Deep Mexico, silent Mexico: an anthropology of nationalism

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VOLUME 9 Claudio Lomnitz, Deep Mexico, Silent Mexico: An Anthropology of Nationalism VOLUME 8

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Mayfair Mei - hui Yang, Spaces of Their Own. Womens Public Sphere in Transnational-China

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Every effort was made ro obtain permission lo reproduce rhe illustations in this book. If any proper acknowledgment has not buen nade, we encourage copyright holders to notify us. The University of Minnesota Press gra te fulh aeknusrledges permission to reprint the following An earlier version of chapter 1 appeared as Nationalism as a practica] System: A Critique of Benedict Andersons 1 hcory of Natiu nolism from a Spanish American Perspeetive," in The Odre Minor Gmnd Theory tbrou96 Ele Lens of Latin America, edited by .Miguel Angel Centeno and Fernando Lúpez-Alves (Princeton, N. 1= Princeton Universiny Presa, 2000), 329-59; copyright 2000 Princeton University Presa, reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press An earlier version of chapter 3 appeared as "Mudes oí Cltizenship in Mexico.° Pab1i1 )apure 1 1no 1 (1999. 209-93; copyright 1999 Duke University Press. An earlier version of
Al] rights reserved- No pait of chis publlcat1o11 in ay be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or tansmitted, in any forro or by any mean, elecn'onic, meehanical, photocopying, recording, or otharwise, wlthout the prior -t-aten pemtission of the publisher. Published bv the University of Minnesota Press I I 1 Third Avenue South, Suite 290 Minneapolis, MN 55401 2520 http //www opresa umn edu Liba, of Congruas Cataloging-In-Puhlmatlon Data Lomnitz-Adler, Claudio. Deep Mexico silent Mexico an anthropology ot nacional ism /Claudio Lomnitz. p cm-(Pubhc wor]ds, v 91 Includes blhliogaphlcal referenees and ,ndex ISBN 0-8166-3289-8 (HC zlk- paper) -- ISBN u-8166-3290-1 (PB : alk. pape,) 1 Nationaliana-Mexico 2 Croup identity-Mexico- 3. Mexico-Politics and government 4- Anderson Benedict R. O'C. Benedict Richard O'Corman), 1936- Imagined eommunities. 5. Inmllectuals-^:lexico-History. 1- Title. II. SeriesJC311-L7432001 320.972-dc21

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This book is dedicated to the memory of Jorge Simón Lomnitz (1954-93)

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction

xi

Partí Making the Nation

1

Nationalism as a Practica) System: Benedict Anderson's Theory of Nationalism from the Vantage Point of Spanish America

3

2

Communitarian Ideologies and Nationalism

35

3

Modes of Mexican Citizenship

58

4

Passion and Banality in Mexican History: The Presidential Persona

81

5

Fissures in Contemporary Mexican Nationalism

110

Part I1 Geographies of the Public Sphere 6 Nationalism's Dirty Linen: "Contact Zones" and the Topography of National Identity 7 8

125

Ritual, Rumor, and Corruption in the Formation of Mexican Polities

145

Center, Periphery, and the Connections between Nationalism and Local Discourses of Distinction

165

Part III Knowing the Nation 9 ]0

11 12

Interpreting the Sentiments oí the Nation. Intellectuals and Governmentality in Mexico

197

An Intellectual's Stock in the Factory oF Mexicos Ruins: Enrique Krauze's Mexico: Biography of Pmuer

212

Bordering un Anthropology_ Dialectics oí a National Tradition

228

Provincial Intellectuals and the Sociology oí the So-Called Deep Mexico

263

Notes

287

References

317

Index

335

Acknowledgments

To me, this book is like a "cabinet oí curiosities," a showcase for a whole extended family oí subjects that were first washed upon my shore by the tide oí a previous book, Exits from the Lahyrinth. The essays that 1 have included here were written between 1993 and 2000, and they were crafted in an environment oí intellectual engagement and friendship that is too rich and diverse to acknowledge properly. There are, however, a few engoing conversations, a few influences and instances oí friends coming to my aid that 1 cannot omit, Over the past five years 1 have benefited tremendously from the criticism, example, friendship, and support oí my colleagues and students in the departments oí History and Anthropology at the University oí Chicago. As an anthropologist, 1 am drawn to the peripheral, te the curiosities and details oí human sociability. Friedrich Katz has brought me back to the great current oí world events, and in the process has also taught me much oí what 1 know about Mexican history. He has been my closest colleague these past years. The friendship, conversation, and example oí Fernando Escalante, Robin Derby, Roger Bartra, Beatriz Jaguaribe, Néstor García Canclini, Andrew Apter, Eric Fassin, Manuela Carneiro da Cunha, Juan Pérez, Liz Henschell, Marshall Sahlins, Ricardo Pozas, llan Semo, Arjun Appadurai, Martin Riesebrodt, Tom Cummins, Francisco Valdés, Fred Myers, Annette Weiner, and Guillermo de la Peña sustained and inspired me more than 1 can say. Some oí the particulars in one or another essay benefited from the

tx =

advicc 0f Jamar Herzo,. Ete 1'tt i , as Carlos Funnent, and Cristóbal Aliovín - 1 hc late Calo t lúnica mas tic
Introduction

my editors at Minnesota, Robin .Moir, David Thorstad, and, especially, Carric Mullen, put up with this incrcasingly grumpy writer and cajoled him finto writing a bettcr work. Thc essavs in Chis book viere also wrltten under a very different influence, a tide that rase and fell with the pull oí the dark moon of my brother jorge's death, and oí the glowing clelight el my family, and especially oí my children, Enrique and Elisa, and my wife, Elena Climent. Conversations with Elena have been formative in the deepest sense, and her work as an artist is a source oí constant insp im tion.

The Balcony of the Republic There is a class oí intellectuals who have the delightful privilege oí constantly keeping their readers company-writers who take down their impressions oí the significant events oí a communiry and supply it with a steady stream oí commentary - The role oí these intellectuals is something like that oí a village priest, consecrating significant events, offering advice and sympathy, proffering henedictions, and even threatening the unbelievers with excommunicatlon. Their lives are like a book that opens onto their communit. Perhaps because it is, at heart, a Catholic and provincial society, Mexico has always had a special preference for these chronicters, and they have thrived even in today's mass society. Carlos María Bustamante, Guillermo Prieto, and Ignacio Manuel Altamirano were figures oí this sort in the nineteenth century, as was Salvador Novo in the decades following the Mexican Revolution. Currently, writers such as Carlos Monsiváis, Héctor Aguilar Camín, Enrique Krauze, and Elena Poniatowska fati finto this category. Even intellectuals who have kept a greater distante from the bustle oí the day Lo day, such as the late Octavio Paz, or Carlos Fuentes, descend from their lofry heights, like bishops going Lo a confirmation, when it comes Lo consecrating the truly importara events: the 1968 student movement, the earthquake oí 1985, or the Zapatista revolt oí 1994. The cronista accompanies the communiry, guides it through its dilemmas, consoles it in its grief, and shares in its triumph. Mimesis with

s

the people is such that this 'mtellecttual is a natural representative oí the nation. How different this is from my own sltuation' 1 left a fob at El Colegio de México in 1988 and carne to work in the United States not as an exile, but voluntarily Although 1 go back to Mexico constantly, and sometimes for long periods, and although 1 have access to che comings and goings oí Mexican politics and its cultural aftairs, iv position is reminiscent oí that oí an infirm ancle who keeps ro his quarcers, and who only makes an occasional appearance These confusing teelings of access and isolation, oí accompanying the nation's tribu lations Irom atar, rellect the ci rcumstances and conditions

different, no doubt. 1 do not mean te use the hardship oí the peasant migrant to make my own cause more noble, nor am 1 about tu raise a classaction suit on their behalf. 1 cannot speak for them. 1 am, rather, interested in the ways in which immigration to the United States offers a critical perspective en Mexico and en the United States. My current position in the American academy and my experience in Mexico afford, I believe, a vista oí its own, a vantage point that is mounted neither on the balcony oí Mexican public opinion nor en the wellgreased machine of American expertise, though it leans on both. My concern is to understand the social conditions in which national distinctions emerge.

in which this book was written The position of ehronicler can only be attained through immersion in the day to day oí that great city that is Mexico City, the place that Porfirio Díaz recognized long ago as "the balcony oí the republie." In an authoritarian country, public opinion and national sentiment were both concentrated and represented in the national capital. The values of the pmvinees and foreign values both were realized there, and they were made to radiate from there to the entire nation. My generation is the tirst in which a few mcmbers oí Mexicos intelligentsia have chosen to forsake Mexico City for another balcony, which is the American academy. In the past, Mexican intellecnials used the experiences oí Mexicans in the United States as grist 1nr the nati onalist mili. As the MexicanAmerican folklorist losé Limón has shown Mexican intellectuals have decried the conditions of their fcllow countrvtnen in the United States, and used their condition to further political projects in Mexico. What they have rarely done is acknowledgc thc Mexican-American vantage point as the sorrce of new critical perspectives.' In my years in the United States 1 have often thought of my experiences in relation to those oi Mexican migrant workers, to their ties to honre villages and to the ways in which rheir lives are lived andjustified in the United States. 1 do not mean to make too much oí this comparison, as 1 am not especially interested in Mexican-American identity politics, nor do 1 seek a new group to represen[ now that 1 have "abandones MexicoOn the contrary, what I share svith many Mexican migrants is their emotional and material investment in Mexico, the sense that the migratory experience can he used for setting pass situations right, and the ambivalent realization that the dithculties ol the migratory process have changed os. The sature oí our investments, the sources ol our frustra tions on the home front, the spec ific qualities oí our tiansformations in the United States are

Depth and Silence It is common knowledge that nationalism involves an appeal to origins. The Frontier Society, the Melding oí Two Races, the Chosen People oí God, the Children oí Revolution-these myths appeal to the historical "depth" oí nations, a depth that finds material expression in the land itself. As in Australian aboriginal "dreamings," ties to ancestors are encrusted in the landscape, and contemporaries inhabit the outer surface of that amalgam between a land and a people that is the nation. Stories of origins are required for spreading feelings of kinship in a heterogeneous and unconnected population. Images oí a nation's rootedness are also used to displace or ignore particular claims.2 In nineteenth-century Spanish America, for instante, national symbols tended to he chosen from nature: the quetzal (bird) oí Guatemala, the copihue and araucaria (plants) oí Chile, the Argentine pampa, the Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl (mountains) oí Mexico, and so en. Alongside the exaltation oí the land carne the idealization oí the remate indigenous past: oí unconquerable chieftains such as Caupolicán, Cuauhtémoc, and Túpac Amant, and indigenous achievements in astronomy, urban design, and engineering, Both natural and historical images were mobilized for the exclusion oí the opinions and immediate interests oí large portions oí the population who, it was felt, needed to be civilized, educated, racially improved, or even, in some cases, exterminated. Appeals to the "depth" oí the nation have been a staple in the packaging oí modernizing projects, calling potential dissenters Yo order in the narre oí a shared trajectory. In national societies, "depth" and "silence" are mutually implicated.

This relationship between depth and silente reveals a national secret, 11troduc1lon xiii

which is that denarrcctcy, popular soccn-i,,ntr and a racional governmental admin:stration are leso lulh guaina blr . 1 hc nacional state is always

nections between che people and che poGty, when they discuss rights and obligacions, or rey co justify oi r'elect modernization and social change-

involved in the work of shapinr puhl:c opirtum with che aid of rigid systeniso t discipline arad exdu,ion. l hn rs be, ause che eonneetio ns hetween

Nacional filiation is thcrelore used in order to hanuner out a consensual,

che,tate che people in(¡ che turuo:p aire am thrng [,lit harmonious and

oí strength and eocrcion- Uepth and silente are che Siamese twins oi na-

stable- Scates are shaped in m),,,,, , r,t espansion and conquesr, or else in

tional tate formation_

oi hegemonic, a rra ngem ent, ir involves cajoling and purchasing, exhibits

processes of deculonizatiun In eiiIiei a,c. diverse people,, sometimes unrelated te) ea, h uther are suhreeis nl thc ante st,ue

Nacional Distinction Tbeory and History of National Sprices

The muvcmcnu involved in elalming popular and territorial sovereigncy ti-tus requirc arrangem eras between peuples w^ho do not neeessarily

The nacional ideal of popular sovercignty can rever be fully accom-

i dentify with une anothcr, and ,vho may Nave only tenuous and indirect

plished- Ir is instead like a receding horizon, a point of referente that is

links. In extreme ssmacions, chis can load tu civil war and territorial frag-

used te) organize relationships between che people and che state in

mentation, but oven in milder cases the scgmenration of "the nation' has

processes of modernization that can rever be contained by nacional bor-

profound political and cultural consequences, including che exacerbated

ders. As a result, che nacional space is constantly changing. Isolated com-

use oí nationalism_ Moreover, che sha pe ot a territory is never perfectly at-

munities are integrated into che national public sphere, while newly pau-

tuned to che tradicional habitat ot a people even in cases when such rela-

perized classes are marginalized from it; power brokers rise and falla

tions between a people and a territory can credibly be made. Territories

foreign interesas are successfully reigned in and subsequently escape gov-

peed to be claimed, boundaries necd tu be enforced, and so they are

ernmental control, In short, che development oí a national space is a his-

dependent not only un che national community, but also on its neighbors.

torical process. Abstract generalization, theorization with no historical

In short, neither a people nor its corneenuns to a state and terrimry are

referent, is difficult given the currenc state oí our comparative knowledge,

stable facas. Instead, these relationships leed constantly co be shaped and

and yet theorization is required to make adequate descriptions oí that

reshaped. In Chis, Mexico is not an exception, latir rather an extreme. Like all other nations, Mexico carne into being as the result oí world-historical conditions that were beyond che control of its inhabitants and, although the viahility of Mexico as a polity was common serse for locals and foreigners alike at che time of independence, che size of che territory, its lack oí economic integration, che diversity of its people, and che desirabiliry oí its resources to foreign powers al¡ conspirad co make nationality a desired achievement more than a well-established fact. In che era oí independence, nacional consciousness was uniform neither in its contencs nor in its extension. [-ven as late as 1950, Octavio Paz prefaced his book un Mexican national cultura warning that his analysis did not apply to al] inhahitants oí ,Mexico, but only to that segment oí che population that was conscious of heing Nlexican, which he saw as a minority-' Today it may be diflicult co find a Mexican who is not aware oí being Mexican, but che contexts in which nationality is pertinent, and its symbolic and practical referents, still vary substantnally. Nationaliry is nelther an accomplished fact nor in established essenee; itis, rather, the moving horizon that acturs point to when they need to appeal co che con-

great abstraction that is "national space."4 A theoretically inclined history is thus useful at chis particular junction.

But we need historically sensitive theories just as much. Nations are at once aspects oí an internacional order and the product oí local processes oí state formation. As a result, their position in the internacional order itself shapes che ways in which theories are written and understood.5 There is an inherent tendency for standards to emerge between nations. The culture oí che state, the forro and contencs oí its progranis and oí its organization, are often the brainchild oí transnational comniunities of specialists. However, this does not relieve os from having to understand systems oí national distinction in their singularity; for social theories as they are developed and deployed in practice are aspects oí chis system oí distinetion ton. There is thus a polyphony, a bizarre range oí harmonics, in any social explanation or body oí theory, because, for che most parí, these explanations resonate differently when they are sounded in che scientific or artistic vanguards than when they are broughc finto national contexts as policy or as social criticism. History thus helps understand che range oí theories, as well as their polyphony, slippage, or movement Nationalism, which is a way oí framing communitarian relations, itself 1 n i r o d u e t i on xv =

develops in relation to other communitarian forms, including families, villages, and religious communities. The ways in which nationalism relates to these various communities depend on the ways in which the national territory is tied together, economically, politically, and culturally. Moreover, in order to disseminate nationalism, it has to be shaped into signs and told, it has to be tied to sites oí local memory in effective ways. Finally, the very uses to which nationalism is put, the projects that it shapes and prometes, the interna) distinctions that it facilitates, and its uses in dealing with what is foreign, vary. This is why students of globalization do not tease to insist en the fact that globalization is not mere homogenization, and that "its" effects are locally differentiated. Nonetheless making this point in the abstract is much easier than showing it ar work-the very persistence oí the disclaimer en the part oí students of "globalization" attests te this. This is because the study oí the conditions in which nations are produced invohres a historical sociology oí state formation; it cannot bypass the particular. Grounded Mexican social sciences are as much a part of the international horizon as any other science. Mexican authors do not hesitate to borrow from the works oí foreign colleagues, and they participate actively in international discussions and publications. There is a sense, however, in which they are entirely enconipassed by national history, for the very justification oí Mexico's scientific establishment has been tied to national development, to the formation oí a national consciente, and to addressing the kind oí issues that Andrés Molina Enríquez called Great National Problems."6 It is fair to capitalize this expression because ir narres the fetish oí Mexican social science. Social sciences are supposed to respond to Great National Problems, when in fact it is the social sciences that have named and given form to those problems in the collective imagination. Mexican fetishism oí Great National Problems occupies a position analogous to the fetishism oí the "Western tradition" and oí "Rationality" in the United States. Historians oí curricular development in American universities have shown how and why schools in the United States decided to incorporate their own tradition within a narrative oí "the West."7 Universities were designed as neoclassical palaces or else as imitations oí the great English universities, an architecture that proclaimed the desire to emulate empire while spurring republican pride, to appropriate the grandeur oí both Greece and Britain. The United States has liked te think

oí itself as the westernmost portion oí "the West," a place that inherited all that was reasonable and open-minded oí English liberalism, and yet was unfettered by an aristocracy or by a degraded mass oí "commoners." Today, in the United States, economics and much oí political science and sociology are dominated by theories in which the habits oí American consumers, oí American voters, and oí foreign-policy makers are presented as paragons oí rationality. The collective habits oí the world's Great Power can be nothing short oí "rational." Just as Mexican social scientists have named and shaped Great National Problems, so too have American economists given form to an allegedly universal rationality. For those who share in this spirit, the historical sciences are quaint and old-fashioned disciplines that are still devoted to the study of the particular. No grand theories oí general applicability can come forth from their stubbornly idiographic methods. They can never add up to anything, though they may deserve to be modestly supported, since they can readily provide those tedious facts that are still needed to avoid entirely confusing Bolivia with Brazil. Consonant with these imperial pulsations, non-Western areas became a special branch oí knowledge, subordinated to the universalizing interests oí "the West." Thus, the mores and intellectual traditions oí Latin America have been called "non-Western," despite the fact that they have as much oí a claim to Europe as does the United States. Older or weaker empires, as Arjun Appadurai has pointed out, have been associated with intriguing and vastly simplified characteristics that were useful for sharpening the self-image oí the West: the Mediterranean stood for honor and shape, India for caste, China for filial piety and minute women's footwear . . .8 Latin America provided proud and superstítious men, beautiful señoritas, venal tyrants, and whimsical revolutions, How can widely useful ideas emerge in arcas that are dominated by particular complexes oí traits that are so clearly bounded in scope and limited in vision? The category oí the non-Western is the category oí the particular; it is not a suitable place from which to think through either human universals or events oí world-historical significante. In Mexico, narratives that identify the habits oí the Mexican people as paradigma oí rationality, and therefore as universally applicable, have had little success. The country has been hyperconscious oí its backward condition for at least 150 years. Moreover, it has had to deal with a layered history oí imperialist depictions: in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Mexicans could not be made into the paragon oí rationality because they were racially inferior, later on, the Mexican people were

In^ro1 ction In tro d u cti on = xvii

poitraycd as tiaditi onalists, as latalitiis whu.c racional capabil iti es, though

che whole complex that Kasherine Verdery described among Romanian

no longer biologically deniahle v, ere no less blinded by superstition.

intellectua ls as pro tochroni sm,' that is to say che doctrine that struggles

Todas' Mexico 1, routinely lobeled a [les cl^^ping nation' Because it is al-

to rescue a series of nacional figures who had prcfigured well-known

Icgedly not vct devclupcd. ii is nr,: in a ituauun to speak for humanity at

'Western" devel opments from an imperial conspiracy that has confined

large Nut surprisingly, tico Mcsican Liuducs Nave conccnrrated on contributions to che resolution nl tic nations problcnts. These nced to be

them to oblivion. 11 The conditions for procochronism are produced by asymmetries of

dealt with hrst: univcrsallty will ,unir lacre As in che Anicrican case iNc vchucctuny ui Mexicós principal univer-

power between che scientilic establishments of Mexico and Europe or che

sities relleces [hese aspira Go ns. Alodernisln scith its charaeteristic eom-

Mexicós knowledge -stablishmcrit has been justified_ In order to engage

bination of state-ol-che-art technology, ahrc acted tiaditional rnotifs, and

public interest in Mexico, in order to attract funds, and so on, one must en-

che subordination of the whole to modero usage, provided che ideal vehicle.

gage the Great National Problems. This means that thinkers who recycle

The National Universiry is a paradigmatic instance: research and teaching

works and ideas produced abroad and apply them to the nacional con-

facilities are laid out in a plan that is reminiscent of pre-Columbian urban

science can enjoy an undeserved (though entirely local) reputation, and it

United States_ However they are also che result of the way in which

design, while che whole was developed with che most modero materials

also means that thinkers who have had a contribution to make to the broad-

and techniques available. The definition oí che Great Nacional Problems and oí their resolution

er civilizational horizon can go underacknowledged, especially when the

thus involves incorporation ro a "civilizational horizon" that transcends

1 have myself worked for many years under che strain oí [hese tensions, desiring to contribute to che discussion oí Mexico's particular problems, while holding to the conviction that any real engagement with particularity requires a degree of critica) thought, a kind oí thought that knows no national frontiers. My work has therefore tended to inhabit a margin: a bit toe theoretically inclined for most Mexican social scientists, a bit roo engaged with Mexican political quandaries for most oí my American colleagues. However, this situation, which is not so very singular, also affords, 1 think, a certain kind oí engaged critique, a kind of theoretical particularism that is well suited to the study of the national form. It is a forra oí "grounded theory" in both senses oí this term: grounded because it works through a vast and dense set oí facts, and grounded because it has to confront, and hopefully to transgress, an order oí confinement.

Mexieo's bordees: the language of scicnce and of che arts is recognized as a universal language, and so che process of devcloping a national consciente or oí contributi ng to national devel opment involves building an infrastructure that is oriented to learning and disserninating works created on che outside.1(1 Thus, Mexican modernism takes an inward turn, both because of che effort tú transiate and appropriate foreign innovations and because of che obsession with making interna) conditions more favorable for progress. Given Chis self-centeredness, and given che ethnocentrism involved in imperial universalism, it is not surprlsing ciar diere are considerable difficulties in getting whatever originaliry thcre has been in Mexican social and scientilic thought recognized as innovative outside oí Mexicós bor-

country does not have the capaciry to absorb the work to its full potential.

ders, because whereas the thinking ol American authors is usually inscribed in a universalizing language leven in cases when its significante is

Road Map

parochial), in Mexico contributions that might be oí general utility are subsumed into the language of the particular, oí the national.

This is a book of essays. It carne to life as a volume when my friend and

This state ol affairs produces an interesting complex regarding the hid-

colleague Guillermo de la Peña suggested that 1 publish a volume in Mexico

den contributions of Mexican culture to universal civilization. Thus,

with a collection oí essays that had appeared only in English. 1 followed

Mexicans sometimes mutter that che inventor oí color television was

Guillermos advice and put together a volume that appeared in 1999 under

Mexican; that Thomas Edison reas half Mexican; that \Valt Disney stole

che title Modernidad indiana: nación y mediación en México. As 1 prepared that

characters from Mexican composer i, and that historian Edmundo

work, however, 1 realized that my general project oí [hese last years,

O'Gorman's ideas concerning tic invention of America went unaeknowl-

which has been to develop a historical sociology oí Mexican national

edged by che school devoted tu nventcd ti adi tions." In short, we have

space, was not far froni completion and 1 spent an additional eighteen

11., ,, 1„,

I n 1 r o d u c t i on = xix =

months writing che essays that werc relj n ved, '1 bis hook reproduces five of che time essays included in ,bindrn,:J.t.l im{unta (che earliesc was written in 1993), and adds co them seven newer essays that mark che end of a long project (che las( was completed in clic hrsi months of 2000).

