Mexico (Anthropology)

There are more types of borders today than ever before in history. Borders of all kinds define every aspect of social life in the twenty-first century. From the biometric data that divides the smallest aspects of our bodies to the aerial drones that patrol the immense expanse of our domestic and international airspace, we are defined by borders. They can no longer simply be understood as the geographical divisions between nation-states. Today, their form and function has become too complex, too hybrid. What we need now is a theory of the border that can make sense of this hybridity across multiple domains of social life.

Rather than viewing borders as the result or outcome of pre-established social entities like states, Thomas Nail reinterprets social history from the perspective of the continual and constitutive movement of the borders that organize and divide society in the first place. Societies and states are the products of bordering, Nail argues, not the other way around. Applying his original movement-oriented theoretical framework "kinopolitics" to several major historical border regimes (fences, walls, cells, and checkpoints), Theory of the Border pioneers a new methodology of "critical limology," that provides fresh tools for the analysis of contemporary border politics.

Through the years and the mediums Mexican women have been depicted with different
meanings and ways. One very important medium that has been significant in capturing the
experience of Latin America women has been photography. Thus the following essay will
aim to show and analyse the way in which the experience of being a woman has been
depicted in Latin American photography.

Conversación con MVZ Eugenio Villalobos Guzmán, conductor del programa de RadioTele "Desde lo alto del caballo", y con la contadora Laura Magali Vizcaíno. Ambas fuimos integrantes de la escaramuza charra La Guadalupana, de la Asociación de Charros Regionales Valladolid, a finales de los años 70 y casi toda la década de los 80 del siglo pasado.

One of four known ancient Maya books, the Grolier Codex depicts different manifestations of Venus; the column of glyphs on the left of each panel records days in a 104-year Venus almanac. These plaster-coated bark-paper pages, carbon-dated to the 13th century, represent only half of the 20-page original. This article is an excerpt of pages 98-99 from the March 1990 National Geographic Magazine article "America's Ancient Skywatchers" by John B. Carlson with a numbered photographic arrangement of the Grolier Codex depicting the author's discovery that Codex pages 10 and 11 are actually two parts of the same "page 10".  Carlson clarifies the identities of Venus deities depicted in the Grolier Codex from a comparison of images from the Cacaxtla murals and links the images of the Grolier Codex with ancient Maya astronomically timed ritual warfare and sacrifice. (Grolier Codex photographs: Enrico Ferorelli; Mural photograph: Bob Sacha)

This article has been posted on Academia.edu as part of the Grolier Codex Project of the Center for Archaeoastronomy under the directorship of John B. Carlson, Ph.D.  The Grolier Codex Project seeks to further advance the study of the Maya Grolier Codex.

This paper focuses on local perceptions of wellbeing, their underlying social and power relations and the resulting cultural resistance by Rarámuri indigenous people in the Tarahumara region, Mexico. It is based on findings from doctoral research that argues that understandings of wellbeing must be analysed in conjunction with its socio-cultural and political context and in relation to ethnic differences.  In this sense, the paper presents evidence that shows how Rarámuri people hold discursive understandings of wellbeing which evoke differentiated ways of living compared to those accounts described both in mainstream development thinking and those which occur in the national society in Mexico. Similarly, the paper considers the value of ethnography, semi-structured interviews and participant observation as a tool in documenting notions of wellbeing and what Rarámuri people value, as well as exploring reflections, fieldwork experiences, and methodological challenges encountered while doing fieldwork research.

"When I Wear My Alligator Boots examines how the lives of dispossessed men and women are affected by the rise of narcotrafficking along the U.S.-Mexico border. In particular, the book explores a crucial tension at the heart of the “war on drugs”: despite the violence and suffering brought on by drug cartels, for the rural poor in Mexico’s north, narcotrafficking offers one of the few paths to upward mobility and is a powerful source of cultural meanings and local prestige.

In the borderlands, traces of the drug trade are everywhere: from gang violence in cities to drug addiction in rural villages, from the vibrant folklore popularized in the narco-corridos of Norteña music to the icon of Jesús Malverde, the “patron saint” of narcos, tucked beneath the shirts of local people. In When I Wear My Alligator Boots, the author explores the everyday reality of the drug trade by living alongside its low-level workers, who live at the edges of the violence generated by the militarization of the war on drugs. Rather than telling the story of the powerful cartel leaders, the book focuses on the women who occasionally make their sandwiches, the low-level businessmen who launder their money, the addicts who consume their products, the mules who carry their money and drugs across borders, and the men and women who serve out prison sentences when their bosses' operations go awry."

