Download or read book Maya Cultural Heritage written by Patricia A. McAnany and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-09-15 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Situated at the intersection of cultural heritage and local community, this book enlarges our understanding of the Indigenous peoples of southern México and northern Central America who became detached from “the ancient Maya” through colonialism, government actions, and early twentieth-century anthropological and archaeological research. Through grass-roots heritage programs, local communities are reconnecting with a much valorized but distant past. Maya Cultural Heritage explores how community programs conceived and implemented in a collaborative style are changing the relationship among, archaeological practice, the objects of archaeological study, and contemporary ethnolinguistic Mayan communities. Rather than simply describing Maya sites, McAnany concentrates on the dialogue nurtured by these participatory heritage programs, the new “heritage-scapes” they foster, and how the diverse Maya communities of today relate to those of the past.