Continuity of Resistance after the Maya Social War: 1901-2024
Author(s): Richard Leventhal
Year: 2025
Summary
This is an abstract from the "Rising Up Against Authority: Archaeological Approaches to Rebellion" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.
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The Maya Social War (originally called the Caste War of the Yucatan) was a massive rebellion and disruption of the mid 19<sup>th</sup> century political, social, and economic systems of the Yucatan Peninsula. This rebellion (1847 – 1901) can be identified within some archaeological contexts. But this eruption is simply the most visible form of resistance over a long period of time. As argued by James C. Scott, resistance within colonized communities is a constant process ranging from small-scale, individual acts of resistance to a massive rebellion such as the Maya Social War, initiated in Tihosuco in 1847.
Within this paper, I want to examine the long-term processes of resistance that have continued from the supposed ‘peace of 1901’ into the present day. These acts of resistance, within and by the community of Tihosuco, range from the physical removal of federal and state government officials, to the ongoing attempts to live outside of the official modern settlement system of defined communities, or to attempts by the community to control its own construction of identity. Few of these acts of resistance are visible archaeologically but they demonstrate the importance and viability of Scott’s ‘everyday forms of resistance.’
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Cite this Record
Continuity of Resistance after the Maya Social War: 1901-2024. Richard Leventhal. Presented at The 90th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. 2025 ( tDAR id: 509865)
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Record Identifiers
Abstract Id(s): 51486