Download 1 Proposal for Mellon-LASA Seminars Rethinking Change, History

Proposal for Mellon-LASA Seminars
Rethinking Change, History and Indigeneity.
Nineteenth-Century to Present-Day Mexico
Organisers:
Paula López Caballero, CERI-Sciences Po, Paris, France and
Ariadna Acevedo-Rodrigo, Cinvestav, Mexico City.
In historical as well as anthropological research, we still struggle to overcome a definition
of indigeneity embedded in some or other permanent trait, even though studies on societies
considered indigenous, their capacity for change, and their relationship to the nation-state
have gained in depth and sophistication. In Mexico, an autochthonous person or practice is
generally associated with a primordial matrix (the pre-Hispanic world), or a specific
cultural stock (sometimes qualified as ethnic or racial), both of which gradually dissolve
into something else, or they are transformed, adapted or hybridized when they come into
contact with the other, e.g. the Liberal, the modern. But what happens if being indigenous is
not only, or not mainly, about preserving, defending and reproducing such cultural stock?
What if we understand who or what is indigenous as a category whose contents vary
historically? How do these questions affect the way we understand change among societies
described as indigenous? This proposal for a series of seminars and conference papers,
leading to the publication of an edited book, seeks to ask precisely such questions through
the study of a wide range of topics in the history of indigenous peoples in Mexico from the
nineteenth century up to the present day.
This project is focused on Mexico, for conceptual and methodological reasons, but
does not preclude eventual comparison and dialogue with indigeneity and change in other
Latin American countries and beyond. We start from the premise that being indigenous is
not obvious or natural, and we propose to consider indigeneity as a position within a field
of identifications, that is, as a product of social relations that change in time and place.
Additionally, we want to understand the historical construction of indigenous alterity at the
same time as we examine the process of nation-state building and reproduction in which
such construction was, or is, occurring. We have decided to narrow our focus to a single
country in order to understand this coproduction of the forms of indigenous identification
and the nation-state in some depth. This allows for a collective reflection based on case
studies covering a relatively long period (XIX to XXI centuries) and a wide range of topics
that have not often been thought together.
Building upon the participants’ empirically-rich historical and anthropological
studies, and the collective methodological and conceptual discussion drawn from them, this
project will seek to achieve three objectives: 1) to examine old and new concepts for
describing change among populations regarded as indigenous, such as current
resignifications of race and culture, hybridity or alternative modernities; 2) to propose new
understandings of indigeneity taking into account that the difference it is supposed to
embody is a social construction in constant elaboration by a variety of actors including
specialists; and 3) to build new interdisciplinary perspectives to understand change among
indigenous societies, which challenge conventional conceptions of the development of
capitalism and nation-state formation, and the role of specific individuals and groups in it.
To this day indigenous alterity is a crucial aspect of Mexican society. In spite of the
introduction of multicultural policies, and the political mobilisation that turned native
groups into political agents, they are still associated with exclusion, marginalisation and
1 backwardness. Economic and social inequalities, as well as a lack of justice and political
representation, explain this situation to a considerable extent. However, we want to ask
whether there is, additionally, a conceptual problem regarding who or what is the
indigenous other, and what its relationship is with State formation. As one possible
contribution to these problems, the proposed project seeks to signal new avenues of
analysis through an empirically grounded and theoretically original reflection that will be of
interest to historians, anthropologists, philosophers and sociologists of science, educational
researchers and specialists in indigenous peoples among others.
There is already an abundant literature on the past and present of the indigenous
population in Mexico. They have been included in national history, with varying emphases
on their otherness. In spite of the complexity of social relations described in these studies, a
good part of this work has been trapped in narratives about isolation, backwardness and
victimhood, or the idea that the relation between these groups and the nation-state was
solely one of conflict and resistance. Recent historical and anthropological work has shifted
away from these views to examine negotiation and appropriation of market and state-led
socioeconomic, cultural and political change by indigenous people, thereby providing a
more nuanced view of their agency. A common conclusion nowadays is that in their
appropriation of modern tools for diverse ends, Indians create ‘syncretic’ or ‘hybrid’
practices mixing tradition and modernity to their convenience, within given constraints.