The coastal Isthmus of Tehuantepec region of Oaxaca, Mexico – known locally as the Istmo – is regarded as one of the best wind energy generating sites in the world. Marketed as a preeminent solution to mitigating climate change, wind energy is now applying increasing pressure on indigenous groups in the region. The article begins by outlining a definition of colonialism that assists in identifying the temporal continuity of the colonial project to understand its relationship with wind energy development. The next section briefly reviews colonial genocide studies, discussing disciplinary debates between liberal and post-liberal genocide scholars, the relevance of self-management within colonial systems, the genocide-ecocide nexus and the ‘intent’ of destructive development projects. This leads into reviewing the claims and findings that emerged from fieldwork in the Istmo, which is divided into the north and south to show the different, yet similar dynamics taking place in the region. Finally, the article concludes that wind energy development as a ‘solution’ to climate change not only distracts from its dependence on fossil fuels and mining, but renews and continues a slow industrial genocide, assimilating and targeting (indigenous) people who continue to value their land, sea and cultural relationships.

I analyze the alternative tactics and logics of Las Fuertes, a feminist organi- zation that has taken an “alegal” approach to realizing the human right to abortion in the conservative Mexican state of Guanajuato. Since a series of United Nations agreements throughout the 1990s enshrined reproductive rights as universal human rights, Mexican feminists have adopted the human rights platform as a lobbying tool to pressure the government to reform restrictive abortion laws. This strategy bore fruit in Mexico City, with passage of the historic 2007 abortion legalization. Las Fuertes has leveraged the human rights strategy differently – to justify the direct provision of local abortion accompaniment in a context of near-total abortion criminalization. By directly seizing abortion rights, rather than seeking to implement them through legalistic channels, Las Fuertes has effectively challenged Mexican reproductive governance in an adversarial political environment.

"About the book:
Los resultados de las multiples investigaciones sobre pobreza coinciden en que un porcentaje importante de lo habitantes rurales se mantienen con la cuarta parte de lo que se ha calculado como el nivel minimo requerido para subsistir. En otras palabras, los pobladores rurales de mas bajos ingresos sobreviven sin contar con los medios materiales para hacerlo. En las paginas de este libro se analizan los medios no materiales involucrados en los manejos financieros a los que recurren estos y otros actores para salir adelante. "

3rd Martial Arts Studies International Conference

Out of the Labyrinth: The Recently Invented Mexican Martial Arts Riding the Wave of Mexicanidad

George Jennings
Sociology and Philosophy Research Group, Cardiff School of Sport
Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK

Email: gbjennings@cardiffmet.ac.uk


In the celebrated essays of Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude (1969), the unique identity of Mexico remained uncertain and dubious: a resistance of the native “Indian” Mexico, the colonial era and the long road to modernity. In the last decades of the twentieth century, however, various veteran martial artists and visionaries developed different fighting and human development systems across the nation as a response to the lack of warrior traditions and martial identity in the country. These forms of combat include Xilam, a traditionalist approach to martial arts inspired by ancient Mesoamerican culture and warrior philosophies, and SUCEM, a form of full-contact mixed martial arts that includes armed combat in a ring or octagon with or without adapted, pre-Hispanic style weaponry of shields and clubs. There are others, such as Pok-at-Tok and Tae Lama which overtly acknowledge the use of Asian martial arts techniques, but with an indigenous Mexican “flavour” through the grading system and native language terminology. Despite their geographical, technical and cultural origins, all of these arts provide a new way of looking at Mexican national identity following a long period of foreign influence and subordination during the colonial and post-colonial period. As part of an emergent indigenista movement commonly referred to as Mexicanidad (“Mexicanness”), the social and political strive towards national pride and a revival of Mesoamerican civilisation and grandeur. This social movement includes the resurgence of ancient games and dances along with the development of the holistic, native and pre-Hispanic industries, all of which give Mexico a unique sense of self to present to the world: To no longer struggle in seeming solitude, but to contribute to global physical culture and martial arts. This paper seeks to highlight the case of these new martial arts and what they can tell us about Mexico’s past, present and potential future.

Keywords: Mexican martial arts; Mexicanidad; cultural studies; invention of tradition; social anthropology.

