About

Education:

B.A. University of Richmond; American Studies, Music Performance

M.A., Ph.D. Tulane University; Anthropology

Joyce Bennett is an anthropologist whose research and teaching focus on sociocultural and sociolinguistic issues in Central and North America, especially as they relate to social justice. She mostly focuses on the Kaqchikel Maya-speaking population of the Western highlands of Guatemala, but she also collaborates with ethnolinguistic groups throughout Guatemala and with Indigenous and other marginalized peoples in North America. She is an advocate of community engaged learning and regularly connects her courses to local communities in Southeastern Connecticut. Professor Bennett is an avid supporter of multi-method and cross-disciplinary approaches. She firmly believes that learning and scholarship must be connected to the people and places academics study through mutual collaboration and respect.

Her current research focuses on Maya women in Guatemala and their attempts to protect their traditional weavings through intellectual property rights. She is the recipient of a Fulbright U.S. Scholars award in 2022-2023 and an Engaged Research Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, also in 2022-2023, which supports that work. She was the Central American Visiting Scholar at the David D. Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University in the 2019-2020 academic year.

Professor Bennett publishes at the intersections of language revitalization, feminism, social justice, and political economy. Her articles appear in Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, International Journal of Women’s Studies, Maya America, and more. Professor Bennett’s first book, Good Maya Women: Migration, Clothing, and Language Revitalization in Highland Guatemala (University of Alabama Press, 2022), analyzes how indigenous women’s migration contributes to women’s empowerment in their home communities in Guatemala. Analyzing the life histories of migrant women exposes how women’s migration is the result of structural violence and how women subvert that violence, returning home to revitalize their indigenous Kaqchikel language and clothing. As women engage in revitalization work on a daily basis, they seek to earn the title of “good” women in their home communities. Using affect theory to analyze moments when women earn the title of “good” women highlights how women’s experiences of their activism gives them strength, even in a context where women’s activism continues to marginalize them in the broader Guatemalan context. Her book offers an analysis of neoliberal economic forces as more complex and perhaps even hopeful than traditional analyses. The ethnography promotes an understanding of Maya women’s lives and work outside of developmentalist, Westernized notions of empowerment and allows for a more nuanced scholarly analysis and representation of Maya women.

Courses Taught:

Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

Indigenous Women’s Social Movements in Latin America

Culture and Interpretation

Language Death and Revitalization

Publications:

2023. Bennett, Joyce and Kimberly Sanchez. “Antiracist Praxis in Community Engagement: A

Partnership Rubric.” International Journal of Research on Service-Learning and

Community Engagement 11 (1).

2022. Good Maya Women: Migration, Clothing, and Language Revitalization in Highland

            Guatemala. University of Alabama Press.

2020. “Mothering through Language: Gender, Class, and Education in Language

Revitalization among Kaqchikel Maya Women in Guatemala.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 30(2) 196-212.  

2020. Bennett, Joyce and Ambrocia Cuma. “Maya-americanos en casa: Los efectos de la

migración de Guatemala a los EEUU en la región Kaqchikel.” Maya America. 2:1, Article 20.

2020. Bennett, Joyce, Mike Doyle, and Margie Giacalone (CC ’18). “Community-Engaged

Learning for Immigration Justice: Building Solidarity through Praxis.” Teaching and

Learning Anthropology Journal 3 (2) 28-46. https://doi.org/10.5070/T33246957

2019. “Comadre Work: Grassroots Feminism in a Kaqchikel Maya Town.”

Journal of International Women’s Studies, 20 (6) 60-74.

2017. “I became more Maya”: International Kaqchikel Maya migration in Central America.

Universitas Psycológica 16 (5): 1-13.

2015. “Xujal runa’öj: The Cultural and Linguistic Consequences of Kaqchikel Maya migration to the US.”Ni sombras ni proscritos: Indigenous Presence in the Latina/o

Community, Label Me Latino.

2015. “Traje’s future: gendered paths in Guatemala.” Native American and Indigenous

Studies Journal 2(1): 67-89.

2014. ““Puro Kaqchikel:” The discourse surrounding language standardization in highland

Guatemala.” Fleur de Ling: Tulane University Working Papers. 1: 95-106.

Public Scholarship

2024    Read This Before Taking Photos of Indigenous Peoples While on Vacation. Newsweek.

June 20. https://www.newsweek.com/read-this-before-taking-photos-indigenous-peoples-while-vacation-opinion-1913836

2024    A slow-motion coup in Guatemala may still be ongoing. The Dallas Morning News.

January 5. https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2024/01/05/guatemala-arevalo-transition-democracy/

2023    Guatemalan textiles make great gifts. Is it ethical for Americans to buy them? The

Houston Chronicle. December 16. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outlook/article/guatemala-textiles-ethical-to-buy-18556898.php

Recent Presentations:

2024    Collaboration through Curriculum: How an Anthropology of Tourism Class is Supporting Grassroots Indigenous Women’s Activism in Guatemala. With Alex Coughlin; Jonathan Dayan; Dennis DeLaney; Kristen Hummer; Hope Johnston; Svet Kasem-Beg; Alexander Kowal; Andrew Kupovich; Julieta Moreira Reyes; Bridget O’Keefe; and Sarah Smith. Northeastern Anthropological Association Meetings; Providence, RI. April 13.

2024    From Weaving to Wellbeing: Maya Women’s Quest for a Dignified Life. Institute of

Mesoamerican Studies, University of Albany. March 8, 2024.

2024    Competencia Multicultural en la Investigación. Teóricas de la terapia familiar, Programa Maestría en Psicología, Universidad del Valle de Guatemala. Guatemala City, Guatemala. January 31, 2024.

2023   Qab’ey roj tijoxela’: Fundaciones para el éxito en la experiencia de los estudiantes.

Southeastern Council on Latin America. Antigua, Guatemala. March 24, 2023.

2022    Mobile Maya Women and Materiality: Modern Migration, Clothing Revitalization, Affect, and Material Records. Moving Maya Conference. Paris, France. December 7.

2021    Caring through Clothing: Kaqchikel Maya Women’s Ethnic Revitalization Work as Community Care. Association for Arts in the Present. October 29, 2021.