Abstract
The goal of this chapter is to present my research findings and what I have learned about spiritually informed land-use in Xuilub in an “ethnographic” manner and not in relation to disciplinary conversations in Indigenous geographies and IK research. This is done in order to give the reader sufficient evidence in this chapter to support my argument that responsibility-based thinking is the defining characteristic of the Maya land ethos and that it transcends the different meanings associated with the main land-use activities in the community. The broader significance of these findings and a critical discussion regarding the intended contributions of my research in Xuilub to the aforementioned disciplines are reserved for Chap. 6.
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Notes
- 1.
Specifically, the agricultural practices that, according to this milpero, sustain the land are the “cutting and burning of brush and weeds before planting the crops in early summer, the constant inspection of the crops once they are planted (to see if they are healthy and free of disease), and the harvesting of the maize at the end of the growing cycle. The maize and other crops we grow here love to feel our hands working the land…they feel our love for them. And also, we love to feel the soil through our hands. This contact with the earth in our work is a bond with everything that’s underneath it”.
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Sioui, M. (2020). The Evidence of Responsibility-Based Thinking in Present-Day Maya Land-Use Practices. In: Indigenous Geographies in the Yucatan. SpringerBriefs in Geography. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60399-1_5
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