Good Men Grow Corn: Embodied Ecological Heritage in a Belizean Mopan Community

Recent developments in land rights and land use in the Toledo district, Belize has generated anthropological and activist interest surrounding traditional ecological knowledge and practice, and the role of heritage in communities. This study explores the connection between ecological knowledge and practices, and the concurrent construction of heritage, and community health and wellness, broadly defined. Developing and using the concept of “embodied ecological heritage,” this dissertation takes a phenomenological approach to understanding the convergence of ecological heritage and health in multiple realms of everyday life, arguing that lived experience of participating in “traditional”practices is fundamentally connected to wellness in the Mopan community of Santa Cruz. Using the results of ethnographic research using multiple methodologies across 76 households over a period of 11 months, this dissertation presents a detailed account of how Mopan Maya participants view ecological skill and knowledge as critical to being and living well, arguing that social factors, such as work and food choices, have an effect on wellness. The research contributes to a growing number of studies linking changes in the body and overall health status to everyday practices within communities. Outlining how certain knowledge and particular practices, such as exchanging labor and making baskets, become prioritized as heritage through both their conceptualization and deployment, the analysis centers on individual bodies as the foci of skill, sensory experience and change. The timely nature of making these connections explicit is discussed in light of ongoing “development” in Maya communities and beyond, with an illumination of how changing land use patterns have far-reaching effects on wellness from multiple perspectives; individual, social, ecological and political, and concluding that a consideration of wellness can benefit from looking at the processes involved in heritage construction as it relates to ecological practice

The Nature of Nature: South Floridian Children and their Environmental Experience

To investigate how schoolchildren in south Florida think about their natural environment, children were observed participating in several school-organized environmental field trips. Their attitudes about, interactions with and knowledge concerning various aspects of their natural environment were observed. This study explores how these children interpret natural phenomena using their cultural tools and focuses on the interpretation of commonly-observed responses to nature. Responses discussed include: the blurring of lines between the natural and non-natural, separation and binary thinking, and fear and aggression. Reference is made throughout the study to various theoretical frameworks, including cultural-ecological perspectives, ideas from structural anthropology and other cognitive approaches

Thinking Like an Ethnographer

Learning to conduct ethnographic research means more than simply learning about the different ethnographic methods and putting them into action. To gather data ethnographically, we say we need to use ourselves--our bodies and our minds--as the tool of data collection. Ethnographers use their five senses to observe human behavior and write about what they observe, however, they need to develop those senses to help them collect accurate data. Part of this process is developing what is called the “ethnographic mindset.” This chapter outline ways in which ethnographic researchers can begin to develop this mindset

But are they actually healthier?

A holistic definition of ‘health’ remains difficult to operationalize, despite decades of attempts by medical anthropologists and the World Health Organization to do so. Anthropologists routinely reject dichotomous notions – belief vs. knowledge, wellness vs. health, mental vs. physical, environment vs. self – yet demands for physiological evidence of ‘health’ persist. In this article, I ask what evidence would sufficiently demonstrate health, and explore the possibility of measures that move beyond the physiological. Using ethnographic data collected in indigenous Maya communities in Belize and in immigrant communities in New York City, I argue that ecological heritage practices can provide a lens through which to locate and collect evidence of health, holistically defined. Developing a framework of ‘embodied ecological heritage’ (EEH), I discuss how communities and individuals communicate and measure health as part of everyday ecological activities, which they describe as ‘traditional’ or ‘heritage’ practices. Theorizing unexpected links and feedback loops, which cross temporal, spatial, and social boundaries, I assert that health is connected to practice through tangible, embodied experience and that ethnography thus provides powerful evidence to understand and define it

But are they actually healthier? Challenging the health/wellness divide through the ethnography of embodied ecological heritage

A holistic definition of ‘health’ remains difficult to operationalize, despite decades of attempts by medical anthropologists and the World Health Organization to do so. Anthropologists routinely reject dichotomous notions – belief vs. knowledge, wellness vs. health, mental vs. physical, environment vs. self – yet demands for physiological evidence of ‘health’ persist. In this article, I ask what evidence would sufficiently demonstrate health, and explore the possibility of measures that move beyond the physiological. Using ethnographic data collected in indigenous Maya communities in Belize and in immigrant communities in New York City, I argue that ecological heritage practices can provide a lens through which to locate and collect evidence of health, holistically defined. Developing a framework of ‘embodied ecological heritage’ (EEH), I discuss how communities and individuals communicate and measure health as part of everyday ecological activities, which they describe as ‘traditional’ or ‘heritage’ practices. Theorizing unexpected links and feedback loops, which cross temporal, spatial, and social boundaries, I assert that health is connected to practice through tangible, embodied experience and that ethnography thus provides powerful evidence to understand and define it

An Environment and Cultural Heritage Workbook for Students and Teachers

The word heritage is one that means many things to many people. It often brings to mind things like food, language, clothing, or other traditions that are passed on from generation to generation. But it also includes places, buildings, art, values, and ways of making a living in particular environments. In Maya communities, as is the case elsewhere around the world, cultural practices and the environment are tightly connected, with one shaping the other.With this workbook we take a broad view of heritage, one that links cultural and environmental histories, landscapes, and practices together. A term that UNESCO and others often use is cultural landscapes to refer to a long and intimate relationship between peoples and their...environment (http://whc.unesco.org/en/culturallandscape/). This also reflects the ways many of the people who shared this information for the workbook view their own heritage