At the Water’s Edge: Maya Epistemology, Resistance, and the Methodological Shoreline

Juan Tiney Chirix, a Maya Tz’utujil-Kaqchikel scholar and researcher of Indigenous methodologies and cartographies, presented at The Society of Latin American Studies (SLAS) conference 2025 in Bristol. In this blog post, Juan explores how Maya communities in Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala, maintain ancestral memory and territorial knowledge along the shifting shoreline of Lake Atitlán. He reflects on the use of Maya epistemology and participatory methods, such as oral histories and body mapping, in his research to embody local practices and connect with the community and territory. He highlights how the Maya methodological shoreline can prepare us for life, nurturing, and continuity in a materialist society. 

Returning to Tz’ikin Jay

At the end of July 2023 in K’ablaju’/Doce Toj (Mayan date), I arrived at Tz’ikin Jay (Santiago Atitlán, House of Birds in Tz’utujil),  a town in the Tz’utujil  Kingdom. The streets of Santiago Atitlán vibrated with life as marimba rhythms and marching bands filled the air. I found myself among a parade celebrating the patron saint festival of Saint James the Apostle (Santiago Apóstol) at the central plaza – an exciting display of Guatemalan tradition. As I walked, memories of childhood visits with my parents came rushing back. I remembered we used to travel by chicken bus (“camioneta” in Guatemalan Spanish: a recycled USA yellow school bus), then take a big boat from Panajachel to Santiago Atitlán across Lake Atitlán, before finally walking up a stone path toward my grandparents’ home, close to where the festivities still take place today.    

The main celebration happens at the central park and plaza, where the streets are taken over by vendors selling bread, food, and games, while people move through the stalls, laughing and  chatting – a typical scene in highland towns across Guatemala during patronal fairs. The joy of this celebration comes from a sense of togetherness, from being in the streets, immersed in the commotion of everyday festivity. 

As we reached the church plaza, sounds and scents filled the air:  marimba, rancheras, vendors calling out their food or wares, and conversations sprinkled with humor and personal anecdotes of daily life. Under a white tent, dancers wearing charro-style outfits and Moro masks performed the Baile de los Mexicanos (Dance of the  Mexicans). Nearby, another dance took place; adults and children joined the Baile de la  Conquista (Dance of the Conquest) to a brass band, a ritual that embodies the persistence of cultural memory even centuries after colonisation. The dance is a legacy of the evangelizing theater from the sixteenth century, where Mayan communities of the highlands perform the invasion of the spaniards. 

Rethinking Syncretism 

My father explained that although these dances appear syncretic (bringing together different ideas and beliefs), they are not merely conciliatory gestures. Instead they are adaptations—creative ways of reshaping imposed views. As the Kʼicheʼ Maya poet from Guatemala, Humberto Ak’abal reminds us, syncretism implies mutual respect between belief systems or doctrines, something that has been absent since the Spanish invasion in 1492. Instead, Maya communities have woven their knowledge through and around imposed dominant cultures. Ak’abal’s words echo across centuries, resonating with ancestral voices that witnessed the violence of colonisation. Historical documents, such as the Memorial de Sololá (1999), recount the arrival of the Spaniards in vivid detail. This modern edition of the Maya K’iche’s 16-century historical text gives a Maya-authored account of the history of the Spanish conquest and colonial rule.

These accounts illustrate how the colonial project imposed a singular way of perceiving the world in order to structure and control knowledge in the Americas. Although  indigenous epistemologies and ways of knowing began to erode, they never disappeared; instead, Western ideas became dominant (or hegemonic) across what was described as the “New World” by the colonisers. This system created sharp divides, or binary distinctions between what was imposed as “official knowledge” and what was dismissed as “unofficial” knowledge, such as monotheism versus polytheism and private versus communal land. divides or binary distinctions between what was imposed as official knowledge and the so-called unofficial knowledge, such as monotheism versus polytheism and private versus communal land. 

