Household Garden Plant Agency in the Creation of Classic Maya Social Identities

Summary

Domestic gardens are a well-established aspect of Classic Maya residential settlement, and they are rightly considered important components of food security and even food sovereignty strategies utilized by the ninety-nine percent. Taking inspiration from the emerging field of human-plant studies, I argue daily interactions with household garden plants exerted a profound influence on not only the daily habits of ancient Maya populations, but also on their memories and sense of social identity. Tending gardens was a repeated behavior that almost all members of the social majority shared in common. Taking a perspective that common Maya garden plants such as chaya and chile were agents in, rather than objects for, the production of knowledge and social meaning, this paper argues that household garden plants actively helped shape crucial aspects of Classic Maya social identities along gendered and age based axes. Data on domestic compounds from the site of Yaxuna are used to illustrate how, through human circulations within garden spaces located between structures, plants and humans co-generated cultural values, practices, and relations.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20467