These studies developed at the same time as Latin American Studies’ interest in
postcolonial theory, subaltern studies and a critique of both from the decolonial perspective.
In historiography, the term “subaltern” has in some cases replaced or joined the use of
terms such as campesino, indígena, or subordinate groups, but these historical studies,
whether they are written by Mexico- or US-based academics, have generally drawn more
from social history, peasant studies, or diverse strands of cultural history that do not always
subscribe to postcolonial perspectives, as well as what is known in Latin America as ‘new
political history’.
The proposed seminars seek to renew the debate on indigenous societies by
addressing more explicitly our understandings of change and indigeneity, examining their
premises, and opening up an interdisciplinary and international debate. First, rather than
asking how indigenous individuals or groups act, we may start from the inverse question:
how, in acting, defending, rebelling, etc., are they recognized or do they recognize
themselves as indigenous? Secondly, we may ask how specific actions are conceived by the
actors we study and by the researcher as indigenous, so that in some cases indigeneity, or
certain actions allegedly performed by indigenous peoples, need no explanation (e.g. the
defense of communal land), while in others it is necessary to prove the authenticity of the
actor’s identity, or of her actions (e.g. when there is interest in financial profit, or adherence
to Liberal or State projects). Third, what assumptions about indigenous societies have
precluded empirical examinations of old and new topics? Is it possible to go beyond the
model of hybridization to study the mutual construction of practices that we have labelled
as modern/national/global, and those we have labelled as traditional/local? What other
strategies can we adopt in order to study change in ‘indigenous’ societies in a new light?
To broaden the theoretical discussions on the relation between indigenous societies,
change and the Mexican nation-state, we will include conceptual debates that have been
seldom incorporated to work on Mexico. Thus we question the way in which ‘traditions’
are generally seen as ‘local’, and ‘modern’ processes are understood as the ‘national’ or
‘global’ context. This may help us see the debate on the character and the extent of
2 indigenous engagement in national politics in a new light. Borrowing from Peter Wade, we
ask why and how we have attributed traditional, modern, local or global qualities to the
people and practices we study. We also draw from Jonathan Friedman’s concepts of culture
and change. His perspective moves away from a notion of culture understood as objects
disembodied from experience to focus instead on what people actually do. This perspective
may be extended to argue that instead of highlighting in our analysis the ‘products’ of
indigeneity (tradition, invention, hybridization), we should look at social interactions to see
how this form of identification is produced and reproduced in practice. This can prevent us
from taking for granted the indigeneity of the agents we study, or from turning it into the
explanation itself. By contrast, we contend that rather than becoming the default
explanation, indigeneity and its transformations must be explained.
Participants and organisation
This project has been conceived by the organisers, Ariadna Acevedo-Rodrigo and Paula
López Caballero. In our previous collaborative work co-editing a book on citizenship
(published in 2012 by El Colegio de México and Cinvestav), we drew on our
complementary disciplinary backgrounds and research on indigenous groups, an experience
that has provided us with an ideal grounding to lead this larger project, which we have been
discussing with the confirmed participants individually.
We will bring together young, mid-career and senior scholars who work in Europe,
the United States and Mexico. Since our topics are wide-ranging, and we subscribe to
different disciplines, this will be the first time we will gather as a network of specialists in
indigeneity and change. Attendance to the programmed events has been confirmed by
Emilio Kouri, whose first book explained the conditions under which Totonacs led land
privatisation in Papantla and was awarded the 2005 Bolton-Johnson Prize by the American
Historical Association; Peter Guardino and Michael T. Ducey, who pioneered and have
further developed the study of indigenous appropriation of Liberalism, federalism and
citizenship; Elsie Rockwell, a leading anthropologist and historian of education concerned
with the relationship between indigenous peoples, land and written culture; Jan Rus, whose
work on Chiapas shows how indigeneity and twentieth-century State building went hand in
hand; and Laura Cházaro, whose reflections on the intersection of race and sex in the
history of statistics and medicine in Mexico help us understand how ‘indigeneity’ and
‘mestizaje’ are mutually constituted. Younger scholars who obtained their PhDs in the past
five years and have joined the project include Vivette García Deister, who originally trained
as a biologist and is now producing highly original work on the philosophy of science, in
particular genomics; Gabriela Torres, a specialist in present-day ejidos who questions
unexamined assumptions about the relationship between ethnic identity and land tenure;
and Alejandro Araujo, who is analysing anthropologists’ writings from the hitherto little
explored angle of intellectual history. We have also incorporated three PhD candidates
developing new perspectives to study archaeology, indigenista developmentalism and
acculturation: Ricardo Fagoaga, Diana Schwartz and Daniele Inda.