The Grolier Codex is discussed in the context of the archaeoastronomy of the ancient Americas on pages 98-99 of the March 1990 National Geographic Magazine article "America's Ancient Skywatchers" by John B. Carlson. One of four known ancient Maya books, the Grolier Codex depicts different manifestations of the planet Venus; the column of glyphs on the left of each panel records days in a 104-year Venus almanac. These plaster-coated bark-paper pages, carbon-dated to the 13th century, represent only half of the 20-page original. A numbered photographic arrangement of the Grolier Codex depictes the author's discovery that Codex pages 10 and 11 are actually two parts of the same "page 10".  Carlson clarifies the identities of Venus deities depicted in the Grolier Codex from a comparison of images from the Cacaxtla murals and links the images of the Grolier Codex with ancient Maya astronomically timed ritual warfare and sacrifice. (Grolier Codex photographs: Enrico Ferorelli; Other photos: Bob Sacha)

This article has been posted on Academia.edu as part of the Grolier Codex Project of the Center for Archaeoastronomy under the directorship of John B. Carlson, Ph.D.  The Grolier Codex Project seeks to further advance the study of the Maya Grolier Codex.

Feminist geographers have criticized affective and non-representational geographies for not taking into account social differences. This paper brings feminist accounts of emotion and affect into dialogue with affective and non-representational geographies in order to develop a feminist more-than-representational geography. In a first step, three shared commitments of a non-representational research agenda are presented: (1) a focus on everyday practices and the body, (2) a focus on the unconsciousness, and (3) affect as a more-than-human force. In a second step, I summarize feminist geographies‘ critiques of non-representational geographies. Drawing on an ongoing research project on the transnational market of surrogacy, I then discuss the benefits and challenges of a more-than-representational agenda for geographical research.

"En la última década el mundo de la música experimentó diversos cambios en sus dinámicas; la industria musical, centrada en el disco como objeto mercantil, vio caer sus modelos tradicionales, y la tecnología digital evolucionó definiendo nuevas generaciones
y nuevas formas de aproximación a los objetos musicales. Dichos cambios han mantenido a estos actores inmersos en fuertes debates sobre las nuevas estrategias a considerar frente a la recomposición del campo de la música. Los sujetos de estudio de
esta investigación son, en su mayoría, actores juveniles que podrán denominarse trendsetters en la medida en que son sensibles a estos cambios y están involucrados en la
creación de las tendencias musicales y culturales. Dichos sujetos, erguidos en una cultura de la urbe, se incorporan a redes digitales para desarrollar proyectos y establecer nuevos modelos de trabajo y de difusión. En este sentido, la investigación hace énfasis en la forma en la que los entornos digitales y las herramientas tecnológicas actuales han influido en los hábitos de los actores de las escenas de la música alternativa en México. Estos jóvenes trendsetters se han construido como músicos y creativos íntimamente relacionados con la industria musical
local durante un proceso de descubrimiento y participación de dichos cambios impulsados a nivel global; la mayoría de estos poseen recursos que les permiten interactuar tempranamente con las herramientas tecnológicas."

The Grolier Codex (Codice Maya de Mexico, CMM) is discussed in the context of the archaeoastronomy of the ancient Americas on pages 98-99 of the March 1990 National Geographic Magazine article "America's Ancient Skywatchers" by John B. Carlson. One of four known ancient Maya books, the Grolier Codex depicts different manifestations of the planet Venus; the column of glyphs on the left of each panel records days in a 104-year Venus almanac. These plaster-coated bark-paper pages, carbon-dated to the 13th century, represent only half of the 20-page original. A numbered photographic arrangement of the Grolier Codex depictes the author's discovery that Codex pages 10 and 11 are actually two parts of the same "page 10".  Carlson clarifies the identities of Venus deities depicted in the Grolier Codex from a comparison of images from the Cacaxtla murals and links the images of the Grolier Codex with ancient Maya astronomically timed ritual warfare and sacrifice. (Grolier Codex photographs: Enrico Ferorelli; Other photos: Bob Sacha)

This article has been posted on Academia.edu as part of the Grolier Codex Project of the Center for Archaeoastronomy under the directorship of John B. Carlson, Ph.D.  The Grolier Codex Project seeks to further advance the study of the Maya Grolier Codex.

The 'Castle' pyramid (El Castillo) in Chichén Itzá constitutes a magnificent example of the genius and skill of the erudite Maya, who imbued the structure with their astronomical and calendric knowledge, and mastery of geometry. This exceptional construction reveals a highly sophisticated civilization that thrived throughout the southeastern region of Mexico. Recent studies demonstrate that the apex of the pyramid in the northeast direction points to the Templo de Mesas (Temple of Tables); and, to the west, the western stairway extends the pyramid's diagonal symmetrical axis to the cenote of Hotline, which lies at a distance of 2.5 kilometres. On days when the Sun reaches is zenith over Chichén Itzá, these alignments signal prominent directions at sunrise and sunset. As such, the building is aligned to the Sun's zenith.

