Pasado rural y pobre, presente de clase media urbana. Trayectorias de ascenso social entre mayas yucatecos residentes en Mérida

Abstract

Using life histories this work explains, from both a synchronic and transgenerational perspective, the processes involved in the social ascent of the Yucatecan Maya. Members of poor rural families who manage to move into the professional and social circles of the middle class do so by two general methods: uprooting and changing their location, which in all of the cases discussed here means relocating in or near Merida, and by accessing formal education, which necessarily implies the ability to speak and write correctly in Spanish. This article explores the labour market niches occupied by the interviewees, as well as the acculturation processes in the transition to urban life that do not necessarily mean a rejection of one’s ethnicity.