To allow us to place the Mexican case in a broader context, and to envision future
projects with a transnational perspective, we have additionally invited Latin Americanists
Peter Wade (UK), a well-recognised specialist in race, and Claudia Briones (Argentina),
who is doing innovative research on young Mapuches and the construction of alterity in
3 Argentina and Chile. We have considered two other potential participants who are leaders
in their respective fields: Timothy Mitchell, who specialises in Egypt, and Frederick
Cooper, who studies East Africa.
The main outcome of this project will be the publication of one edited book with an
English-speaking scholarly press. With this objective in mind, four meetings have already
been organized, two in Mexico and two in the United States during 2013 and 2014. We
aim for each participant to have a draft chapter that engages with our agreed themes and the
collective debate by the end of 2014. We are seeking financial support for the last three
meetings.
The first two formal gatherings of the project will take place in Mexico:
I. Primer Congreso Internacional. Los pueblos indígenas de América Latina, siglos XIXXXI, 28-31 October 2013, Oaxaca, Mexico. The panel, which has already been accepted, is
entitled ‘Pensar el cambio en las sociedades indígenas. Historia y antropología de los
pueblos de indios del siglo XIX a nuestros días’. It includes papers by six of the
participants, as well as the two organizers, and it will provide the first formal and face-toface discussion of individual findings and common themes to allow us to refine the
collective project’s key questions.
II.- Two-day Seminar, 23-24 January 2014, Departamento de Investigaciones Educativas,
Cinvestav, Mexico City.
This seminar will take place over two full days (three nights) with all the confirmed
participants. Each specialist will present a case study and we will discuss the broader
conceptual and methodological issues to be drawn from them.
Two other meetings will take place in the United States:
III.- LASA Congress. 21-24 May 2014, Chicago, Illinois, US. Two events have been
proposed: firstly, a panel with five presenters entitled ‘Rethinking Change, History and
Indigeneity. Nineteenth-Century to Present-Day Mexico’, where case studies combining
historical and anthropological works will be discussed. Secondly, a workshop with five
participants entitled ‘Questioning Race, Culture and Hybridity. Rethinking Change and
Indigeneity in Mexican History from a Latin American Perspective’. These meetings will
provide the basis for summarising our key findings and our theoretical discussion will
benefit from Peter Wade’s confirmed participation.
IV.-Reunión Internacional de Historiadores de México. 18-21 September 2014 Chicago,
Illinois, US.
Two panels with three paper presenters each have been proposed for this conference. The
first addresses the mutual construction of indigeneity and non-indigeneity through land
tenure and in relation to territoriality. The second panel explores the articulation between
regimes of power, scientific or specialised ‘truth’ and alterity through papers on teachers’,
anthropologists’ and geneticists’ construction of the indigenous other.
4 List of Confirmed Participants
Resident in Mexico and Argentina
Ariadna Acevedo-Rodrigo, Cinvestav, Mexico City.
Alejandro Araujo, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Cuajimalpa, Mexico City.
Claudia Briones, Universidad Nacional de Río Negro, Argentina.
Laura Cházaro, Cinvestav, Mexico City.
Michael T. Ducey, Universidad Veracruzana, Jalapa, Veracruz.
Vivette García Deister, UNAM, Mexico City.
Elsie Rockwell, Cinvestav, Mexico City.
Jan Rus, Universidad de Ciencias y Artes de Chiapas, San Cristóbal, Chiapas.
Gabriela Torres, CIESAS Peninsular, Mérida, Yucatán.
US and European Residents
Ricardo A. Fagoaga Hernández, University of California, San Diego, US (PhD candidate).
Peter Guardino, University of Indiana, US.
Daniele Inda, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France (PhD
Candidate).
Emilio Kourí, Professor, University of Chicago, US.
