ABSTRACT
Traditional Kaqchikel economic models are based on subsistence agriculture, with Maya men typically related to the land they work and Maya women to the products of the land, which they prepare for their families' use. Milpa agriculture has been practiced in the Maya region for millennia, and for good reason. To most Tecpan farmers, the attachment to their plots resides in the land's particularity, not in any abstract ideal of milpa agriculture. With few exceptions, milpa plots and other farmland in Tecpan are located outside of the fairly densely populated town center. To see the contemporary state of Maya agriculture one need only travel along the narrow two-lane stretch of the Pan-American Highway in Guatemala between Chimaltenango and Tecpan. Juana has a large permanent stall in the enclosed area of the Tecpan municipal market. The rise of nontraditional agriculture in the Tecpan area is a case study in the convergence of macro-economic and local cultural and ecological factors.
