ABSTRACT
Both biodiversity and linguistic diversity are under threat owing to a similar set of factors in today’s interconnected world. As the transdisciplinary research field of biocultural diversity demonstrates, these forms of diversity are strongly interrelated in terms of both their conservation and erosion. The interrelation of biological, cultural and linguistic diversity is clearly manifest in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. Yucatec Maya speakers have conserved landraces, for example, those of the staple crop maize in situ through their continued practice of milpa agriculture oriented towards subsistence. The two forms of diversity – agrobiological and linguistic – are threatened, owing to the increased tendency to turn away from traditional agricultural production in conjunction with a shift from Yucatec Maya to Spanish in daily language use. In view of the pressure on local biocultural diversity, there are Yucatec Mayan initiatives to maintain both indigenous grains and language. Indigenous people in Yucatan increasingly engage in biocultural diversity conservation in a variety of ways ranging from everyday practice to digital activism. In these actions, Yucatec Maya speakers challenge the dominant neoliberal model of development – which has largely drawn on the objectification and commodification of “nature” – drawing on their own conception of human-more-than-human relationships. Focusing on everyday practice, this chapter discusses the Yucatec Mayan struggle to defend indigenous grains and language as an insightful example of resistance to the homogenizing forces of global capitalism. Disseminating the indigenous engagement for pluricultural and multi-species co-existence, it aims to inspire alternative conceptions of the future grounded in diversity.
