Ethnic Resignifications from the University among Mayan or Mayan Origin Youth

Abstract

This work approaches the processes of identity construction among young Mayas or young people of Mayan origin in the university. It recounts how young people, within the university experience, recognize themselves in various ways around their ethnic identity, where some establish distant constructions, while others go through deep processes of revaluation. The resignification of identity instrumentally reveals the impact of linguistic policies promoting the hiring of professionals who are speakers of indigenous languages in the State institutions that serve indigenous populations. Those who deepen their ethnic identity, frequently resignify it through the appropriated knowledge in the university, creating unique artistic expressions. Others, from ethnicity build discourses and historical memory about the Maya, which many times comes into conflict with institutional actors or prior generations. Derived from these identitarian processes, the intergenerational and generational differentiation is addressed in relation to gender, education and religion.