A World of Many : Ontology and Child Development Among the Maya of Southern Mexico

__A World of Many__ explores the world-making efforts of Tzotzil Maya children from two different localities within the municipality of Chenalhó, Chiapas. The research demonstrates children’s agency in creating their worlds, while also investigating the role played by the surrounding social and physical environment. Different experiences with schooling, parenting, goals and values, but also with climate change, water scarcity, as well as racism and settler colonialism form part of the reason children create their emerging worlds. These worlds are not make believe or anything less than the ontological products of their parents. Instead, Norbert Ross argues that by creating different worlds, the children ultimately fashion themselves into different human beings - quite literally being different in the world. __A World of Many__ combines experimental research from the cognitive sciences with critical theory, exploring children’s agency in devising their own ontologies. Rather than treating children as somewhat incomplete humans, it understands children as tinkerers and thinkers, makers of their worlds amidst complex relations. It regards __being__ as a constant ontological production, where life and living constitutes activism. Using experimental paradigms, the book shows that children locate themselves differently in these emerging worlds they create, becoming different human beings in the process. "A World of Many explores the world-making efforts of Tzotzil Maya children from two different localities within the municipality of Chenalhó, Chiapas. The research demonstrates children's agency in creating their worlds, while also investigating the role played by the surrounding social and physical environment. Different experiences with schooling, parenting, goals and values, but also with climate change, water scarcity, as well as racism and settler colonialism form part of children creating their emerging worlds. These worlds are not make belief or anything less than the ontological products of their parents. Instead, Norbert Ross argues that by creating different worlds, the children ultimately fashion themselves into different human beings - quite literally being different in the world. A World of Many combines experimental research from the cognitive sciences with critical theory, exploring children's agency in devising their own ontologies. Rather than treating children as somewhat incomplete humans, it understands children as tinkerers and thinkers, makers of their worlds amidst complex relations. It regards being as a constant ontological production, where life and living constitutes activism. Using experimental paradigms, the book shows that children locate themselves differently in these emerging worlds they create, becoming different human beings in the process"-- Provided by publisher CONTENTS 1 Introduction 2 A World Where Other Worlds Can Be at Home 3 Ontology and Resistance 4 Folk-Biological Knowledge, Education, and Framework Theories 5 Study Design and Methods 6 Complexity, Niche Theory, and Cultural Models 7 From Subsistence to Extraction: Globalization, Change, and Spatial Organization in Chenalhó 8 Knowledge Sources and Learning Biases: Experience, Values, and Ontologies 9 Growing Up in Chenalhó: Knowledge Sources and the Spatial Distribution of Change and Modernity 10 What Is It Called? Plant Knowledge in Chenalhó 11 Concepts of “Alive” and “Living Kinds” Experience, Culture, and Ontology 12 How Alive Is It? Revisiting the Concept of “Alive” 13 Being in Space 14 One of Many: The Making of a Diversity of Worlds ACKNOWLEDGMENTS NOTES REFERENCES INDEX ABOUT THE AUTHOR