Dissertation Research: Religious Conversion Among the Tzotzil Maya in Highland Chiapas, Mexico

该项目资助了纽约城市大学文化人类学专业的一名学生的学位论文研究。这名学生将研究导致一些玛雅印第安人被驱逐出墨西哥南部恰帕斯州传统社区的因素。学生将衡量改宗、政治冲突、贫困、边缘化、疾病和酗酒作为这一社区宗教皈依的原因的影响。学生将结合对重新安置的印度人社区的调查、他们原籍社区的人种学研究以及他们的居住社区，评估导致宗教皈依的不同因素的力量，以及与驱逐中的政治派系相比，皈依宗教的重要性。这项研究很重要，因为它将增加我们对世界这一重要领域的专业知识，并揭示在一个不发达社会导致宗教变化、当地社区冲突和城市化的多种因素。这一案例研究对于构建有关这些问题的一般理论具有一定的参考价值。

This project supports the dissertation research of a student of cultural anthropology from the City University of New York. The student will study the factors leading to the expulsion of some rural Mayan Indians from their traditional communities in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. The student will measure the impacts of proselytization, political conflict, poverty, marginality, illness and alcoholism as causes of religious conversion in this one community. Using a combination of a survey of a community of resettled Indians, ethnographic research in their community of origin as well as their community of residence, the student will estimate the strengths of the distinct factors leading to religious conversion as well as the importance of conversion compared with political factionalism in the expulsions. This research is important because it will add to our expertise about this important area of the world, as well as shed light on the multiple factors leading to religious changes, local community conflict and urbanization in an under-developed society. This case study will be valuable for the construction of general theory on these issues.