Folkloric Poverty: Neoliberal Multiculturalism in Mexico - Rilegato

Overmyer-Velazquez, Rebecca

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0271036575 ISBN 13: 9780271036571

Casa editrice: Pennsylvania State Univ Pr, 2010

Riassunto

"This is an outstanding contribution to critical analysis of indigenous movements in Mexico, not simply because it offers an ethnographically grounded diagnosis of the difficulties that confront organizations with militant origins that try to work through institutional channels, but also because it provides a long term historical perspective that enables us to grasp seldom discussed continuities between the old `official indigenism' and more recent developments. The insights that this study offers into the contradictory visions and practices of state functionaries and indigenous intellectuals and activists alike make it essential reading for anyone interested in multicultural Latin America."---John Gledbill, The Unviersity of Manebester

"In this historically grounded work, Overmyer-Velazquez ably demonstrates the ways in which both the state and indigenous organizations in Guerrero used the figure of the folkloric Indian to frame, motivate, and pursue their goals over time. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in the region, she narrates the evolution of a regional indigenous movement as it interaets with state agencies and officials and attempts to build alliances and stregthen its base of support. Not enough attention has been paid to indigenous organizations in Guerero, which is surprising given their importance to larger Indian organizations on the national level in Mexico. This engaging and eminently readable book will be of great interest to scholars and students in a range of fields, including anthropology, sociology, political science, and public policy."---Shaman Mattace, Allegheny College

The "technocratic revolution" that ushered in the age of neoliberalism in Mexico under the presidency of Carlos Salinas (1988-1994) helped create the conditions for, and the constraints on, a resurgence of activism among the indigenous com munities of Mexico. This resurgence was given further impetus by the protests in 1992 against the official celebration of the five hundredth anniversary of Columbus's landing in America and by the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas in 1994. Local, regional, and national indigenous organizations formed to pursue a variety of causes---cultural, economic, legal, political, and social---to benefit Indian peoples in all regions of the country.

Folkloric Poverty analyzes the crisis these indigenous political groups faced in Mexico at the turn of the twenty-first century. It tells the story of an indigenous

peoples' movement in the state of Guerrero, the Consejo Guerrerense 500 Anos de Resistencia Indigena, which gained unprecedented national and international prominence in the 1990s and yet was defunct by 2002. The fate of the Consejo points to the ways that Mexican multiculturalism, indigenismo, combined with neoliberal reforms to keep Indians in a political quarantine, effectively limiting their actions and safely isolating their demands on the state.

Su questo libro

L'autore:

Rebecca Overmyer-Velazquez is Associate Professor of Sociology at Whittier College.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Pennsylvania State Univ Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0271036575
• ISBN 13: 9780271036571
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 209