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Cristrina Petreñas1

1 ) Department of Didactics and Educational Organization, University of

Barcelona, Spain.

Date of publication: June, 24th 201 2.

Petreñas, C. (201 2). Developing Destinies. [Review of

the book Developing destinies. A Mayan midwife and town]. International

Journal ofEducational Psychology, 1(2), 1 75-1 77. doi:1 0.4471 /ijep.201 2.1 0

http://dx.doi.org/1 0.4471 /ijep.201 2.1 0

http://dx.doi.org/10.4471/ijep.2012.10


IJEP – International Journal ofEducational Psychology Vol. 1 No. 2

June 2012 pp. 175-177

Review. Developing Destinies.

Rogoff, B. (2011). Developing destinies. A Mayan midwife and town.

New York: Oxford University Press.

" Developing destinies is a piece of the work that Barbara Rogoff

initiated more than three decades ago in close collaboration with Chona,

a Mayan woman from the San Pedro community (Guatemala) who

knew her destiny from the very first day ofher life: becoming a midwife

for her community.

" In her analysis, Barbara Rogoffcombines the life story ofChona, the

cultural practices of the community of San Pedro where Chona lives,

and Chona’s perspective on cultural traditions to elaborate a view of

culture as a form of community life, as something dynamic, and as

receiving continuous influence from individuals when they engage in

community activities. Rogoff illustrates these features with rich

examples from Chona’s life, her family, and the San Pedro community.

" The background theme throughout the book is the influence that

elements of a new society have in the perpetuation or change of

traditional cultural practices, such as those developed in San Pedro

thirty years ago. In this process, culture becomes dynamic and changes

from generation to generation. Another central message derived from

this is that in order to understand individuals it is essential to take

culture as a starting point, since people “are” in relation to their cultural

practices.

Cultural participation in multiple practices or "cultural constellations"

are intimately related to how individuals develop and change from

generation to generation. To illustrate this, Rogoff shows that today, in

biology classes, children in San Pedro learn where babies come from.

2012 Hipatia Press

ISSN 2014-3591

DOI:10.4471/ijep.2012.10



176

This is a quite new situation, since forty years ago the majority of

children in San Pedro did not receive formal schooling and completely

ignored those questions as in the community those issues were taboo.

Thus, the cultural practice of formal schooling has transformed

individuals and the dynamics of the community at once. Other elements

that have contributed to such transformation are the improvement of

transportation, Internet access, and the involvement in other occupations

besides housework and agriculture.

" In the midst ofthese changes, one ofChona’s worries is the lost ofthe

midwife activity according to the Mayan tradition, given the

medicalization and application of Western medicine to traditional

midwife practices. Responding to this concern, indeed, one of the main

motivations of this book is to leave in writing the ancestral midwife

practices that have left a print on the cultural practices of these

indigenous communities. Rogoff does this brilliantly through gathering

the voice of one of the main characters in this activity, one of the few

still remaining Mayan midwifes in San Pedro.

" Chona’s life story, through the accomplishment of her destiny, is still

an example of how frequently a constellation of practices seems, over

time, replacing others, instead of enriching constellations of practices

between them. Indeed, throughout the book is evident the confrontation

between Mayan tradition and the invasion of the Western culture

through power relations that eventually exclude the cultural practices

that the inhabitants of San Pedro have experienced for so long. In

relation to this, Rogoff claims that still children of the indigenous

community of San Pedro have knowledge of the cultural constellations

of their community, because there is no difference between the life of

adults and the life of children, contrary to what happens in non-

indigenous communities. In San Pedro, children are included in all the

activities of adults, this is how they learn through their shared destinies

between generations, such as the case of Chona’s granddaughter and

herself, who despite sharing the same destiny -becoming midwifes- the

cultural reality oftheir generation is very different.

The lesson to take home from this thorough book about development

in context is that we assume, adopt, transform or reject the cultural

practices of our community in the measure in which we participate in

them. And when we transform cultural practices, we make them part of

Cristina Petreñas - Developing destinies



177

Cristina Petreñas Caballero

University ofBarcelona

cristinapetrenas@ub.edu

our future development and that of others. This way: our generation’s

inventions and patchwork solutions to today’s issues become tomorrow’s

cultural traditions, along with whatever our generation carries forward

from people who lived before (Rogoff, 2011, p.292).

International Journal ofEducational Psychology (IJEP), 1(2)




