Cross-border Diasporic Partnerships: Interconnections of Maya Pasts and Transborder Futures

Abstract (English)

Peoples of Maya ancestry have, in five decades, become vibrant and vital members of rural and urban communities across the Americas. Drawing on research, activism, and lived experiences across this diaspora, this panel highlights challenges for establishing legitimacy, rights, and well-being, as well as for advancing a lexicon and responsibilities for cross-border and intergenerational inclusivity. Transborder realities, political rhetoric around worthiness, and patterns of civic engagement are among the issues participants address. Recognition of concurrent temporal and spatial dimensions of mobility, immobility, resettlement, and return is common to all, as evidenced in how perceptions of home and homelands entail connections to past and present, as well as future. Understanding these perspectives and prospects are especially crucial amid anti-immigrant sentiments and prevailing policies of securitization.