November 12, 2016 Aldo
Anzures Tapia,
Graduate Research Fellow pursuing his Ph.D. in Educational
Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania and
Kasey Diserens, third
year doctoral student in the Anthropology Department,
University of Pennsylvania:
"The Tihosuco
Heritage Preservation and Community Development
Project: Strengthening Ties to Language and the Built
Environment"
The Tihosuco Project seeks to combat the visible economic and
social inequality in the region through community-organized
initiatives regarding identity, economy, and future. Our
speakers aim is to work with the community of Tihosuco to
frame a Maya heritage based not on the ancient Maya, but about
the more recent history of the Caste War. This research is
conducted as part of a larger project run jointly by the Museo
de la Guerra de Castas in Tihosuco, the Tihosuco Ejido, Land
Commune, the Mayor’s Office, and the Penn Cultural Heritage
Center at the University of Pennsylvania. The project is
anchored by a concern for the history of the Caste War of
Yucatán, or Maya Social War, 1847-1901. This conflict,
although understudied and often silenced, was arguably one of
the most successful indigenous revolts in the New World.
The talk was broken into two parts. First, Kasey Diserens
discussed an overview of the project and the progress made
over the last few years. It specifically focused on
understanding the Caste War through investigations into the
built environment in and around Tihosuco. Second, Aldo
Anzures Tapia explored the efforts undertaken by local
activists in Tihosuco to reverse language shift experienced in
the community. Based on a presentation that the local
activists already delivered, with this talk he honored the
ways the local activists deliberately use archaeology as a
trigger to open spaces in order to have conversations with
children about tangible and intangible heritage, being
language revitalization and maintenance an area of utter
importance in these dialogues.
Aldo Anzures Tapia is a Graduate Research Fellow at the
University of Pennsylvania pursuing his Ph.D. in Educational
Linguistics. The focus of his research is geared towards
indigenous education and language revitalization mainly in
Mexico and Latin America. For the last two years he has
engaged in collaborative research with the Caste War Museum
through the Tihosuco Heritage Preservation and Community
Project, where they have produced bilingual lesson plans and
materials for the museum workshops, documented bilingual rap
practices in the town, recorded oral histories from the town’s
elders, as well as promoted a trilingual approach to the
museography.
Kasey Diserens is a third year doctoral student in the
Anthropology Department at the University of
Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on community- based
historic preservation, identity, and the built
environment. For the past three years, she has worked in
Tihosuco in collaboration with the Penn Cultural Heritage
Center and the Museo de la Guerra de Castas documenting the
colonial structures of the town. She has also been
interviewing the owners of the houses, and sitting in on
meetings with town officials and government agencies as they
discuss the future of the structures.
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