Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Beyond the Indian‐Ladino Dichotomy: Contested Identities in an Eastern Guatemalan Town

2001; Wiley; Volume: 6; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1525/jlca.2001.6.2.176

1548-7180

Christa Little‐Siebold,

Indigenous Cultures and History

Guatemala's Eastern Highlands constitute an important but understudied region long ignored or misrepresented. This study focuses on the township of Quezaltepeque, on the margins of the Ch'orti' area and examines die content and usage of identity labels diere. The article describes local social categories (i.e."ladinos, 'indio, sambo, "maya." "gringo") as deploy ed and articulated by both its town dwellers and rural population. These categories are of particular interest because of their "invisibility " and/or misrepresentation in both ethnographic and official discourses. The intricate and multiple meanings contained in these labels as documented here are a direct challenge to die validity of the prevalent Lidino‐Indian dichotomy pervasive in social analysis of Guatemala. In particular, the study indicates the need to lease out other identities subsumed in what appear to be only ethnic labels.