abstract: This dissertation examines incidents of conflict and violence amid communities of the Maya Tzotzil Chamula in Chiapas, Mexico. Despite ostensible homogeneity, or more social and cultural resemblances than differences, conflicts arise between many Chamula because of how they acquire desire according to others who mediate what is desirable. These conflicts relate well to Rene Girard's hypothesis that mimetic desire influences identity yet generates conflict as imitation fosters rivalry. Qualitative methods of participant observation, interviews, and document research depict how desire, identity, and conflict interrelate. Ethnographic cases show how conflict emerges "interdividually" as rivals compete to obtain objects imputed desirable. The study begins with how young Tzotzils today appropriate the desires of others, becoming lawyer, spiritual guide, rock and roll singer, or anthropologist. Complex examples exhibit groups struggling for power and privilege within or between members of communities as they vie over "objects of desire" such as status, land, water, or representations of power and pecuniary interests. For some Chamula, mimetic rivalry works to deny resemblances with others despite being alike as neighbor, relative, farmer, carpenter, or member of the same political or religious affiliation. The study also highlights mimetic interactions that have shaped Maya struggles in the past, such as the uprisings of 1712, 1867, and 1911. Interpretive analysis explores how identity formation (structures), imitative desire (motivated interaction), and practice (habitual agency) together galvanize material and psychosocial variables for conflict. Imitative desire is worth observing because of its long-term implications for human adaptation and social change. As a contribution to social conflict theory, this dissertation offers a critical perspective to current research on mimetic desire as a significant force in human relations. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Anthropology 2012

My thesis is based on a broader context of theories and categories of tourism and touristic experiences elaborated by authors belonging to a comparatively new subdiscipline of social and cultural anthropology - the anthropology of tourism. I focus on Mexico, the area of my interest and a part of el Mundo Maya (Maya World) through the eyes of tourism categorization of Valene Smith (1989). I specify two distinct (but yet similar) anthropological fields - one being Riviera Maya with fieldwork in Cancún, Tulum and Chichén Itzá and the other one Ruta Maya with fieldwork in San Cristobal de las Casas and the village of Chamula. I focus on the area of a popular beachspot and adjacent Maya ruins as a destination of historical tourism and also on the area of Chiapas highlands with an authentic Maya village which is a popular destination of ethnic or more accurately cultural tourism. My work is about the process of construction of the (English speaking versus Spanish speaking) tourist image of ancient Maya and the Maya of today. The conclusion of my fieldwork helps me illustrate the term monumentalization of the Maya (Canclini, 2005) or inventing the great Maya through touristic artefacts, experience and travellers' guides. Key words Anthropology of tourism, Maya tourism, Tulum, Chichén Itzá, Cancún, San...