Bio/CV:
Maria Isabel Chi-Chable (she/her/leti’) is a Maya Yucateca scholar with familial roots in Peto, Yucatán. She is currently a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Ethnic Studies, with a Designated Emphasis in Indigenous Language Revitalization, at the University of California, Berkeley. Maria graduated as a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow from Wellesley College (2023) with a B.A in Women’s and Gender Studies and a concentration in representations, media, and race.
Her current research broadly includes Indigenous language revitalization and Indigenous cultural productions in Latin America/Abiayala. Specifically, she explores the musical practices of Maya cultural producers in the Yucatán Peninsula—their use of Maya hip-hop, cumbia, and reggae—and how these sonic forms interact with understandings of Maya cosmovision, spirituality, language, and relational ecologies.
When not working on her research, she enjoys visiting her family in the Bay Area, playing with her two dogs, and learning new words in Maya (Maayat’aan).
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