Chapter 4 complements che discussion of che political consolidation of che Mexican state by focusing on che development oí che image oí che nacional president as a fetish ot sovereignty_ In particular, Chis essay explores che relationship between religion, race, and images of sovereignty, and it

The hook is dividcd roto [bree parís Pare 1, "Making che Nation," is

shows the ways in which power was secularizad, and che law and economic

composed of live essays. Taken togcthci, [hese chapters provide a histori-

modernization were indigenized during che nineteenth century and into

cal and theo retical Ira1nework for u n deis tan ding Mexican nacional ism and

che Mexican Revolution (1910-20).

nacional identity as a process that hagan vvith colonization. The essays in Chis section generally cake a very historical broad sweep. Chapter 1 is a critical appralsal ol Benedict Anderson's theory oí nationalism, wriuen from che vantage point ol Spanish Ame rica. 1 show that tire relationship lietween nacional ism, secularism, and social hierarchy diverges somewhat from Andersons proposition- This leads both to amendments to Anderson's theory and co a discussion oí che political usage oí nationalism in Mexico and Spanish America. Chapter 2 extends the discussion oí communitarian ideologies i niiiated in che discussion oí Benedict Anderson by exploring competing versions of Mexican nationalism, and also other hiscorically powerful communitarian forms that are pertinent

The final chapter of Part 1 is devoted to che contemporary crisis oí Mexican nationalism, and it can be read as an alternative introduction to chis hook (as a eomplement tu chis Introduction). In che last two decades, innovations in che organization oí transnacional capital have provoked profound changes in Mexico, changes that include a reorientation of che national economy, che dismemberment oí che revolutionary state, and increasing class polarization. As a result, títere is a chronic crisis concerning the relationship between nationalism and modernization. This essay explores Chis changing relationship and discusses che strain en Mexican nationalism in che contemporary moment. It thus spells out the context in which che essays oí chis hook were written, which is the long period

1or understandi ng che appeal and I'units of any nacional ist project in

known as Mexico's "transition to democracy."

Mexico. Both chapters are wide-ranging historical essays that explore che lonyue duréc.

Commentators such as Paul Krugman oí che New York Times have crowed that che historie Mexican election oí July 2, 2000, should be

Chapter 3, by contras[, focuses on the transformation ot Mexican citi zenship during the nineteenth and early twcncieth centuries. Here 1 seek to hiscoricize Roberto Da laua's idea regarding che cultural logic of hierarchy and ci tizenship in I_atin .America_ As in che essay en Benedict Anderson's theory, 1 eomplement a cultural reading (in chis case oí citizenship) wich an emphasis on che political f ield in which che cultural construction o( citizenship develops_ In che process, 1 argue against che view that imagines the development of ci tizenship and democracy in Mexico as a process that liad an carly and very brief gulden age during che Restored Republic (1867-76), only to tal] during che porfiriato (especially after 1884), and ricen to hegin a heroic recoverv in che alcermath of 1968. 1 show that che prominente of discourses of dtizenship and oí civic virtue in che first two-thirds oí che nineteenth century is related to che political instahility oí che country, and that che exaltad language of citizenship chal was popular in Chis period declinad not so much as a result oí dictatorial repression as hecause of che alliancea among che political class that modernizatioa and economic grnwth nade possihle. The history oí Mexican democratization thus appears in a somewhat less heroic lighc chan in the criumphal nartatives of eontentpurary democrats_

chalked up to che North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and globalization, and that che neoliberal presidents who presíded over chis transition (de la Madrid, Salinas, and Zedillo) were in fact the wellmeaning democrats that they always claimed to be 12 However, it was Mexican authoritarianism, not Mexican democracy, that led Mexico into che General Agreemenc en Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and NAFTA in che first place. The full power oí Mexico's revolutionary state was needed to preside over che sea change in che economy that finally buried revolutionary nationalism, which is why che transition to democracy was so protracted. Now that che change in economic models was an accomplished fact. Mexicans were allowed to choose their president freely from among three candidates who had strikingly similar platforms, and the economists who imposed their models on Mexico could claim to have given birth to democracy.' 3

Parí ti, "Geographies oí che Public Sphere," is dedicated to the cultural geography oí che nacional space, and it is composed of three chapters. The first, Chapter 6, deals wich che contexts in which nacional identity and xenophobia emerge It introduces one oí che central monis oí Mexican nationalism, which is that che nation cannot eontain capitalism and eeonomic 1 ,t r o duc

modernizatioii much oí which conics ti, m ahroad The chapter proposes

that it generated in Mexico are rclared co clic "balcony" from which Ti

a rudimentarv topography oi t. ont.ru zones ¡Ti which nacional identiry

seas written

emerges as a ciguilicant political resaure,c. Chapter 7 irgues chas ntual rumor and contiption Nave htstorieally

Chapter 11 complements Chis polemical piece by analyzing che historical role of anthropology in shaping Mexican nationalism and conversely,

bcen the ericical mechanism, tor thc eonstitution tal nacional public opin-

che role that nationalism has liad in shaping .Mexican anrhropology- It is

ion in Mexico 1 his is because c Iris clieisiuns ❑ ie su significant that broad

written as a seholarly piece , sehereas che preceding chapter is written as a

sectors of che population are se te ma tic i K eycluded trom che hourgeois

polemical review, but hoth develop aspects of che same argumenc regard-

public sphere Lite chapter then deselups elements of a spatial approaeh

ing che preponderant role that nationalism has placed in shaping Mexican

to che study ot che public sphere

social thought

Chapter 8 is about centrality and uiai ginalicy-" Insread of seeing

The final chapter of the book is a critique of Guillermo Bonfil 's notion

these categories as stable piopeitics of places, they are best understood as

oí a "deep Mexico," a concept that 1 subscitute with a "silent Mexico." The

metaphors that are used lar che development of interna) idioms oí distincuon that are then deployed to link I actions of communities across the na-

chapter proposes a geography oí silente by way of the study of local intellectuals . 1 show that the mechanisms that intellectuals use co justify their

cional space. This essay, like chapter 12, uses che case oí che anthropologi-

authority to represent their communities provide valuable clues for under-

cally famous village of Tepoztlán to develop a perspective en this matter.

standing the geography of Mexican democracy , a geography that is deeply segmented along class and regional lines.

As a locality, Tepoztlán has usually been constructed by outsiders and government officials as "peripheral," but local inhabitants have deployed

Taken together, the twelve chapters in Chis book are a historical and

within their town che same hinary oppositions that they have been subjected to-The essay explores che politics of chese juxtapositions. Thus, the

cheorecical exploration of Mexican nacional space , by way oí an analysis oí nationalism , che public sphere , and knowledge production . They are

three ehapters oí Part II study, lirst, the geography oí nacional identiry

offered both as cultural criticism and as a scholarly contribution to our

production, second, the cultural geography of che public sphere, and final-

understanding oí these phenomena.

]y, the geography oí national distinctionPart III, "Knowing che Nacion," is about che different ways oí producing public knowledge within and about the nation. Chapter 9 uses Michel Foucault's concept oí governmentality to argue that, because oí the tribulations oí Mexico's development as a weak nation in che international order, intellectuals who sought to speak for che nation on che basis oí statistics and population studies have liad lintited success. Alongside these "governmental intellectuals," nacional sentiment has been expressed by others, who claim to be close to social movements and revolutions. Chapter 10 is a polemical essay en che effeccs oí che current privatization oí culture, by way of a critique of che work of Enrique Krauze. This essay, originally published in English in 1998, generated a heated polemic in Mexico. 1 have included che piece in this volume despite its polemical eharaccer for two reasons hrst. because it deals with the role oí history and historians as nation builders and as nationalist intellectuals and is thus of a piece with che preceding chapter en the interpretation oí che sentiments of che nation and wich my work on che history oí anthropology and second, because Chis is an instante in which analysis and polities come together-both the writing of che essay and che reactions

lr 1 r o du c t i on xxiii =

PART1

1Vla k ing

Nation

1

Nationalism as a Practica ) System: Benedict Anderson 's Theory of Nationalism from the Vantage Point of Spanish America

Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities has probably been the single most influential work en nationalism oí the past two decades. Written with clarity and flair, Anderson's book explains nationalism as a specific form oí communitarianism whose cultural conditions of possibility were determined by the development oí communications media (print capitalism) and colonial statecraft (especially state ritual and state ethnography-for instance, bureaucratic "pilgrimages," censuses, and maps).

Seen in this light, nationalisms are historically recent creations, and yet terribly successful at shaping subjectivity. In fact, it is nationalism's power to form subjects that truly arrests Anderson's attention: "[patriotic deaths] bring us abruptly face to face with the central problem posed by nationalism: what makes the shrunken imaginings of recent history (scarcely more than two centuries) generate such colossal sacrifices?" (1994; 7). This concern with subject-formation and identity is consonant with Anderson's principal innovation, which is to treat nationalism not asan ideology, but rather as a hegemonic, commonsensical, and tacitly shared cultural construct. For Anderson, nationalism is a kind oí cultural successor to the universalism oí premodern (European) religion. Thus, although he locates the birth oí nationalism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the preconditions for its emergence occur much earlier, with Europe's

3

expansion in the sixteenth century. In Anderson's view, European expansien created the image of plural and independent unes of civilizational development, and this pluralism or rclativism was eventually transformed roto a kind of secular historicisin in which individuated collectivities"nations"-competed with each other. One oí the most surprising turns in Anderson's brief book is that he claims that nationalism developed first in the colonial world, and spread from there back to Europe Despite the íact rhat religious universalism is first shaken in sixteenth-century Europe the formation of a system oí equal, independent, secular, and progressive collectivities occurs first in America, and almost threc centurias alter the decline of religious universalism. This nieve caught Latin Americanist historiaras off balance, for the - historiography oí independence up to thcn was dominated by treatises ora

Review of the Historical Tbesis In order to understand Anderson's account oí the birth oí SpanishAmerican nationalism and independence, we must be clear first on what exactly he is trying to explain: [The aggressiveness of Madrid and the spirit oí liberalism, while central te any understanding of the impulse oí resistance in the Spanish Americas, do not in themselves explain why entibes like Chile, Venezuela, and Mexico turned out te be emobonally plausible and politically viable, nor why San Martín should decree that certain aborigines be identified by the neological "Peruvians." Nor, ulbmately, do they account for the real sacrifices made.... This willingness to sacrifice on the part oí comfortable classes is food for thought. (52)

the intellectual influences of Europe--uf liberalism, of the Enlightenmenten American independence. Rarely did the Latin American specialist dare to claim much original ity for these movements, let alone to suggest that nationalism itself had been invented in Spanish America and subsequently exported to Europe. For his insistente ora che singularity of colonial conditions abone, Latin Americanists are collectively in Andcrson's debt. However, despite Chis

At stake, then, is the explanation oí what makes a country "emotionally plausible" and "politically viable" from an internal perspective. In addition, there are issues concerning identity and sacrifice: why do Indians become Peruvians, and why do privileged Creoles lay their lives down for national independence? Anderson's explanation oí why this is so proceeds along three separare bines.

boon to a profession that of ten aches to elaim singubarity for itself, devel-

First, in Spanish America, colonial administrative practices divided

opments in the Latin American field were slow to turra in Anderson's direc-

Creoles from Peninsulars by reserving the highest offices oí the empire for

tion, with significant works using Anderson as a point oí inspiration ap-

the latter, thereby fostering a cense oí resentment and identity among the

pearing practically ten years alter die book was first published. The slothful reaction to Anderson by Latin American historiaras and

former. Second, the fact that Creole bureaucrats were constrained to serve only in their administrative units of origin meant that they collectively

anthropologists has been owing nor only to the usual reaction oí the sub-

shared an image oí these provinces as their political territory. The bureau-

fÑeld's antibodies against brash foreign intruders who do not respect the

cratic pilgrimage through colonial administrative space allowed for the

regnant doxa. It is also the result of considerable difficulty in grappling

conflation oí Creole national identity with a specific patria, or fatherland.

with the relationship between the bouk's general thesis ora nationalism

Anderson recognizes, however, that these two factors were present before the rise oí Spanish-American nationalisms at the end oí the eighteenth century, and he feels that they were insufficient to produce true nationalism. The third, and indispensable, factor was the rise oí print capitalism and, especially, oí newspapers. These papers allowed for the formation oí an idea oí "empty time' that was to be occupied by the secular process oí development between parallel and competing nations:

(which is often inspiring) and the fact that Anderson's view oí American independence is incorrect in a numher of particulars. My aim in Chis chapter is to carry out a comprehensive critique oí Imagined Conirnunlties, by which 1 mean a critique that interrogates both Che conceptual and the historical theses 1 shall do so by way oí a close study oí nationalism in the Spanish-American republics, and in Mexico particularly. Because this arca is, according to Anderson's formulation, the birthplace oí modero nationalism, it is a key to bis general thesis. On the other hand, the fertility oí Anderson's niasterfu1 book is such that criticizing its central thesis requires developing an alternative perspective, the seeds oí which are also presented hete.

Nntionafi . ni i^ ., Pr. ., bical Systea

[W]e Nave seco that the very conception oí the newspaper implies ihe refraction oí even "world events" roto a specific imagined world oí vernacular readers, and also how importan[ te that imagined community is an idea oí steady, solid simultaneity through time. Such a simultaneity ihe immense stretch oí the Spanish-American Empire, and the isolation oí its National,sn, as a Practica] Systern 5=

compone ni paró , nade ditti e nlt to imagine Mexican creoles inight learn months luter ut dcveiopmunts in L'ucnr,s A ires, ba r it would be through Mex ican newspa pees, flor those id thr ILr, de la Plata; and the event would

phasis on the "imaginar)'" qualiry oí narional communities is redundant-all communities are imaginary constructs--Anderson's emphasis on nationalism's imaginary qualiry is mcant ro signal that nations are not face-to-face

;tppcar as "si milar to rathcr iban pl.-f .,l' ce.rnts in Meato. In thls 111111 , the facturo

adherente to and identification with such a community Although the em-

nt ;ne tipannh \rncncan expericnce to gener-

ate a pennanent Spanish -Amunca-sido nationalism rodeos ehe general Icval ol development ol tapitalnm . and tochnoingy in tire late eighreenth cenurnv and thc'local" hackwanlnes „t pan.sh eapiralism and technology

communities, and therefore involve a charactetistic form of abstraction-' The imaginary quality of thc national community is also underlined for a political purpose, for Anderson is critica) of nationalism and so is intent on showing its historical conti ngency and its "invented" natureUnderstanding the "community' hall of Anderson's dehnition is, per-

in rclanon t0 the a1111111111 tra tivc 1treic1 ol t1 1 c1111 ) Ir L> () 31

haps, not as simple a matter, because community has a specific and limited Thus, because they emerge so early, Spanish-American nationalisms

connotation for the author "[the nation] is imagined as community be-

exhibit an oddity, which is that linguisrie identification does not coincide

cause, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail

with the territorial consciousness of Creole bureaucrats and newspaper

in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep comradeship. Ultimately

readers, thus allowing for tire emergente of both a series of individual nationalisms and for Pan-Spanish-American quasi-national identity. In most

it is this fraternity that makes ir possible, over the past two centuries, for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willingly to die for such

later (European and Asian) cases, linguistic identity would play a more

limited meanings" (7; my emphasis).

central and defining role-

This association between nationalism and sacrifice is consonant with

What the eye is ro the oover-that particular. ordinary eye he or she is boro

Anderson's guiding preoccupation at the time he wrote this book, which

with-language-whatever language hist(>rv has made bis or her mother-

was the troubling fact that socialist countries were fighting nationalist

tongue-is to the patrios Throsigh rhat language, encountered at mother's

wars, showing that nationalism could provide a kind of comradery that

knee and parted with only at the grave, pasts are restored, fellowships are

ran deeper than the solidarities of shared class interese This led Anderson

imagined, and futuros dreamed. í 154)'

to investigate nationalism's secret potency, its capacity to generate personal sacrifice. Correspondingly, the question of sacrifice is, for Anderson,

In short, Anderson explains the rise of Spanish-American nationalisms

the telltale sigo of nationalism, a fact that leads him to view nationalism

(Chilean, Peruvian, Bolivian) as the result of (a) a general distinction be-

as a substitute for religious community. Let us pause to consider this defi-

tween Creoles and Peninsulars, (b) a Creole political-territorial imaginary

nition before moving on to Anderson's historical thesis on the genesis of

that was shaped by the provincial character of the careers of Creole offi-

nationalism.

cialdom, and (c) a consciousness of national specificity that was shaped by

The first difficulty that must be faced is that Anderson's definition oí

newspapers that were at once provincial and conscious of parallel states.

nation does not always coincide with the historical usage of the term,

Once these early Creole nationalisms succeeded in forging sovereign

even in the place and time that Anderson identifies as the Bite of its inven-

states, they became models for other nations.t

tion (i.e., Spanish America, ca. 1760-1830; Anderson 1994, 65).

Definitions

The subtleties in the usage of the term nación can perhaps be introduced through an example. In 1784, Don Joaquín Velásquez de León, director of Mexico City's School of Mining, writes in La Gazeta de México that

In order tu decide whether this theory of rhe rise of nationalism is an acceptable account , we need tu understand precisely what Anderson means by nationalism , and whether bis definition corresponds in a useful way to the historical phenomena that are being explained. For Anderson , tire nation " is an iniagined political community-and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign ( 6) "Nationalism" is the N a ^ : o n .i i l s m . , , P r o . l : c : , l

1 said in my letter of the year 71 that the Machine that is calied of tire was easy to use and to conserve: but one year later, that is in 72,- the Excellent mister Don Jorge Juan, honor and ornament of our Nation in all sciences and mathematics, devoted himself to building that Machine in the Royal Seminary of Nobles of Madrid- (September 8, p. 13; my emphasis)

Nata as a Practica) System

System

6

_

7

=

In chis instance, Velásquez, who is writing to a predominantly Creole audience in the context oí a debate with Father J. Antonio Alzare, a famous Creole scientist and proronationalist, writes oí Jorge Juan that he is "an honor to our nation." The ambiguity of this formulation helps us understand the process of transformation that the semantic field oí the term nation was undergoing_ In the early cighteenth century, nación was defined strictu sensu as "the collection of inhabitants of a province, country, or kingdom."4 This definition is already quite ambiguous New Spain, for example, was a province (or several provinces), a country (or several countries), and a kingdom, just as Castile was a kingdom that encompassed several provinces and countries Thus, returning tu out example, the Castilian scientist Jorge Juan might not be oí the same nación as most oí the readers oí the Gazeta de Mexico- However, two further ambiguities in fact make this identification possible. First, the term nacional referred to "that which is characteristic oí or originares from a nation." Thus, Mexican Creoles could be oí the Spanish nation because they had their roots in Spain, were characteristic (propios) oí Spain, and so on_ A second ambiguity of the semantic field oí nación stems from the movement oí administrative reforms that Spain's enlightened despots set in motion around the middle oí the cighteenth century (the "Bourbon Reforms")_ Among other things, there was a concerted effort to streamline the territorial organization oí the empire, doing away with the idea oí the Spanish Empire as being composed oí a series oí kingdoms and substituting this notion with that oí a unified empireThus, from che viewpoint of Spain's colonies oí the late eighteenth century, the term nación could be used to pit peninsulares against Americans,

fueros enjoyed by its nobility and its citizens. It is important to note that in both oí these cases, sovereignty is not absolute -- popular sovereignty, but rather a limited form oí sovereignty comparable to that oí pater potestas or to arenas oí individual sovereignty granted by the doctrine oí free will.5 Thus, whereas Anderson's definition oí nationhood involves a sense oí the sovereignty oí a state over a territory, the Spanish definition vacillated between an increasingly unified but nonetheless ambiguous territorial definition and a definition around descent Both oí these forms involved specific fueros, in other words, access to limited forms oí sovereignty. It is pertinent to note that this notion survived the American independence movements, for example, in the usage oí the term Indian nations to refer to nomadic tribes in northern Mexico, or in the ambiguous referente oí the term república.Because oí the ambiguity in the ties between nation and blood, Spanish usage oí the term nación could be distinguished from a second term, patria (or fatherland), in such a way that a single land could be the patria oí more than one nación. This was, indeed, the case in most oí the Americas, which were conceived as plurinational patrias. This tense coexistente between a discourse oí loyalty to the land and one oí filiation through descent is visible in colonial political symbolism.' Common loyalty to the land was a concept that was available in Spanish political discourse at least since the sixteenth century but it was nonetheless not directly assimilable to the notion oí "nation." This ambiguity is at the basis oí the category oí "Creole" itself, which, as a number oí historians have shown, emerged in the midsixteenth century, but maintained an ambiguous relationship to Spanishness throughout the colonial periods The move to associate nation with Common subjection to the king was promoted by Charles III, who sought to diminish differences oí caste in

as Anderson has suggested. However, ir could also be used to emphasize the extension oí national identity by way oí lines oí descent and thus be

tial identification between nation and sovereignty was being buílt up by abso-

made into a synonym oí blood or Gaste and thereby provide a rationale for interna) divisions within colonial societies. Finally, the concept oí nación

Anderson's attention ("in the future the aborigines shall not be called

could be used as a sign oí panimperial identty. to its conneccion to territory and to bloodlines, it also had complex connections to sovereignty, and this was particularly so in the Americas. So, for instance, if someone took che "hloodline" definition oí nación, they might point to the varyingluieros inviolable legal privileges) attached to the Spanish and Indian republics as separate estates_ If, on the other hand, they identified nación with a kingdom or province, they could cite the .,, ['ra.ticnl

lutist monarchs, a fact that makes San Martín's dictum that so claimed Indians or natives, they are children and citizens oí Pero and they shall be

Moreover, if the referent oí the term nación was ambiguous with respect

Nnl^ona1 1 ,

favor oí a broad and homogenized category oí "subjects." Thus a tenden-

System

known as Peruvians" [Anderson 1994: 49-50]) iess oí a Creole invention than Anderson supposed9

A second significant problem for applying Anderson's definition to the Latin American case is that belonging to an imagined national community does not necessarily imply "deep horizontal comradery." The idea oí nation was originally tied to that oí lineage; members oí a nation could be linked by vertical ties oí loyalty as much as by horizontal ties oí equality. Na tlonallsm as a

Practica1 System 9

Thts is most obviously relevant \1 11111 aimidering the way in which age

appeal to community is as misleading as the idea that nationalism is neces-

and sex elit( r the picwreo¡ nauunal identity V'omen and ehildren eould

sarily a conimunal ideology of "deep horizontal comradery"; for, in order

and can very much ide ntity widh therr nations oven thotigh they are usual hí

to comprehend what nationalism is and has heen about, one must place it

not therr natlons represcnmtivc siihiccn Snnilarly a master and a seivant

in its context of use. The capacity to generate personal sacrifice in the

cuuld he parí I che lamo nanun sc nhuut having tu construct Chis tic as a

name of the nation is usually not a simple function ut communitarian

horizontal link based on fraterniw This is a fundamental pomt lur Spanish-rAmciican nationalism in che

imaginings ot comradery Ideological appeals to nationhood are most

nineteenth century, whcn ourpurations uich as indigenous communities

relationships, including the appeal no che defense of hearth and heme, or

often coupled with the coercive, moral, or economic force oí other social

haciendas inri guilds werc ovcn m,nc salicnt than thcy are today None-

the economic or coercive pressure ol a local community, or the coercive

theless, the point also has hruader signiticancc. Jürgcn Habermas (1991]

apparatus of che state itself

pointed out that the hourgeois publi( sphere in eighteenth century north-

Moreover, there are plenty oí examples oí nationalism spreading mosdy as a currency that allows a local community or subject to interpellate a state office in order to make claims based on rights oí citizenship.'t It is misleading to privilege sacrifice in the study oí nationalism, because the spread oí this ideology is more often associated with the formulation oí various sorts oí claims vis-á-vis the state or tward actors froni other communities. In sum, 1 have raised three objections to Anderson's definition oí nation and nationalism: first, the definition does not always correspond to historical usage; second, Anderson's emphasis on horizontal comradery covers only certain aspects oí nationalism, ignoring che fact that nationalism always involves articulating discourses oí fraternity with hierarchical relationships, a fact that allows for the formulation oí different kinds oí national imaginarles; third, Anderson makes sacrifice appear as a consequence oí the national communitarian imagining, when it is most often che result oí the subjecds position in a web oí relationships, some oí which are characterized by coercion, while others have a moral appeal that is not directly that oí nationalism.

ern Europe which was tied inextricably to che development of nationalism) was made up ideally of private cinzens. Nonetheless, the citizen's "private sphere encompassed his family, making the citizen at once an equal to other citizens (Andersons fraternal bond") and the head oí a household in which he might he the only full citizen. It would be a mistake, however, tu presuppose that nationalism was embraced only by che citizen and not by his wife and children. In more general terms, the horizontal relationship oí comradery that Anderson wants to make the exclusive trait of the nacional community occurred in societies with corporations, and the symbolism oí encompassment between citizens and these corporations is critica) to understanding the nation's capacity to generate personal sacrifices. Nationalists have fought battles to protect "therr" womcn, to gala )and for "therr" villages, to defend "their" towns, lt is just as true, however, that women, servants, family members, and, more generally, the members oí corporate communities or republics could send "therr" cinzens to war. In other words, citizens could represent various corporate bodies to che state, and they could represent the power of the state in there corporate bodies. In Spanish America che complexines of these relationships oí encom-

Toward an Alternative Perspective

passment (between che national state, cirizen, and various corporations)

in one oí his most brilliant moments, Anderson suggests that nationalism

have been widely recognized in analyses of conflicts between various lib-

should not be analyzed as a species oí "ideology" but rather as a cultural

eral and conservative factions in thc nineteenth century, and in the role of

construct that has affinity with "kinship" or "religion" (1994, 5). Anderson's

local communities in che wars uf independence themselves.1 1 The rela-

selection oí `decía horizontal comradery° as the defining element oí na-

tionship between the modern ideal oí sovereignty and citizenship and the

tionalism is his attempt to give meaning to this proposition. The essence

legitimate claims oí che corporations is indeed a central theme in nine-

oí nationalism for Anderson is that it provides an idiom oí identiry and

teenth and twentieth-century Laun American history.

brotherhood around a progressive polity ("the nation"). Following Victor

The third, and final, difliculry with Anderson's definition of national-

Turner, Anderson looks for the production oí this fraternity in moments

ism is his insistente on sacrifice as its quintessential symptom. The image

oí communitas such as state pilgrimages. He also explores the conditioris

oí nationalism as causing a lemminglike impulse to sacrifice because oí its

of possibility oí national identity, arguing that nationalism depends on a

Na t, on., rn , a Pr u, l ca l Sysleni

Natio nalisni as a Practica) Syst,.

