Biography:
Roberto Young is a Ph.D. candidate in Anthropology at the University of Chicago. His research explores the intersections of political economy, language revitalization, migration, and semiotics. He is currently working on a project chronicling a history of Kaqchikel language revitalization in Guatemala and is grateful to have received a Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph Fieldwork Award from The Center for International Social Science Research (CISSR) to support this work

Project Title: Mayan Language Revitalization in Historical Perspective

Abstract:

The Kaqchikel Mayan case is a theoretical puzzle. Its extensive corpus of documentary and descriptive material, alongside applied interventions, have not been accompanied by expanded use but rather language constriction. From the late 1980s to the early 2000s, the Maya movement in Guatemala was at its height. Central to this cultural revindication movement was language. This political mobilization produced major legislative advances. However, many have not been sustained. The purpose of this project is to intervene in this paradox of significant advances and perduring limitations by asking: what has been done and where do we go from here? As preliminary dissertation research, the goal is to conduct an original archival survey of the discourses and ideologies around Mayan languages during the height of the Maya movement. It is to contribute a historical and political analysis of Kaqchikel language revitalization to evaluate the formative history that gave rise to contemporary circumstances. In this UN-declared International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-2023), this archivally-grounded historical investigation presents an opportune movement to present the case of Mayan language revitalization as one whose lessons from advances and limitations can chart new pathways of scaling and sustaining language revitalization work across the globe.