ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the creation of the concept of the Maya Forest with a focus on the Maya. It illustrates that the Maya Forest is a result of two particular disciplinary paths and spaces that have been evolving closer to one another during the past decades: those of Archaeology and Ecology. Both fields have shown an increasing understanding of the Mayas as forest people, whose ruins and forests need to be conserved. The tendency has materialized in a web of protected areas, the so-called “the Maya Arch”, comprising heritage sites and biosphere reserves, which bring together the need to safeguard both archaeological sites and biodiversity located in the surrounding forests (i.e., biocultural diversity). Thus, the Maya Forest was created as a concept and space for archaeologists and ecologists. However, the chapter also sheds light on two other important pillars related to the (re)production of the concept of the Maya as part of the Maya Forest: the tourism industry with its mayanization, and the struggles of those who self-identify as Mayas. The three pillars of the (re)production of the Maya in the Maya Forest are deeply entangled, resulting in eco-borderlands that challenge our understanding of the Maya Forest as periphery and instead identify the Maya Forest as a region with important struggles about territorial, Indigenous, and ecological rights.
