Ep. 38: Cos-Maya-Politan with Genner Llanes-Ortiz

Yucatec Maya Anthropologist Genner Llanes-Ortiz joins this episode from his current position as research chair of digital Indigeneities at the Bishop’s university in Canada. He shares some of his background in anthropology, Indigenous rights, and linguistics throughout the world. We discuss Dr. Llanes-Ortiz article Cos-Maya-Politan Futures where he coins this term to identify cultural and historical heritage that is contemporarily mobilised in the Maya region and transcends modern national borders through (re)connections. While a sense of ‘cosmopolitanism’ for Maya is not something novel with a long history of being open and connected to larger worlds, this is a response to the 21^st century moment, and the digital circulation of music and film that contemplates what it means to be Maya today. This leads into a discussion on Yucatec-Maya representation in the film Wakanda Forever. There are some spoilers, but we reflect on this film within a larger context of some previous Maya representation in pop culture, the opportunities that have emerged at this time, as well as some ongoing structural limitations that leave us wanting for more. The significance of the representations in this film in multiple contexts are considered along with hopes that it will inspire more questions.

Terms: Maya T’an (Yucatec-Maya spoken language); Cos-Maya-Politanism (term coined by Dr. Llanes-Ortiz referring to a Mayan based perspective that is open to a bigger world); Milpa (derived from Nahuatl meaning cultivated field or corn field); Cenotes (deep hole that results from collapsed limestone bedrock that  exposes ground water at the bottom); Chaj Chay or Pok ta’ pok (Mesoamerican ball game); Mexica (Aztec/Nahuatl); Nantat (ancestors in Highland Maya languages such as K’iche’); Palenque/Maroon (autonomous communities throughout Central America and the Caribbean of primarily formerly enslaved Indigenous Africans who freed themselves, who at times lived with or in relation with local Indigenous Amerindian peoples).