Marta Turok
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1952 (age 72–73)
Marta Turok | |
|---|---|
 Turok at the Museo de Arte Popular in Mexico City | |
| Born | Marta Turok Wallace 1952 (age 72–73) Mexico City |
| Occupation | anthropologist |
| Years active | 1974 - present |
| Known for | promotion of Mexican handcrafts and folk art |
Marta Turok (full name Marta Turok Wallace; born 1952)[1] is a Mexican applied anthropologist focusing on socio-economic development, and one of the foremost schools on Mexican folk art.[2][3][4] Through research, government work, education and advocacy, she has worked to raise the prestige of Mexican handcrafts and folk art and to help artisans improve their economic status. Her work has been recognized with awards from various governmental and non-governmental agencies.
Turok was born to American parents, with both growing up in the Boston area. After World War II, they decided to move to Mexico City, with her older brother, Kipi, where they started a postcard business. Marta was born in 1952, with another brother, Antonio, coming after. Here they were raised, and Marta grew up bicultural and bilingual, attending the English-language American School in Mexico City.[1]
Turok decided to go to the United States to do her undergraduate degree, attended Tufts University, where her father had studied chemistry. The university allowed undergraduates to design their own course of study, which she took advantage of as they did not yet have an anthropology program. She chose to do a comprehensive senior thesis, traveling to Chiapas to research handcrafts there. There she worked with anthropologist Walter Morris, Jr., where the two decided to research the history and possible meanings being traditional design elements in Mayan handwoven cloth. This concept was completely new at the time, and subsequent research proved the concept correct, that the elements did indeed have meanings at one time, but most have been lost.[1] During this time, she learned to speak Tzotzil and weave on a backstrap loom.[2][3] Turok graduated in 1974, with a degree in anthropology and socioeconomics.[4]
Later, she studied ethnology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, graduating in 1978, and in 1996, received a certificate in marketing from the University of California Berkeley.[2][4]
