Associate Professor of Anthropology Joyce Bennett was quoted extensively in an EL PAÍS story Dec. 22 about Maya weavers fighting back against the appropriation of their ancestral designs by global manufacturers.

“One woman told me she could still feel her mother’s hands over hers when she wove,” Bennett told EL PAÍS reporter Ana Rodríguez Álvarez. “That is the spirituality behind the textile.”

Bennett, who chairs the Anthropology department, has done extensive research on Maya women in Guatemala, tracking their attempts to protect their traditional weavings through intellectual property rights. The National Women’s Weaving Movement of Guatemala has been pushing back on the way national and international manufacturers, often fast fashion brands, have reproduced traditional designs without recognizing their creators or paying them for their designs.

“Global fashion wants inspiration,” Bennett told EL PAÍS.  “But what it often does is extraction. They take designs that have been collectively protected for centuries and register them as their own. It is a silent but devastating violence.” 

Faculty Featured

Joyce N. Bennett

Associate Professor of Anthropology