Weaving Generations Together: Evolving Creativity in the Maya of Chiapas (Resident Scholar)

For centuries, the Zinacantec Maya women of Mexico have woven and embroidered textiles that express their social and aesthetic values and embody their role as mothers and daughters. Boasting more than two hundred detailed photographs of Zinacantec textiles and their makers, this study provides a long-term examination of the cognitive and socialization processes involved in transmitting weaving knowledge across two generations. Author Patricia Marks Greenfield first visited the village of Nabenchauk in 1969 and 1970. Her return in 1991 and regular visits through 2003 enable her to combine a scholarly study of the impact of commercialization and globalization on textile design and sales, creativity, acculturation, and female socialization with poignant personal reflections on mother-daughter relationships, social change, and collaboration. Her collection of data and range of approaches make this book a contribution to studies of cognition and socialization, the life cycles of material culture, and the anthropology of the Maya. Weaving Generations Together will appeal to both the academic specialist and anyone who admires Maya weaving and culture.

[A] major contribution.... The book is worth it for the photographs alone. --Logan Doyle, Jr., Southwest Book Views

...Impressive. I don't know of any other study that looks at creativity-in-the-process-of-change. --Howard Gardner, Harvard University

[The book] is a pleasure to read....It will be of interest to anthropologists and...many readers interested in weaving and creativity in the weaving process....[as well as] developmental psychology. --Frank Cancian, University of California, Irvine