10 =

t1 =

secular understanding oí time as empry" and oí the world as being made up oí nations whose progress unfolds simultaneously and differentially through Chis empry time Thus, for Anderson, che compelling aspect oí nationalism is its promise oí fraternity, and chis is, 1 believe, che most fundamental problem oí the definition. 1 suggested earlier that nationalism is an idiom that articulates citizens to a number oí communities, ranging froni family, to corporate groups, to villages and towns, to che nacional state. Thc connections between these communities are often themselves che suhstance oí nationalist discourse and struggle. It follows that che imagery that is used to build nacional sentiment cannot so readily be reduced to che brotherhood among citizens. In order ro define the nature of nationalist imaginings, we must ask questions such as: When and how is nationalism invoked in a man's relationship with his wife7 How is it depleved in the dealings between a small-cown schoolteacher and his villagers, or between an Indian cacique and a president7 For, in all of these cases, the ideology oí fraternity invoked by Anderson is being used to articulare hierarchies into che polity. The protection oí che nation then becomes the protection oí che family, or oí che village, or oí the race. My first amendment to Anderson's theory is thus that nationalism does not ideologically form a single fraternal communiry, because it systematically disti nguishes full citizens from parí citizens or strong citizens from weak ones children, women, Indians, the ignorant). Because these distinctions are by nature heterogeneous, we cannot conclude that nationalism's power stems primarily trom the fraternal bond that it promises to all citizens. The fraternal bond is critical, hut so are what one might cal] che bonds of dependence that are intrinsically a pare oí any nationalism. This leads to a second, chough mino' and derivative, amendment. The pride oí place that Anderson gives to sacrilice in his view oí nationalism is misleading, for if we accept that che national community is not strictly about equality and fraterniry, but rather about an idiom for articulating

nationalism can even be deployed by a peasant who resists induction roto the army. Finally, the very nature oí patriotic sacrifica is easily misconstrued if we do not pay close attention to the bonds oí dependence that are central to the national communiry-for citizens enlisted to go die in World War 1 not only because oí their fraternal ties with other volunteers or conscripts, but also because their families might reject them if they did not, or their communities might reject their families, and so on. In short, instead oí saying, as Anderson does, that che nation is a community `because, regardless oí the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, che nation is always conceived as a deep comradeship," 1 define the nation as a communiry that is conceived oí as deep comradeship among full citizens, each oí whom is a potential broker between che national state and weak, embryonic, or pare citizens whom he or she can construe as dependents. This brings us to a final question concerning the concept oí nationalism, which regards che relationship between the analytic definition oí nationalism and actual usage oí the tercos nation or nationalism. Although my revised definition would still exclude any form oí ethnic identification that did not strive for some degree oí political sovereigncy, 1 helieve that it has a greater capacity to include and distinguish between historical varieties oí nationalism. For instante, che ambiguity between a racial and a politicalterritorial definition oí nación that 1 cited earlier for the late-eighteenthcentury Spanish world is a refiection oí a specific moment in nation building that should not simply be called "prenational," because it involves a territorially finite state and a sovereign people, even though it tolerated significant differences between stations and even estates. Similarly, the peasant who has never seen a map or aided a census taker, and who has no notion oí why, say, "Germana' and "Guadalajara" are incommensurate categories, can still be a nationalist because he makes an appeal as a Mexican, or because he comes home to his wife late and drunk on che nght oí September 15 (Mexican Independence Day).

ties oí dependence to the state chrough cicizenship (fraternity), then the defense of che fraternal bond becomes one possible symptom oí nacionalism among severa¡ others.

In other words, che power ol nationalism is as evident in che gesture oí a Niño héroe who wraps himself in tire flag and dies for his country as it is in the gesture oí che peasant who invokes his cicizenship when petitioning for ¡and, or che small-town notable who claims that his villagers and himself descend from Aztec ancestors when he petitions for a school. In fact, Nat^anali.m ns a Yrariira1 System 12 =

Revised General Historical Thesis The fundamental thing about nationalism is that it is a productive discourse that allows subjects co rework various connections between social institutions, including, prominently, the relationship between state institutions and other social organizacional forms. As such, the power oí nationalism lies not so much in as hold en che souls oí individuals (though Chis is not insignificant) as in che fact that it provides interactive frames in Nationalism as

a Pract-iba¡ System 13 =

which the relattonship between ctao institnions and various and diverse

the case: national consciousness emerges as an offshoot of religious ex-

social reiationships r family relacion.h;pc. cite organization of work, the

pansionism_ 1 cite from Anderson once again to elarify what is at stake

detinition oI lorms of pr(>perty. nnd che regulation ot publie spaee) can he negotiated Thus one cotild 'erice a history ut nationalism that would Nave two bookcnds. one in sr hieh suc ,tic. vete not sulficiently dynamic and states were insulficiendy potent lor nationalism co emerge as a useful ,pace ol negotiation and contention and another in which states are no longer sullieiently potent and coniplex to he clic key actors ni che process of regulating what ,Nliehel foueault called biopower.' that is, che power tu administer a "population° and to regulate ns habits. Capitalism traverses

In che cocarse of the sixteenth ccntury , Enrope's "discovery' of grandiose eivllizations hitherto only dimly rumored in China, Japan, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent-ur completely unknown-Aztec Mexico and Incan Peru-suggested an irremediable human pluralism- Most of these civilizations had developed quite sepaiate from che known history ot Europe, Chriscendom, Antiquity, indeed man their genealogics ]ay outside oí and were unassimdable co Eden. ! Only homogeneous, empty time would offer them aceommodation.) (69)

this history from end to end. It is therefore misleading to begin che history ot nationalism at the end of che eighreenth century, and not at che beginning of the sixteenth centuryInstead oí positing che notion that nationalism emerged first in the Americas around the time ot independence, with the rise oí print capitalism, and that it is therefore scareely two hundred years old, the Spanish and Spanish-American cases suggest that nationalism developed in stages, beginning with European colonization in the sixteenth century or perhaps in the Reconquista. In fact, nationalisms developed along different, though interrelated, tracks, such that, as in che analogy between nationalism and kinship, one might locate diverse nationalist systems. 1 shall outline what Chis alternative perspective reveals for the SpanishAmerican case. 1 will argue for several moments in the development oí nationalism, each oí which involved a distinct interconnection between fraternity and dependency. This reinterpretation oí the history oí SpanishAmerican nationalism leads me identi f theoretical mistakes in Anderson's

This point of view is perhaps a true reflection oí the ways in which expansion was assimilated in England and the Netherlands, but it was not che cultural form that expansion took in Spain (or in Spain's strongest early competitor: the Ottoman Empire)." On che contrary, both the Spanish Reconquista and subsequent expansion into Africa and to America were narrated very much in the framework oí what Anderson describes in shorthand as "Eden." It is well known that Columbus and other explorers speculated on their proximity specifically to Eden, and to other biblical sites, when they reached che New World. That they attributed their success to God's design is evident in the ways in which they christened che land: islands and mainland being named alternatively for roya) and for spiritual sponsors (Isla Juana, Filipinas, and Fernandina alternating with San Salvador, Veracruz, Santo Domingo, etc.). Neither was this identity between conquest and the broader teleology oí Christendom abandoned once colonization set in.

general argument, including (1) false conclusions concerning the histori-

Franciscan missionaries interpreted their evangelizing mission in

cal connections between "racism" and nationalism, as well as between lan-

Mexico in terms that were consonant with the messianic scholastic phi-

guage and nationalism; (2) a misleading emphasis on che idiom oí frater-

losopher Joachim de Fiore (see Phelan 1970); the priest Mendieta, an

nity as the only available languagc oI nacional identity; (3) an incorrect or

apologist oí Hernán Cortés, derived many a moral from the marvelous

successional view oí the relationship between religion and nationalism

fact that Cortés had been born in the same year as Martin Luther, the one

(nationalism, for Anderson, replaces the universalistic claims oí religion,

to work for God in extending che true faith, che other tu work for the

yet Spanish nationalism was in fact hased on che national appropriation oí

devil.'^ In fact, the whule oí the conquistadoís "discourse oí the mar-

the true faith)

velous" was evenly peppered with elements oí popular literature (Marco Polo, Mandeville, Virgil, chivalry novels) and with biblical stories. Cine might argue, contrary to Anderson, that the success oí Charles V gave

FirstMoment in Spanish National Fonnation: Colonization

new lile and plausibility to a narrative oí Eden that had been much weaker

A fundamental error in Anderson's account of che history oí nationalism is

in che days oí Mandeville and Marco Polo, when the idea oí taking

his insistente un associating it with secularization. In the case of Spain,

Jerusalem and oí achieving the Universal Catholic Monarchy was beyond

whose formation as a nation is cercainly one of the earliest, the opposite is

any realistic expectation.

i\'' ,c tionali •,,

,, a P,a.l,ca1 Sys

N a ticnalisn, as a Practica 1 Sysle,n 15 =

But even after Spanish expansionism was waning, by the 1570s, the reIationship between the true faith and the ways oí local heathens was still told as parí oí the Christian eschatology, as is obvious both in narratives oí indigenous intellectuals such as Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala and in those oí seventeenth-century C:reole patriots, such as Mexico's Carlos

vacos] during their time oí arrival to those provinces, or any that may become unoccupied, to the Spaniards [ españoles ] living in them ... so that they may have them, enjoy their tribute, and give them the good treatment that is mandated in our laws."

national idea. The earliest formulation oí this occurred in the days oí the

Similarly, another law (1608) orders that "Oí the people in aid that the Viceroy might send from New Spain to the Philippines, he not allow in any way that mestizos or mulattos go or be admitted, because oí the inconveniences that have occurred" (book 3, title 4, law 15). Law 14, title 5, book 3 orders that arms builders cannot teach their art to Indians ; title 10, law 7 oí the same book prohibits military captains from naming slaves as standard-bearers in the army, while law 12 (1643) oí the same book and title orders army officials not to give " mulattos, dark ones [morenos], mestizos" the job oí soldier. Book 3, title 15, law 33 orders that the wives oí the members oí the Audiencia (high court) hear Mass in a specific part oí the chapel in the company oí their families, civil authorities , or women oí rank "and not Indian women, black women, or mulatas ." On the other

Spanish Reconquista, with the legal codification oí so-called blood purity (limpieza de sangre). Certificares oí blood purity, guaranteeing that the holder

hand, the king ordered that when viceroys and judges named a "protector oí Indians" (a kind oí free lawyer for Indians), "they should not elect

was an old Christian, were necessary in order ro hold office, to enter the church, or to enter certain guilds. Although the holders oí these certifi-

mestizos, because this is importan[ for their defense, and otherwise the Indians can suffer injuries and prejudice" (book 6, title 6, law 7); in other

cates were not identified as "Spaniards," but rather as "Old Christians,"

words, Spaniards, not mestizos, are the best and most appropriate defenders oí Indians. Examples can be multiplied.15

de Sigüenza y Góngora. Both oí these argued (in different ways) that the Aztecs and the Incas had been evangelized before the arrival oí the Spaniards, and had subsequently been led astray by the devil, only to be brought back into the fold by an alliance between the remaining loyal Indians (such as the Texcocans or rhe Tlaxcalans in Mexico, or Guamán Poma's own family in Peru) and the Spaniards. The significance oí this point for the history oí Creole patriotism has been extensively argued by both David Brading andjacques Lafaye. Not only was Spanish expansion told as part oí Christian eschatology, but the social organization oí the state that was being built during this expansion innovatively identified the church and church history with a

they were thought oí as a communiry oí blood and oí belief that had privileged access to the state.

In short, a concept oí "Spanish" emerged quickly for the colonization

This nationalization oí the church became much more significant with expansion to America. The whole oí the first chapter oí the Laws of the Indies

oí the Americas, and Spaniards were expected to take up a position oí spiritual , civil, and military leadership, The notion of Spanishness was for-

is in fact devoted to justifying Spanish expansion to the Indies as a divine grace extended to the king so that he might bring the trae faith to those lands. Moreover, holding political office or belonging to the privileged classes is also seen in relation to faithfulness to the church, as is evident in a law that threatens any nobleman or holder oí office with the loss oí all privileges if he takes the narre oí God in vain (libro 1, título 1, ley 25).

mally and legally understood as a question oí descent, and it therefore included "Creoles," even though contexts oí differentiation and discrimination between American-boro Spaniards and Peninsulars did exist from the mid-sixteenth century onward.16 This process oí differentiation was predi-

Leaning heavily on these formulas, the concept oí "Spanish" was created as a legal category oí identity in order to organize political lile in the Indies. Spanish authority involved moral and religious tutelage over other social caregories oí persons, including "Indians," "blacks," " mulattos," and "mestizos," and also served as a category differentiated from other European "foreigners" (extranjeros). For example, law 60, chapter 3, book 3 oí the Laws of the Indies (first written in 1558) grants "the Viceroys oí Peru the faculty to entrust (encomendar ) any Indians rhat may be unoccupied [indios que hubiere Na1,onalism as a

Prac t,c at Sys lem 16 =

cated not en blood, but rather on ideas concerning the influence oí the land en the character, makeup, and physionomy oí those borra in the Indies.17 The term criollo had, in fact, a derogatory slant, in that it tended to assimilate American-born Spaniards with other American-born castes, such as slaves or mestizos (Lavallé 1993, 20). Thus patriotism (in the sense oí exaltation oí the land oí birth) became central te the Creoles, because it was through a vindication oí the true worth oí the land that they could fully claim the inheritance of their blood.18 This tension between a nationalism based en communiry oí descent, and a patriotism based on a clear, delimited idea oí "Spain' (as opposed both to the Indies and to other NationaIismas

aPracticalSystem

= 17 =

Lampean holdings nl thc Spanish monarcli srould iemain important in Spain and in che Anaeucrs even altri indepen deneu The degrce to which Spaniards Spanish ncu and che Spanish language viere identiticd widt lile crac lailh and si ith inlizatton comes through ¡e lile test ul lile lollov, ing las' 1 -0 Having malle a dese examinaron U inccniiTl schethcr thc mysteries of our Holy Catholic Faith can be prohcrlc asplained in cvcn in che post perfect language n1 thc Indians it has ñeco r,, ng nizect thet chis is not possible witlrout i,icurring great dissonances and impenccuons - - So, having resolved that it would he huir to inruducc lile Gostil,an language, we order that tcachers he nade available to Indians s, Iio wish volu n taxi ly to ¡caro, and we have thought that diese may he lile e,icristrines.

In short, the Spanish language was not leen in the colonies as merely a convenient and profane vernacular, hut rather as a language that was closer lo Godao Language thusreflected lile process oí nationalization ojtbe charca, which líes at the center oí the history of Spanish (and Spanish-American) nationalisms, a point oí depai-wre that is at che opposite end oí the spectrum posited by Anderson, who inaagined that secularization was in every case at che root oí nacional ism. The civil Ieadership of Spaniards over Indians and others is laid out in a number oí laws and practices, including in laws concerning the layout oí Spanish towns and streets; in tire superiority oí Spanish courts to Indian courts (Indian magistrates ceuld )al] mestizos or blacks, but not Spaniards); and, more fundamentally, in that the laws oí Castile served as the blueprint for those oí che Indies and for every other realm in che Spanish domain (book 2, title 1, law 2 115301 , "That che Laws oí Castile be kept in any matter not decided in those of che Indies"). In sum, che concept oí español, as a community oí blood, asseciared wlth a religion, a language, a civilization, and a territory, emerged rather quickly in tire course oí che sixteenth century.

Second Moment of Spanish Nalionalisni Decline in the European Theater The first moment oí Spanish national construction was, tiren, quite different in spirit and content from that posited by Anderson; Spanishness was built out oí an idea oí a privileged connection te the church, Spaniards were a chosen peeple, led by monarchs that had been singled out by che

Figure 1.1. Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, patrona de la Nueva España, anonymous

pope with the tale of "Catholic" As Old Christians, they were the true

eighteenth-century painting. Collection oí the Museum of che Basilica of

keepers of lile faith and theretore lile only viable polirical, moral, and

Guadalupe. In chis painting, Guadalupe, patroness of Mexico, is bridging Europe and New Spain. For Hidalgo, that bridge crumbled with tse Napoleonic inva-

li1t ,s , r.,.:^ca, System lh

sien of Spain, and divine grave, embodied in this apparition, is rooted entirely in Mexican sesil.

economic elite .2' The conquistadores were thus instantly a kind oí nobility in the Indies and "Spaniards" were che dominant caste. In short, Spanish nationality was built on religious militancy: descent and language al¡ rolled into a notion oí a nacional calling to spiritual tutelage in the Americas and throughout che world. The Spanish language in che Indies was not simply an arbitrary tongue among others, it was the suitable language in which to communicate che mysteries oí che Catholic faith. Even today in Mexico, hablaren cristiano ("to speak in Christian") is synonymous with speaking in Spanish. Similarly, che Spanish bloodline-for Spanishness usually included American-born Spaniards-had a special destiny with regard to che true faith. Relativism was not at the origin oí Spanish nationalism, nor did che discovery oí the Indies dislocate Christian eschatology in any fundamental way. "Eden," as Anderson calls it, was maintained as the framework for histories that explained and situated Aztecs, Incas, and the rest of them.22 Spain's precocious consolidation as a state allowed for the rise oí a form oí national consciousness that was distinct from the relativist vocation oí Britain and the Netherlands, whose entry to che game oí (early) modero state and empire as underdogs made them fertile ground for the development oí liberalism and, eventually, oí truly modero forms oí nationalism that are more akin to those described by Anderson.23 On che other hand, Spain's rapid decadence in the European theater both consolidated and exacerbated national consciousness in peculiar ways. Horst Pietschmann (1996, 18-24) has summarized the development oí Spanish economic thinking oí the ¡ate sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, arguing that thc administrative reforms oí the Bourbons in che eighteenth century were not a simple importation oí French administrative ideas, but rather that they combined che latter with a native body oí economic and administrative theories and projects devoted to finding remedies for che economic decline oí Spain. Aniong these, Pietschmann's

J aL A A, n:.. ..

Figure 12_ La virgen de Guadalupe escudo de oilud coruva l a epidetn(a del Matlazahuail de 1716-1738, a nonymous engraving , 1743. Col¡ ccti on uf the Museum oí the Basilica oí Guadalupe - Here che patroness ot iSMcxico is protecting the city's inhabi tants against the plague.

summary and discussion oí che influential work oí Luis Ortiz (1558) is pertinent for my argument here

Ortiz argued that Spain was poor because it only exported raw materials and then reimported rhem in che form oí manufactured goods. The Spaniards' disdain for manual labor contributed to the underdevelopment of industry, as did che progressive depopulation oí che countryside. As a partial remedy, Ortiz urged that laws enhance ehe prestige of manual labor: "these should he extended even to che extreme that the state force al] young men (including che nobles) to learn a trade, with che penalty that they would otherwise lose their nationality" (Pietschmann 1996, 19). Na tionalism

as a Practica! 21

System

Thesc rcconimcndations and othurs like them, hecome a staple of seventeenth-century econonnc prt,iccts and studies, call loe the strengthening el the Crown for the pcopling ,,l thc country and for leveling sume differences bctv, een the variou, ,tations.',uch recommen da ti ons are concived as a matter ol natioiial lit, t_,1 and in Urtizs case, proposed pena¡ [Les for tailure tu comply induje lo,s uf nationalityThree points concernimg thi, intd lectual tradinon are pertinent for

trouhles of the country had a truly wide audience [ in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centurias j . since thc majority of thcir projects were printed, and we even find their ideas repearedly in the works oí writers like Cervantes" (1996, 23 Thus , competition betwccn states , and a consciousncss of relative decline were required tu promote and justtty programs of economic and admi nistrative reform . As a resulr, this mode oí

understanding the history ot nationalism Ti the Spanish world: hrst, a na-

imagining time liad long been available tu the cures , and cannot oí i tselt explain the risa oí Spanish-American nationalism , although it does suggcst

tional consciou,ness seas exaccrhatcd hv thc pcrccption of Spain's me cas-

an earlier son oí Spanish collectivc c onsciousncss"

ing backwardness vis-) vis rts cunq>etltors econd, the solutions that were

A final citation from Pietsehmann who is my principal authority in this

proposed l policies concerning track populaticn. education, work, admin-

matter, summarizes my point concerning Chis second phase : "[T]ogether

istrative rationalization, etc. i also callad systcntatically [oí a diminution oí

with the affirmation oí the Catholic religion (the Spanish Enlighten-

regional differences and policy reforms that involved conceptualizing a

ment was qualified as being specifically Christian , and it had its reformist

people in a finite territory, under a more streamlined and tendentially

current in Jansenism), we find also the patriotism oí the Enlightened

more equal izi ng admi nistrati on, third, the idea of re lative decline and oí

thinkers, a fact that differentiates them from the cosmopolitanism oí

competition involved a keen sense of °empty time" (that is, of secular com-

Enlightenment thinkers in France and other European countries. This

petition between states progressing through time) before the advent oí "print capitalism," a fact that is obvious not only in the economic litera-

patriotism , that gave the Spanish Enlightenment a strongly political character, was expressed in the desire that Spain reconquer its earlier eco-

ture, but in al] manner oí military and contra e reial policy.

nomic florescence and its política] position as a power oí the first order"

There is in fact sonie confusion in Andersons analysis oí empty time. Following Walter Benjamín, Anderson defines homogeneous or empty time as "an idea ... in which simultanelty is, as it were, transverse, crosstime, marked not by prefiguring and fulfillment, but by temporal coincidence" (1991, 24). The novel and the newspaper are artifacts that popularre this conception oí time, in that their protagonista can act independently oí one another and still have a meaningful relationship to each other only because the characters belong to the lame sodety and are being connectcd in the mind oí the same reader Thc question that this analysls poses to a historian oí the Iberian world is whether the novel and the newspaper were the first cultural artifacts that frame events and ates in "empty time-" The answer is that they were not.

Government policy making in the Spanish world was running en empty time long before the industrialization of print media, and elites, Creole and Spanish, were well aware oí this. Plans and programs for streamlining administration, disciplining thc workforce, rationalizing tariffs, and improving transportation systems were discussed and predicated un the recognition of the parallel and sinwltancous development oí the great European powers- titorcovcr there discussions were widely known and debared, as Pietschmann reminds us: "[1 deas concerning the economic Nat'o',alism

a , „ P , . ', t' al Sys1rrn

(1996, 25).

