Politics, Forests and Indigenous Peoples in Belize

Campaign signs in the southern Belizean town of Punta Gorda - UDP held power in the elections on
March 7th, 2012. Photo courtesy of doug reeser. 

As some of our regular readers know, I have been in southern Belize working on my dissertation research for most of the last year, and I was quite interested to be here for the national elections that just took place last week. The lead-up to elections brought out people's colors: red for the UDP (the United Democratic Party who were in power), blue for PUP (the People's United Party, who ruled for decades before the last round of elections), and green for the PNP (the upstart greens, the People's National Party). Every day in the weeks prior to elections, groups of people dressed in their colors would canvas the town, vehicles would drive around, party flags waving and horns blaring. I thought election day would be mayhem.

The morning of elections, I woke up, and things were especially quiet. No music. No loudspeakers. No car horns. No chanting. I decided to ride my bike into town to look for the action only to find empty streets and stray dogs. I remembered that elections were held at the local school, so rode in that direction across town. Sure enough, that's where all the people were, but instead of the expected energy and excitement, I found people quietly waiting in a long line wrapping around the school. They were waiting to cast their vote. At the close of polls in the evening, most people went home to listen to the radio or watch TV, waiting for the votes to be counted. Election day turned out to be rather quiet.

In the end, PUP made a valiant run in an effort to return to power, but the UDP retained their majority, and effectively remain in power. So despite a few changes around the country, it appears that things will go on much the same way as they have been: slow and deliberate. The most surprising development occurred a few days later when the Prime Minister announced his new cabinet. In what he said was an effort to bring the best minds into the government fold, a number of surprising choices brought new faces into decision making positions.

Most surprising, however, was the Prime Minister's creation of a new Ministry: the Ministry of Forestry, Fisheries, Sustainable Development and Indigenous People. This has caused a bit of consternation among indigenous groups, especially here in the south, but I found it especially odd that indigenous people would be included in a Ministry that has historically dealt with environmental issues. This feels to me like the Prime Minister and his advisors see indigenous people as a part of nature or a part of the forest, equating them with something less than the rest of the country's population.

Indigenous groups found other reasons to be upset. A statement from the Maya Leaders Alliance included the following:

To the best of our knowledge, this new Ministry was created without any consultation with any Indigenous Peoples. Neither the National Garifuna Council nor the Maya people of southern Belize through the Toledo Alcaldes Association or the Maya Leaders Alliance, was advised nor consulted. This is particularly disrespectful and disappointing since the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – which Belize voted to adopt at the United Nations - requires governments to “consult and cooperate in good faith with the Indigenous Peoples concerned through their own representative institutions before adopting and implementing administrative measures that may affect them.

The MLA continued by noting the fact that the new minister is not an indigenous person, and therefor may not fully understand the issues from perspective of the indigenous groups in the country. Further, by lumping responsibility for forestry, development and indigenous people into the same Ministry, there is a definite likelihood that none of them will be adequately served, especially in resource-poor Belize. It seems that a move intended to be a positive, may have peeved a number of people and organizations, and in the end, it has come off as rather insulting.

Views from the ANThill: Roadblocks: On Working Through Research Slumps

Roadblock! Highway construction can be a hold up, but when I hit a
research slump, I had nowhere to turn. Photo courtesy of douglas reeser.

My research had hit a slump. I had been in the field for about seven months, and had reached a point at which I felt ready to begin doing more in depth and directed interviews. However, the Christmas holiday was fast approaching, a time when people are especially busy and moving about. During the winter holidays, people are either preparing to host a large contingent of family members visiting from out of town, or are themselves preparing to journey to other parts of the country for what is for many a once-per-year family gathering. As elsewhere in the world, the holiday season in Belize serves as a time for family reunion, which often means the annual return of much of the sizeable Belizean population living abroad. I was invited to a few family gatherings, which were perfect to further deepen my connections here; however, I decided to hold off on bothering people with interviews during such intimate and family-oriented times.