Four Colonial Invasions in Guatemala

Giovanni Batz, an Ixil professor of anthropology, culture, society, and identity from the University of California, describes this history through four key “invasions”: Spanish colonisation, the rise of plantation economies (1870s–1930s), the Guatemalan Civil War (1960–1996), and the era of mega-projects (from 1997 onwards). The  Memorial de Sololá provides a powerful account of the first invasion. Each of the subsequent invasions deepened extractive models and pushed Indigenous people off their lands. 

The second invasion led to the rise of the liberal Guatemala State and its integration into  transatlantic trade. During this time, Indigenous communities lost large areas of land to make way for the expansion of coffee, sugar, and banana monoculture and of plantations. 

The third invasion came with a 36-year Guatemalan Civil War. Historian Virginia Garrard refers to this as the “Maya holocaust,” as it resulted in the brutal massacre of 200,000 people, approximately 80% of whom were Maya. This situation amounts to an ethnic cleansing war, in which the regime primarily protected non-indigenous people. 

The fourth invasion is still happening today through mega-projects, such as hydroelectric dams or metal mining. These projects, often supported by trade deals like the Dominican Republic-Central America FTA (CAFTA-DR), lead to even more land loss/dispossession, environmental destruction, and social inequality.  

Despite centuries of violence, Maya communities in Guatemala have continued to resist, protecting their territorial organisation. The largest indigenous towns in Guatemala consist of two municipalities: one that is indigenous and another that represents the nation-state. One of the largest indigenous authorities is in Totonicapán; the Forty-Eight Cantons (Cuarenta y Ocho Cantones) have preserved and defended communal land rights for more than 400 years.

The indigenous municipalities can vary in the authority they have over their territories, but their very existence is proof of ongoing indigenous governance, as in places such as Santiago Atitlán. This resilience continues today. The Tz’utujil community draws on Maya epistemology, knowledge, and traditions to defend and protect their culture, governance systems, land, and environment against contemporary forms of neo-extractivism and  exploitation, such as monocultures of African oil palm and fracking.  

The Loss and Suppression of Indigenous Knowledge: History vs. Epistimicide

The loss and suppression of Maya knowledge, often called epistemicide, shows how Indigenous ways of knowing have been excluded and erased, a phenomenon made worse  by postcolonial frameworks and historical cruelty. Still, indigenous knowledge lives on, passed down through oral stories, traditions and everyday embodied practices, and it often can not be translated into Western epistemological frameworks or ways of thinking. 

To understand these histories, we need to think critically about how knowledge itself is recorded and valued. The late academic and anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot reminds us that archives and artifacts are neither neutral nor natural: “They are created. As such, they are not mere presences and absences, but mentions or silences of various kinds and  degrees.”  The archives are created by people and reflect what is remembered and what is silenced.

The works of scholars such as the late Linda Tuhiwai Smith, a professor of indigenous education (University of Waikato, New Zealand) and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, a writer, academic, and musician, emphasise the importance of assembling and grounding knowledge from Indigenous ontologies and epistemologies. As Opaskwayak Cree Scholar Shawn Wilson describes, ontology asks, “What constitutes reality?” while epistemology interrogates, “How do we  determine what is real?” in his 2008 book,  Research is ceremony: indigenous research methods.

 

For the Maya, knowledge is passed through calendars, architecture,  agricultural methods (farming), ceremonies, and narratives or stories that continue beyond generations. As Leanne Betasamosake Simpson writes, theory is experiential, relational, and expressive. The goal is not to compete with Western knowledge systems or ontology, but to affirm and articulate distinctly Maya ways of knowing.

The Methodological Shoreline

From this perspective, I introduce the concept of the methodological shoreline. A shoreline is never fixed; it is a space in constant flux, shaped by the movements of water and earth, memory and the present, body, and territory. As researchers, we are also part of this process. When we connect with the community and its territory, our perspectives constantly change, much like how the ground is shaped by waves along the shore.

