Cultural Logic and Maya Identity

Ironically, as many Western scholars have turned to constructivist theories to explain new ethnic movements and forms of identity politics, the subjects of their studies have begun to embrace a form of essentialism to justify their political legitimacy. This article presents a critical rethinking of constructivist and essentialist approaches to identity formation and maintenance. Drawing upon Maya ethnotheoretical models of identity, I introduce the analytic concept of cultural logic—generative principles realized through cognitive schemas that promote intersubjective continuity and are conditioned by the unique contingencies of life histories and structural positions in political‐economic systems. I show how the concept of metaphysical balance in Maya cosmology illuminates the working of a uniquely Maya cultural logic, and I find in Maya cognitive models of the heart and soul a theory that mirrors that of cultural logic.