The holidays came and went, and most of daily life had returned to normal by the beginning of the New Year. However, I was finding it difficult to re-immerse myself into the daily rigors of conducting interviews. Further, an important community contact had unsuspectingly dropped out of contact, and this sudden change served to take some of the wind out of my sails. A few weeks went by, then a couple more, and I was feeling stuck. I began feeling restless and unproductive as I searched for some way to get out of this research rut. I tried everything. I took a couple of day trips to try to get my mind off of my work. That just seemed to deepen my anxiety. I began volunteering more regular time working on a friend’s local farm. That would help for the day, but at night, the restlessness would return. As time continued to pass, things got worse. Writing field notes became laborious, and writer’s block began to creep in. I couldn’t figure out what was happening to me.

I began looking through the handful of methods books that I have with me, but none mentioned such a slump, let alone offer advice on how to move past one. I was on my own here. Finally, in an effort to assuage the mounting tension within me, I turned to an alternate direction in my research. I tried to reconceptualize what I was going through – to look at my struggles from a different point of view. This exercise allowed me to see my research slump in terms of an imbalance. The “health” of my work was suffering due to some imbalance in my life or work. With this potential insight, I decided to take a step back and return to a part of my research that could possibly help restore my balance.

I pulled out my interview questions designed for traditional healers, cleaned them up a bit, and called on my friend and informant, Thomas. Thomas is the son of a Q’eqchi’ Maya healer, speaks fluent Q’eqchi’ and English, and has already helped me with research with a local group of healers. I have also helped him (and the healers) with work in their medicinal plant garden in a nearby village, so I was hoping that through returning to a more positive point of my work, I could recapture that energy to begin moving forward once again.

It turned out that Thomas needed some work, and he was more than willing to conduct some interviews with me. He quickly contacted Domingo, a Q’eqchi’ Maya healer who lives on the outskirts of town, and set up our meeting for the next evening. Domingo and I had worked together before, having filmed an interview together for a Belizean film project that was working in town the previous summer, and so we had an immediate rapport. The two of them sat down in my living room and we began talking about perceptions of health and illness in a mixture of Q’eqchi’, Spanish and English.

Domingo was born in Guatemala, where he was trained by three traditional healers in his teenage years. He came to Belize about 20 years ago to seek employment, found it a pleasant place to live and decided to stay. Still, after 20 years, he only speaks a small amount of broken English (the official language of Belize), much better Spanish, but primarily Q’eqchi’, his native tongue. Traditional healing is no longer a profession that can fully support a family in Belize, and so Domingo works as a mason and carpenter in addition to seeing about half a dozen patients each month. His thoughts on health were interesting and insightful.

The southern district of Belize has among the worst health statistics in the entire region. It has long been neglected by the State health care system, and has been noted for its poor health conditions by such international organizations as PAHO and the WHO. Still, Domingo explained that most people here are healthy. He described health simply as strength, and a healthy person as someone with a good body, not fat or skinny; someone who is always happy, eats well and primarily vegetarian; someone who works well; and someone who keeps themselves and their space clean and tidy.

Domingo went on with his description of health by specifically talking about stress. He explained that more and more people stress themselves by thinking too much about their work. Even otherwise healthy people can get sick from this type of stress. That’s when things clicked in my head. Perhaps my worry and obsession over my lagging work brought on and deepened this slump. I wasn’t physically ill, but my work had become sick – it had stopped working. Domingo had inadvertently pointed out my problem.

The interview with Domingo continued for a while, outlasting the neighboring church and their musical service. We got together a couple of days later for a second interview, and I have continued working with Thomas and other local healers. New projects have arisen, and new research leads appear promising. Just as important, I have stopped worrying too much, and am trying not to over-think what brought on the slump in the first place. Finally, my research is once again moving forward.

This piece also appeared in the March, 2012 edition of Anthropology News.

