"RAPID" A Critical Audiovisual Documentation of Endangered Ayook (ISO-939-3 MTO) Maize Cultivation Practices and Language with Dual Linguistics and Genetics Applications

Speaking Place, Rockland ME

Investigators

Abstract

An interdisciplinary team of linguists, filmmakers and plant geneticists will conduct endangered language documentation of agricultural practices associated with Ayöök maize over the course of one planting season in the county of Totontepec, Oaxaca, Mexico. There are two objectives: 1. Apply language documentation methods to revive memory of a near extinct domain of cultivation of one of the world's most productive and nutritious corn varieties; and 2. Apply the linguistic data to guide a genetic analysis that can lead to improved corn varieties worldwide. Linguists and filmmakers will employ a methodology adapted from documentation of Passamaquoddy (SIL code PQM) that uses documentary techniques, speaker facilitators, and video feedback routines to record natural group conversation and activity, including memories, oral histories, practices and associated language use. This data will inform the geneticists as to motivations and activities that selected for attributes that shaped Ayöök corn varieties. Understanding these practices in the context of a life system that used all parts of the plant for clothing, building materials, and medicine, as well as nutrition, can clarify how desired traits were molecularly structured in the genome through agricultural practices. This can lead in turn to the ability to introduce these attributes into corn grown elsewhere. The documentation will also help younger farmers who desire to return to traditional practices after a generation of chemically-based agriculture caused extensive ecological damage and interrupted transmission of associated language. Finally, the project will lead to an expandable visual and linguistic archive of practices and language that will guarantee the preservation of valuable indigenous agricultural knowledge, representing an example of the revival of endangered domains and associated language.