Description
Book SynopsisIn this wide-ranging study of identity formation in Chiapas, Aída Hernández delves into the experience of a Maya group, the Mam, to analyze how Chiapas’s indigenous peoples have in fact rejected, accepted, or negotiated the official discourse on "being Me
Trade Review"As a multi-layered history of power and identity in Chiapas, this study is without parallel. It offers a richly textured and well-documented history of how the Mam of Chiapas have constructed their own conceptions of identity and citizenship." -Virginia Garrard-Burnett, author of Protestantism in Guatemala: Living in the New Jerusalem
Table of Contents
- Foreword by Renato Rosaldo
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- First Border Crossing. Don Roberto: Working for Change in the Sierra
- 1. The Postrevolutionary National Project and the Mexicanization of the Mam People
- Forced Integration into the Nation
- Mam Women and the Myth of Mestizaje
- Federal and Local Indigenismos
- From the Finca to the Ejido: Economic Integration
- Presbyterianism and a New Mam Identity
- 2. The Modernizing Project: Between the Museum and the Diaspora
- The "Stabilizing Development"
- Anthropologists in the Sierra: The Mam People as Health Problem and as National Heritage
- Diaspora to the Rain Forest
- Second Border Crossing. Pedro: Searching for Paradise on Earth
- 3. Mam Jehovah's Witnesses: New Religious Identities and Rejection of the Nation
- In Search of Paradise
- Everyday Life at Las Ceibas
- The Strength of Utopia and Antinational Discourse
- Different Contexts, Different Identities
- 4. From Mestizo Mexico to Multicultural Mexico: Indigenism in the Sierra Madre
- Two Struggling Perspectives
- From San Cristóbal to Pátzcuaro
- Participative Indigenismo
- The CCI Mam-Mochó-Cakchiquel
- Third Border Crossing. Don Eugenio: "Rescuing" Mam Culture
- 5. Mam Dance Groups: New Cultural Identities and the Performance of the Past
- The Mam Supreme Council
- Mam Dances
- Memory and Performance of Everyday Life
- Dispute in the Construction of Mam Traditions
- Fourth Border Crossing. Doña Luz: Organizing for Women's Rights
- 6. Organic Growers: Agro-ecological Catholicism and the Invention of Traditions
- The Foranía de la Sierra: The New Social Ministry
- Globalization and Organic Markets: Mam Identity and Agro-ecological Discourses
- New Cultural Discourses and the Reinvention of Mam Utopia
- Collective Reflection and New Spaces of Organization
- Mam Women and Gender Demands
- 7. From PRONASOL to the Zapatista Uprising
- Salinismo: The Administration's Two-faced Policy
- PRONASOL Indigenismo
- The Impact of the Zapatista Rebellion on the Life of Mam Peasants
- Claiming the Power to Name: The Struggle for Autonomy
- The Voices of Women
- Again a Two-faced Policy: Economic Aid and Paramilitarization
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
