Travel Warning: Elite Appropriations of Hybridity, Mestizaje, Antiracism, Equality, and Other Progressive-Sounding Discourses in Highland Guatemala

This article analyzes the complexities that arise when certain keywords in culture theory "travel" from one sociopolitical setting to another. The specific context is ethnic and racial relations in the highlands of Guatemala, where members of the dominant (ladino) group have come to use the term hybridity (among others) to challenge and delegitimate Maya Indians’ demands for cultural rights. I conclude with a call for theory-making efforts without pretensions of universal resonance, grounded instead in an active engagement with the politics of a particular place, time, and people.