Paula López Caballero, CERI-Sciences Po, Paris, France.
Diana Schwartz, University of Chicago, US (PhD Candidate)
Peter Wade, Professor, University of Manchester, UK.
Potential participants
In addition to the confirmed participants, we are inviting two non-Latin Americanist
scholars, who articulate historical and anthropological perspectives in innovative ways in
order to study state formation, modernity and change in postcolonial contexts. They are
Timothy Mitchell from Columbia University (US) and Frederick Cooper from New York
University (US). Their contribution to the final product may consist of chapters discussing
the above-mentioned themes, as well as suggesting potential points of comparison of the
Mexican case with non-Latin American contexts, thus broadening and strengthening the
project’s conceptual reflections.
Proposed Budget
In addition to the funding that may be secured through this application, the organisers are
applying for travel funds and publication expenses to Cinvestav (Mexico City), CERISciences Po (Paris, France) and the Institut des Amériques (Vanves, France).
5 Budget (Mellon-LASA Seminars, up to USD 15,000).
Description
Individual costs
Total cost
Seminar in Mexico City, 23-24 January 2014. 15 people. Travel covered by alternative funds: 1 from
Europe, 5 from Mexico City. Covered by Mellon funds: Travel for 3 from various Mexican cities, 3 from US and
1 from Europe; accommodation for all non-residents (8).
3 National Return (RT) in Mexico (for meeting in Mexico City)
$250.00
$750.00
3 RT Various US cities – Mexico City
$600.00
$1,800.00
$1,250.00
$1,250.00
$250.00
$2,000.00
1 RT Europe – Mexico City
Accommodation for two nights for eight people
TOTAL FOR MEXICO SEMINAR
$5,800.00
LASA Panel. Chicago, 21-24 May 2014. 10 people. Covered by alternative funds: 3 from US, 2 from Europe,
2 from Mexico. Covered by Mellon funds: 3 from Mexico.
3 RT Mexico – Chicago
$600.00
TOTAL FOR LASA Panel (note that only up to USD 1500 is allowed)
$1,800.00
$1,500.00
Reunión de Historiadores de México, Estados Unidos y Canadá, 18-21 September 2014. 10 people.
Covered by alternative funds: 3 from USA and 2 from Mexico. Covered by Mellon funds: 4 from Mexico and 1
from Europe
3 RT Mexico City – Chicago
$600.00
$1,800.00
1 RT Mérida – Chicago
$600.00
$600.00
1 RT Europe - Chicago
$800.00
$800.00
Accommodation for 3 nights for 5 people
$600.00
$3,000.00
TOTAL FOR Reunión de Historiadores Meetings
$6,200.00
Spanish to English translation for book publication
$1,500.00
TOTAL
$15,000.00
6 Dr. Paula López Caballero [email protected]
Centre d’Études et Recherches Internationales (CERI) Sciences Po, 56, Jacob 75006 Paris,
FranceTel: +33 1 58717079 / Fax: +33 1 58717090
Qualifications
2007 PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology (EHESS, Paris)
2002 Master in anthropology (EHESS, Paris)
Positions Held
Since 2013 Chargée de recherches CNRS (CR1) at Centre d’Études et Recherches
Internationales in Sciences Po (Paris, France).
2011 – 2012 Professor at El Colegio de México (México).
2008 – 2011 Post-Doctoral Researcher at Centre d’Études et Recherches Internationales in
Sciences Po (Paris, France).
Selected Publications
One author books
2012
Les Indiens et la nation au Mexique. Une dimension historique de l’altérité,
Coll. « Recherches internationales » (dirigée par Jean-François Bayart), CERISciences Po/Karthala Editions, Paris.
2003
Los Títulos primordiales del centro de México. Introducción y catálogo, Dir.
Gen. de Publicaciones de CONACULTA (Col. Cien de México), Mexico.
Edited books
2013
with Daniela Gleizer, Indígenas mestizos y extranjeros en la formación de la
nación y de la alteridad en México. UAM.
2012
with Ariadna Acevedo (editing and introduction), Ciudadanos inesperados.
Espacios de formación de ciudadanía ayer y hoy. DIE-CINVESTAV y El
Colegio de México.