In the eighteenth century , under the Bourbons , the discussions oí the prior century and a half were reanimated , and they generated a series oí administrative reforms. These reforms were , once again , built on the patriotic and national consciente that had developed since the Conquest, a consciente that simultaneously produced a clearly delimited image oí "Spaió" as a land , and oí "Spaniards" as a nation (even though there was no isomorphism between the nation and Spain).'s As an example oí the Spanish imagined community that was being constructed through these reforms , 1 offer the following vignette, taken from the Careta de México ( November 3, 1784 ), describing the celebration oí the birth oí royal twins and the signing oí a peace treaty with France and the United States in Madrid : " Rarely shall there be a motive for greater complacency, nor more worthy oí the jubilation oí the Spaniards, than the happy birth oí the two twin infantes, and the conclusion oí a peace so advantageous to the national interests " ( my emphasis). Having identified both the subjects oí the ritual as Spaniards and the interests being served by the twin birth and by the peace treaty as "national ," the Gazeta de México goas on to narrare the public festivities that marked the event, especially the content oí a series of allegorical floats (carros alegóricos): Nati on d liara as a Practica1 System 23 =

1 st Floao Adanes Holding die Sky The first float is preceded by drums, trumpets, pages, heralds, and eight couples oí both sexes, six oí artisans, one of farmers [hortelanos], and one oí field hands [labradores], each with che instrument oí its profession. They are followed by che orchestra and irnmediacely thereafter by a super float, pulled like che rest by six horses, in which the stacue oí Atlantis, character. ized with severa) mottos, holds che sky. Our August Monarch Charles 111 holds with his heroic virtues and happy government che Spanish Monarchy. The love o[ che Spaniards venerares in os glorious Monarch che Princes and the Royal Family, so worthy also of che )ove that is bestowed to chem by tbe Nation.

Here we have, in an officially sanctioned bulletin published in Mexico City, the portrayal oí a Spanish nation-a nation, represented by farmers, agricultura] workers, and artisans, protected by a nacional monarch, who holds up the sky over their heads like Atlas. Both che monarchy and the people are called "Spanish" here, and che publication oí this in Mexico is clearly meant te make this national celebration inclusive at the very least co a Creole audience. Yet che terricory of "Spain is clearly limited in che ritual, in a way that diverges from the inclusive term nación: 5th Floao Spain Jubilan[ because of che Birth oí che Infantes The las[ float . is preceded by eight couples on horseback, armed with lance and shleld. Then two pagos, and vine couples that indicare the different provinces oí Spain, whose costumes they wear. They are accompanied by an orchestra, to which they respond with dances of their respective provinces.

The description oí a series oí allegories portraying Spain goes en in detail and is summed up in che following analysis:

At the same time, che inclusiveness oí che category oí "Nation" appears to be a bit broader ehan che Spanish terricory that is so clearly delimited, because it includes the readers oí che Gazeta de México, who are fully expected co share in the joy oí the occasion. Around the time oí this festivity, Charles 111 would try te implement administrative reforms that would more clearly make the territorial image oí Spain inclusive oí the Indies in a way that paralleled the inclusive potencial oí the concept oí the Spanish nation.

Third Moment: Bourbon Reforms and Independence The high point oí chis reformist movement, in the late eighteenth century under Charles III, involved trying to make Spain and its colonies into a closed economic space, with a relatively streamlined administration, an active financial and economic policy, a decentralized administration and army. This imperial unity was known as the Cuerpo unido de Nación (Unified body oí nation; Pietschmann 1996, 302), and its administrative organization was clearly the precursor oí the state organizations that were generated with independence,

Interestingly, however, these reforms were promoted not only as a response lo a feeling oí backwardness and oí nostalgia for past nacional glories, but also te face che political threats posed both by the British navy and che American Revolution. The former threat in particular made the decentralization oí administration an importan[ strategy for the fortification oí the empire. This system oí decentralization and administrative rationalization also involved promoting a view oí industry and oí public interest that is significant in the formation oí a modern form oí nationalism, based en individual property, a skilled and well-policed workforce, and a bourgeois public sphere.

The interpretation of chis float is easy. Spain is represented in che greatest surge oí its happiness as a resulr oí che birth ol the two SERENE INFANTES, by

Two divergent tendencies are produced with these administrative, religious, and educacional reforms. On the one hand, the formation oí the idea

[newly signed peace], by its producrs, by its main rivers, by its Sciences,

oí a Gran España, made up oí Iberia and the Indies together, with a population oí subjects Lending toward greater internal homogenization under

Arts, Navy, Commerce, and Agriarlture, all of which e; fomented by our august sovereign, facilitating for Chis Illuscrious Nation che abundante and opulence that is promised by its fernlc soi] and che constancy oí ics loyal and energetic inhabitants.

In short, a clear image oí Spain, represented by a modero idea oí the public good (wich great prominence given co arts and industry, natural resources, and the customs oí che various folk), is present in this state ritual. Naiionalism as a

Praci ical

24 =

System

increasingly bourgeois forms of political identity, en che other, the consolidation oí the various administrative units-the viceroyalties and the new "intendancies"_as viable state units, each with its own internal financia] administration and permanenc army. These contradictory tendencies are in fact incimately related: en the one hand, the administrative consolidation oí transatlantic political units was che only logical means te shape a strong Gran España; en the other, Natioualism as a Practica1 System =25=

political crisis Froni the seventeenth century on, the armada from Spain liad to struggle to ntake successful voyages to the Americas, and there were moments when the armada was entirely incapable oí managing Spanish-American trade Creater administrative and military autonomy would provide another line ol imperial detense. Thus, at the lame time that the "political viability" and the "emotional plausibility" oí the viceroyalties were strengthened pollncally by the new system oí intendancies and deologically through a new emphasis on the public good through industiy and education, so too was the notion oí a truly panimperial idenriry closer at hand than ever hefore.

These contradictory tendencies are in evidente at the time oí independence: first, in the parallels between tire American War oí Independence and the "war of independence" oí Spain against the French invaders; second, in the fact that the liberal Constitution oí Cádiz (1812) defined "Spaniards" as all oí the people who were born in the Spanish territories, with no differences made between Iberia and the Indies. Figure 1. . Ex-oolo gining Ibanks lo tbe oi rg is: of Cuadal upe f o r a successful medica¡ opera tion, anonymous, 1960. Re¡ornier of the c[ghLeen th century were convinced that divine protection and Interjecti on were not i n conlbct aith modernizat, t i a and modern technologies. This has been a persutent [heme in Mexican nationalism In this ex-voto of 1960, the Virgin of Cuadalupes llght shines in the operating room.

the very process oí consolidating their viability made independence al] the easier to imagine . Alexandcr von Humboldt's voyage and writings en Spanish America are a good example of this conundrum. Whereas in the Laves of tbe Indies, which is a compilation made in 1680, printed materials about the Indies were banned frota [hose lands , and foreigners were outlawed from going beyond the ports of the Indies, Humboldt received a roya) commission to travel thcre, and authorities were asked to give him all oí their statistics and any in formation he might find useful. Humboldt's publications on the political economy oí the Indies followed the spirit oí the Bourbon reforms, as well as Cerman cameralist administrative theory, by treating each principal administrative unit (mainly viceroyalties) as a coherent whole, with a population, an economy, a map, and so on. The administrative consolidation of viceroyalties, intendancies, and other political units was occurring not as a ploy to keep Creoles boxed into their administrative unas, but ratheu to strengthen the general state oí the empire, and tu give each segment a greater capacity to respond to a N a t i o n a l i s m gis

e p roo i ,cal S y s t e m 26 =

Fourtb Moment. The Rocky Road to Modera Nationalism (Mexico 181o-29) In Latin America, the road ter national modernity was particularly cumbersome. This was owing to the early date of independence movements, a fact that resulted not so much from the force oí nationalist feeling in the region as from the decadente oí Spain in the European forum.36 As a result oí this, the new countries faced stiff interna¡ and foreign- relations problems, and it is in the context oí [hese problems that a functioning nationalism developed. The fourth moment in the evolution oí Spanish-American nationalism can best be understood as one in which the dynamics of independent postcolonial statehood forced deep ideological changes, including a sharp change in who was considered a national and who a foreigner, a redefinition oí the extension oí the fraternal bond through the idea oí citizenship, and of the relationship between religion and nationality and between race and nation. This process oí radical transformation occurred alongside the emergence oí a new form oí popular politics, in which social movements cut across the boundaries oí villages and castes, regions and guilds. The Spanish-American revolutions may seem "socially thin" to some contemporary observers (Anderson 1991, 49), but they were by far the most "dense" social and political movements that Spanish America had had since the Conquest. In this section, 1 explore the dynamics of [hese Nationalism as

a e-ractica1 System

Mexican independence, Hidalgo and Morelos, who were secular priests, claimed to be fighting for the sake of religion. Here, for instante, is a formulation by Morelos: Know that when kings go missing Sovereignry resides only in the Nation,7 know also that every nation is free and is authorized ro form the class of government that ir chooses and not te be the slave oí anothcr; know also (for you undoubtedly have hcard rell of rhis) that we are so far from heresy that our srruggle comes down to defending and protecring in all oí its rights our holy religion, whlch is rhe aim of our sights, and ro extend the culr of Our Lady the Virgin Islary. (Morelos 1812, 199)

Morelos and Hidalgo accused rhe Spaniards oí betraying their trae Christian mission and using Chrisrianity as a subterfuge for the exploitation of the Americans.27 To uphold the true Christian faith was also to drive out al] Spaniards who had milked the Mexicans of their native wealth and who had driven rhem to abjection. These early movements failed. Morelos and Hidalgo were executed, and alrhough their followers continued rhe fight, independence was not to be achieved under the leadership of this particular ideological wing_ Instead, an alliance was captained by Agustín Iturbide, who had been a loyalist army officer and who enjoyed the backing of a sizable fraction oí New Spain's elite. lturbide's Plan de Iguala gave Spaniards ample guarantees of full inclusion in the new republic. _ The backers oí Morelos (including pardos, Indian village communlties, local artisans and merchants) were led by Vicente Guerrero and backed a political program that would eventually gel roto what Peter Guardino has called "popular federalism" (1996, 120-27; 179-86). The popular radicals oí the 1 820s were interested in lowering taxes and broad electoral enfranFigure 1 4_Sa1or Reina de la Arnérrc, L? ion hy Gonzalo Carrasco (1859-1936), n. d.

chisement. They favored the formation oí municipal boundaries and institutions that would help villagers defend their lands, gave free rein to anti-

Collection oí die Muscum of thc Basílica of Guadalupe. Guadalupe here is the

Spanish sentiment, and sought to implement a liberal system modeled en

patroness of Spanish-American sovercignty Th, image also underscores Mexicos

that of the United States. The elite of this group carne to be associated

presumptive role at the head ol the Spanish-Anierican con federati on.

with rhe Freemasons of the rite of York, and they supported a movement to expel the Spaniards from Mexico_

transformations through a discussion of certain key events in early independent Mexico (18 10-29). As Andiony Pagden has shown, Creole patriotism was predicated on Spanish political philosophy. In the Iberian world, sovereignry was granted by ((>d to the people, who in furo ceded it to thc monarch. It is therefore nos surprising that the early fathers of

In 1828 a yorquino-backed coup led ro the looting oí the market oí the Parián in Mexico Ciry, where wealthy Spanish merchants had their shops, and the expulsion of the Spaniards from Mexico followed shortly afrer.21 Thus Mexican nationalism went from excluding Spaniards in rhe early independence movement, to including rhem at independence, to excluding rhem again, all in a very short lapso of time.

Narionn lien^ .i^ Pear..al Sys tea 28

Natioriui 5,n

,rn a Iractlcal 29

Systea

Thc very viulence Di the iti, ologieal transionn a ti ora of early Mexican

dent, Guadalupe Victoria --so much so that when US. ambassador Joel

nationalism suggests that a general Ti absti,ict "nationalism" does not help

Poinsett arrived can che sccnc in 1825 , he saw gaining some oí the terrain

in undcrstanding thc speciiio ot tts eontcnu or as dynamics of propaga-

that tire United States liad already ceded to che British as his most formi-

tion In fact jusc as che noticio of kinshils s in abstraction of such a gen-

dable cask."' Poinsett naakcs a sustained cffort to huild a pro-Ameriean

eral leve) that it can obtuscate clic natura d thc practicas that are being

party to councer British intluence in Mexico Part ol Poinsetts well-

summed up ¡Ti the ealegory, so tus, can see say that Anderso«s cultural ist

calibered strategy included aid in che organization of Masonic lodges co

reading oí nationalism is to such a (legrar general and abstract thar it fails

counter those affiliated ro che Scottish rite, arad he attached these Masons

to clarify che polities ot cono uunitt przxluecion.

co che rite oí York (chartercd by che lodge in Philadelphia). These two

lile speciiio fonnulations ut thc natura ol clic nation and of who was included and who was excluded undcnvent dramatic. shifts that cannot be attributed ro changes in conaciousness gained by new naaps or censuses

Masonic organizations t, ould funccion as political parciies" in Chis early period.' Both che Scottish and che Yorkish Masons tried to monopolize as many

(Humboldt was still the maro scuice chal people drew en in this period).

government posts as they could. As the competition between the escoceses

Nor do these shifts respond lo ara intensification oí travel or oí che

and the yorquinos became embittered, che Ameriean causé' (oí York) be-

strength oí bureaucratic networks acioss che territory. The formation oí

gins to identify the Masons oí the Scottish rite with imperialist European

Mexican nationalism can be understood in rciation to the political condi-

interests, especially with Spanish interests. This allowed the yorquinos to

tions oí its production_ These condi Horas mere determined as muela by the

distract attention from tire US-British rivalry, and it promised co yield

new nation's position in an international order as by the fact that it did not

juicy dividends co yorquinos in che form oí Spanish property, because the

have a national ruling class-

Spaniards were still che most prosperous sector oí Mexico's population.

This latter point requires elaboration. At che time oí independence, Spanish-Ameriean countries did not hace a Creole bourgeoisie that could serve as a nacional dominant class. Domestic regional economies were not

The escoseses, for their pare, because they were losing che contest for national power, denounced the role of Joel Poinsett as a foreigner creating che parry oí yorquinos and the very existente oí "secret societies."

well articulated Yo each other; much of che transatlantic merchant elite

Thus, it is in che competition between two secret societies for full con-

was Spanish; mining capital often required foreign partnerships. Thus che

trol over che apparatus of che state that two critical aspects oí Mexican na-

Creole elite was a regional elite, and not a national bourgeoisie. Only two

tionalism get consolidated: nationalism as an excluding ideology (even as

institutions could conceivably serve co articulare the national space: the

a xenophobic ideology)-seen both in che move co expel the Spaniards

church and che military. The milicary, however, was not a unified body, be-

and in che move to expel Poinsett; and nationalism as an ideology that

cause it was led precisely by regional caudillos, many oí whom controlled

makes public access to the state bureaucracy a cornerstone oí its ideology.

their own milicias. The church, on che other hand, articulated the national

These aspects oí nationalism reinforce one another because neither of che

space in ternas oí credit to some extent, and also ideologically, but it could

two Masonic parties can afford the luxury oí identifying entirely with for-

not serve as a national dominant class

eign interests (because each needs to attack a different foreign powerthe yorquinos want to attack British and Spanish interests, che escoseses are

In Chis context, uniting regional leaders inco national factions was necessary. In che early years after Mexico's independence, Freemasonry had Chis

opposed to U.S. interests), and neither can openly admit that it merely

role.co It was through Masonry that regional elites forged interregional net-

wishes to control the bureaucratic apparatus.

works that con Id prefigure the national burcaucracy after independence.

and political concessions Froni (lit govcrnnaent of Mexico's first presi-

Finally, the links between religion and nationalism should not be taken as constant. Although early Mexican patriotism was identified with a superior loyalty to che Catholic faith, arad Mexican nationalists vehemently excluded other faiths from che national order, both the British and the Americans coincide in their interest in propagating freedom oí religion. Consequently, some degree oí religious tolerance was necessary to maintain trade with England and che United States, and che polarization oí the

.A4^ ,0ra clic., Sys trm

N a t i o,t a l i s m a s a Pra ctica 1 S y s t e m

When independence was anained, nnich oí Mexico's political elite helonged to Masonic lodges organized in the Scottish rice. These elites were well disposed co Britain and, indeed, Great Britain was che first great power to recognize Mexico Not surprisingly, George Ward, who was Britain's first anthassador co ixlexico was able to reap nunaerous economic

311

31 =

political spectrum ended up producing a jacobin camp that was absent in the early postindependent period. Eventually, church properties would be to jacobins what Spanish properties had been to yorquinos in 1829: a source oí wealth that could be the spoils for political expansion in a period oí little economic growth. In chis fashion, Mexico consolidated a nacional state with a nationalism built on three principies: che defense against foreigners, the defense oí open political parties instead of secret societies (and oí an understanding oí the state as a normative order rather than as a governing caaes), and the (uneven) extension oí the beneflts oí nationalism to popular levels (whether througb the abolition oí tribute, oí guild restrictions, oí church tithes, oí distribution oí nacional lands, che distribution oí spoils from the Spaniards, the distribution oí goods oí new technologies). These three pillars are in part rhe unintended result ol the contest oí the secret societies, supported by two imperialist states, for control over the state apparatus. These secret societies, in turn, functioned thanks to the cleavages oí economic and political interests that cut across nacional lines or that did not reach "up" to the nacional leve) at all. In short, the bases oí communitarian feeling, criteria oí inclusion and exclusion in the nation, the imagination oí a territory, and the very conceptualization oí nacional fraterniry were shaped in the political fray.

Conclusion The cultural density oí the phenomenon oí nationalism líes in the politics oí its production and deployment Nationalism combines the use of transnationally generated formulas, ranging from legal formulations to state pageantry, with a politics that is inextricably local. A dense or thick description oí nationalism is therefore a necessary step for understanding its cultural characteristics.

The Spanish-American and Mexican cases present a significant historical problem for Anderson's conceptualization because in Spain nacional construction began with an appropriation oí the church, and not with a relativization of "Eden." Spanish was seen as a modern form oí Latin, and therefore was more appropriate for communicating the faith than indigenous languages. In a related vein, "yace" was central to early modern Spanish nationalism, insofar as descent from Old Christians was seen as a sigo oí a historical tie to the faith, a sigo that gave its owners control over the bureaucratic apparatus of both church and state. Moreover, the concept oí "empty time" was present in the Spanish Nat,Onallsm

n,: a Prac^,cal System

world long before print capitalism, beginning with the decline oí empire and Spains failure to attain a universal monarchy. Thus, Spanish economic thought formulated the notion oí a national economy beginning in the mid-sixteenth century. The administrative constructs that allowed for the imaginings oí a people tied to a territory can be dated back to the sixteenth century, when both colonial expansion and the defense oí the empire against European powers led to the consolidation oí the notion oí "Spain' and oí "Spanards." As Spain continued to decline in the European forum, state reforms tended to target political middlemen in an attempt to substitute regional political classes with a bureaucracy, to consolidare an idea oí a nacional territory, and to shape a Greater Spanish Nation made up oí subjects that tended increasingly toward an internal uniformity visó-vis the Crown. Finally, independence itself, as Anderson recognized, was not the product oí cultural nationalism, but rather oí the decline oí Spain's capacity to run its overseas territories. As a result, much oí the specific content oí modern nationalist ideology, such as the notion that politics should be public, or that religion should not be a criterion for choosing a trading partner, or that a Spaniard is not a Mexican even if he sympathizes with the Mexican cause, was the cultural product oí independence, and not its precondition. On the theoretical front, the Latin American case leads me to modify Anderson's definition oí nationalism in order to stress botín fraternal tres and bonds oí dependence in the imagined community. It is in the articulation between citizenship and nationality that various nationalisms derive their power. As a result, sacrifice is not the quintessential feature oí nationalism, but rather one oí a number oí possible signs and manifestations. In addition, because Anderson's ideas concerning the necessiry oí cultural relativism as a precondition for nationalism are incorrect, it follows that his theoretical emphasis on the centrality oí language over race in nationalism can also be questioned. In the case oí Spain, at least, "racial" identity (in the dense oí a bloodline) was coupled with linguistic identity for the formation oí an opposition between "Spaniards" and "lndians," and it was descent from Oid Christians who had fought holy wars that made Spaniards a chosen people. Like kínship and religion, nationalism has come in various strands. In the early modern period, we must distinguish between the nationalism oí a chosen people, such as that oí Spain, and the defensive nationalism oí the British or the Dutch, who created nationalist ideals in order to affirm their right to maintain and sanctify their own traditions. Both oí these Nat,onai,sm as a Practical System 33 =

fornis contia, t with the highly unsiablc nati unalist tomula ti ons of early postcolonial Spanish America AdUtmallants tamily free reaches baek to the very birth of the modem w01 ¡TI and ideas cl political community that lave emerged sincc then are buth muro and Icss than a cultural suecessor ot che rellgious community

2

Communitarian Ideologies and Nationalism

This chapter, first published in 1993, is the earliest of the essays in this book. It iras written for a wide audience, with the aim of províding very general historical parameters for the study of Mexican communitarian ideologies.

The territory now known as Mexico has always been occupied by diverse human groups that speak different languages and have significant variations in belief and customs. Mexican nationality is not a historically transcendent entity. On the contrary, it is the historical product of the peoples who have inhabited those lands. The goal of this chapter is to identify communitarian ideologies that have played salient roles in the formation and transformation of national ideology in Mexico. Today it is common to assert that nationalism is a communitarian fiction. However, the nation is a kind of community that coexists with others, either as a complementary form oras a competing form of community, and strategies for identifying the communitarian ideologies that are pertinent for the study of nationality are a matter that requires attention. Max Weber defined communal relations as a type of social relationship wherein action is'based on the subjective feeling of the parties, whether affectual or traditional, that they belong together."i Thus al] communal relations, N a l i o n a l i, ni ., , e

P r,, , i i c a l

Syste^

35 =

including family relations, are hased on subjective feeling and en fictions regarding the social whole, and who "we" are In this chapter, 1 analyze communitarian ideologies by identifying the goods that each community marks as inalienable- This strategy is based en Annette Weiner's discussion oí exchange- In contrast to classical (Maussian) models of exchange, which inspected the role of the reciprocal exchange oí goods for building ties of solidarity, Weiner focused en the goods that people decide that they cannot exchange: inalienable goods.2 In so doing, she showed that reciprocal exchanges not only assert solidarity; they also chape systems oí social differentiation. The objects that are exchanged in relations oí reciprocity also underline by omission or by implication the resources that will not be exchanged. The relationship between the various things that each exchange partner withholds and keeps out oí circulation objectifies a system oí social differentiation. This idea is useful for describing how communitarian ideologies are constructed. The totalizing visions that underlie communitarian relationships are always based en definitions of goods or rights that are common and inalienable te al]. The relationships oí differentiation that are later constructed within and between communities are defined with reference to the series of goods that are inalienable ro the group. In out case, examining the nation's inalienable goods clarifies how Mexicanness has been formed. National feelings are presented as inherited "primordial loyalties." One is burn and dies with them and they are passed un: children must also inherit them- This characteristic oí nationaliry-its ideology oí transcendence-can be grasped by studying the communitarian goods and rights that are considered inalienable because they embody the material transcendence Oí the community. My aim in this chapter is to use che inalienable communitarian possessions to identify the principal types of communitarian ideologies that facilitated or blocked the formation of the feeling oí Mexican nationaliry .

and (4) ancient Nahua notions correspond at many points with those oí other Mesoamerican groups. My aim in considering the Aztecs is not to affirm the precepts oí traditional Mexican nationalism, which always saw the grandeur oí the Aztec city as the founding moment oí Mexican nationality. Rather, it is to understand the nature oí Aztec communitarianism so that we may better identify its potential for modern nationalist thought. When discussing Aztec notions oí community, it is necessary to consider kinship, territory, cultural formulations oí subordination and domination, and ideas about civilization and barbarism. In the Aztec period, indigenous states' areas oí influence did not correspond to the limits oí a single linguistic or territorial community. The great cities oí Tenochtitlán, Texcoco, and Azcapotzalco housed migrants from many areas, including speakers oí various languages. The great tlatoani oí Tenochtitlán was the lord not only oí the Nahuatl speakers oí Tenochtitlán, but also oí Otomis, Mazahuas, Zapotecs, and many others, some oí whom had been forcibly brought to the city as slaves, while others were migrants, members of guilds, and merchants. Pre-Hispanic states were thus not meant to represent a cultural community in the contemporary sense oí the term, although communitarian ideas certainly existed. These notions developed around a discourse el kinship (that is, oí alliance and descent) between living and dead people, as well as between kin groups and land. The cornerstone oí the sense oí community in the Aztec period was the institution oí the calpulli- The communitarian ideology of the calpulli was manifested in a series oí inalienable goods and rights: (1) the land el the calpulli belonged to a lineage, not an individual, so individuals could even sell themselves as slaves but they could not freely dispose oí calpulli lands; (2) the lineage and land were sponsored by a deity (calpulteotl), and the link with that deity could not be broken by individual will; (3) the calpulli's links with other calpultin were manifested and symbolized in kinship links among their chiefs and among the gods in the cycle oí suns, a

The Aztecs

myth that legitimated the preeminente oí a single people (the Aztecs) and

The Aztecs are notan obligatory starting point for the analysis oí Mexican communitarian ideologies. 1 begin with them for four reasons: (1) understanding the communitarian ideologies of pre-Hispanic states helps us to visualize the full gamut oí ideological sources oí modern Mexican nationalism; (2) some features oí pre-Hispanic communitarian ideologies have persisted, albeit in a very transformed way, (3) many Mexican nationalist movements have tried to take up the polirical forros oí ancient Mexico; Communi !oran = 36 =

1dologies

their tutelary god over en entire era.3 This series of kinship relationships was also used to claim Aztec filiation with the Toltec line, which was the source oí civilization, and was also seen asan inalienable legacy.

