 1993 when then President Jorge Serrano Elías attempted a self-coup or autogolpe. On Tuesday May 25, 1993, Serrano illegally suspended the constitution, dissolved Congress and the Supreme Court, imposed censorship, and tried to restrict civil freedom.
Peter Anthony Mancina is Research Associate at the University of Oxford Centre for Criminology and review editor of the Border Criminologies blog. He is an American cultural and political anthropologist, ethnographer, historian, writer, and labor union researcher who writes about sanctuary city politics, immigration, governmental power, policy, social movements, and culture.
Guatemalan art refers to all forms of visual art associated with a Guatemalan national identity either because they are created within Guatemala, for Guatemalans, or by Guatemalans. The visual arts in Guatemala consist largely of weaving, muralism, painting, architecture, and the performing arts. Most analysis of Guatemalan and Indigenous artwork focuses on the artform of weaving, but contemporary Guatemalan visual art largely consists of painting, muralism, and more that can convey modern social values as well as ancestral indigenous history. Historically, art in Guatemala has combined the mythological heritage of the Indigenous Maya people with the country's politics. Beyond Guatemala, Guatemalan Indigenous artwork is also sometimes referred to as "art naïf," "primitivism," 'traditional art," "Maya art," and "costumbrismo".