Moreover, the pyramid rises as the axis of a delicate line on which alignments intersect that unite with three other cenotes. We have then, one cenote for each cardinal point, highlighting the goal of the city planners to make their idyllic model of the world implicit.

Its entire composition and architectural intention is quite elaborate, and the builders took pains to exhibit the mathematics of their calendar in the design of steps, stairways, tiers and panels. This being the case, they also included their interpretation of the cosmos in the form of the pyramid, using whole numbers in the measurements of angles and lengths, where factors, products, dividends, divisors and quotients reveal the metaphorical harmony of space and time.

Even though the legitimizing intents of both the modern penitentiary and the archive—the latter understood as the physical deposit of memory—are radically different, could the principles central to their founding discourses and eventual consequences be similar? Opened in 1900, Lecumberri Palace is, in the morphological sense, a modern penitentiary, the material result of an Occidentalization of dominant discourse. During its lifetime it has housed both types of institutions. It initially served as the Mexico City Penitentiary and is currently Mexico’s General National Archive (AGN, by its acronym in Spanish), both institutions perceived as attempts to Enlighten a Nation. Through the analysis of operations carried out in both facilities and with the help of Michel Foucault’s writings on discipline and domination, Jacques Derrida’s work on the concept of the archive, and existing historiography on Lecumberri Palace, this article proposes the possibility that both the archive and the penitentiary are doomed in as much as they both suffer the same ailment. Could Derrida’s Archive Fever also be rightfully called Penitentiary Fever?

Se plantea una geografía cultural con cinco regiones bien caracterizadas por sus peculiares bagajes culturales, que se distribuyen por un amplio territorio que abarca Aridamérica y Mesoamérica, contrastadas por sus particulares modos de subsistencia de recolectores-cazadores y agricultores sedentarios, respectivamente.

El taller es un evento de aprendizaje colectivo y una oportunidad de acceso al conocimiento,
la información, el intercambio, la capacitación y el cambio personal
y colectivo. Todos/as poseen saberes e ignorancias que es necesario interrelacionar
y complementar para la construcción de un conocimiento colectivo. El taller
permite que todas las personas tengan el mismo nivel de participación –no deben
existir jerarquías– y que expresen sus opiniones sin temor o represión.
El grupo participante es acompañado por una o más personas que se dedican a
facilitar la impartición del taller y el cumplimiento de sus objetivos. La persona
facilitadora provee información y orienta las actividades que se llevarán a cabo.
El taller es una práctica pedagógica en donde la persona facilitadora enseña y
comparte conocimientos, mediante una exposición dialogada en la que las mujeres
y hombres participantes preguntan, opinan, reflexionan, aportan observaciones
e información.
El taller es un espacio de encuentro e intercambio participativo que hace uso de
medios de aprendizaje activos y su contenido se articula a la vida de quienes asisten.
Aborda los conceptos básicos de la Sensibilización en Equidad de Género; el Marco Jurídico de los Derechos de la Mujer en México; El nuevo papel d3el Gobierno Municipal; Ejemplos de casos reconocidos en México y en América Latina.

Propuesta acompañando la petición (oficio 24/2017) al Colegio Michoacano de Bioética (Colmibi) de emitir una opinión en tanto cuerpo colegiado del daño que está ocurriendo en los jaripeos y matacaballos, con la nesciencia de autoridades civiles y religiosas, en Michoacán y otros estados de la República Mexicana así como de Estados Unidos de Norteamérica.

Two Open-fronted structures associated with minor numbers of Chichén Slatewares have been found at the minor site of Nohcacab in Quintana Roo. These could potentially be interpreted as either conquest by Chichén Itzá, the spread of a “Quetzalcoatl cult”, trade, or “diffusion”. Such interpretations necessarily touch upon the idea of ethnicity. However, the evidence for ethnic groups from material remains is problematic for several reasons. The major obstacle is the tendency among archaeologists to attribute to materiality, what is not there, such as quasi-objects. Such quasi-objects are believed to be shared among past humans, and materialities are forced to fit these quasi-objects. Ethnicity and culture are such quasi-objects, external to the materialities.

These “traditional” quasi-objects are rejected as levels of analysis and a Polyagentive approach is proposed that break with Culture-history and social constructivism. Here, social groups are first replaced by series and focus is laid upon the nodes around which series form: the materiality of actants. However, these are just actualisations or becomings of a virtual multiplicity that always is in change, free of essences and externalities. Becomings are what make materialities form the trajectories of human action through their causative capabilities, or polyagency. These processes are exemplified by the materialities at Nohcacab and the causeways of nearby Ichmul.