In Chis sense, in the pre-Hispanic period the "national" question did not depend en "ethnicity" as we understand iq nationaliry did not depend en membership in the same Iinguistic, racial, or cultural group. The important thing was to belong to one oí a set oí landed communities. Belonging to these communities determined a relationship to a series of inalienable Coromu,o arias = 37 =

Ideologies

,,oods summcd up in tire dilterent dinx nsic, ns ot tire caipulli comnion land

political licld- Sacrifice and slavery were interpreted as an affirmation of

'Lid a kinship idiom tying all maniera ol a..iÍpuiG togethet; filiati on with a

the greater cosmology-tic period or reigning son in which it was thought

local deiq^ ca ipu!leoil;. and a reccrved set ol ilb,nces between calpultin (ex-

that they were livinig--through che expansion of sorne communities at che

pressed in genealogical forn) hctwc^n tamiheso t chi eis and between their

expense oí others

tutelary gods These relationsh, s t,crc ^spressed very powertuliy in che

In tima sense, although the aalpnlli was the primordial communitarian

words that according to Fray lfui nardi no de Sahagúm) Aztec priests di-

unir, riere was also a leve) of social identi fication related Lo the Aztec

rected to che Franciscana whu cure to convert them

state. The feclings of belonging to this greater political unir were built on a numher ol relationshi ps. Wc have already mentioned tbe importance of

They out progen noi e,ak]ri ue

the system of kinship alliance between nobles. Marriage between nobles

all thcir 'caes of wo^+hip,

was so important in che ideological construction of the empire that is al-

their ways of reveriog l che goda

most impossible to imagine chis system without polygamy, because Aztec

Thus, before them we bn ng carde to our mou ths ]we swear],

lords formed alliances with subordinated peoples by accepting their noble-

so do we bleed,

women in marriage6

we pay our debts,

These kinship networks among allied, subordinated communities and imperial centers also had an ideological counterpart in religion. Here, the Aztecs' tutelary god, Huitzilopochtli, ruled the era-the'Pifth Sud'-as a whole. Thus, che calpultin' s communitarian worship could also find a subor-

we burn incense, we offer sacrifices Ttey [our progenitora] said that they, the gods, are for whom one leves, that they deserved us

How? Wherer When it was still night And they [our ancestors raid, that they give os our sustenance, our food. everything one drinks, one eats, that which is our flesh, maize, beans, amaranth, chía. They are who we ask for water, ramo, which is why che things of dte land are produeed.'

This vision oí community also hclps Lis Lo understand certain features of che Aztecs' characteristic sense ol honran hfe. These features are expressed in che ideologies oí sacrifico and slavery. When an individual was captured in war, he was taken by the hair on the crown oí his head. This act represented che appropriation of his tonalli, his vital force, and the separation oí that vital force from che captive's original community.s Thus, sacrifice and slavery were one naton's or community's way oí liberating and expending the human energy and vitality that had been separated from anorher nation or community_ This strengthened che alliance between the appropriating nation and che different gods that shaped its Communii ir, ,n Id,olo 38

dinate place in a religious cosmology that included and favored the empire, with the Aztecs' Huitzilopochtli presiding over che whole era. Imperial society also had mechanisms for attracting individuals who did not come as slaves or victims. Aztec expansion depended en military and commercial domination. In turn, Chis domination required powerful armies, and the Aztecs permitted non-Aztecs to join them and rise in rank through battlefield accomplishments. In this way, the Aztec empire developed mechanisms for absorbing and assimilating individuals even though they did not belong to their primordial community oí origin.7 In conclusion , one can say that in pre-Hispanic society there was a vision oí the human individual as an energy that had a value in itself. This energy (figured in the tonalli) had Lo be linked to a series of inalienable possessions that every qualified individual inherited. He or she had to be linked to a piece of land, Lo a kin group, to a configuration oí tutelary gods, and to the political acate. The Aztecs' imperial policies were to some degree oriented Lo channeling these various communal loyalties toward them through a complex system oí alliances and threats. They also had the capacity to absorb individuals into the group in return for services rendered, especially on the battlefield. Basically, one can say that, in the Aztec period, belonging to a landed community that was figured as a kindred was the only truly honored way oí life, and to be separated from that state oí community, the ancient Nahua was destined Lo serve orto dic. Con,sunita rian Idealagies 39=

The Colonial Period and indigenous barrio was generally imperfect, it did reproduce the tenNotions of communiry in colonial society, can also be explored through an

dency te organize kinship relationships en the leve) oí the barrio and the

analysis oí the inalienable possessions that each attributed to itself. New

community. The indigenous barrios oí the colonial period were generally

Spain was a caste society that recognized different types oí communities

composed oí two or three great patrilineages_ Even more important, as

that maintained hierarchical relationships with each other. I shall briefly

James Lockhart has shown, colonial indigenous jurisdictions tended to coincide with the pre-Columbian units (altepetl), in such a way that the

review indigenous, Spanish and mestizo communitarian ideologies. Indigenous communities partially maintained some oí the calpulli's

combination oí barrios formed a single political community.

communal attributes: the communiry remained legally and officially land-

On the ritual plane, each village adopted one or several saints, and the

ed through its "primordial titles," which were decrees from a Spanish

Christian tradition oí revelation articulated with the shamanism oí pre-

monarch that granted a series of lands and goods to a village, sometimes

Columbian peoples. This permitted personalized relationships between

in recognition oí tribute paid or to confirm lands that had belonged to those villages in antiquity.

saints and individuals (and, by association, between saints and the groups

Clearly, one oí the colonial indigenous communitys inalienable goods

maintained inalienable links with land, family, and gods, albeit in a transformed way.

was land, despite the fact that communal lands could be rented for long periods or lose through illicit sales. Correspondingly, the primordial titles were converted into almost sacred documenis guarded by the most venerable elders and displayed only in special occasions. Knowledge oí the content oí those titles was a central theme oí local oral traditions. As in pre-Columbian times, this collective relationship with the land was reflected ar the ritual, religious, and political levels. Thus, indigenous communities instituted their own ofhces-alcaldes, jueces, gobernadores, mandones, and alguaciles-that circulated, in theory at least, among the village principales, the descendants oí the old indigenous nobility. This political organization oí the indigenous communiry had the double purpose oí guarding village intereses, imparting local justice, and responding to Spanish demands on the community, including tribute, the organization oí labor groups, and the enforcement oí Christian worship. A good part oí the territorial, political, and religious organization oí indigenous communities also tended to coincide with kin groups in the mode oí the calpulli, but in general the indigenous quarters and communities of the colonial period were not direct continuations oí the calpultin. In the first decades after the Conquest, many ot the indigenous quarters (barrios) that were organized were in fact calpultin However, this correspondence often broke down because oí the enormous Indian mortality throughout the sixteenth century and the population movements that responded to new Spanish economic demands. Moreover, to resolve the difficulties in controlling the dispersed indigenous population the Spanish "concentrated" it in larger population centers (aboye all in the late sixteenth and eariy seventeenth centuries). Still, although thc physical continuity between calpulli

to which individuals belonged). Thus, the indigenous communitarian spirit

In addition to al] this, colonial indigenous communities were nations in a racial sense, and this radically differentiated colonial indigenous nationality from pre-Columbian nationalities. Like the calpulli, each community identified its limits on the basis oí a relationship with a series oí inalienable objects-the land, an oral tradition about the land, a series oí political relationships within comniunities, and a series oí relationships between communities and deities. However, it is also clear that in the colonial period this form oí constituting communiry was exclusive to Indians and that Indian was a "racial" and a legal category oí persons: legally, Indians were those people who could aspire tu belong to an Indian republic and who were obligated to vender tribute, labor, and obediente to the Spaniards. Racially, they were descendants oí the original settlers.a Thus, although the indigenous colonial community's interna] world partially resembled and perpetuated the calpulli's characteristics, the colonial criteria oí inclusion diverged widely from those oí the pre-Hispanic period. This is because, instead oí belonging to a world composed oí dominating and dominated peoples (who remained connected through relationships oí kinship, political alliance, and social mobility), all indigenous communities found themselves subordinated to a caste with which they could not easily meld; that is, as a group, indigenous communities formed a caste or subordinated nationality in a social hierarchy that sought to maintain stable distinctions, however unsuccessfully. On the other hand, the relationship between indigenous individuals and their community also changed. After evangelization, Indians were thought to be subjects with free will, who would be judged by the moral choices made by each person. In part because oí this, Indians who separated

1drologies 40 =

Com »''hita rian 1deologies 41

thcroselve, Iront their conununities acre ns, [coger simply a nmss ot ener-

pological interest becausc ir liiiked two important leaatres oí "honor'

gy that could be appropiated he anothei group through sacrifice or servi-

(1 i the individual's r
tude On dic contrary, Indians sep.u nted tn,m thcir primordial ti ti es, therr

assumed that this loyalw extended to otlier spheres loyalty to friends

chiets and tlicii village palom ,Lino conld ronOnue having al] individual-

and bravcry in defen di ng the group the fa n>ily, and o nes own honor), and

izad rel a ti onship with die saini, and c aire In s;,th their lives in a world of

(2! the cbasüty of the women ot the group Be, ause honor was mcasured

ineipient social daacs In that aro r ld, indio ,dual energy mas libera sed in

through the blood, bi ologi cal paterniry and ma tern i ty were c ri ti cal, thus

forming une s iamily and in ,carch, n;; tor svagcs, leisure, vices, and cere-

reinforcing thc links between honor, control over virginiry, and women's sexual lidelity alter marriage.

monics ot social gruups that had no inalienable possessions acide from their smil, and [he color ot L[)( 11 ,kin,. For there dislocated Indians thr orle asailablc sources ot collective

The notion that "hlood prcdicted and redactad an individual', reliability became the hasis bar the Spanish idea of nation," understood as a

identity were those creoted by thc racial or racist 1 organization oí the

people that emanated from the lame blood Bclonging to a similar lineage

regime and by the experienee ot sharcd living in an urban quarter, mining

or ro a common nation was important in a numher of contexts; however,

community, hacienda houschold, nr in a lactory or port. On the other

Spanish ideas of character, honor, and right also admitted the possibility

hand, the inalienability oí the soul allowed these Indians to receive the

oí assimilation, and sometimes emphasized the effects oí che milieu on

sacramenta of the church and to choose tlicir spo ices without strict racial

inheritance.

determination. The ideology of free matrinionial choice was especially re-

The idea oí patria, or "homeland," recognized the importance oí the place where one was boro and raised. This is the original sense oí the word Creole, which comes from the verb criar, torear or raise. When a black slave was boro in Veracruz, it was said that he or she was a "Veracruz Creole." For this reason, people of Spanish nationality boro in Mexico were sometimes known as "Creoles' (oí Mexico). The importance given to land complicates the scheme oí identity through blood and honor. Being boro and growing up in a certain place influenced the development of the individual. Thus, for example, there were Spaniards who commented on the "degeneration" oí heredity that took place in America: after two generations a green pepper became a chili pepper, and a Spanish worker had Creole sons who became lazy bums.'o This New World influence was not always conceived in terms oí acculturation (i.e., learning); aboye all, it was thought oí in terms oí the physical influences that emanated from different places' climatic and chemical qualities. Air, humidity, heat, cold, and drinking water all affected the development oí human qualities just as one's heredity did. Consequently, there were widely opposed appreciations oí che nature or effects oí any particular land: one oí the important points in the dispute between Creoles and Iberians was the relative nobility or ignominy oí American versus Iberian lands. In sum, land and blood were central componente oí the person and, by extension, oí the nation in Spanish ideologyThe third important factor in the conception oí the social group was acculturation through learning. Here the word ladino provides a useful key. This word was used to denote a person oí a barbarous or pagan nation that

spected by the clergy ¡Ti the first hall of ihe colonial period (see Seed 1988), but even in the late colonial period, the only serious obstacle to interracial marriage was paternal opp(>sitton. For Chis reason, marriages between members of the sane c lass leven though not of tire same lineage or color) or between prosperous people of color and poor whites were common.' Among títere new mestizo groups, two new factors in the process oí social identification began to assert themselves, money and Hispanic acculturation. These were interrelated in tercos oí their role in constructing ideas about community, so 1 treat them jointly. The Spaniards oí the colonial period had a genealogical concept of tire nation_ its members were descended from tire same blood. The ideological role oí "blood" in Spain is subtle and at the same time crucial for understanding how Mexican nationality seas formed. The importance oí "blood ,n the Spanish regime dates co the Reconquista oí Spain (immediately hefore the discovery oí America), when there were movements to separate "Old Christians' from Jewish and Moorish converts. This was parí of a broader tendency in Spain to nationalize the Catholic church and to make Spaniards the delending knights oí the faith (as well as the principal beneficiaries oí the taith's expansion). Thus, beginning in the fourteenth century "eertificates of blood purity" were required forjoining the clergy, holding publlc office, or belonging to certain guilds. These certificates were intended to show that a individual descended from many generations of Christians_ The concept is ofspecial anthroCo n, ni„n^ta^i..n I.,,olodas 12

Con, n, u ni Carian

Ideologies

43 =

had been at ¡casi parthr civilized Por example, it was said that an Indian was ladino when he or she had a good grasp of Spanish- The same usage applied te slaves: recently arrived Alricans were bozales, bozales torpes (clumsy bozales), or bozalones, but those who now spoke Spanish and knew local customs were ladinos-" A ladino slave was worth more money than a bozal, and a ladino Indian was considerad more qualihed to assume public office in a república de indios tiran a nonaccul turated one A ladino slave was also more dangerous than a bozal, because the tenn was most often used to refer te Moorish slaves." On tire other hand, it is indispensable to note the ambivalente felt toward acculturation or "ladinization', Jews and Muslims were considered members oí especially dangerous nations because they were ladinas; that is, they could imítate Spaniards and subvert their order froni within. This was why Jews and Moors were prohibited from entering the New Worldeven if they were converts. The meaning of ladino as an able but truculent, two-faced person has survived into our times. It is the main meaning that this word has today, but in thc past it was part oí a far more complex semantic field. With these considerations iri mirad we can now reconsider the Indians who separated themselves from their communities and whose only inalienable possessions were their souls and skin color. We have said that these individuals could aspire te a place within a new community through money and skills. In light oí the concepts oí free will, blood, homeland, and ladinization, we can better understand these people's strategies and alternarives. First, although Indian émigrés no longer had inalienable tres to land through primordial titles, oral traditnons, and so on, they did have ties to a more abstract "homeland", thev were "Indians." Second, through their participation in the market economy, sorne oí these migrants could learn Spanish ways. Thus they had certain advantages over the monolingual village Indian (alrhough here it is crucial to remember the ambivalente toward ladinization. these Indians were at once superior to and more dangerous than those still tied te their villages). Third, if a man managed te make a little money, he could invest in the transgenerational path oí honor, for example, by marrying a mestiza or Creole ("improving the race") and by acquiring possessions with which he could assert a certain honor. Successful Indians who separated from their local communities could begin te identify with a larger homeland and aspire to win a small measure oí honor and progress

The problems of Creole collective identities were simpler in some C o,, rn u u' 1 a r l., n 1Jro logres 44

sense. When Creoles identifled or were identified as a group (which they often did not), they were distinguished from Peninsulars not by "nationality," but rather by the influences oí their respective homelands. This occasionally served to discriminate against some oí them in the fields oí business, matrimony, religion, the army, and the bureaucracy. Because oí this, one cannot speak oí Creole nationalism (against the Spaniards), but oí Creole patriotism: an ideology that extolled the benign influence Mexico, Pero, and other countries. On the other hand, beyond European nationals boro in Mexico, this Creole patriotism also found support among ladinoized Indians who no longer belonged te an indigenous community and for whom a highly valued homeland could be important. Finally, it is interesting to note African slaves' position with respect te these issues oí homeland, nationality, and community. Unlike Indians, slaves had no inalienable possessions; al¡ their goods were alienated. Moreover, the very legitimation for slavery was to undo peoples who resisted evangelization. In principie, slaves were captives oí "just wars" against unbelievers who refused even to listen te the missionaries. In Chis context, it was-legitimare te take slaves and oblige them to receive Christian instruction in hopes that they would go en to a better world after passing through all the sufferings oí a life dedicated to servitude. Thus, unlike the Indians, slaves were not redeemable as a nation, but only as individuals, and this only aher the bitterness oí slavery. Because oí this, black communities were regularly watched or flatly banned: the as$ociation of more than two blacks and all corporate bodies except the military companies of Pardos y Morenos oí the eighteenth century and religious sodalities were prohibited, and even sodalities were Ilegal at times because oí their subversive potential.'3 However, there was an important contradiction with respect to the collective nature oí slaves: despite all the efforts against the formation oí a slave society parallel to indigenous society, slaves were brought from Africa and nowhere else precisely because they could not be confused with either Europeans or Indians. Undoubtedly, this confluence oí factors heles us understand the fear that the idea oí Afro-American kingdoms inspired in Spaniards. However, the tendency to form Afro-Mexican collectivities was limited to the groups oí maroons who succeeded in establishing themselves in coastal arcas. Meanwhile, most slaves were marrying free people and contributing te the formation oí the colonial plebe that constituted the popular classes in cities, mines, and ports.

These considerations about indigenous, Creole, and black nationality and patriotism are fundamental for understanding the development oí IIomn !uuiln rían

=45=

Ideologías

Mexican nationality properly spcal.ing. Pelote passing to that topie, however it is lmportant co mention lene tino t i-itional pohtical etfect of the colonial regimc ti is c leal from all thc evidente that Pie predominant ideo logical, legal. and eeonomie se,l,... in th, eulnnial period helped forge a multinational society in which d,tlcrc nt national groups could share interests in their homelands Uno must add to this, however, that the colonial pollucal system in itsclt helpecl lo produce images of politieal sovereignty that pcople werc trylnp lo entulate alter independence_ in the colonial period:.Mexico nv sea, the seas ot a c iceroyalq, presided oven by a viceroy. sebo conccived ol himselt as Pie kings alter ego. His court seas composed of nobles, the high clergy. Icarned men, merehants, and miners. The viceroy vas ultimately responsible for all branches oí government-admjnistrative, ecclesiastical, and mihtary . The existente oí this pinnacle oí state power in Neve Spain undoubtedly helped the Créeles and their various alijes to imagine a new state with its capital ni Mexico City, ruled by Mexican patriots and not by Iberians.

canos. thc silvei extracted from the homelands "belly," and the pyramids and other grandeurs of the pie-Hispanic indigenotis cultures, the material remains ol which now tornad part of Pie land and gave che landscape its osen narre: Mexico. not New Spain_ This set of symbols, which werc of the homeland and not strictly national, had first been developed by Creole patriots beginning in the late sixteenth centuey By the time oí independence, these symbols had already become part oí a well-known repertoire, ,he artworks that extolled the producís and landscopes of che New World, Pie presentation of preColumbian civilizations as panllel to those ol Greek and Reman classical antiquity, the assertion oí Mexican Christianity's legitimacy and autonomy through the cult oí the Virgin oí Guadalupe, the search for a pre-Hispanic Christianity in such figures as Quetzalcoatl, and so en. i4 The novelty oí independence patriotism in the face of this Creole tradition was that, given the Mexican state, ene could proceed to grant official status to these symbols. Thus, Hidalgo flew the standard oí the Virgjn oí Guadalupe; José María Morelos used a flag with an eagle on a nopal cactus and the inscription "VVM" (IViva la Virgen María[); Iturbide also

Nationality affer Independenc One oí the central ideological problems olí the independence period was how to transfonn Creole patriotism roto a new nationalism ehat could include social groups that had beca horn in Mexico but did not belong to the "Hispano-Mexican lace." This was a practical question even belore ll became a theoretical one: how to give the homeland enough stature so that patriotic concerns would eclipse class and cante questions At a purely logical leve) there were only two solutions ti) this problem. the first was to redefine the ideas oí nation and nationality so that belonging to a common homeland determjned and dcfined belonging lo che nation; tire second was to maintain the multinational system with a kuropean elite, but in a context where everyone benefited from the fact that Chis elite was as attached and loyal to the same homeland as the lndians and blacks. On a practical level, there were obviously different, extremely complex ways oí blending these two options, which need to be expía roed. Regardless oí which option was adopted, any independence ideology had to nave a common patriotic oasis; it seas much simpler co share a love for the homeland than to agree en the characteristics of the nation. Because of this, the írst fornuilations of Mexicos sacred and inalienable goods werc very direccly linked wldh symbols of tire (home)land: jis "sacred sojl." tire central mesa', Jeep bine skies, die Aztec eagle, the vol-

adopted the Aztec eagle (albeit with a crown), and in 1821 he formed the Order oí Guadalupe for soldiers, insurgents, teachers, and distinguished clergymen. The first coros were minted with figures oí the Aztec eagle. From 1821 to 1 853, various national anthems were composed until the patriotic song oí González Bocanegra was adopted. One cannot say that it is nationalistic. it is almost exclusively about the importante oí sacrificing for the homeland, and its most representative stanza is the one that proclaims, "No longer shall the blood oí your sons / be spilled in contention between brothers / only may he who insults your sacred name / encounter the steel in your hands." However, the speed with which the sacred signs and objects oí the homeland were formed did not nave such a simple counterpart in the way the nation was defined. In fato, the national question properly speaking has been polemical ever sincc

The ways in which the homeland was identified with the nation were evolving in interesting ways. In tire first years oí jndependence, one oí the legacies uniformly claimed for the nation was the Catholic religion. This nationalization oí the church can be partially understood as an extension oí the appropriation oí the faith that was the ideological cornerstone oí Spanish imperialism. The church was considered a fundamental and inalienable legacy oí the Mexican nation in all the principal laws and docunients oí the early independence period, from the appropiation oí the t a x i i ,i I d e o i o j i e s = 47=

Virgin of Guadalupe by Father Hidalgo to che political programs of

This political position was contrary lo che central precept of liberalism, however, which was becoming the dominant ideology of the independence movement. An indigenismo that attempted to maintain and strengthen indigenous communities within a pluriracial national order threatened to divide che nation. Don José María Luis Mora summed up che liberal stance toward Chis indigenismo:

Morelos, Iturbide, and che 1824 constitution. The Seven Laws (1835) stipulated that Mexicans had che obligation to profess the Catholic religion, and not even the anticlerical laws proanoted by José María Luis Mora in 1833 undermined che official status of Catholicism. The essennalized link between che nation and religion was not broken until che 1857 constitution, and che process of denanonalizing religion was never fully achieved.

