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This article presents a case study of rural landscape concepts found in the indigenous Yucatec Maya area of Mexico. Of particular interest in this article is the contrast between the Maya conceptualization of the forest as essential to sustainable agriculture and a Western notion of the forest as the antithesis of agriculture. The former has created a tropical forest that is a product of Maya management and the basis of a sustained Maya society, whereas the latter leads to practices that destroy this forest producing a non‐sustainable system. Cyclical landscape processes in the former contrast with linear landscape processes in the latter. In order to compare and contrast the landscapes, a model that identifies embedded concepts is used. It is proposed that the Maya system has an element of verticality and temporality leading to sustainability, a feature lacking in the Western conceptualization.

Spatial appropriation is an age‐old strategy for domination by one group over another. In the context of national states, territorial expansion is a common manifestation of this. Spain's colonization process began in the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico in the sixteenth century but remained incomplete in this area. Independent Mexico's struggle for control over the Mayan landscape of the Yucatan continued through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is my contention that the assault has continued in recent times. Today, it is not the conventional notion of nation state colonialism but a much more subtle invasion brought about by the ability of tourists from richer nations to travel south. Using the paradigm of settler colonization, this article proposes that relationships of power underlying this new infiltration parallel those of conventional colonialism, and that the tourist is, in fact, an unwitting colonizer. The case of Quintana Roo, Mexico illustrates how the tourist can be seen as a pawn in a larger political project. Exposure of this predatory nature of tourism reveals processes that have implications for other Native regions of the Americas and beyond that are suffering similar “invasions.”

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Espacios mayas de familia y comunidad: Una relación de interdependencia Author(s): Denise Fay Brown Source: Mexican Studies/JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Despite the fundamental importance of the concepts of family and community in the study of human societies, there still exists a certain degree of theoretical confusion regarding the definition and construction of these social units. This article presents the results of a study of the relationship between these social units, based on an examination of the relationship between the physical spaces generated on the basis of the organizational principles of each. It is proposed that the construction and boundaries of one unit, reflected in the physical spaces generated, are negotiated in relation to the other. In conclusion, it is observed that they are gendered spaces, and that the relationship between family and community can be understood as one of interdependence, the result of which is the social reproduction of the human society.A pesar de la importancia de los conceptos de familia y de comunidad en el estudio de las sociedades humanas, todavia existe cierta confusi6n a nivel teorico acerca de la definicion y construccion social de estas unidades. Este articulo presenta los resultados de un.estudio de la relaci6n entre las dos unidades, partiendo de la relacion entre los espacios fisicos generados a base de principios organizativos de cada una. Se plantea que la construccion y fronteras de una unidad, reflejadas en sus espacios, se negocian con la otra. Finalmente, se observa que son espacios de g6nero, y que la relaci6n entre comunidad y familia puede entenderse como una relaci6n interdependiente que resulta en la reproduccion social. IntroduccionLos conceptos defamilia y comunidad son de los mas ambiguos y confusos que tenemos en las ciencias sociales. Pero tambien son de los ter-* Esta investigacion en proceso sobre espacios de familia y de comunidad en la zona maya de Yucatan ha sido financiada durante el periodo 1997-1999 por el Consejo Canadiense por las Ciencias Sociales y las Humanidades. Agradezco tambien el apoyo logistico del Calgary Institute for the Humanities, University of Calgary, Canada. Finalmente quisiera agradecer los comentarios y valiosas sugerencias de los revisores. Sin embargo, cualquier error u omision es responsabilidad de la que subscribe.Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 15(2), Summer 1999. ? Regents of the University of California.