Models of the Rainforest:

Folkecology, Cultural Change, and Resource Management among the Lacondon-Maya of Mexico

The Lacandon Maya of Chiapas experienced some tremendous changes during the last four decades. Previously living in dispersed settlements, they were relocated into fixed communities as part of a government plan to protect the “Selva Lacandona” and to give special land-rights to this particular indigenous group. As a result of this relocation of their households (together with other factors) the life of the Lacandon Maya of Mensäbäk changed significantly. This book traces the respective changes in household location, environmental cognition and economic (and environmental) decision-making. Clear patterns are found among the members of the two adult generations living in the community that can be traced to different cultural themes internalized and created by the members of these two generations. The study is based jointly on long-term ethnography and experimental methods from the cognitive sciences. The combination of the different methods proved to be very successful and might very well represent a new ethnography that combines anthropology and the cognitive sciences in the quest for understanding cognition as related to culture and studying related processes, such as the creation, transmission and change of cultural knowledge.

Project Publications

Ross, N. (2001). Bilder vom Regenwald: Mentale Modelle, Kulturwandel und Umweltverhalten bei den Lakandonen in Mexiko. Münster. LIT Verlag.

Ross, N. (2002). “Cognitive Aspects of Intergenerational Change: Mental Models, Cultural change and Environmental behavior among the Lacandon Maya of Southern Mexico.” Human Organization,

Vol. 61(2):125-137.

Ross, N. (2002). "Lacandon Maya Intergenerational Change and the Erosion of Folkbiological Knowledge." Stepp, J.; Wyndham, F. & Zarger, R. (eds.), Ethnobiology and Biocultural Diversity,
p.585-592. Athens, Georgia.

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