The real reason for Chis opposition was that che new arrangement of public

On che other hand, regardless of clic support that nationality eould

instruction was in open conflict with Mr. Rodríguez Puebla's desires, goals,

find in religion, che difficulty in detining che nation was reflectad in che

and objectives with respect to che destiny oí che remains of che Aztec cace

fluctuating ways in which citizenship was defined. Although there was a

that still exist in Mexico- This gentleman, who pretends to belong to che

more or less uniform movement to make tics co che homeland che defini-

said race, is one of che country's notables because oí his good moral and

tive criterion of nationality, che definition of which individuais were citi-

política] qualities, in theory, his is che parry of progress and personally he is a

zens properly speaking was much more restricted. Thus, for example, in

yorkino; but, unlike the men who labor in Chis together, Mr. Rodríguez does

che Seven Laws-which were valid from 1835 until che Reform laws-

not limit his scope to winning liberty, but extends it to exalting che Aztec

only men of legal age with an annual income more than one hundred

race, and therefore his first objective is to maintain it in society with its

pesos could vote. In 1846, these men were also required lo know how to

own existente. To that end he has supported and continues to support che

read and write. In order to be a congressional deputy, one needed a mío¡-

Indians' ancient civil and religious privileges, che status quo oí che goods

mal annual income of 1,500 pesos, to he a senator, 2,000, and to be president, 4,000.

that they possessed in community, che poorhouses intended to attend co them, and che coilege in which they exclusively received their education;

Thus nationalist ideology in che firsr hallof che nineteenth century per-

in a word, without an explicit confession, his principies, goals, and objec-

mitted che de facto retention of colonial social hierarchies: distinction

tives tend te visibly establish a purely Lidian system.

through money could strengthen systems of discrimination by "race" given

The Farías administration, like all che ones that preceded it, thought

the fact that che majority oí Indians and other people of color were poor.

differently; it was persuaded that che existente of different races in che

However, there were also great differences between che system established alter independence, which lavored che rich, and che explicitly

lame society was and had to be an eternal principie of discord. Not only

caste-based system of che colonial period. One of che central differences is

did he [Farías] ignore these distinctions oí past years that were proscribed

that supposedly bclonging to a contmon nation (defined on the basis of a

in constitucional law, but he applied aH his efforts toward forcing the fusion

common homeland) made it possible for peasant villages and other poor

oí che Aztec race with che general masses; thus he did not recognize che

contingents to make their political claims in terms of citizens' rights and

distinction between Indians and non-Indians in government acts, but instead he replaced it with that between che poor and che rich, extending to al] che

not in terms of che subordinated complementarity of caste. But chis trans-

benefits of society)'

formation could also mean the loss of certain special rights for subaltern groups, aboye al] Indians. The ideological, legal, and physical assault en

The conflict over che place of indigenous communities in the new

communal village lands and other indigenous community instiitutions such

national society did not end with these squabbles in the country's high

as hospitals, public political offices, schools, and che management of com-

political spheres: aboye all, it translated floto regional conflicts in which

munity chests began in che tirst years of independence. The counterparts

indigenous groups sought to construct their own nacional autonomies.

lo chis assault were che indigenisr movements that sought co identify che

These movements were called "caste wars" by the nation's political classes,

nation with che indigenous race_ Thesc carly indigenista movements ex-

but they must also be understood as nacional movements in the sense that

pressed themselves in nacional political spheres through such figures as

they sought congruency among indigenous nations, management of terri-

che congressional deputy Rodríguez Puebla, who in che first congresses

tory, and appropiation of religion.

fought co keep indigenous community institutions (except tribute) intact. Co a m un: i a r: a n

1.iro

Many Indians' nostalgia for their own states, a land with one blood

logi

48

es

Co,n m uniiarian

49

=

Ideo)ogies

undcr thc role of their oven w ,e roen and thc mande of an indigenous

tribute as well as racial classificati ons in baptismal certillcates were prohib-

Christianity, translated Inl„ vn ial movcmcnts di various points in the

ited. However thc manipulation of racial identity continuad, aboye all in

eightecndt. ninetecnih and evcn tcrcnticth ec intries For example, during

che struggle for status Only in this way can we understand why Porfirio

che lamous coste iras" ot Yucacin lhv Indians liad their capital in Chan-

Díaz powdered his lace svhite and why politicians and rich men with dark

Santa Cruz and euostruc sed thcir leadership around a cross that spoke di-

skin liad an exaggerated preferente for white wives-

reedy to che priests ficho direcicel che ichellious odian movement. Among

On che other hand, alter independence, che ideas oí granting the

other structurally similar. mcii einents wc re those that took place in the

mestizo a certain racial digoiiv and of making the mestizo into a national

Chiapas highlands 1865.. thc haqui (lcxrt et Sonora 1885-1909), the

mace pegan to gain currcncy In the beginning, this tendency was limited

Huasrcca 01 San Luis I'otosí 1588 and thl enasta] Misteea region i- 1911 U.

simply to recognizing che greatness of hoth che indigenous and the

There weic also a numher of nimviuIent niovcnients oí chis type, some of

Spanish sources of nationality. However, this recognition of the central

theni allied with note urbanized clases. In thc very capital oí che country,

importante oí mestizaje for Mexican nationality could not be easily translat-

diere are currently pro-Nahua[I groups ol mlxed social origins that seek

ed finto an ideology in which the mestizo was equal to che Mexican, for

the return of Moctezumas heacidress and che installation oí a new indige-

two reasons, liberalisms attempt to rid che definition oí nation of any links

nous empire

with yace and the ever-greater influence of pseudoscientific racist thought.

On the other hand, given che tact that nineteenth-century liberalism

Thus, che liberalism oí Juárez and his generation-which had great po-

was against upholding a "multiracial nation, racist ideas that had existed

litical and intellectual figures oí indigenous origin-was completely dis-

since che colonial period could persist and hecome increasingly pernicious.

tinct from che indigenismo oí Rodríguez Puebla. Whereas Rodríguez sought

The ideologist who most intluenced educated racist thought in Mexico

to maintain indigenous communities within a pluralistic nacional frame-

was Herheri Spencer, who beGeved in che fundamental importance of so-

work, Juárez showed that Indians were perfectly capable oí "ascending" to

cial evolution and in che inheritance oí acquired characteristies. This com-

che Europeans' cultural leve] if given che opportunity and resources.

bination of doctrines, applied to Mexico, led to the conclusion that che

Juárez's generation oí liberals sought to redeem che Indians by giving

Indians had been suhsidized by che colonial state for centuries, and that

them access to the goods of citizenship: education, universal rights, and

che negative characteristics that had been acquired would continue to

equality.

plague national evolution if the proportion oí fit individuals (Europeans) did not increase.16

Juárez sought to forro a nationality composed of a citizenry (defined by common birth in a homelanci) that had a truer equality of access to

On the ocho hand, Spanish forros still dominated racist thought in

state protection and representation. One can say that, in che 1857 consti-

Mexico even alter the imporcation of northern European ideas. According

tution, che nation had three inalienable legacies: national territory, state

to the dominant ideologies of che colonial period, the indigenous race was

sovereignry, and a set oí inviolable individual rights. This is also why lib-

inferior to che Spanish race, but it was also redeemable through Christian

erals of chis generation broke che privileged link that che church had

faith and procreation with Spaniards. There salas a well-known formula ac-

maintained with Mexican nationality until then: they no longer needed a

cording to which the child of a Spaniard and an Incitan was a mestizo, the

national church to legitimize the country because che freedom and equality

child of a mestizo and a Spaniard was a castizo; and the child oí a castizo and

of Mexicans under che rulo of law and in the framework oí the homeland

a Spaniard was a Spaniard; that is, an individual's indigenous origins could

were sufficient. On che other hand, the dark-skinnedJuárez was himself

be "erased" through a couple gcnerations oí intermarriage with Europeans.

living proof that these ideals were attainable.

This is why, in che colonial period, racial identity was manipulated: birth certificares were altered so that children could he classified as Creoles and not as some inferior casto; mestizos bought access to indigenous communities; rights to dress as Spaniards vide horses, and bear arms were conceded ro certain Indians. With independence, che definitions and legal guarantees of caste were abandonad, thc claves were freed, and indigenous

C o 111 11. 11 1.. I d i i.1

It was easier to denationalize che church, however, than it was to construct a national citizenry The laws promoted by Juárez helped erode che indigenous communities that had mantained the calpulli's transformed communitarian legacy, but the proletarianized masses continued to be principally dark-skinned and under the economic yoke of foreigners. The majority of Mexico's poor continued to be excluded from che Comnia,ifariao 51 =

[ drologies

henefits oí nationality (citizens equality, public education, and the right

Manuel Gamio, who is frequently considered che "father" oí Mexican an-

oí representation in the state) because che nacional bureaucracy's resources

thropology because oí his role in che construction oí revolutionary na-

were meager and, worse yes, those resources were primarily utilized for

tionalism. Gamio relied on che authority oí bis teacher, Franz Boas, in

paving che way for capitalist investmenc Fnr Chis reason, in the nineteenth

claiming both the equality of al] races and the validity oí all cultures.

century che term Indian gained a new acceptance, fusing racial and class

Based en chis, Gamio developed an indigenismo that dignified Mexican

factors: for che urban middle ancf uppen classes any poor peasant was an

Indian features and blood, thereby paving the way for che mestizo to

"lndian", that is, che category "Indian" carne to mean those who were nos

emerge as che protagonist of nacional history.

complete citizens.

The principal ideologists of Mexican nationalism (Luis Cabrera,

This also explains why Spencer's racist thought gained some influence

Andrés Molina Enríquez, Manuel Gamio) imagined che mestizo as che

in offfcial cireles. Social Darwinism permiued certain official groups to

product oí a Spanish father andan indigenous mochen- This very particular

blame the victims for the negative results et post independence social de-

formula had a twofold importante. First, it made che Spanish Conquesc

velopmenc Mexico had not attained che social leve] oí the United States

che origin oí che nacional yace and culture. This point oí origin was fertile

because oí che Indians' negative intluencc [-he only way to achieve politi-

for the production oí a national mythology, a task that captured the atten-

cal evolution was by importing E unopcans and dominating Indians through

tion oí prominent artists and intellectuals, including Diego Rivera, Samuel

education or, in more recalcitrant cases, cmeler disciplinary forms. in this

Ramos, and Octavio Paz. Second, and even more important, che identifi-

period, indigenous slavery was revived and massacres of Indians were per-

cation oí che European with che male and che feminization oí che Indian fit

petrated in Sonora and Yucatán.

well with che formulation oí a nacionalism that was at once modernizing and procectionist.

The power and class strtxggles of chis period also became a nacional struggle in some seccors because che progress achieved by Porfirio Díaz

We can better understand Chis by analyzing Andrés Molina Enríquez's

was largely based on concessions co foreign capital, and the social sectors

cose discussion oí the master (1909), which was influential in che formu-

chat were negatively affected by those concessions allied themselves with

lation oí revolutionary nationalism. According to Molina, who leaned en

political groups that had been excluded Irom che monopoly that Don

Darwin, and en Mexican luminaries such as Vicente Riva Palacio and

Porfiriós group exercised oven the bureaucratic apparatus. These alliances

Francisco Pimentel, for crucial aspects oí his argument, "[t]he mestizo ele-

gave rise to che revolution.

ment, formed by che cross oí che Spanish element and che indigenous element, is nos a new yace, it is che indigenous yace, defined as che totality

Tbe Redefinilion of Mationality in che Revolution

oí indigenous yaces oí our land, modified by Spanish blood."17 Mestizos were thus a fortified version oí che indigenous race,'a and the modifica-

From che point oí view of nationality, the Mexican Revolution was a

tions brought about by Chis mixture oí Spanish and Indian races would,

watershed at least as imporrant as che luáruz reforms. Here 1 focos en two

eventually, creare a population chas would finally be capable of holding its own against che United States. 'y

features, che reval uati on of che mestizo a^ qui ntessentially nacional and che redefinition of the inalienable goods oí che nation. As already mentioned, che placement oí che mestizo as a central personage has a history that began with independence, but che revolution broke tics with two doctrines that liad inhibited che adoption oí che mestizo as che nacional yace. On che one hand, Juárez's classical liberalism was complemented with a procectionist state cha[ was seilling to cake special measures and dispositions for speciflc national groups sucli as Indians, peasants, and workers. On che other hand, che racist ideas of social Darwinism were overturned. These two ruptures were complententary and went hand in hand. The most important figure in clic balde against pscudoscientific racism was Comen nn., aii.in 52

dl

In Molina, as in practically every pro-mestizo nationalist, che Spanish race carne to Mexico through men, and che indigenous element was associated with che feminine- This was true both literally (che mestizo was imagined, in his origin, as che child oí a Spanish man and an Indian wornan) and more abstractly, in che characteristics of each yace. "lf che white yaces can be considered superior to che Indian yaces because oí the greater efficacy oí their action (which is a logical consequence oí their superior evolution), che indigenous yaces can be considered superior to che white caces because of their greater resistance (which is a consequence oí their higher degree of selection)"10 Action, which is highly masculine in C o,,,'non,Harian Ideologies 53 =

Chis contevt and o si,tanee chic ti is Icniinine. arc ti, erebv embodied in

A chain of reforms tliat besan under President Miguel de la Madrid has

che Spaniard and thc I n d i a n . reshcc t n v c l y -1 i i c onthina ti on of action and

tended co revive some fcacures oí che nineteenth-ccntury liberal niode1,

resictancc in thc hodv ol the is I,uvccrlul. lot it combines che besa

including che redehnition of what constitutes che inalienable wealth of che

q tialities ol cac1, racc. but with che I odian i Icntent. that is. che maternal

nation a decline oí che so-called social rights of (he revolution and greater

clement, preduminating. Thc resina arc dc,ttned to lead che nation to

emphasis on individual iight,. Foi this reason, nationalists of the old

;uccess aga'uut origen aggression and ncoct,Ionial cxploitation.

school have compared che sale of scate enterprises and che privatization of

Mestizo nationalism dws implicitiv snpportcd che creation ol a protec-

the ejido with che sale ol che family jewels. The legal and economic

tionist and modernizing statu. It ,ra, io hc a nindernizing tate because thc

clianges carried out since 1 982 represent a profound trae stormat ion in che

mestizo, like bis Furopean lathei 11,111 a hropcn,ity for action. lor hi torv.

very definicion of che nation and of che things and rclationships that be-

It seas protectionist because thc mestizo si'ught tu protect bis maternal

long to ir.

legacy from exploitabon by Europcan,, Sebo tela no loyalty whatsoever to

The contemporary nationalist discourse appears co be reverting to che

che land orto che Indian, and whoni Molina Enríquez saw as che dominant

patriotic formulas of che nineteenth century: it is long on praising che

class that needed to be assimilated or pushed out.

patria and past glories oí our "millennial cultura," but it is very short on

The nationalization oí che mestizo also rcpresented a break with some

defining what the nation and its legacy currently are. There have only

features of laissez-faire liberalism and introduced a new version oí che na-

been two historical moments when the relationship between homeland

cional patrimony. There was no longer che notion that progress and mo-

and nation has been congruently and explicitly defined. The first was the

dernity emanated simply from freemarket (orces and respect for che

universalist liberalism promoted by Benito Juárez, when the nation was

rights of man, instead, there emerged che idea that progress could only

separated from its bonds with yace and the church, This was tremendously

occur under che jealous protectlon ot a nationalist state.

influential in nacional history, although it was never realized as a practical

Thus, in acidition to guaranteeing citizens rights, che sanctity oí demo-

project. The second moment was revolutionary nationalism, which is in-

cratie institutions, and nacional sovercignty, the 1917 constitution claims

ternally more contradictory than Juárez's formula because it adopted some

che states right to permit oí prohibir the free action oí foreigners in the

elements oí democratic liberalism at the same time that it constructed a

country and to watch over che public interesa The latter includes public

corporativist and protectionist scate, This model tied nationality to race

education, labor conditions, che right co expropiare any land for reasons

and "mestizo" culture, and it adopted a modernizing, protectionist, corpo-

oí public utility, che regulation of foreign investment and oí the amount oí

rativist, one-party regime.

land that can be legally possessed, preferencial contracting oí Mexicans

The current regime has been abandoning the now rusty or fossilized

over foreigners, and so on. This consutulion explicitly siaces that all the

precepts oí revolutionary nationalism, but it has been slow to embrace

land oí Mexico is an inalienable possession oí che nation that may be

Juárez's universalist liberalism because unpopular economic reforms have

bought and sold but can always be returned ro public use when so needed-

required a strong, authoritarian state like those that arose from the revolu-

Under che watchful eye of che postrevolutionary state, a regime that

tion. On the other hand, universalist liberalism was a more potent ideology

fostered class-based corporacions as an integral portion oí a ore-party

in che hands oí Juárez because he was proving with his own flesh that

system, Mexico went from being predominandy rural and agrieultural to

Indians could gaita access to che benefits oí civilization that were in the

having an urban majority, and the population grew from about 20 million

hands oí ata economic elite that did not identify with che bulk oí che popu-

in 1950 to about 80 million in 1990. This urbanization and che generally

lation. For all these reasons, che current regime has needed revolutionary

growing complexity oí national soeiety besan co complicate che manage-

nationalism even to destroy che regime that created it.

ment of state representation through che sectors" oí che ruling party and

Current tastes reflect weariness with the epic visions oí revolutionary nationalism: today the intimare world oí Frida Kahlo is oí greater interese than the epic grandiloquence oí Diego Rivera; even when they distill nationalism, as with the narratives oí Poniatowska or Monsiváis, intimate chronicles are consumed with more interest than che comprehensive

the policies oí che one-party state_ At che same time, the mechanisms oí state bureaucratic administration could not avoid che country's bankruptcy in 1982, which meant that foreign economic deniands liad to be attended to.

('ora n. un ita ri an Id eol ogies 55 =

1 national epics oí a Carlos Fuentes. This situation is symptomatic oí the crisis oí old nationalism: the longing for community and an inheritance continues, but the state definitions oí those communities are almost as weak as they were in the nineteenth century. Conclusion The development oí the communitai ian ideologies that 1 have tracked in this chapter permits us to systematize certain considerations with respect to the future. As this is a moment of profound changes in the national question, it appears to me to be pertinent to conclude with some ideas in this regard, even if they are not necessarily novel. 1 hope at least that the foregoing discussion permits us to understand the known options with greater clarity. Currently there are at least thrre logical alternatives for national ideology insofar as it is manifested in the definition oí inalienable goods: The first option is to consolidate democracy in the way desired by Juárez's generation. This option would mean giving priority to the inalienable rights defended by Juárez, including human rights and democratic representation. The second option is to reanímate revolutionary nationalism. This option would mean maintaining the "tutelage oí the state" over some

and "neoliberalism" because it seeks to broaden the definition oí the human right to defend certain general social interests against the "natural" tendencies oí the market (for example, defending child nutrition or the right to inhabit unpolluted spaces). This direction also entails a recodification oí civil society. This new civil society would rid itself oí the sectorial organization that developed under revolutionary statism, and it would create new forms oí state protection for the new human rights. The principal ideological adversary oí this option will be the current nationalist mythology. This mythology tends to demand a state with tutelage over the entire national interest and includes many oí the prior bases for the definition oí national communities, such as the reification oí nationality in racial terms, Also, behind this líes the proposition that the state's central role is to direct the "modernizing" process. It will be necessary to impose limits on the reign oí the ideology oí modernization, to avoid modernizing at any cost. It appears to me that the third path is the only really desirable and viable one in the long run_ But to move in that direction, one must be ready to question both revolutionary nationalism and neoliberalism. It will also be necessary to create images oí nationality and modernity that are separate from the teleology oí the muralista and the "Fathers oí the Country."

goods considered central to nationality and the public interest, such as ]and, the subsoil, the communications industries, and educational and cultura] services, and industries This option could keep mestizo nationalism unscathed but it has the problem oí being championed principally by the leftist opposition, which also needs tu sustain che value oí democracy "in the style of Juárez" to win power. For that reason, it would have to design a kind oí state that does not fall into the same antidemocratic vices that revolutionary nationalism fe]] into when it was in power. The concrete way in which revolutionary nationalism mixes with liberal ideals has always been a central probieni for Chis kind oí nationalism, and, if this ideology returns te power, ir: will again have to confront this problem.

The third option is less clearly delineated but would have to try Lo build a social dernocracy based on a recodification of human rights. This formula would diffcr from the second because it would not depend on a racial metaphor ("the mestizo") io define nationality, but would center its efforts in defining the rights of pcrsons ir would not put "the nation" ahead oí the rights oí persons, and therefore it would distante itself from rhe populist and authoritarian formulas that have predominated in Mexico. On the other hand, Chis option separates itself from liberalism C o m n: u ... ^:.: e n 56 =

!deol09fe Communiiarian Ideolog,es = 57

gain exceptional status and tu rice aboye die degradation reserved for all nobodies Thus, for instante a lady cuts in fiont ol a inc to enter a parking lot; che attcndant prottst5 ancl points to che lino but she says "Do you

3

know sebo you are talkino to- 1 am the wile of so and so, member of thc eabinet.' and so on_

A similar dynamic has characterized modera iNiexican citizenship For instance, it has long beca noted that in ;Mexico much of the censorship of thc press has boga ''sellcensorship,' and not direct govern mental censor ship.' Spcaking tu a journalist about chis phenomenon, hc remarked that much el chis se]¡-censorship resulted frota the fact that journalists, like all members oí Mexican middle classes, depend to an unpredictable degree en their social relations. Reliance on personal relations generates a kind oí sociability that avoids open attacks, except when corporate interests are involved. Thus, the censorship of che press is in part also a product oí the overall dynamics oí DaMatta's degraded citizenship_ The logic that DaMarta outlined for understanding the degradation oí

Modes of Mexican Citizenship

Brazilian citizenship could easily be used to guide an ethnography oí civic culture and sociability in Mexico. The ease oí application stems from similarities at both che cultural and structural levels familia) idioms used to shape a "discourse of the honré' have common Iberian elements in these

One oí the frsi cultural accounts of citizenship in Latin America was Roberto DaMatta's effort to understand the specificity oí Brazilian nacional culture. DaMatta identified the coexistente oí two broad discourses in Brazilian urban society, and he called theta the discourse oí the home and the discourse oí the street.' According to bis description, the discourse that he called "oí the honré' is a hierarchical and familia) register, where the subjects are "persons" in the Maussian sensc, that is, they assume specific, differentiared, and complementary social roles. The discourse "oí the street," by contrast, is the discourse of liberal citizenship: subjects are individuals who are meant to be equal to one another and equal before the law. The interesting twist in DaMatta's analysis regards the relationship between these two discourses, a relationship that he synthesizes with the Brazilian adage'Por my friends, everything, for my enemies, the law."z For DaMatta, Brazilian society can be describcd as having "citizenship" as a degraded baseline, or zero degree, of relationship, a fact that is visible in the day-to-day management of social relations.

two countries, the result not only of related concepts and ideas oí family and friendship, but also similar colonial discourses for the social whole. In chis chapter, I develop a historical discussion oí the cultural dynamics oí Mexican citizenship. 1 begin with a series of vignettes that explore what the application oí DaMatta's perspective to Mexico might revea). 1 argue that the notion that citizenship is the baseline, or zero degree, oí relationship needs to be complemented by a historical view oí changes in the definition and political salience oí citizenship. Without such a perspective en the changing definition oí citizenship, a critica) aspect oí the politics oí citizenship is lost The bulk oí chis chapter is devoted to interpreting the dynamics oí citizenship in modern Mexico, as it developed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and argues against narratives oí Mexican modernity that tell contemporary history as a simple "transition to democracy."

Cultural Logic and Hsstory

Specifically, DaMatta focuses en an Liban ritual that he called the "Voge sabe coro queni esta talando' (Do you know who you are talking

Mexico City is a place of elaborate politeness, a quality that is epitomized

tu?), a phrase that is used tu intcrropt the universal application oí a role,

by the people whose job is to mediate (for instante, secretaries and wait-

that is, tu interrupt what he calls tire discourse oí the street, in order to

ers), but that is generally visible in che socializaron of children and in the Modos of Al exiean Cit;zen sh;p

?A =

59

existente of elaborare registeis of ohscquiousness, attentiveness, and respect_ AII of [hese registers tiisappcar in tire anonymity of the crowd, however, where people will push pulí, shove, pinch, cut in front oí you, and so un_ There is no social connact tor che crosvd; there are only gentleman's pacts antong persons Drivers in iylcsico ( itv, lor instante, tend tu drive with thcir evos pointed straight ahcad and casi slightly downward, much like a waiter's. This way they need no( make concessions and can drive with presocial Hobhesian rules dona give awap an inch. If, however, the driver's eye wanders even juct a 1irti, ir ntav catch another driver's eye, who gently and smilingly asks to Inc let into the flow of traftlc At this point, the world of personal relations Often takes huid of the driver who had been trving to keep things anunymous and he may gallantly let the other car th rou gil. This dynamic contrasta wilh ncc culturc of socieries that have strong civic traditions, in which citizenship is che place where the social pact is manifested (making a queue being a sac rosanct rite of citizenship in a place like Fngland, for instaures but where personal relationships do not extend as lar out_ Thus, a British traer-lcr to iMexlco may be scandalized at lhe greedy and impolitic attwde ot ncc people en the street, whereas a Mexican tvill complain that no pica or personal interjection was ever able to move al] Englisi' bureaucrat to sv mpathy What are the mechanisms ot sucralization finto Chis forro oí courtesy7 Access ro in alleged right, or lo a p overn nt e otal service, in Mexico is very ofeen no( universal. Education, Inr instante is mean[ to be available lo ale, but it is oteen dllücult tu register a eh1ld 111 a nearby school, orto get finto a school at ale, public medicine exista. bite it is alwavs insufhcienq moving through Mexico C:ity, trafiie in an ordene fashion is oteen niade difficult by ncotoveruse ol public space_ ln short ilexicn has never had a state that was strong enough to provide servios tll IVCrsally_ In this context, corruption and other ntarket mechanisnn casily emerge as selecriun en tersa: if you pay money, the bureaucrat will scc vou tirst_ The systeni has also generated forros oí sociability that help shape a pracural oricntation that is well suited to tire discretionmy power that s( arcity ygives tu bureaucrats and other gatekce pers. One notable examp le ot ibis is summed up in the very Mexican proverb "Whoever gets mad lirst, loses" i`El que se enoja, pierde"). According tu this priori pie, a [,ne person shall never explode out oí exasperation, because he or she can oil, lose by such an outburst. A service provider will only claro up tebeo Paced with an angry user and, since nce service is a scarcc resource. he or she \s 111 use politeness as a selection criterion.

