Glossary
agroecology
"Agroecology is a holistic and integrated approach that simultaneously applies ecological and social concepts and principles to the design and management of sustainable agriculture and food systems. It seeks to optimize the interactions between plants, animals, humans and the environment while also addressing the need for socially equitable food systems within which people can exercise choice over what they eat and how and where it is produced" (FAO)
Aj Meen
Literally “creator,” but in Maya culture this refers to a medicine healer who also celebrates rituals.
biocultural diversity
We use the term biocultural diversity to emphasis the tight interlinkages between human societies and the natural and biophysical environment in which they exist. Luisa Maffi, co-founder and director of Terralingua magazine, defines biocultural diversity as the "diversity of life in all its manifestations—biological, cultural and linguistic—which are interrelated within a complex socio-ecological adaptive system."
Maffi, L. (2005). Linguistic, cultural, and biological diversity. Annual Review of Anthropology, 34, 599–617.
Describing biocultural diversity, Terralingua writes, that if we hear "web of life", we likely think of "biodiversity: the millions of species of plants and animals that have evolved on earth, interconnected with one another and with the ecosystems in which they live." But for "millennia, we humans have been part of nature and have co-evolved with it. Over time, people have adapted to their local environment while drawing material and spiritual sustenance from it. Through this mutual adaptation, human communities have developed thousands of different cultures and languages: distinctive ways of seeing, knowing, doing, and speaking that have been shaped by the interactions between people and the natural world." Seing the web of life from this perspective, it interlinks the diversity of nature and culture.
bioindicator
Bioindicators are living organisms that respond to a change in the ecosystem. The interpretation of bioindicators allows an assessment of the overall condition of ecosystems.
bolontik’uj
Literally “nine worlds.” Others refer to it as the underworld.
cenotes
A cenote is a natural pit, or sinkhole, resulting from the collapse of limestone bedrock that exposes groundwater. The term is specifically associated with the Yucatán Peninsula, where cenotes are used for water supplies and are considered sacred by the Mayans. The term derives from a word used by the lowland Yucatec Maya—tsʼonot—to refer to any location with accessible groundwater.
cosmovision
Cosmovisions are a collection of worldviews; interrelated with nature, ecology, and the cosmos, also including living system of indigenous knowledges and forms of knowledge production.
cuerpo-territorio
Cuerpo-Territorio (body-territory) is a concept developed by indigenous women. Based on the relationship of the female body to the earth and the mutual care it implies, the idea of cuerpo-territorio establishes a link between the colonial and capitalist dispossession of territories and the patriarchal exploitation and oppression of female bodies.
food sovereignty
The term food sovereignty was first coined in 1996 by members of La Via Campesina. The "Declaration of Nyéléni" (2007) defines food sovereignty as “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations.“
Global South
The Global South as a term tries to name the conditions of economic disadvantage brought about by historical dynamics of power. This is why there is always a Global South within the Global North, and the other way around.
Indigenous
But who are Indigenous Peoples? According to the United Nations, "Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with the pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing in those territories or parts thereof. They now constitute non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories and ethnic identity as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal systems" (United Nations). In the context of this paper, these are peoples with histories, temporalities, territories, languages and worldviews that make them unique and that share the condition of having been colonized at some point in time.
(Los Pueblos Indígenas del mundo: una clave para la crisis climática - Tania Eulalia Martínez Cruz)
ja’abin
A tree known in Spanish as barbasco or jabín.
kuxaan suum
Our oldest grandparents teach that there are three ropes: one that shines in the skies, one that stretches across the horizon of the Mayab, and another that walks below Mother Earth.
maiz
For Mayan communities, who call themselves the "people of maíz", corn is not only a staple food, but it has remained a central element of everyday life, culture, and cosmology. The domestication of maize from the teocintle (Zea mays, ssp. parviglumis), its most direct wild ancestor, dates back about 10,000 years. Indigenous families have been producing maize uninterruptedly for 350 generations. There are currently more than 300 varieties derived from 64 breeds of native corn in what is now Mexico, adapted to diverse landscapes and ecologies. As guardians of the seeds, indigenous people, farmers and NGOs organize to protect this biocultural heritage and their food sovereignty from privatization, commercialisation and the introduction of genetically modified seeds.
milpa
The milpa is an millennia old crop-growing system used throughout Mesoamerica. Planted are the three sisters, corn, beans, and squash, as well as other crops such as avocados, melons, tomatoes, chilies, etc. The plants complement each other ecologically and in terms of their nutritional needs. In the milpa, a cleared area is usually cultivated for a certain period of time and then left fallow. The milpa is not only an agricultural system, but involves complex relationships between farmers, plants, the land, the family and community, and cosmology.
óol
This concept does not have a unique translation and can be understood in multiple ways according to the context: “energy,” “mood,” and so on.
ooxlajajuntik’uj
Literally “thirteen spaces.” It can also be translated as “layers of the sky.”
solar maya
The solar maya is an area of between 250 and 1000 square meters that, in addition to the family home, contains different elements of self-sufficiency. As a microcosm of Mayan society, the solar is also the fundamental place for establishing complex relationships with nature, the community and Mayan cosmology, and it is deeply related to the territory. While state-sponsored “modernization” and urbanization processes have partially displaced traditional ways of life, construction and subsistence, the solar today is also a form of rebuilding regenerative relationships with the environment and defending Mayan culture, language, ways of life, food sovereignty, identity and territory.
territories
"Territory is not only a physical space[…]. It is where relationships among humans, and with the environment occur;[…]. It is also history, memory and culture, and the roots and spirituality that form the worldview of each people. Territory is where individual and collective identities are constructed. Therefore, to defend territory is to defend the forms of life that inhabit it.”
Teresa Pérez González, Defending the body-earth territory: an alternative for social movements in resistance, 2016 (Link)
territory
"Territory is not only a physical space[…]. It is where relationships among humans, and with the environment occur;[…]. It is also history, memory and culture, and the roots and spirituality that form the worldview of each people. Territory is where individual and collective identities are constructed. Therefore, to defend territory is to defend the forms of life that inhabit it.”
Teresa Pérez González, Defending the body-earth territory: an alternative for social movements in resistance, 2016 (Link)
ts’uju’uy
A thrush-like bird.
tunkul
A prehispanic percussion instrument.
Yuumtsil
There is no equivalent in English for this Maya concept. Anthropologists define it as “god,” but this is incorrect. The closest interpretation would be “community father” or “mother of the community.”