Indigenous Cosmologies on Sexualities

A lecture given by Sylvia Marcos, Director of the Center for Psychoethnological Research in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

A review of what being male and female means among the Mayan indigenous peoples of the State of Chiapas. The seminar will review some of the ways gender is constructed, sexuality interpreted, and justice achieved by standing within epistemic references that illuminate a particular way of viewing and conceptualizing the body and its interrelations with others, nature, and the cosmos.

Through the analysis of some of the women’s discourses, live presentations and addresses, we can unravel some of the deepest cosmological meanings that help us to understand assertions for rights like “We are equal because we are different” or “Obeying we lead” “Walking we ask” which lead us towards  a women’s grassroots subversive proposal for a better and dignified life, that substitutes the neo-colonial concept of “Development”.

Lekil kuxlehal, in Tzeltal language, is the term used to define what a dignified, prosperous, happy and equitable life is.