Socialization into politeness, pariente, and self-censorship thus has at least two significant social conditions. The first is a strong reliance on personal relations in order to activare, operate, and rely on any bureaucratic apparatus, che second is the reliance on personal relations lo achieve positions in society_ Both of [hese conditions would appear lo support DaMatta's claim that citizenship is the zero degree of relationship, There is, however, a difhculty in the argumenr that can be exposed by focusing closely on the implications oí the saving "For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law." The saying is clearly a model for political action, yet it contains significant ambiguities in the proponed categories ("friends," "enemies,"'law," and "everything"), partieularly if the saying is a recipe for a bureaucrat or a nieniber oí the political class, In many, if not most, situations, a bureaucrat will be dealing with neither personal friends nor personal enemies, but principally with people to whom he or she is unrelated and initially indifferent_ The saying is useful, however, because sume of these people will not receive the full service that the gatekeeper controls, whereas others will. Thus, an initially undifferentiated public needs to be shaped luto "frtends" and "enemies_" Money (bribes) and prior personal connections are two routes tu receiving excepcional treatment (as "friends"), but patience and politeness may at least keep you in che game, whereas a breach oí politeness or an outburst oí anger will in ale likelihood place you in the "enemy" camp_ The application oí "the law" as a criterion oí exclusion in each oí these cases is simply the use of bureaucratic procedure as a fundamental mechanism oí exclusion. We have, then, a logre that favors the development oí personal relations, the elaboration oí fonos oí obsequiousness and politeness, the cultural routinization oí briberv, and che use of bureaucratic rules and procedure as mechanisms oí exclusion. This logic is undergirded by structural conditions, oí which 1 have stressed two: a relatively weak state, and a large poor population. Because [hese conditions have existed throughout Mexican history, one might expect that bribery, politeness, and a highly developed system oí informal relationships have been equally constant practices, and that they have been elaborated according to cultural idioms that apply a "discourse of the honre" in order to create distinetions between potential users of a service. This is true at a general level. However, although the cultural logic that we have outlined shows that citizenship is a degraded category, ir also gives a false sense oí continuity and constancy. We noted that the category oí "friends" and "enemies" can be constructed in che very process oí applying a bureaucratic role, and that most oí che population that is being classified in this way is initially Mojes o f hleslcnr,

ho =

= 61

indiflercnt tu the bureaucrat R1,1 thc de!initiun of the pool that che burcaucrai is aeting on o not dctermincd h^ ihc cultural logie of social discance from che barrauarat oi ;;atek eche i. fo ribo words the gatekeeper is not aetually ruling oven e pre cc i - 1 t roaj' „t 1 nentls and enemies, but 'u inste ad culturally construc ti, in tnends and cnemie5 out of a pool of Acople who are presclceced not hv h;;n but by theii thcoretícal relationship lo a right. As a result. i1thuugli it is corlee t„ sas that-- ,ivcn a bureaucral, a set ul rulos. and a pool ot citisns-uti:-.cnship 111311 be che zero degree of rel ationship that needs to he complemen ted by a prior personal claim, by a bribe, or bv sympathy, tic haselme of utizenship is not determined by this cultural logic, and it valles historically in important ways- These variations are not trivial, for thcy define che potencial pool of users oí a service that is heing offered, an issue that also has critica) significante for a longue-durée history of cultural forms of sociability in connection to citizenship. A comprehensive view of modero Mexican citizenship therefore requires an interpretation of the cclationship between legal and institutional definitions of citizenship and its cultural claboiauon in social intetaction. 1 ,hall atrempt to sketch key elemcnts ti¡ such a com pre hensive view.

stem from che class of bis lineage; thc sane shall he observed with regard to those who represent che rank of captain and aboye, or who render any special service to the countiv" (article 25, The only fundamental exclusionary clause in tliis constitution, as in all early Mexican eonstitutions until that of 1857, regards the role oí religion, '1 he Catholic religion shall be the only one, with no toleratice for any other" (article 1) In addition to a comnion movement to broaden che base oí citizenship such that lineage and race were abolished as (explicit) criteria of inclusion or exclusion, early procl ama ti ons and eonstitutions did tend to speeify that only Mexicans-and otten only .Mexicans who had not betrayed the nation-could hold public positions (articles 27 and 28 oí López Rayón's constitutional project).5 Thus, from che very beginning, che idea was to create an ample citizenry and a social hierarchy based on merit: "The American people, forgotten by some, pitied by others, and disdained by the majority, shall appear with che splendor and dignity that it has earned through the unique fashion in which it has broken the chains oí despotism. Cowardice and slothfulness shall be che only causes oí infamy for the citizen, and the temple oí honor shall open its doors indiscriminately to merit and virtue` (article 38) 6 Despite che general identification between early Mexican nationalism and the extension oí citizenship rights in such a way as to include (forme[)

Farly Republieanisnt and che Risc of ibe ideal Uitizen The debates of Mexico's Junta Instituyente between independence (1821) and the publication oí the first federal constitution (1824) gave little sustained attention to citizenship. (.ates about who was a Mexican national and who was a Mexican citizen were vaguely inclusive, with attention lavished only on the question oí patiiotic inclusion or exclusion and very little said about che qualiues and ciaractensties oí che citizen. Nevertheless, the process of independence hall a critical role in shaping a field for a politics oí citizenship_ For instante, Miguel Hidalgo, tathcr ot Mexican independence, proclaimed che emancipation of slaves, thc end to al] forms oí tribute and taxation that were targeted to Indians and castes;' and the end oí certain guilds monopolies over specihc activities 4 Of course, Hidalgo's revolt failed, but his nieve to create a broad base for citizenship and to leve) differences between castes was preserved by leaders oí subsequent movements- For exaniple Ignacio López Rayún's falso failed) project oí a Mexican constitution (1811) also abolished slavery )article 24) and stated that "[w]hoever is to he boro alter thc happy independence oí our nation will find no ohstacle other than bis personal defects- No opposition can

slaves, Indians, and castes, there were a number oí ambiguities and differences regarding the meaning of this extension. Article 16 oí the Mexican empire's first provisional legal code, for instante, states, tellingly, that "[t]he various classes oí che state shall be preserved with their respective distinction, but without piejudice to public employment, which is common to all citizens. Virtues, services, talents, and capability are the only medium for achieving public employment oí any kind".7 On the other hand, the federal constitution oí 1824 does not oven specify who is to be considered a citizen. Instead, it leaves to the individual states oí che federation the definition oí who shall be allowed to vote for their representatives in Congress (article 9), and the selection oí the president and vice president was Ieft to Congress. Thus citizenship was to be determined by regional elites in conjunction with whomsoever they felt they needed to pay attention to, and access to federal power was mediated by a Congress that represented these citizens.

It is worth noting that most oí the distinctions between who was a Mexican citizen and who was merely a Mexican national are similar to the formulation found in the Spanish liberal constitution that was promulgated in Cádiz in 1812. Some oí the early independent constitutions are Mudes oJ AA exilan Ci1izensbip

= o2=

63 =

a bit harsher than that oí Cádiz on matters oí religion (e.g., Father Morelos's Apatzingán constitution sanctioned the Holy Office-that is, the Inquisition-and it upheld heresy and apostasy as crimes that led to los oí citizenship). In one matter, however, the constitution oí Cádiz narrows citizenship beyond what is explicit in the earliest Mexican constitutions: debtors, domestic servants, vagrants, the unemployed, and the illiterate al] forfeited their rights as citizcns (article 25). This move was not explieltly embraced in the first Mexican constitutional projects, but neither was it entirely avoided: Iturbides Plan de Iguala, which was the first effective political charter oí independent Mexico, specified that until a constitution was formed, Mexico would operate according to the laws oí tire Spanish Cortes- The federal constitution of 1824 left the dotar open for these mechanisms oí exclusion by delegating the decision regarding who would be a citizen to thc individual states- Finally, the centralist and conservative legal code oí 1836 rcasserted the points of exclusion oí Cádiz and added much greater restrictions, the rights oí citizenship were suspended for al] minors, domestic servants, criminals, and illiterates, they were lost definitively to al] traitors and debtors ro the public coffers. All citizens had to have an annual income of one hundred pesos, and substantially more if they wanted to be elected to offlce. In short, early Mexican constittnions displayed tensions between the elimination oí criteria oí casto and oí slavery in order to create a broadly based nationality and the restriction of access to public office and to the public sphere to independent malo property holders who could read and write. The category "citizen" was (and still is) not identical to that oí "national" in legal discourse, though tiro two were tellingly conflated in political discourse: in fact, the relationship between the two was one oí hierarchical encompassment. The Mexican citizen had the capaeity to encompass Mexican nationals and te) represent the whole oí the nation in public.

ever, Florencia Mallon has shown that in the unstable context oí midnineteenth-century Mexico, the need to mobilize popular constituencies, and the space that was available for spontaneous popular mobilization, led to the development oí forras of liberalism that catered to popular groups.s It was in part the challenge that universal citizenship at times posed to these local patricians and chieftains that fanned the development oí a negative discourse about "tire masses" in nineteenth-century Mexico: la chusma, el populacho, la canalla, la plebe, and other epithets portrayed masses as both dangerous and insufficiently civilized to manage political life. Alongside damning imagen of the plebe, a series oí positive words referred to popular classes who were seco as ordered and civilized: el pueblo, los ciudadanos, la gente buena. To a large degree, the difference between positive and negative portrayals oí the pueblo corresponded to whether the people in question were acting as dependents or whether they were difficult to control, Like the difference between the lumpenproletariat and the proletariat, the distinction between a canalla and a ciudadano was that the latter was a notable, or at least depended on the same system as the notables who made the distinction, whereas the fornter had only loose connections oí dependency to "good society." In political speeches oí the nineteenth century, for instance, there are differences drawn between a lower class that might be described as "abject" and as an obstacle to progress, but that is also perceived as unthreatening and in need oí state proteccion, and a lower class rhat is potentially or in fact violent and dangerous to civilization. In a chronicle oí his voyage tú the United States, published in 1834, Lorenzo de Zavala, a liberal from Yucatán who had been governor of tiro state oí Mexico, congressman, and apologist for the U.S. colonization oí Texas, asks his readers to [c]ompare the moral condition oí tiro people oí the United States with that oí one or two os our [federated states and you will undcrstand the true rea-

Inclusion and Exclusion in the Era of Nalional Vulnerability

son why it is impossible for us to raise our institutions to the leve) oí our neighbor's, especially in ceriain states In the orate oí Mexico and in that oí

At first glance , these early citizenship laws developed in a contested field in which the pressure to broaden the basis of citizenship coexisted with pressures to maintain political control in tiro hands oí local notables. Historian Frangois Xavier Guerra has argued that the urban patricians who had controlled the bureaucratic apparatus during the colonial period usually kept control over government despite these changes, relying un their power to materially control local election processes.s HowAlodes

of Nicv,cnn 64 =

C'1'zensbip

Yucatán, which are tiro ones that 1 know best, of rhe 1,200,000 inhabitants oí tiro former and thc seven hundred thousand inhabitants oí tiro latter, there is a proportion of, at tiro most, one in twenty f who know how te read and write]. [Oí these,] two-fifths do not know arithmetic, three-fifths do not even know che meaning ot thc words geography, history, astronomy, etc., and four-fifths do not know what tiro Bible is . To this we must add that at least one-third oí the inhabitants oí Yucatán do not speak Spanish, and

M odes of ;Mexican Ci lizenybip 65 =

une-lifth of 11)e star, ul Nesita, ' in tbt sano tondino n. I hose who do not

Moreos el

take finto atoount tic d, i,, „I sic ill;_at,on o1 dite mnsses whcn thcy make II we desceud, sir. from riese philosophieal and moral considerations to search for material transcendt-ntal ev,ls m socieiy. we sha11 be confronted

'Tus tito natlve population ir pa rtit_dar m•as ac rhe bottom of rhe hcap , and In need ut eles ation

by die degradation oi that dase thai heeaux ol its ignorante. is called the

.A simil;u sentimelit is echoed three

lowl,est class ¿dese 5ifrou i. aud that has been indelibly inoculated with a

dotados lato , alter tito brench intcrc entiun. s, ben rhe 1857 constitution

propensity te bl oody iris 1 li s elass. which has beeo sus' o bented from

seas reinstated There in a sessit'n iii ( iiigress . representative Julio Zárate

die benchts ot enligh tenm ent. does not know tbc guodncss of vinue exeept

presented a propusal to proh.bi1 privaic ia,is in haciendas and, more

bv tito harnt it recervcs lor being criminal; in it tic noble sentiments that

generally del uiitlase all punishmcnt that sr:s meted unt in [hese private in-

inhere in tire human hect[ degenerme, beceusc die government and rhe

stitutions He described the cunditiom ul the Indian ni the following

clergy, publicists and speakers tny to show th an in abstntct tire matrers of

tercos.

religion and of polities that thei r unenltivated intel1 igence cannot compre-

In rhe states of Mexico, Puebla. Tlaxcala, Guerrero, and Querétaro, where the bulk el the indigenous population is t oncentrated, there is slavery, there is abjection, riere is misci v susiaincd by rhe great landowners. And this abject conditlon coni prises clos e to 4 ni,ilion roen It has been eleven years sincc tire constitution was ratificd. private trials were prohibited; flogging and other degrading punishments were abolished,; and authorities were given die right ro establish jails for crimes .. . nonetheiess, there are jails in rhe haciendas and stocks where the workers

hend. AII rhe while, the attmctlons of vice and tito emotions that are produced by certain spectacles excite and move their passions- Since it is not possible to establish schools everywhere where this class can be well taught, remove at leas[ [hose other [schools] where they learn evil, where the sight of blood easily fosrers rhe savage instincts to which they have, by nature, a propensity - If we want good citizens, if we wanr brave soldiers who are animared in combat and humane in triumph, prohibir specrades thar inflare sentiments and that dull [embrutecen] reason."

are sunk, and rhe foreman gives lashes to tic Indians, and debts are passed

Readers would be incorrect, roo, to rhink that rhe dangerous'lowliest"

from father to son, ereating slavery, a succession of sold generations

classes referred to itere are strictly urban and that all rural Indians were

(February 15, 1868). ''

thought to be sale for state or hacendado patronage. Rebellious Indians,

This view of the proto-cirizen who needed to be elevated to true citizenship through state protection, miscegenation, or education, and whose condition was abject but not direetly threatening to truca nd effective citizens, contrasts with other portrayals of popular tolk who are more difficult to redeem and more menacing 1 will oler two examples from the same congressional sessions that 1 havc fusr ciredOn January 9, 1868, representativo Jesús López brought tu Congress a proposed law to banish bulllighting This iniriative was one of severa) attempts to locate the causes of incivility and to transforni the habits of a people who would not conform m tic ideal of dtizenship that the constitution granted them

usually labeled "savages," were known to be highly dangerous. Thus, for instante, in his campaign against Indian rebels and a few remaining proHapsburg imperialists in Yucatán (1868), Presiden Juárez asked Congress to suspend a series of individual guarantees in Yucatán in order to carry out a military campaign riere. One of the suspended rights was article 5 of rhe constitution, which reads: No one can be forced to render personal services without a fair retribution and without their full consent. The law cannot authorize any contract rhat has as its object the loss or irrevocable sacrifice of a man's liberty-" In other words, slavery and corvée labor were authorized for rhe duration of the Yucatecan campaign, which was fought principally against the Indians." Thus, a discourse of the sort that DaMatta called "discourse of the

The benelits of a democratic constitution, which raise the Mexican from

street,' thar is, an egalitarian and universalistic discourse of citizenship,

rhe conditiou of slavery to tic rank of the cir!zen, aunounce that Mexico

could be applied to rhe "good pueblo-" At the same time, the fact that in

marches tnward greatness under rhe auspices o1 liberty. In contrast ro this,

some nineteenth-century constitunons servants were not allowed to vote

asan obstarle that block, Mexie,,s match tosvard prosperity, there exists in

because they were dependents,and therefore did not have control over

each eommunity a place dsat svinhol,0e barbansiii

their will, was indicative of the fact rhat most of the good pueblo was made

Al ' ,3''u l Al us.

M o ci e s o l

A l e x i c a n C i t, z e n s 1, i p 67 =

up oí a kind of citizenry that veas guarded not so much by the constitu-

deadly influence. Unleashed from che abysmal depths where it resides, it

cional rights of individuals as by thc clainis that loyalty and dependency

flung itself furiously in che midst of our newly boro sociery and destroyed it

liad on clic consciente oí Christian patriardis-

in ics crib .. There in che shadows oí that frighcful darkness we can hear

Nevertheless , che image ot a good pueblo veas not simply that oí the dependen[ masses either, because [hese could bc figured as a harmonious and

che ruar oí the monster that spilled in Padilla che blood oí General Iturbide:

progressive co] lecriviry or ! as we have seco as abject slaves . In order to comprehend ideological dynamies withln chis field better , two further elements need no be introduced: the nations position in a world oí competing predatory powers , and che question of national unity. A sharp consciousness oí national decline and oí uncontrollable dangers for che nation can he found among .Mexican political men almost from che time of the toppling ol Iturbide 1822 ). Referentes to decline and to danger abound both in clic press and in discussions in Congress. For instante , Depury Hernández Chico elauned that thc nations situation was "deplorable" because of lack of public funds (Juno 14 , 1824).14 On une 12 oí that sin-te yeai , Deputy Cañedo svarned oí che need to guard

che blood oí che pero who hnished che work oí Hidalgo and Morelos. There, roo, you can hear che horrible cry oí that maGdous and treacherous spirit chat sold the life oí che great (benemérito] and innocenc General Guerrero to che firing squad.15

The heroes who had iniriated the revolution (Hidalgo, Allende, Aldama, Morelos) liad al] been marryred by Spaniards, but che two who actually achieved independence (Iturbide and Guerrero) were both murdered by fractious Mexicans. This was to stand symbolically in a position analogous to original sin: Mexicans are denied their entry to national happiness because oí their internal vices and divisions: Woe is you, unfortunate Mexicot Woe is you because, not having yet fully

against a In]] civil war, in light of seecssionist movements in che state oí

entered the age oí infancy, you decline in a precocious decrepitude chau

Jalisco. The image oí che republic being split apara by rival factions is al-

brings you close to che grave! Woe is you because you are like che female of

most always seen as the cause oí chis decline or imminent disaster, as in

[hose venomous insects that thrive in our dimate, and oí whom it is said

the case of a speech read in Con-,res, by che minister of war against a proIturbide uprising in Jalisco on June 8, 1824

thar it gives birch to its children only to be caten by theml16

Yes, sir, there are vehement indicatiuns that ibese two generals are plotting against che repuhlie that thev des re irs ruin , that it is they who move chose

Decline was caused by personal ambition and foily among leaders and would-be leaders oí government, so much so that Arellano begins his remarkable speech distancing himself from any sort oí political activity:

implacable assassins that aflljet thc staies al Puebla and Mexieo , they who propagate that dcadly division that ron hnnta oon berween parties, they who are behind Clic conspirators 'e llo cause our unease and who make life

1 have not yet traveled-and God spare me from ever raking-che murky paths of che poliucs that dominare us, oí that science whose principies are che whim of [hose who protess it, where che most obvious truths are put in

so difficult

doubt, and where he who is bes[ at cheating and who is bes[ at disguising This feeling oí pending or actual disnstcr caused bv lack oí union in-

his deceptions is considered wise_iz

creased and became pervasive in political discourse as che country indeed became unsrable, eeonomically ruinous and suhjected to humiliations by

The ultimare results oí vice selfishness, and ambition have been the ruination oí Mexico, irs decline, irs inability to reap the benefits oí freedom

foreign powers

In a remarkahly irank, but not entirely extraordinary, "civic oration" proffered on che anniversarv ol independence in the city of Durango in

and independence. For sonie speakers, [hese vices were typical oí one parcy: monarchical interesas of conservatives, for instante; or Catholic fa-

1841, Licenciado Jestis Arellano reeapped che history oí political divisions

naticism that led to blocking che doors to colonization from northern

and fraternal struggle in che lollowing tenor.

Europe and che United States, or to federalist folly in delegating too much power and autonomy to states. For all, they reflected a lack oí virtue

Lets go hack in time to Sepecmber 27, 1x21 That day, my fellow

and che fall oí public morality. To quote again froni Arellano: "We must

cicizens che very day of our greatest Iortune. also initiates che era oí our

acknowledge that our vices have grown and that public morality is every

greatest wocs_ It is Irom that dar that a hon-Ible discord began tú exert as

day extenuated, that our country has been a constan[ prey oí ambition, oí

1 i _,ii' bip

Madr, nf hlexi can Ci lizesship = 69=

tealousy. il Írrtncidel tuulc nclcs ^,I aiti)ct vis ve nde tras ol insatiable

and sacrifice; and a thtrd hetween citizens who strived to open the way for

usuty Ol lamttcism and up rstti nn ol incptiuide and pe vetsity. and ol

the extension of citizenship nghrs and those who blocked them in order

chimsy and inhumano mandarins

to cnhancc their own tyrannical authority.

In sum it is nnstaken tu imagine 1 1.11 in rts ongi ns. tito discourse ol citi-

In some con tesas, th ese vi, ws could be arti Gula ted to one another; for

^enship vas in am simple clac nbl t.[i se'.tl ine. a zero degrec oí relation-

example, the situation of thu bad puehlo was compared to citar of a young

ship" ()n thc cotlitar v carls epc ocies had quite signiticant strictures re-

woman who was not under ihe tutelage of a roan, it was fodder for "sedue-

garding who could bc a citizen l liese restrictions rcadily allowed for the

tion" by bandits or by iactious aspiring politicians. In other words, ihe bad

t-inergence ol une spedlic dise nurse about tito gooci and ihe had pueblo:

pueblo was fodder ¡oí rhe vicious po hi tici an, as much as it was ihe principal

,>00d va, thc prctla that cr_n Icecheeii tito porcion of Mexican ca-

challenge ¡oí enlightened li bcral governments sello sought te) expand pub-

tionals svho allowed thcnuchcs p( aselullq to be represenred by tNiexican

lic education, eliminare ihe obscurantist intluence of tire church, prohibir

citizens; had pueblo was thc [uebi-.> thar seas not governed by the class of

bullfights, cockfights, and other forms oí barbarie diversions, and so on

local notables, and this included rchellious Indians (like those cited in

The description olí citizenship as a zero degree oí relationship is misleading , then, because it emphasizes only one aspect oí tito phenomenon, which is the fact that familial discourses have always been used to supersede tito universalism oí tito legal order. Moreover, ihe notion oí ihe citizen as tito baseline of all political relationships is historically incorrect, because in tito early national period it was clearly a sigo oí distinction no be a citizen, and even alter ihe constitution oí 1857 and tito revolutionary constitution oí 1917, it still excluded minors and women. Having established this general point, let us return to our evolutionary panorama oí rhe development oí citizenship in Mexico.