Consumption Junction: "A Word to the Wives"

Check out this promotional video from a 1955 home construction company, a perfect portrait of advertisers' sale of the American Dream in which two friends cook up a scheme to convince the one woman's husband to buy her a new house with a modern kitchen. The plot involves the husband spending an enlightening two and half days trying to keep house with outdated appliances and a long trip to the trash can, and, in this case, the best laid plans of Mrs. Consumer fall right into place. One of the most interesting parts arises in the assertion of a fifth freedom, following from Franklin D. Roosevelt's famous four freedoms: freedom of speech and expression, freedom to worship God, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. The savvy friend with the enviable kitchen calls for "freedom from unnecessary drudgery, freedom to go shopping when the urge hits you...or when there's a sale going on."

To Spell or Not to Spell: The Standardized Spelling Debate

1609 edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets

You've probably seen the word game that tests your ability to read words with transposed letters: the senetnce wolud raed somehting lkie tihs. And you probably have no problem deciphering abbreviated text-speak, which often makes it into students' papers, adults' emails, and social networking updates of any age: imo ur gr8! lol! rofl! thnx! etc, etc.

Some people would say that the digital age hath condemned correct spelling (not to mention punctuation) to the tumbrils, that in the age of auto-correct mobile phones and auto-finish internet searches, such antiquated rules must be let go. Take, for instance, the spelling showdown in Wired Magazine a few weeks ago. Anne Trubek, a professor at Oberlin College, wrote a piece calling for the abolition of standardized spelling, to which Lee Simmons of Wired's copydesk responded with an equally thought-provoking piece picking apart Trubek's argument.

As a self-professed word junky, I most often come down squarely against arguments like Trubek's. Her premise is this: "English spelling is a terrible mess anyway, full of arbitrary contrivances and exceptions that outnumber rules. Why receipt but deceit? Water but daughter? Daughter but laughter? What is the logic behind the ough in through, dough, and cough? Instead of trying to get the letters right with imperfect tools, it would be far better to loosen our idea of correct spelling." She points out that others throughout history have advocated for more sensible spelling rules than the ones that govern English, and that the evolution of language should be embraced, such as losing the apostrophe and the "e" in you're because the recipient will understand you anyway. Any last-gasp effort to keep language static is just snobbery.

Trubek's carefree approach is somewhat exhilarating -- I can see the appeal of throwing caution to the wind for free-form spelling. And that's coming from a native-English speaker. I can't imagine how students of English as a second language would be overjoyed -- until they tried to read a text written by a Texan versus something written by a Pennsylvanian. Did they use a "pen" or a "pin" to write?

In Simmons' rebuttal to Trubek, he allows for some wiggle-room among friends: "if you want to chat in leetspeak or use cutesy abbreviations in your texts, go crazy. You’re talking to your own tribe; they know the code, and they’re willing to indulge your affectations. And let’s be honest: A lot of that intentional misspelling, like the argot of any subculture, is meant to exclude outsiders—such as nosy parents. It’s a badge of membership in your little clique." But Simmons convincingly argues that professional news sites, governmental policies and the like, as well as all communications outside your clique need to be written with standardized spelling to avoid the potential pitfalls of playing with language. "How would contracts be enforced," asks Simmons, "if anyone could say that what appeared to be a promise of 'delivery' was actually a variant spelling of 'devilry'"?

Yes, the English major in me holds me back from willy-nilly spelling -- it was the discipline that taught me the wonder of word origins, the nuances of word meanings, the linguistics of dialects, and forced me to spend hours reading old books written when English spelling wasn't standardized. Is that an effort we really want to resurrect on a daily basis?

First Friday Picture Show: Lake Atitlán by Jedi Wright.

Happy March everybody! This month's First Friday Picture Show comes to us from Jedi Wright. Jed is an Internet entrepreneur and Information Architect and has been studying and working professionally in the information technology, multimedia, event production, and environmental fields since 1993. He currently lives in Los Angeles, CA where he works as an information architect and is fully immersed in the Information Architecture (IA), User Interface (U/I), User Experience (U/X) disciplines and how they intersect with social values and sustainable practices. In his spare time, if not working on one of his other entrepreneurial pursuits, he is very actively involved with raising his son. Visit jediwright.com for more about his work and interests.

