"Cuando alguien habla la Maya se nota que son pobres": Narrativas de identidad de los mayas yucatecos en torno a la radiodifusora indigenista La voz de los mayas, XEPET

Abstract

The present paper analyzes the  narratives of identity belonging to the cultural audience of the Indigenous radio station “La Voz de los Mayas, Xepet” (Mayans ´voice, Xepet) from the viewpoint of the relationship between this audience and the programs of this broadcaster, located in the municipality of Peto, South of Yucatan, Mexico.  The purposes of this article are twofold. On one hand, we perform an argumentative analysis in order to discover the order, the structure and the argumentative strategies of Mayan speaking audience (rather bilingual or monolingual) of the XEPET radio when they are speaking about the cultural offer of the radio station as well as about the place of the station in their daily life. On the other hand, the present article proposes that a critical approach to the Indigenous radio stations in Mexico might contribute to the construction of a “peace culture”.

“U chíikul u t’aan maayao’ob” or “Mayans’ voice” began to broadcast in 1982, 29th of November, in 740 khz of MF and it changed to 730 in January of 2001. It covers around 100 km in territory, reaching to about one thousand communities of the Yucatan peninsula, counting thus on a potential audience of 500 thousand persons.  “Mayan`s voice” broadcasts both musical and non musical genres; among the latest there are news programs, cultural informative programs, services programs and infantile programs. Xepet has been one of the pioneer stations in the Indigenous radio station system promoted by the Mexican state since 1979, a model that was copied by the other twenty radio stations that appeared afterwards. Nowadays, there is still criticism against these “official” or “Government voice” radio stations, in regards to the content of their programs, their function and their operation. This is due to the fact that both the Indigenous practice and its radio broadcasting experience seemed to have been surpassed by the demands of the native communities who were claiming their rights to self determination and autonomy, as well as their rights to the property and management of their own mass communication channels. All these confirm the necessity of a public radio station able to be a valid interlocutor for the Mayans from Yucatan.

We mark our difference with theoretical approaches that celebrate, in a simplistic manner, the cultural differences in a globalized world, as well as from those who think “interculturality” as integration, cohabitation or as a “more or less satisfactory” pacific relationship among elements of different cultures. Instead, we state that the relationship among culturally and socially different groups will always imply “symbolic fights” for acknowledgment and therefore, an endless process of identity and power reconfiguration. Based upon the argumentative analysis of the narratives developed by Yucatan Mayans while speaking about “listening” to Xepet radio station, we argue that the radio might be seen as a tool for evoking the collective memory, using the language as a vehicle. Moreover, this is the “collective memory” of those who state that they do not speak “the authentic Maya language” or argue that they are not “the real Mayans”, but only “mayeros” (Maya speakers), “those who speak Maya language”. Thus, we propose to conceive the Xepet radio broadcasting as a tool for recalling, stating, appropriating, and reconfiguring some elements of the identity, and therefore, constructing the radio broadcasting as a space of dialogue aimed to build a “peace culture”. It would be a mistake to accept only the symbolic value of the Indigenous radio stations, since this would imply to ignore, once more, the actual demands of these peoples, who are asking for a form of communication that implies not only to speak into their language, but also, and above all, to listen to their voice.