Mayan People Within and Beyond Boundaries: Social Categories and Lived Identity in Yucatan

Danish anthropologist Hervik explores the politics and practices of representing the people who are known by everyone else as the Maya, but who consider themselves mestizo descendants of the ancient Maya. He identifies, critiques, and tries to overcome the perspective behind the choice of categories, then discusses the methodological and epistemological implications of the incongruence between external and local naming. In the process he introduces Shared Social Experience as a new approach to ethnography. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)