Doctoral Dissertation Research: Assembling the Ancient: Public Science in the Decipherment of Maya Hieroglyphs

这个项目将人种学的注意力集中在墨西哥帕伦克的一系列讲习班上；得克萨斯州奥斯汀市;以及危地马拉的安提瓜，它们将致力于发现玛雅文明史的学者与对古玛雅及其文字感兴趣的普通公众联系起来。虽然该项目并没有明确地关注在这样的研讨会空间中发展更有效的教学方法，但它确实试图描述学者和公众之间的联系如何塑造了（科学地）历史准确性。这是一段特别重要的历史，因为这些研讨会的许多参与者，特别是安提瓜的参与者，都是玛雅人，在危地马拉、墨西哥和美国，玛雅人是一个代表性不足、政治权利被剥夺的群体。虽然这些讲习班参与者的语言知识在象形文字破译中发挥了不可削弱的作用，但他们在物质补偿和知识产权和文化财产的承认方面得到的很少。相反，铭文作者对古玛雅暴力的叙述被用来合理化正在进行的国家对土著社区的边缘化。这个项目将展示这些科学知识是如何以意想不到的方式被使用的，从而进一步损害那些它声称代表的人。知识价值。提出的历史民族志带来的观点科学和技术研究（STS）承担一个新的主题领域：古玛雅象形文字的破译。通过这样做，该项目将STS的关注点转移到历史知识的生产中。虽然玛雅象形文字破译的历史记录最近才出现，但它们的作者都积极参与了破译过程和随后在铭文领域的发展。这些作者对铭文知识的逐步积累进行了狭隘的历史叙述，没有考虑到科学过程中包括的各种参与者。相比之下，这种民族志的处理方法试图记录在破译过程中不同兴趣的参与者，以及随后在学术对话之外对象形文字知识的使用。这将通过一种民族志方法来完成，该方法结合了与学者、爱好者和玛雅人的访谈，涉及三个系列的合作科学研讨会，并对在这些研讨会空间中产生和分散的已发表和未发表的文件进行叙事分析。拟议的研究阶段扩展了已经进行的民族志和档案研究。最终，该项目利用STS的概念资源和民族志的经验承诺，帮助使象形文字知识生产的科学过程和社会后果更加透明。更广泛的影响。由于人种学本质上是一个合作领域，本研究将寻求与那些参与研讨会的人建立伙伴关系，努力确保所产生的历史反馈到研讨会教学法的过程中。这项工作将在美国和危地马拉的玛雅学者和活动家参加的会议上以英语和西班牙语公开发表。最后，除了学术报告和出版物之外，研究报告还将以英语和西班牙语在玛雅探索中心的网站上公开发布（www.mayaexploration.org），这是一个赞助玛雅研究和出国留学机会的非营利组织。

This project focuses ethnographic attention on series of workshops in Palenque, Mexico; Austin, Texas; and Antigua, Guatemala, that have connected scholars striving to discover the history of Maya civilization with members of the general public casually or non-academically interested in the ancient Maya and their writing. While the project is not explicitly focused on developing more effective pedagogy in such workshop spaces, it does seek to describe the ways in which connections between scholars and the public have shaped what counts (scientifically) as historical accuracy. This is a particularly significant history to articulate because many of the participants in such workshops, especially those in Antigua, have been Maya, an underrepresented and politically disenfranchised group in Guatemala, Mexico, and the United States. While the linguistic knowledge of these workshop participants has played an irreducible role in hieroglyphic decipherment, they have received little in the way of material compensation and recognition of intellectual and cultural property. To the contrary, the narratives of ancient Maya violence produced by epigraphers have been used to rationalize ongoing state marginalization of indigenous communities. This project will show how such scientific knowledge has been used in unexpected ways to further disadvantage those that it claims to represent.Intellectual Merit. The proposed historical ethnography brings the perspectives of science and technology studies (STS) to bear on a new topical area: the decipherment of ancient Maya hieroglyphs. In so doing, the project relays the concerns of STS into the production of historical knowledge. While historical accounts of Maya hieroglyphic decipherment have emerged recently, their authors have all been actively involved in the process of decipherment and subsequent developments within the field of epigraphy. Such authors have produced narrow historical narratives of epigraphy's progressive accumulation of knowledge, without accounting for the diverse participants included in the scientific process. In contrast, this ethnographic treatment seeks to document the differentially interested participants in the process of decipherment and the subsequent uses of hieroglyphic knowledge outside of academic conversations. This will be accomplished through an ethnographic methodology combining interviews with scholars, enthusiasts, and Maya involved in three series of collaborative scientific workshops, and narrative analysis of published and unpublished documents produced and dispersed in such workshop spaces. The proposed phases of research extend ethnographic and archival research already conducted. Ultimately, this project uses the conceptual resources of STS and the empirical commitment of ethnography to help render the scientific process and societal consequences of hieroglyphic knowledge production more transparent. Broader Impact. As ethnography is an intrinsically collaborative field, this study will seek to develop partnerships with those who have been involved in workshops, striving to ensure that the history that is produced feeds back into the process of workshop pedagogy. The work will be publicly presented in English and Spanish at conferences attended by Maya scholars and activists in the United States and Guatemala. Finally, in addition to academic presentations and publications, research reports will be produced for public distribution in English and Spanish on the website of the Maya Exploration Center (www.mayaexploration.org), a nonprofit organization that sponsors Maya research and study abroad opportunities.