Developing Destinies: Changes and Continuities in Learning of a Guatemalan Mayan Midwife and Town

• In Event: Contributions of Anthropology to Educational Research: The Continuing Legacy of Robert A. LeVine

Abstract

Bob LeVine’s seminal work helps us see cultural differences in adult-child interaction, the role of schooling in learning and development in varying cultural settings, and the generational basis of cultural changes and continuities. Deeply influenced by LeVine’s work, this paper describes the changing role of schooling and other ways of supporting learning, especially intent community participation, across the 8-decade lifetime of a Guatemalan Mayan woman who was born to be a sacred midwife.

This case study of learning and development of an individual and her town illuminates how individuals worldwide build on cultural heritage from prior generations and at the same time create new ways of living. Throughout Chona Pérez’s lifetime, her Guatemalan town has continued to use longstanding Mayan cultural practices, such as including children in a range of community activities and encouraging them to learn by observing and contributing.

But the town has also transformed dramatically since the days of Chona’s own childhood. The role of schooling has grown, family size has dropped, and children have fewer opportunities to learn by observing and pitching in to ongoing family and community endeavors. Although Chona’s upbringing included no formal schooling, some of her grandchildren have gone on to attend university and earn scholarly degrees. The lives of Chona and her town show how cultural practices are preserved even as they are adapted and modified and reveal the kind of changes in learning contexts and schooling that characterize many regions more broadly.

Born with the destiny of being a Mayan sacred midwife, Chona Pérez has carried on centuries-old traditional Indigenous American birth and healing practices over her 85 years. At the same time, Chona developed new approaches to the care of pregnancy, newborns, and mothers based on her own experience and ideas. In this way, Chona has contributed to both the cultural continuities and cultural changes of her town over the decades.

Chona’s own learning included learning through dreams and supernatural experience; her granddaughter’s learning included listening in on nearby conversations about birth practices, explanations in context, and some observation. The lives of Chona and her town show how cultural practices are preserved even as they are adapted and modified.

Data sources include ethnographic interviews of Chona and over 200 other people from San Pedro and participant observation over 37 years, historical documents, videotaped observations of learning activities with hundreds of families, and longitudinal questionnaires over 27 years with 60 families. The work follows up on LeVine’s research and theoretical work, as well as fieldwork with Chona and in San Pedro by Ben and Lois Paul (from 1941). These themes are described in my recent book, "Developing Destinies: A Mayan Midwife and Town" (Oxford, 2011), written together with Chona (though she does not read or write and never went to school) and two of her grandchildren (one who was also destined by birth to be a midwife and one who has published sociology articles about Mayanization).

Author

• Barbara Rogoff, University of California - Santa Cruz