Tecpan guatemala

Tecpan Guatemala

Tecpàn Guatemala was written as an attempt to describe the features that have shaped the rapid changes within the town of Tecpàn in Guatemala. This changes are explore through anethnographic research that looks at the ways in which modernity and tradition together have encountered a mode to build the identity of Tecpàn. Carol Hendrickson and Carol Fischer had face differentchallenges over their investigation in order to bring an “unbiased” work that embraces the complex Cosmo-vision of the people from this town. The translation of oral traditions from an emicperspective is one of the major issues that as ethnographers Fisher and Hendrickson had to face. This oral traditions are hard to translate, because they don't tell the true of the people in a community andalso are changing over time as they are pass from one generation to another. Nonetheless, through this ethnographic work the oral histories told by real people limns the cultural diversity of the townwhich helps to build an abstract understanding of it's people.

Oral histories are shady explorations of people's life, because one can't not complete get to understand them if there is not acontext to rely on. In this sense, Fisher and Hendrickson make good job by first giving to the reader a historical context of the people of Tecpàn. The first half of the book is confusing and one not fullyunderstands why there is history within a ethnography. Through history is that people are enculturated and it is important to understand their world in order to explore further cultural issues. Inpage 46, the authors state that the present is constructed- consciously or unconsciously- from historical experience, both the material conditions produced by the past actions and the remembrance of howthing were once [1]. Thus, oral histories are important within the ethnography as sources of information, but only once the historical context of the same ones is clarify or explain by Fisher and...