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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

highland Guatemala, community, K'iche', culture

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

Anthropology

Abstract

I felt at home walking down the cement block street through Nahualá’s town center. It was good to be back in the small highland community in Guatemala where I had spent nearly every summer of my undergraduate career. It had been 10 years since the first group of anthropology students had come to study in these communities and since then, BYU students have been visiting every year for several months at a time. My interaction in years past with the K’iche’ has always left me wondering what they thought of me living in their homes, eating their food, and asking scrupulous questions about every detail of their lives. The intent of my research this summer was not my understanding of their culture, but more of their understanding and reaction to ours. A social impact analysis looks specifically at whom the stakeholders are in the arrangement and how are they affected by it. It asks questions such as, “Who will benefit and who will not? What will change, and what will not? What effect will this project have on their economic status? On their social organization, pattern of livelihood, and institutions?” (Nolan, 168). I spent the rest of the summer investigating these issues.

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