About the photos, Jed explains: "In June of 2007, I was fortunate enough to tag along with a group of friends (quite accomplished backpackers, travelers, etc.) to Guatemala for my first, truly international travel experience. Latin America was certainly at the top of my list and I was excited to get out of the States for a few weeks and soak up some local culture.

"My travels were mostly dictated by the group I was with, which was fine by me, as I speak barely a lick of any language but my native American-English. Without having to concern myself with most travel arrangements and negotiations, I was able to sit back and study the local culture's cuisine, architecture, landscapes, and whatever else caught my eye. Here then is my first of many sets, sampling my time at Lake Atitlán, where I primarily hung out around San Marcos and San Juan."

Permaculture & Food Security in Malawi

A short film by University of Colorado anthropologist Marty Otañez, who describes the film:

In spring 2006, Ethel discussed with me permaculture and food security in Malawi. I wanted to educate myself on sustainable agricultural activities and how a Malawian practices permaculture. These issues interest me as part of a larger project to explore healthy (agricultural chemical-free) crops and alternative livelihoods for tobacco farmers and farm workers in Malawi.

Ethel agreed to videotape interviews over two days in different areas in her garden near Chitedze Trading Center, 14 kilometers north of Lilongwe, Malawi's capital city.

In the 2000s, Ethel worked as a 'house woman' (domestic worker) for Stacia and Kristof Nordin. The Nordins are Malawi-based permaculture educators and advocates who operate NeverEndingFood.org
During her position with Stacia and Kristof, Ethel became a permaculturalist.

The video is edited to showcase Ethel's knowledge about farming indigenous plants and creating synergy among food, water, shelter and community.  

"What Branches Grow out of this Stony Rubbish": Urban Exploration from Antiquity to the Present

Last night, I attended a lecture by Thaddeus Squire, one of the founders of the non-profit arts organization Hidden City Philadelphia, at the University of the Arts Design Lecture Series, "Visibly Invisible." Squire gave a brief overview of the romantic explorer with an eye toward modern-day urban exploration, and showed how that trajectory has informed the mission of Hidden City, which is, in its condensed form, to "(re)connect people to place, and place to city" by marrying 19th century Philly "ruins" with art installations.

From the Hidden City website, a photograph of the artist
installation at Founders Hall at Girard College

One of the overall themes of the lecture was the idea of exploring the past for the possibilities of the future, and Squire took us on a tour through history to trace this idea, starting in antiquity with Plato's Atlantis as a place where knowledge resided, up through the centuries to 18th century Italian artist Piranesi and his "prison fantasies," to the more well-known 19th and 20th century romantic explorers like Lewis and Clark, Joseph Rock, and Hiram Bingham. Today, Squire pointed out, we see the contemporary expressions of this long line of exploration in such pop culture icons as Indiana Jones and Lara Croft, and in the fine arts with "ruin porn" photography.

From my own suburban exploration of the abandoned
Pennhurst State School & Hospital (photo by K. Margitich)

Squire's discussion about ruin porn vis-a-vis Hidden City's mission felt a little like I was stepping into the story in medias res, but a few quick searches post-lecture gave me a clearer picture of how the two fit together. From a recent article in The Guardian, we can see how the attraction to abandoned and decaying buildings has a long artistic and literary tradition (take The Waste Land for example), but the appeal always seems to have a fatalistic aspect to it -- that no matter how grand the promises of the future, the present past reminds us of their inevitable failure. In contrast, Squire insisted on casting ruin porn in a more positive light to fertilize the future: "Not loss, not nostalgia, not past, but the possible future."

Although the past is not their primary focus, I can't help feeling that history has a place at the table of present and future. These ruins of modernity are themselves forcing a conversation about what events transpired there, whose lives crossed paths there, and how these stories are connected to the present.

To learn about next year's festival and to check out their daily newspaper, click here.