Articles
2012 “La formation nationale de l’altérité. Art, sciences et politique dans la production
de l’altérité à Milpa Alta (Mexico), 1900-2010.”, L’Homme, 203-204, pp. 239-264,
2011a « The national utopia of diversity. Official multicultural discourses and their
appropriations by the originarios inhabitants of Milpa Alta (Mexico), 1980-2010 »
International journal of social sciences, No. 202, pp. 365-375.
2011b « Altérités intimes, altérités éloignées. La greffe du multiculturalisme au Mexique et
en Amérique latine », Critique internationale, No. 51, pp. 129-149.
2009a « The effect of othering. Categories of identification and national identity among the
originarios of Milpa Alta, Mexico (1950-2005) », Anthropological Theory, Vol. 9,
nº 2, pp. 171-187-.
2008a « Which Heritage for which heirs. Pre-Colonial past and colonial legacy in the
national history of Mexico », Social Anthropology / Anthropologie Sociale. Colonial
legacys : past and present (Special Issue) 16:3, pp. 329-345. Benoît de l’Estoile (ed).
External Activities
Editorial Board
Editorial Board
Since 2012 Genèses. Sciences Sociales et Histoire
Since 2012 Nuevos Mundos / Mundos nuevos
7 Dr. Ariadna Acevedo-Rodrigo
Departamento de Investigaciones Educativas (DIE), Centro de Investigación y de Estudios
Avanzados (Cinvestav) Sede Sur. Calz. Tenorios 235. Col. Granjas Coapa.14330 México,
D.F. Tel: + 52 55 5483 2800 ext. 1027, 1033, 2810
http://www.die.cinvestav.mx/Personalacadémico/DraAriadnaAcevedo.aspx
[email protected]
CURRENT POSITION
2006 - Present: Principal Researcher (Investigadora Titular) at Departamento de
Investigaciones Educativas, Cinvestav, Mexico City.
EDUCATION
2005. Doctor of Philosophy in History, University of Warwick, United Kingdom.
2001. Master of Arts in History by Research, University of Warwick, United Kingdom.
1997. Bachelor in Sociology, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Edited Book
2012. Ariadna Acevedo-Rodrigo and Paula López Caballero (eds.) Ciudadanos
inesperados. Espacios de formación de la ciudadanía ayer y hoy. Mexico. Cinvestav and El
Colegio de México. 336 pp.
Articles
2008. Acevedo-Rodrigo, Ariadna, “Ritual Literacy. The Simulation of Reading in Rural
Indian Mexico, 1870-1930” in Paedagogica Historica, 45: 1, pp. 49-65
2008. Acevedo-Rodrigo, Ariadna, “Playing the Tune of Citizenship. Indian Brass Bands in
the Sierra Norte de Puebla, Mexico, 1876-1911” in Bulletin of Latin American Research,
27: 2, pp. 255-272.
2004. Acevedo-Rodrigo, Ariadna, “Struggles for Citizenship? Peasant Negotiation of
Schooling in the Sierra Norte de Puebla, Mexico, 1921-1933” in Bulletin of Latin American
Research, 23: 2, pp. 181-197.
Book Chapters
2012. Acevedo Rodrigo, Ariadna, “Un espacio de autonomía local en el Porfiriato: las
escuelas sostenidas por los municipios y pueblos de la sierra norte de Puebla” in Sergio
Miranda, ed. Nación y municipio en México, siglos XIX y XX. Mexico, IIH-UNAM.
2012. Acevedo Rodrigo, Ariadna, “Ciudadanos indígenas. La construcción de derechos y
obligaciones en la relación de los pueblos indígenas con las escuelas, ca. 1875-1940” in
Marco Calderón and Elizabeth Buenabad, eds., Educación indígena, ciudadanía y estado
en México: siglo XX. México. Colegio de Michoacán.
GRANTS
Funded Research Project (Principal Researcher), 2008-2011: Conacyt (National Council for Science
and Technology), Mexico. Amount: MXN 591,937.00.
Grants to pursue graduate studies and fieldwork (1999-2004): Conacyt, Mexico; Arts and
Humanities Research Board, UK; Fundación LaCaixa (Barcelona, Spain) and the British
Council (UK); Royal Historical Society (UK); Society for Latin American Studies (UK).
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