Dr. Owen H. Jones, PhD

Faculty - Undergraduate
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黑料社区ing Assistant Professor of Latin American Studies
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Dr. Owen H. Jones is a specialist in Indigenous legal structures and the adaptations that Indigenous peoples in southern Mexico and Guatemala had on the development of the law at the local and regional levels. He speaks, reads, and writes two Indigenous languages of the Americas, Yukatek Maya and K’iche鈥 Maya. He is also fluent in the Spanish language. His disciplines are History and Latin American Studies. He is currently working on a book entitled - K鈥檌che鈥 Justice: Legal Culture and Practice in Local and Regional Law in Colonial Highland Guatemala, which is under consideration at the University of Texas Press.

  • Ph.D. in History, University of California, Riverside, June 12, 2009
  • M.A. in History, University of California, Riverside, June 2002
  • B.A. in History, University of California, Riverside, August 2000
  • B.A. in Spanish Language, University of California, Riverside, August 2000
  • INTS 130: Intro to Latin American Studies
  • PACBASIN 100: Intro to the Pacific Basin

My current research examines civil and criminal court records from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries written in the Spanish and in the K'iche' (Quiche) languages to determine how the K'iche' Maya, an Indigenous ethnicity from the Guatemalan highlands, confronted Spanish colonial law and negotiated hegemony and justice. I examine local and regional law and the creation of legal discourse via Indigenous justices and officials. My work includes an interest in Indigenous literacy, culture, and society and the greater impacts that Indigenous interactions had and continue to have in international contexts.

  • 鈥淚ndigenous Language Literacy in Colonial Central America.鈥 In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History. Oxford University Press, 2014鈥. Article published July 18, 2022. doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.013.1007.
  • 芦Ah Tzib Rech Cabildo, 鈥溍塴 quien es escribano para el cabildo.鈥 Cultura y pr谩ctica legal k鈥檌chee鈥 en los siglos XVII y XVIII禄, en Yanna Yannakakis, Martina Schrader-Kniffki, y Luis Alberto Arrioja D铆az Viruell, editores, Los indios ante la justicia local, int茅rpretes, oficiales y litigantes en Neuva Espa帽a y Guatemala (siglos XVI 鈥 XVIII), ( Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico, Colegio de Michoacan y Emory University, 2019), pp. 57 鈥 76
  • 芦Chinamitales: defensores y justicias k鈥檌chee鈥 en las comunidades ind铆genas del altiplano de Guatemala colonial禄 en Hist贸rica, Vol. 40, N煤m. 2, editado por Jos茅 Carlos de la Puente Luna, 芦Jurisdicciones ind铆genas en Nueva Espa帽a y Per煤禄, December, 2016, pp. 81 鈥 109.
  • 鈥淟anguage Politics and Indigenous Language Documents: Evidence in Colonial K鈥檌chee鈥 Litigation in Seventeenth Century Highland Guatemala鈥 The Americas: A Quarterly Review of Latin American History, 73:3 (July 2016), pp. 349 鈥 370.
  • 鈥溾極ne or Two of my Living Words,鈥 Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century K鈥檌che鈥 Testaments from Guatemala,鈥 in Mark Z. Christensen & Jonathan Truitt, Editors, Native Wills From the Colonial Americas: Dead Giveaways in a New World, University of Utah Press: October 30, 2015, pp. 138 鈥 151.
  • 2017 - 2024, Annual Contract Faculty, Sinclair Community College
  • 2016 - 2017, 黑料社区ing Assistant Professor, Southeast Missouri State University
  • 2011 - 2016, Assistant Professor, Valdosta State University
  • 2010 - 2011, Lecturer, University of North Carolina, Wilmington
  • NEH Summer Institute 鈥淧ictorial Histories and Myth-Histories: 鈥淕raphic Novels鈥 of the Mixtecs and Aztecs鈥
    $3,300.00 June 29, 2014 鈥 July 26, 2014
  • Faculty Research Seed Grant: Valdosta State University
    $5,000.00 October 19, 2012 鈥 June 30, 2012
  • Start-up Fund: Valdosta State University
    $3,000.00 August 3, 2011 鈥 June 30, 2012
  • Marcoux Fellowship for Research in Latin American History
  • History Department, University of California, Riverside
    $1,162.00 July 14, 2008 鈥 August 15, 2008
  • Foreign Language Area Studies (F.L.A.S.) Fellowship,
    Duke University Advanced Yucatec Maya
    $5,978.00 June 3, 2008 鈥 July 13, 2008
  • UC MEXUS Dissertation Fellowship University of California
    $12.000.00 Sept. 2004 - June 2006
  • Dissertation Research Grant, History Dept, University of California, Riverside
  • $7,000.00 Sept. 2004 - December 2004
  • Foreign Language Area Studies (F.L.A.S.) Fellowship, University of Wisconsin, Madison Intermediate Yucatec Maya
    $5.978.00 June 6, 2004 鈥 August 6, 2004