The experience of being ‘in-between’ during research exemplifies this methodological shoreline. We, as researchers, can feel both part of the community and also like outsiders. We fluctuate between learning how to engage with the community meaningfully and also feeling worried that we are not contributing enough to it.

For the Maya, I argue that the shoreline of Atit’ Ya’ (Abuela Lago / Grandmother Lake) is more than a body of water. It is a site of exchange, a liminal space where life is continually re-centred and renewed. Drawing on Tiffany Lethabo King (University of Virginia)  book, The black shoals : offshore formations of black and native studies  the shoreline can represent a place of resilience, where knowledge is passed down from generation to generation and continues to endure despite change, erosion, and movement. 

To speak of a “Maya methodological shoreline” is to describe a research approach that honours the ripples of transformation in our lives, the fluidity with which we navigate change, and the connections we build with all sentient beings, while always placing the protection and affirmation of life at the centre.

Our bodies play a central role in this methodological shoreline. Walking, moving, and being present in a space activates memory and connects lived experiences to that place. Navigating or moving through Indigenous territory can reveal the “performative crossings of bodies across landscapes.” These crossings are not just symbolic; they generate knowledge. 

From a Mayan perspective, I realised that walking and speaking when tied with ceremonies becomes a way to connect Rukux Kaj (Heart of the  Sky) and Rukux Ulew (Heart of the Earth). In Mayan cosmology, the sacred book of Popol Wuj (translated as “Book of the Community”) reminds us of the human origin story: when the sky, the earth, and the water separated so that life could exist in these three realms, and each realm had a guardian. For this reason, the body acts as a mediator between realms. We, as humans, connect all our bodily senses with our surroundings and recognise that the land we inhabit is sacred, especially the Heart of the Sky and the Hearth of the Earth, because they have protected us since the creation of this planet.  

Participatory Mapping as Memory

Participatory mapping helps make this embodied knowledge visible. Traditional mapping disconnects sentient beings from their territory; it only depicts measurements. However, participatory mapping involves communities inscribing collective memory onto maps that reclaim territory. In Rethinking Maps, an article by Rob Kitchin and Martin Dodge (National University of Ireland, Maynooth), the authors cite John Pickles, who reminds us that cartography is never neutral: “It is part of the interaction between the world and ourselves;  it describes the world as exposed to our method of questioning.” 

This idea aligns with how the Maya produced maps, which were not just static illustrations but living documents. These maps reflect the shoreline methodology itself: an approach that connects the visible and invisible, the ancestral and the modern. 

The Shoreline as a Site of Resistance and Memory

In this way, the methodological shoreline is both a place and an approach for carrying out research. It acknowledges that Indigenous epistemologies have always existed along the borders established by colonisation. Rather than disappearing, they continue to survive and flourish  through adaptation, memory, and political action. Writing from the shoreline recognises that knowledge is diverse, interconnected, and fluid, as well as being deeply rooted within the land and bodily forms. 

The methodological shoreline also highlights how Maya epistemology continues to resist and fight against colonialism, which still shapes the present and does not fade away. It shows how Tz’utujil communities still take care of water, land, and memory even when faced with ongoing extractivism through history, cosmology, and embodied practice. 

Indigenous knowledge is not a relic of the past but a constantly adaptable force. I saw this through my own experiences of walking, mapping, and remembering along the shores of Santiago Atitlán. The purpose of the methodological shoreline is to make space for life, to weave together histories across time, and to ensure that the memories of ancestors continue into the future.

Acknowledgments 

I want to express my sincere appreciation to Isabel Ratzan Pablo for supporting me as we navigate Santiago Atitlán. I am appreciative of my colleagues who encouraged me to think creatively, especially Ana Lopez Hurtado. I am also grateful to the Tz’utujil women in the community who worked together and told their stories. Finally, I want to thank the Puerta Abierta school for opening their heart and sharing their network with me.