Berlin Scientists Return Maya Elder Interviews to Communities

José María Morelos — Between eighty and one hundred hours of interviews conducted with Maya elders from various communities in the municipality of Felipe Carrillo Puerto have been digitized by a team of social scientists from the Free University of Berlin. The objective is simple in form but profound in meaning: to return to the communities themselves the vast archive that researchers recorded between the 1980s and 1990s.

The project has been led at different times by Dr. Harry Thomass, who explained that the work began with the digitization of old audio recordings and continues with the delivery of copies to the interviewed individuals or, when no longer possible, to their family members.

Thomass noted during a video call interview that part of the material is already available on the international ELAR platform, dedicated to linguistic preservation. Among the records are interviews conducted in Maya communities such as Señor, Yaxley, Tixkakal Guardia, and Felipe Carrillo Puerto.

The specialist detailed that, in addition to returning the material, they seek to consult the interviewees — or those who can still be located — to determine if they authorize the audio recordings to remain archived on that platform.

In this initiative, Dr. Bárbara Pfeiler from the Peninsular Center for Humanities and Social Sciences of UNAM, based in Mérida, has participated prominently, accompanying the process of reviewing and contextualizing the archive.

This effort not only rescues voices that hold historical memory but also restores to the communities a cultural legacy that for decades remained distant from them, strengthening the link between academic research and the living tradition of the Maya people.