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From Corn to Cash: Change and Continuity within Mayan Families
Author(s) -
Gaskins Suzanne
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
ethos
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.783
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1548-1352
pISSN - 0091-2131
DOI - 10.1525/eth.2003.31.2.248
Subject(s) - everyday life , socialization , position (finance) , cash , face (sociological concept) , production (economics) , mode of production , sociology , socioeconomics , business , economics , political science , social science , finance , law , macroeconomics
Dramatic changes in the mode of production in a community often lead to parallel changes in the home and thus significantly disrupt socialization practices and children's everyday lives. This article describes a case among Yucatec Maya corn farmers in which this did not happen. Over 20 years, several external factors made corn farming alone untenable for most families and spurred a change in mode of production. The response was to manipulate new economic opportunities to maximize the conservation of the family structure and the pattern of daily life, which maintained children's traditional position in the familly as workers and child caregivers. A comparison of these Mayan children's daily activities in 1980 and 2000 demonstrates a remarkable continuity in the face of significant economic change.