Inclusive Collaboration and Harmony – Between Researchers and Mayan Research Participants

• In Event: Collaboration, Harmony, Attention & Acomedido: Learning Strengths among Mexican and Indigenous Peoples of the Americas

Abstract

Sociocultural research focused on LOPI has found that people in many Indigenous communities of the Americas commonly engage in sophisticated collaboration (Rogoff & Mejía-Arauz, 2022). This paper describes collaboration with 22 families who had participated in research that found that, with globalization, Guatemalan Mayan family interactions now resemble those of highly schooled European American families, with a drop over 30 years in inclusiveness of their collaboration, but not in harmony of their interactions. Current Mayan families collaborated inclusively, with mothers and 2 young children exploring novel objects together, only half as much as their families 3 decades before. Instead, they more often engaged between only two people, with one person left out. However, both generations maintained harmonious interactions with little conflict, unlike highly schooled European American families who often engaged with conflict.

Our paper describes our collaboration with the participants of both generations of this study – the mothers and grandmothers, to let the participants and other community members know about the findings and to invite their interpretation of the decrease in inclusiveness of collaboration but maintenance of mother-child harmonious interactions. Especially, how do they maintain the important cultural value of harmony? And what might the findings suggest for action on the part of the participant families and the Mayan community?

Our small-group meetings were designed for inclusive collaboration, in conversations exploring ideas among the mothers and grandmothers, who vary from no schooling through university. We closely designed and piloted the set-up to encourage conversational interaction that would be inclusive and respectful of the participants’ views and the cultural practices we discussed together.

Both Spanish and Tz’utujil speakers comfortably commented on the findings and their meaning, in active and free flowing discussions. All the groups predicted that the recent Mayan pattern would resemble the European American pattern, often with a look of dejection and concerns about not being able to counter the effects of globalization.

The mood lightened when we showed them that conflictual interaction had remained rare. Although they were initially surprised, they quickly turned to discussing how families have managed to maintain harmonious interactions even in the face of the other changes. The small groups became workshops exploring this finding.

The discussions surfaced a Tz’utujil Mayan phrase that the mothers and grandmothers animatedly discussed. They elaborated that k’o rxajaaniil means that someone or something is respect-worthy, it has essence, it is sacred, it has spirit, therefore one should treat it with respect. It applies to people of all ages, as well as other animals, plants, and the lake and volcano. Many participants were heartened to note that they are conserving a cultural value through their moment-to-moment interactions with their children.

The article places these observations in the context of methodological considerations for creating collaborative conversations rooted in relationality and respect between researchers and research participants. The article also addresses how these observations support theoretical views of cultural change and continuity: moment-by-moment interactions simultaneously create and are created by practices and values of cultural communities across generations.

Authors

• Barbara Rogoff, University of California - Santa Cruz

• Itzel Aceves-Azuara, California State University - Sacramento