Data on a pre-contact missile hurling sling recovered from Coyote Cave, SW Coahuila, and probable rock art depictions of slings in Coahuila.  Academia.edu posting #5. Update for: Slings & Slingstones, The Forgotten Weapons of Oceania and the Americas.

This study explores the identification and gender attribution of the “Great Goddess” of Teotihuacan through re-examining what purportedly constitutes feminine and masculine in these representations. Recent efforts to reattribute this deity’s gender have not offered satisfactory reinterpretations, but instead reify a binary model of Western ideas of gender. Transcending this binary model, I propose that one of the key figures identified as female—the central figure from the Tepantitla mural at Teotihuacan—can better be said to show characteristics of a
mixed gender, a tradition for which there is significant precedence in the Americas.

In this article, see pages 164, 166-168 for Stuart's discussion of the Grolier Codex.  It is highly significant that the Mexican State of Chiapas and the Universidad Autonoma de Chiapas chose to include the Grolier Codex as an authentic ancient Maya book in 1985 and make a fine color facsimile available along with the Dresden, Paris, and Madrid codices for further research. 

This review and essay of "Los Codices Mayas" is being posted as a personal tribute to my friend and colleague, the late George E. Stuart, Ph.D. (1935 - 2014) for his great generosity and many extraordinary contributions promoting world archaeology over several generations.

This article has been posted on Academia.edu as part of the Grolier Codex Project of the Center for Archaeoastronomy under the directorship of John B. Carlson, Ph.D.  The Grolier Codex Project seeks to further advance the study of the Maya Grolier Codex.

For a long time, after her appearance to the Indian Juan Diego in 1531, the Virgin of Guadalupe has been conceived – by the evangelizing Mexican clergy - as the Christian antagonist of pre-Columbian pagan gods, such as the monstrous Coatlicue, the Earth goddess with a skirt of snakes whose colossal statue (discovered at the end of the eighteenth century) has since been the emblem of the incomprehensible and bloody religious otherness of the Amerindian peoples. With the re-evaluation of the native religious expressive forms, following the theological-pastoral turning point of the Second Vatican Council, and the new interpretations of the Nican Mopohua – a Nahuatl document narrating the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe – She has become the pivot around which revolves the pastoral enterprise concerning the conspicuous indigenous population of Mexico and the Americas. Through the examination of the texts produced by members of the so-called Indian Theology (a current of the Mexican clergy), and the ethnographic material collected from some indigenous communities, I propose to explain and analyze how - through a peculiar exegetical process – the Virgin of Guadalupe may end up being identified precisely with its ancient pagan antagonist.

Over the past two decades, Zapatista indigenous community members have asserted their autonomy and self-determination by using everyday practices as part of their struggle for lekil kuxlejal, a dignified collective life connected to a specific territory. This in-depth ethnography summarizes Mariana Mora's more than ten years of extended research and solidarity work in Chiapas, with Tseltal and Tojolabal community members helping to design and evaluate her fieldwork. The result of that collaboration—a work of activist anthropology—reveals how Zapatista kuxlejal (or life) politics unsettle key racialized effects of the Mexican neoliberal state.

Through detailed narratives, thick descriptions, and testimonies, Kuxlejal Politics focuses on central spheres of Zapatista indigenous autonomy, particularly governing practices, agrarian reform, women's collective work, and the implementation of justice, as well as health and education projects. Mora situates the proposals, possibilities, and challenges associated with these decolonializing cultural politics in relation to the racialized restructuring that has characterized the Mexican state over the past twenty years. She demonstrates how, despite official multicultural policies designed to offset the historical exclusion of indigenous people, the Mexican state actually refueled racialized subordination through ostensibly color-blind policies, including neoliberal land reform and poverty alleviation programs. Mora's findings allow her to critically analyze the deeply complex and often contradictory ways in which the Zapatistas have reconceptualized the political and contested the ordering of Mexican society along lines of gender, race, ethnicity, and class.

Most accounts of psychedelic mushroom use in Mexico's Sierra Mazateca describe the practice as a prehispanic survival degraded by tourism. This article explores how - through chants, self-descriptions and life stories - Mazatec curers who deal with 'outsiders' use the discourse surrounding mushrooms to construct a mimetic model of power and the relationship between inside and outside that highlights the importance of the border and the position of the mediator. The themes of shamanic travel and the book make both sense and power out of magical mushroom mediation and involve the outsider as an essential component of Mazatec identity