September 1999 
Introduction This paper is the result of field research conducted in the months of September, October and November 1997, during eighty days stayed in two Mayan communities located within the confines of the border states of Yucatan and Quintana Roo. The purpose of this article is to provide a description of some socio-cultural transformation processes due, in particular, the frequent contacts have been established indigenous communities with the outside world. Before
to address this issue, I found it necessary to provide an ethnographic and historical contextualization to identify the historical reasons that have led to current Yucatan Mayan communities to develop their present socio-cultural structure which, after going through long and complex process of cultural change is has maintained a strong ethnic identity built on legacy elements strictly related to its territory and, in particular, the scope of the sacred. The results of field research are shown as current social changes are imposed largely by foreign, especially through contacts with state and federal governments, the progressive introduction of the cash economy and contacts with an NGO located in this region. The project to establish a biosphere reserve in this area has provided a pretext to the parent company to introduce environmental interests in the two communities, but those interests have demonstrated only a partial awareness of individuals in the community. The imposition of these changes as a critical test that image of identity that have kept the two communities.
cultural and ethnic landscape
The cultural landscape has traditionally been the object of study of geography.
The first definition of this concept was given in 1938 to Congress Amsterdam and defined the geographical landscape as the epitome of sensitive or visible and told the geography and landscape science. Since then, many have been critical reflections that have taken the concept of cultural landscape (eg, Lucio Gambi, 1961; Denis Cosgrove, 1985; E. Hirsh, 1995) which have refined and enriched to include a dimension history and culture that had not been considered by the first or, worse, were configured as deterministic views, where you can not find the intervention of man in history - that is the man who is the subject of landscape and that cover the relationship between society and nature - but only the ecology of man - the man who exists in nature, like all other representatives of plant and animal, and only as such could have produced landscape forms (L. Gambi, 1961). However
man, besides being organic, that is to be historical and for this very reason, plasma, forging, processing, land planning your table in unceasing dialectical relationship with nature (P. Sereno, 1992). Recently, Denise Fay Brown has conducted research pertaining definition. However, that first definition assigned to the geographic landscape a human-natural setting which could provide interpretations naturalistic, the territory and the cultural landscape in the area of \u200b\u200bChemax, city entirely Mayan. His research pays particular attention not only to the construction and landscape composition but also the ideological pressures that determine the changes and transformations of the landscape.
According to Fay Brown "cultural changes are reflected in the landscape and landscape transformations involving changes in the culture of those who live and breed there. Change is inevitable, and not necessarily a cultural destruction, but the modification or redefinition of place and landscape elements imposed by external force can cause cultural conflict and confusion when you lose the consistency of the text-landscape. " That is, the complex cultural landscape structure includes activities and beliefs of human beings in the context of a nature which is also its construction. In this perspective can be understood as a common understanding of the cultural landscape is related to the construction and maintenance of cultural group identity.
The Mayan ethnic literature had two major theoretical approaches to their design: one sees the formation of Maya identity as an opposition movement between the world of the Maya and Ladino world. The other, however, sees as plausible the existence of a native thread which, by tradition, unites the present with the ancient Mayan pre-Hispanic society (Wilson, 1993). These two theories lead directly to the debate about the dichotomy between structure and process, ie between the alleged existence of an essential structure of identity against the vision of an identity constructed through a relational process with the non-Maya. In an attempt to overcome these rigorous interpretive models Wilson (1993) suggests understanding the concept of ethnic identity, not only as a problem of structure or process but as an appropriate way, as a life experience that needs a definition polythetic (polythetic definition) to explore its historical usefulness.
In the multidimensionality of the Mayan culture, Wilson also refers to a stronger element of the other previously discussed: religion. Wilson specifically states that Maya religion lies in the worship of the spirit of the mountain (referring to the Q'eqchi 'Maya ethnic group in the highlands) and usually relates to the elements of nature. "The community identities are constructed through the relationship with the local sacred landscape" (Wilson, 1993). Indigenous religion and worship of nature would then represent a key element in building and maintenance of cultural identity. As proof, Bartholomew (1988) and Jan de Vos (1998) mention that in the religion and worship of nature to push the Indian rebellion in the caste war. We can also find in them the source of the important period of "community renaissance."
In conclusion, the cultural landscape - constantly built and rebuilt by the Maya through a continuing dialectic with nature - is a dense network of different meanings, especially religious, imbued with a dense symbolism. Such symbolism draws a conceptual horizon, besides being time-space provides recognition elements for a cultural group that builds on the strict link with the environment and their meanings, the budgets of their own identity.
exogenous pressures: musealization folklorization territory and culture.
By these words, which are not intended to reflect the complexity of the discourse on ethnicity and cultural landscape, will attempt to illustrate how the two concepts are closely related to cultural identity. With this perspective we understand how new interpretations of the territory from outside, could jeopardize the integrity of the identity of small Mayan communities. Moreover, the dominant group in society typically do not become sensitized to the negative impacts caused by their presence and actions in the Mayan communities, and only focuses on the economic benefits that these communities represent the nation or for the conservation of species animals, plants and some archaeological sites. One example is the case of Pronatura Yucatán Project, which works with the Mayan communities of Punta Laguna and Yodzonot on a project to establish a biosphere reserve in the area of \u200b\u200bthe jungle, right in the area where these are located two communities. The declaration of this biosphere reserve is an attempt to pursue economic performance through a new conceptualization of the forest, which no longer belongs to the Maya and also not allowed to continue with their "old" ways of life because they are not compatible with the ecosystem.
Another case in point is the tourism project "Mundo Maya" which is an obvious marketing features or places that are meaningful to local people. Both examples are a gathering of cultural landscapes in practice. They are a push for "modernization" of cultural groups held "backward." Environmental interests include conservation of the ecosystem and economic performance to be achieved through eco-tourism, are the indigenous Mayans who are an obstacle for the scope of the two objectives. The way to break the barrier of indigenous communities is putting them to manage this reserve being themselves witnesses pre-Hispanic society folk. Given these exogenous pressures, the processes that drive the recovery of lost cultural traits contribute to the birth of a new identity image which would be based on criteria that are the foundation of community life outside Maya, that is, the logic of dominant society. "The cultural recovery process that takes as central tourism creates a new form of collective identity which does not assert its continuity with the past but an entirely new manufacturing, carried through traditions decontextualized fragments (Scarduelli, 1998: 162). Before the equation: folklore same economic benefits became apparent, local traditions were considered a waste product of the past and an obstacle to modernization. Today the institution of local projects such as that proposed by Pronatura, and broader as Mundo Maya, impose cultural reification processes that induce the Indians to conceptualize their own traditions through categories outside their cognitive schemas (Scarduelli, 1998: 160).
cultural changes imposed by musealization cultural landscape may be strictly related to the folklorization of culture and the loss of key elements of cultural identity. The concepts of sustainable development and ecotourism related to strong environmental ideology may now be conceived as the new guise of ethnocentric bias that engages community members in projects of which they are not fully aware, which is why these projects been considered as opportunistic or instrumental. Therefore, "the thrust exogenous to the recovery of indigenous traditions requires, in the name of development, lacking continuity of traditions. This is actually a form of self-awareness that apparently was built as opposed to modernization, but in reality it is induced by modernization. " (Eriksen, cit. Scarduelli in 1998: 162).
