Ep. 38: Cos-Maya-Politan with Genner Llanes-Ortiz

Yucatec Maya Anthropologist Genner Llanes-Ortiz joins this
episode from his current position as research chair of digital
Indigeneities at the Bishop’s university in Canada. He shares
some of his background in anthropology, Indigenous rights, and
linguistics throughout the world. We discuss Dr. Llanes-Ortiz
article Cos-Maya-Politan Futures where he coins this term to
identify cultural and historical heritage that is contemporarily
mobilised in the Maya region and transcends modern national
borders through (re)connections. While a sense of
‘cosmopolitanism’ for Maya is not something novel with a long
history of being open and connected to larger worlds, this is a
response to the 21st century moment, and the digital circulation
of music and film that contemplates what it means to be Maya
today. This leads into a discussion on Yucatec-Maya
representation in the film Wakanda Forever. There are some
spoilers, but we reflect on this film within a larger context of
some previous Maya representation in pop culture, the
opportunities that have emerged at this time, as well as some
ongoing structural limitations that leave us wanting for more.
The significance of the representations in this film in multiple
contexts are considered along with hopes that it will inspire
more questions.


Terms: Maya T’an (Yucatec-Maya spoken language);
Cos-Maya-Politanism (term coined by Dr. Llanes-Ortiz referring to
a Mayan based perspective that is open to a bigger world); Milpa
(derived from Nahuatl meaning cultivated field or corn field);
Cenotes (deep hole that results from collapsed limestone bedrock
that  exposes ground water at the bottom); Chaj Chay or Pok
ta’ pok (Mesoamerican ball game); Mexica (Aztec/Nahuatl); Nantat
(ancestors in Highland Maya languages such as K’iche’);
Palenque/Maroon (autonomous communities throughout Central
America and the Caribbean of primarily formerly enslaved
Indigenous Africans who freed themselves, who at times lived with
or in relation with local Indigenous Amerindian peoples).