Yucatán or in Durango) as much as the feared dcaes 6vitnas that were notas siniilable through puhlic education. At ihe same time, che ten de nev to con tia te vatio nalíty arad citizenship, at least as a utopian idea, existed hom (he very beginning, and this allowed for another kind of distinction between good and bad citizens. This distinction focused on "petty tyrants" Some ni three were perceived, particularly alter rhe constitution of 1857, as local caciques or hacendados who kept 1odians in a siavelilee position and separated from their rights as Mexicans, as was rhe case in tito spccch, cited carlier, against jails in haciendas. Others, and this was particularly prevalent in the earlier period, were tyrants in their selfish appropriation of what was public.

The Demise of Early Liberal Cítizenship -

This latter forro oí dividing between virtuous and vicious elites readily allowed for rhe consolidation of a discourse oí messianism around a virtu-

The first truly liberal constitution of Mexico (1857) develops an inclusive and relatively unproblematic identification between citizenship and nationality: in order to be a citizen, al] that one needed was to be a Mexican over eighteen (if one was married, over twenty-one if one was not), and to caen an honest living (article 34). Simplicity, however, is sometimes misleading. Because in theory everyone was a citizen if they were oí age (the article does not even specify that one needed to be male to be a citizen, though this apparently went without saying, because female suffrage was not to be allowed for another hundred years), the constitution and the congresses that met aher its ratification were very much concerned with giving moral shape to the citizen. Fernando Escalante ends his pathbreaking book on politics and citizenship in Mexico in ihe nineteenth century arguing that "[t]here were no citizens because diere were no individuals. Security, business, and politics were collective affairs. But never, or only very rarely, could they be resolved by a general formula that seas at once efficacious, convincing, and

ous caudillo, as is illustrated in another patrioric speech, pronounced en September 1 1, 1842 (anniversary of rhe triuntph against rhe Spanish invasion of 1829) in the city oí Orizaba, The political regeneration ci Anahuac [.mexico] seas rescrved ab initio to a singular Vctacruzano_ an encrepreneurial gcnius an animated soldier, a keen statesmart a profound poli tician, or, in sum, to Santa Anna tito great, who, llke another Alcides and Tesco, wi II purtiy ihe precious ground of the Aztecs and tid it oí that disgusting and criminal riftraff [canalla] oí tyrants of all species and conditions-19

In short, ihe political field around ihe delinition oí citizenship involved three kinds of distinetions- one hetween a pueblo that would be encompassed by a group of notables anda pueblo that would not; another between selfish and falso citizens who suught private gana from their public position as citizens and thosc who cquamd citizenship with public service ,Ate les o] ,ü s,_,i

1

i..

0

„ish

il'

Modrs

=

of

Adcxi c an C.fizeeship

71

presentable ' ' [lis book demonstrates lhar diere was a high degree of pragmatic accord berween liberals asid conservatives on che matter of laws and institutions not beir.g applicable in a systematic fashion because consolidating state power was more tundaniental and urgent, and neither group couId adequately resolve che contradicriun between creating an effective and exclusive group oí citizens and tlie actual politics oí inclusion and exclusion demanded by che sor iety numerous corporations Despire this pragmatic agrecment regarding the priority that consolidating state power had over citizenship rights, the ideal of citizenship was about as obsessively pervasive in Mexican political discourse as was che rejection oí politics as a site of vice. Part of this obsession was a result oí the fact thar, until Juárez's triumph over t`9aximilian in 1867, political instability and economic decline raised fears that Mexico could be swallowed up by foreign powers or split apart by interna¡ rifts. Collective mobilization seemed che only way forward, and diere is a sense in which Mexican history between independence and die French intervention (1821-67) can be seen as a process oí increasing polarizarion. In che end, it was this process, in conjunction with emerging capitalist development and the construction of che first railroads in che 1 870s that allowed the first successful centralized governments of Juárez and, especially, oí Díaz, to operate. Escalante has argued convincingly thar the old idea, championed by Cosío Villegas, that Juárez's restored repuhlic was a genuine experiment in liberal democracy is simply wrttng, and rhat che consolidation oí the central state unde-Juárez and Lerdo needed to sidestep che legal order and te create informal networks of power as much as che Díaz dictatorship that followed it. I have no space here to go finto detail coneerning che evolution of citizenship under che Díaz regime ( 1876-1910), but a few remarks are necessary_ First, che achievement of governmental stability and material progress pushed earlier recurrent obsession over citizenship into the back-

Thus, during che Porfirian dictatorship, it was the state, and its power to arrange space and to regiment an order, that was the subject oí political ritual and myth; the masses, it was hoped, might eventually catch up to progress or-if they opposed che nacional state, as the Yaqui, Apache, and Maya Indians did-be eliminated. In short, whereas the law and the citizen were the ultimate fetishes of the era oí national instability," progress, urban boulevards, railroads, and the mounted police (rurales) were the key fetishes oí a Porfirian era that upheld the state as the promoter oí that progress, and che vehicle for [he ultimate improvement of Mexico's abject rural masses."

Contemporary Transformations If chis were the end of che story, however, how could we come to terms with che fact that in the 1 930s Samuel Ramos, the famous founder of a philosophy about che Mexican as a social subject, identified che pelado, that is, the subject who had been considered beyond the pale of citizenship since independence, as che quintessential Mexicana Ramos argued that Mexican national character was marked by a collective inferiority complex, This inferiority complex was exemplified in the attitude of the pelado (urban scoundrel), who is so wounded by the other's gaze that he replies to it aggressively with che challenge of "¿Qué me ves?" (What are you looking at?).24 Thus, where che driver oí our earlier Mexico City example seeks anonymity in order te act like a wolf, but becomes a gentleman with eye contact, the pelado rejects eye contact with a threat oí violence. But whereas the nineteenth-century politician would not have hesitated in identifying the trae citizen with che (unconstantly) amiable driver and the pelado asan enemy oí al] good society andan individual lacking in ¡ove and respect for his patria, postrevolutionary intellectuals such as Ramos made the urban rabble foto che Ur-Mexicans, Why che change?

ground. A plausible hypothesis is that a strong unified state and the con-

Before che revolutionary constitution of 1917, Mexican citizens had

comitant process of economic growth led hy foreign investment was a

individual rights, but very few social rights. The right oí education existed

more valued goal for the political ciasses than citizenship. In fact, the ear-

in theory but, as historical studies oí education have shown (Vaughan 1994), public education during che porfiriato was controlled to a large extent by urban notables, a fact that was reflectad in extremely low literacy

lier fixation on citizenship was in large parí che resulr oí the fact that regional elites needed ro appcal to altruistic patriotism in order to try to hold che state together; once thc state could hold its own, this motivation disappeared21 A discourse on "order and progress" quickly superseded earlier emphasis on citizenship and che universal application oí laws as the only way to progress, and a strong state tbat could guarantee foreign investment was [he key to rhat progress. A111d s oJ

Ales. , , ( i iiz en sl,ip 72 =

rates. Moreover, as 1 mentioned carlier, che right to vote was often nullified by che machinery of local bosses, who controlled voting as a matter oí routine.

The 1917 constitution and che regimes following the revolution changed chis in severa) significant ways. First, under che leadership oí José Modas of Mexican 73

Ci ti zen sbip

Cl OS ¡n che 920s arel in an cllon u, wrench che tormation of eiti -

urgent and supremo ideal to being a long terco goal that con Id be achieved

zens from the hands of che chute h h.iblic cdueation ,test on a crusade to

only alter che enlighte sed, scientific state liad done its job. This perspec-

reaeh out us che popular clases Tito etioit successful to a significan[

tive was, in its turn, transformad by clic postrevolutionary state, which

degrce and sc houls wcrc built cn ir rrmi,tc agrarias communities

co nc ple roen ted ir with the o rganiza t ion of che pueblo ¡Tito corporati o ns that

tiecond che 1` 17 constituínm cstaislichcd che iight ot access to land tor

wcrc regulated and protec tt d bv che tate

agricultura) workers_ The )and, ,,,or,ling t, th¡s constitution, belonged to

These broad shifts have liad their correspondi ng counterparts in (he

che nation, as did che subsoil and territorial waters Cirizens had rights to

history of the privare sphe re1 be priva te sphere of citizens in Mexico has

poitions of that national wcaltb incie] cenain concht¡ons Third, che 1917

rever been very fully guaranteed. In clic early republican period, liberals

constitution spee¡lied a series ^,1 „' ,rkci s rights. ¡nduding minimum

identiticd corporate toinis of property as a central obsiacle co citizenship_

,caces, che prr,liib¡cion ot chilcl labor thu prohibioon ot debt peonage.

specifically, they targeted Clic property of Indian communities and of the

maxTmum working hours, and clic filie. Thus, bcing a citizen promised

church. However, che expropriation of both communal and ecclesiastieal

ñghts of access to certain forros oí protection against che predatory prac-

corporate holdings in 1856 did not lead to the desired end, which was

tices of capitalists, who, signihcantly, werc often identihed as foreign in

to creare a propertied citizenry, but instead to even greater concencration

constitucional debates.

oí landed wealth in che hands of an oligarchy. As a result, wide layers oí

ldentifying members oí che urban rabble as the prototypical Mexicans

the population lacked a secure base oí privacy and lived either as depend-

was, in this context, consonant with die state's expansive project. The

ents or as members oí communities whose rights could only be defended

modal citizen should, indeed, be clic a!lahlc and reasonable member oí the

collectively.

middle classes-and Ramoss portraval oí Ihe pelado was in no way lauda-

Alter the 1910 revolution, the state sought to protect individuals from slavelike dependence on the oligarchy, but che relations oí production that it fostered were equally problematic from the point oí view oí the consolidation oí a private sphere. Agrarian reform failed to build a Lockean citizenry in the countryside because ejidatarios (land grantees) are not legal owners oí their land, Moreover, they depend on local governmental support for many aspects of production, and so are feeble participants in the construction oí a bourgeois public sphere. Similarly, the numerous indigent peoples oí Mexico lack a secure private sphere, as ethnographies oí che "informal economy" have amply attested: people working in the informal sector lead lives that are largely outside oí che law. As a result, they need to negotiate with state institutions in order to keep tapping into 11legal sources oí electricity, to keep vending in restricted zones, to keep living in property that is not formally theirs, and so on.2' Thus, although incorporation into a modern sector was one oí the critical goals oí postrevolutionary governments, che modalities oí incorporation retained significan[ sectors oí the population that not only did not benefit from access to a privase sphere that was immune froni governmental intervention, but in fact depended on governmental intervention in order to eke out a living in a legally insecure environment. Oí che three sectors that made up Mexico's state parry, two-the peasant sector and the popular sector-had no sacrosanct privare sphere from which to criticize che state, and therefore no protected basis for liberal citizenship.

tory; however, Mexicos backwardness and che challenge of its present made it useful to identify the typical subjccr as bcing off center from that ideal.

At the same time, the revolutiionary stare, like the Porfirian state, did not concern itself so much with producing citizens. Instead, the goal was to creare and to harness corporate groups and sectors finto the state apparatus. Although presidents Obregón and Calles upheld the ideal oí the privare farmer in the 1920s and thought it a much more desirable goal rhan thar oí che communitarian peasant, the task oí building up the state was more important to them rhan building up the citizenThe principal shift between thc Portirian and che postrevolutionary state is that che latter consolidated a political idiom oí inclusive corporativism that could be used to con, plemenc che Porfirian (but still current and useful) [heme of the enliglitened and progressive state. By che time President Cárdenas nationalized che oil industry (1938), political discourse in the Mexican press by and large lacked any referente to the ideal citizen and portrayed,instead,a harmoniousinterconnection between popular classes under che protection of the revolutionary state. In short, early republican obsession wirh citizeriship was primarily owing to che extreme vulnerabilicy of .Mexicds central state. It was not produced by an existing equality among citizens, bur rather by existing divisions among che elites and by clic pressure of popular groups. As soon as a central state was consolidated. citizenship went from being sean as an xi., n t i.. z, nslri p 74

Malles

o f ,A9exi,.i..

=75=

Ci i ize,isbi p

This situation complicates the vision ofcitizenship asa debased category, for it is through claims of citizenship that the peasantry and the informal sector have negotiated with the postrcvolutionary state-exchanging votes and participation in revolutionary national discourse for access to lands, credirs, electricity, or urban services At the same time, Chis citizenship belongs to a faceless mass, not to a collection oí private individuals The pelado who, in Ramos's account felt wounded by the mere gaze oí the erstwhile modal citizen, and who asserted his right tu nationality by his involvement in revolutionary violence, is harnessed back into nationality not through patron-client tics tu privare elites, but through a series oí exchangos with state agencies through which he receives the status oí massified citizen. Let me illustrate what the shape of official citizenry was like in the era oí single-party rule- In the 1988 presidencial campaign oí che Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), which was in many respects che last traditional PRI campaign, public rallies and events were divided into severa] types.s` There were, tirst, events targered tu specific portions oí the party's tripartite sectorial organization peasarit sector; labor sector, and popular sector), second, there were meetings with regional and national groups oí experts, who organized problem-focused discussions with the candidate and an audience (CEPES [Centros de Estudios Políticos y Sociales] and IEPES [Instituto de Estudios Políticos y Sociales], both oí the PRI), third, there were massive public rallies that were meant to show the party's muscle by uniting the whole pueblo in a single square; and finally (chis was an innovation for che 1988 campaign), there were talk-show-like events where the candidate lielded questions from callers who were not identified as members of a party sector.

This situation has been identified by Mexican democrats as a lack oí a civil society, and [hese same democrats have been building a narrative oí Mexican democracy that has the heyday oí the corporate party (the 1940s and 1950s) as che historical low point in Mexican citizenship. According to this view, che corporate state effectively funneled Mexican society into its mass party until the 1960s, when certain groups, especially middleclass groups-but also some peasants and urban poor-no longer found a comfortable spot in the state's mechanisms oí representation and resource management, producing the 1968 student movement.27 The violent suppression of this movement, and che expansion oí state intervention in the economy in the 1970s, gave a second wind to the corporatist state. However, an unencompassable civil society would keep growing during chis period and would reemerge politically in the mid1980s, when the state's fiscal crisis weakened its hold on society. This situa-

The image oí the nation as it was generated in the massive public rallies was thar of a corporate organism. Iike public displays oí che social whole since che colonial period, che public oí these rallies was divided internally by sectors, each of which signaled its corporate presence with electoral paraphernalia (sheets painted with the candidate's name and the name oí the supporting sector: flags, T-shirts, tags, or hats that had the candidate's initials and those oí che party or sector), but also with a certain uniformity of look, peasants in their hats and sandals, railroad workers in their bloc hats schoolteachers in their modest, lower-middle-class garb, and so on. Alongside this hierarchical and organic image of che nation as being made up of complementary, uncqual, and interdependent masses, however, campaign rituals also presented certain modal images oí the citizenry. AAod,, oJ

This is apparent in the use oí dress in the various rallies, for although the presidential candidate dressed up as member oí the sector that he was visiting (as a rancher when in a rally oí the peasant sector, as a well-dressed worker in a rally oí the labor sector, or in a suit in a discussion with experts), the relationship between "the suit" and other costumes is not one oí equality. Rather, the suit is the highest formal garb, the one that the candidate will use on a daily basis when he is in the presidency, and the one that he has daily used as a government official prior to becoming a presidential candidate. The suit is the modal uniform oí the public sphere. Public sessions devoted to the discussion oí regional and national problems are attended almost exclusively by suits, even when their inhabitants are representing interests associated with labor or agriculture. Thus, the image oí the citizen with a voice stands in contrast to the massified citizen.

AI, , r: : (:I:zenslip

tion has been leading inexorably to the end oí the one-party system and che rise oí Mexican democracy

During the period oí state party pile, political classes in Mexico had a pretty clear mission, which was to tap into resources by mediating between state institutions and local constituencies. It was in this period that a clever politician coined che phrase "vivir fuera del presupuesto es vivir en el error" (to live outside oí the state budget is to live in error). The expansion oí che state for severa] decades was a process oí always incorporating political middlemen as new social movements emerged- Thus, in the 1970s and 1980s, positions were created for leaders oí squatters' movements, for leaders oí urban gangs, for student movement leaders, for teachers' movement leaders, and others. The fiscal crisis oí che state that began in 1982 severely limited its ModosofMexicanCitizensbtp

possibility ol cngaging in thn , , -uptivc stratcgy, and so rhe numbers oí

isted in Iberoamerica However, bis strategy is hest suited to highlight rhe

nongovernmental organizations in artive service roce dramadeally, as did

micropolitics of access to state institutions and does not elarify rhe specihe

oppositioti pa r'ties l here has undoubtc(1h buen an intensification ot eiti-

ways in which citizenship is filled and emptied ol contents. It therefore

zen activity in Chis period s. ith sast numhcrs ol people rejecting massífied

misses in important dimension of rhe eulture ot atizenship, including

corporate forros oi political )ar tiupatton that are no longer providing real

how, when, and by whorn it is politicized.

beneflts, and ctrong voten partir ipation as well as a huge increase in partici-

In Chis chapter, 1 have presented a rough outline oí rhe politics sur-

pation in political rallies, dem onsoatiom. and rhe like The press roo, has

rounding citizenship in modern Mexico. 1 argued that there have been

broken with rhe unspoken rulo ol prescning rhe figure of rhe national

two periods when discussions of citizenship Nave been truly central to

presiden[ irom direct attack and ts crit11 '5m of government has become

political discourse The first period which 1 analyzed in sume detail, is rhe

much loe der.

era oí political instabibty and economic decline that followed Mexican in-

Ar the sane time, howevcr, rhe lact that many political leaders and me-

dependence; the second is the contemporary, post- I982 debt crisis period

diators are now living outside of the fiscal budget may also mean that a

oí privatization and rhe end of single-party hegemony The view that 1 de-

new forro of massified citizenship is beiog constructed. The economic

veloped suggests that the intensity oí discussions surrounding citizenship

costs oí democracy and democranzation are so far very high in Mexico,

in the first five decades alter independence reflected both the complex

and a lot oí money is going to al¡ political parties, as well as to running

politics oí including or excluding popular classes from the political field

electoral processes Elections and electoral processes have become a

and the fact that national unity seemed unattainable by any means other

source oí revenue in their own right, and the jockeying between party

than through unity among citizens, and violence against traitors (be these

leaderships could beeome divorced irom rhe ever-growing needs oí rhe

indigenous groups or fractious "tyrants" with their clientele of canallas). In

country's poorest, particularly because the middle and proletarian classes

other words, citizenship was continually invoked as the foremost need oí

are now large enough to sustaln such an apparatus. This situation is illus-

the nation ata time when rhe country had no effective central state, a de-

trated in Are fact that today, although there is undoubtedly more democ-

clining economy, and was threatened both by imperial powers and by in-

racy in Mexico than at any time in recent memory, rhe extent oí urban in-

ternal regional dissidents.

security, the numbers of fences and walls, and the presente oí the military and oí privare security guards are also rhe highest in recent memory.

Beginning with Preside n[ Juárez, but especially under Díaz, the national state was consolidated and a national economy was shaped thanks to

At this juncture, as in rhe posrrevolutionary years in which Ramos was

the state's capacity to guarantee foreign investment and national sover-

writing, there is an increasing number oí pcople who are tinprotected by

eignty. As a result, the "bad pueblo" was slowly neutralized and substituted

relations oí privare patronage, unprotected by rhe state, and who have in-

only by rhe growth and expansion oí what 1 have called the "abject pueblo,"

sufficient private possessions to participare as reliable citizens. On the

or the people who were not fit for citizenship (not knowing how to read

other hand, as in the unstable years oí rhe early and mid-nineteenth cen-

or write, not speaking Spanish, or living in conditions oí servitude that ef-

tury, there is an increasingly large class ot lumpenpohticians who seek

fectively precluded full participation as independent citizens). In rhe pro-

to funnel die "bad pueblo" finto "factious movements. And the passage

cess, rhe national obsession with citizenship diminished even as the cele-

from unruly anonymity to amicable personal contact may beeome more

bration and fetishization oí the state as the depositary oí rationality, order,

strained as the capacity to claint that "whoever gets mad first, loses" itself

and progress grew. The combination oí national consolidation, rapid

loses credibility

modernization, and rhe extension oí a degraded form oí citizenship to the vast majority is par[ oí the backdrop oí rhe Mexican Revolution oí 1910.

Conclus-ion DaMaua's analysis of thc relationship hetween liberal and Catholichierarchical discourses in the negotiation of citizenship is a useful entry point for rhe descriprion oí debased torno of citizenship as they have ex-

The constitutional order that emerged from rhe revolution allowed Mexicans access to a series of benefits, including land and protection against employers. Nevertheless, the postrevolutionary orden did not achieve rhe liberal goal oí turning rhe majority oí the population into property holders. In fact, the fragility oí rhe privare sphere for large sections Modes of Mex ican Citrzensf 79

D

oí the population has been one of the constante in modcrn Mexican history. As a result, the revolutionary state combined the Porfirian cult oí enlightened, state-led progress with an organicist construction oí the people. This revolution gave citizenship another kind oí valence. Inscead oí attacking communal lands and trying to transtorm every Mexican into a prívate owner, postrevolutionary governments gave out land and protection

4

as forms of citizenship, out they retained ultimate control over those resources. As a result, citizenship in the postrevolutionary era (up to the mid- or late 1 980s) can be thought of in parí as massified and sectorialized, because peasants and workers of the so-called informal sector received beneHts en the force of their citizenship, and yet lacked independence froni the state. Thus, the debased citizen that DaMatta speaks of is different in the prerevolutionary and the postrevolutionary periods, because, in the latter, "nobodies" coulcl make daims for state beneHts on the oasis oí their collective identity as part oí a revolutionary pueblo, whereas in the former they could not.

Passion and Banality in Mexican History:

Part of the current difficulty in MMexican citizenship is that social critics acknowledge that state paternalism and control over production led to un-

The Presidential Persona

acceptably undemocratic forros oí rule and, indeed, lo policies that led to the bankruptcy of the country. However, at least the 1917 constitution envisaged parceling out some benefrts tu people by virtue oí the fact that they were citizens. The contraction oí che state has produced massive social movements and a very strong push aruund democratizaban and the category oí che citizen, out the current emphasis on electoral rights risks emptying the category oí iis social ccntents once again, and, given the fact that Mexico still has a large mass of poor people with little legal private property or stable and legally sanctioned work, and given too that Mexico's state is still incapable oí extending rights universally, we may yet see the reemergence a pernicious dialectic between the good pueblo and the bad pueblo.

In Mexico, theories about nacional destiny have often eclipsed broader concerns with human history. Development in Mexico has been national development, history has been national history, and theories of history have been theories oí national history. This phenomenon is not caused by isolation. It is instead the result oí a pervasive peripheral cosmopolitanism, of an acute conscience oí wanting to catch up, to reach "the level" oí the great world powers, The need to explain the dynamics oí national history stems from the nacional project's failure to deliver its promise, its failure to free Mexico from subservience and to make the nation an equal oí every great nation. Curiously, however, theories oí Mexican history do not usually begin by inspecting the impact oí national independence en the sense of disjointedness that generates national self-obsession. Instead, they always want to reach further back in an attempt to force a national subject who can then be liberated through the sovereignty oí a national community. My argument in this chapter takes an alternative route. Ideally, sovereignty may indeed coincide with the liberation oí the nacional subject, out this has never been a realistic expectation. Instead, real sovereignty, independence as it has actually existed, has generated a dynamic oí cultural production that shapes Mexican obsessions with national teleology because

Moler

of Mrx, :.r,, Cirrzevsbi Jr

81

=

it creares a systanatic divide ben,cen nati],cal ideolugy and actual power

projects is i cself used to construct che nacional subject that is meant to be

relatiuns 1-his chasm is espcdalls cvident In Clic states tense relationship

liberated by the nacional scatc, and by che next set oí reforms.

io modernizati on and to che ],roed prole, t „I cultural modernity.

1 Nave argued that che limitations oí various modero projects in

Al] nacional state, can be th,caccned b, modcrnlzation. After al], eapi-

Mexico Nave reflected che highly segmented quality of che public spherc

talist development has thnved mi clic inahility ot srates fully to encompass

there. This segmentation can be properly understood through a geog-

che economies of their peoplc lhe tcchmcal social organizacional, and

raphy of mediations. My rescarch agenda has been to develop such a ge-

cultural Innovacions that are linkcd io indu,tnal growth (i e, moderniza tion) can thrcaren boch che interests and che teehnical hasis of state

ography by focusing boch on agents oí mediation, such as intellectuals

power. Cultural modernity tor: is en esl,ansive projeer thac has challenged specihc state instiitu tions hv shaping and upholding a series of rights aiound che category oí che citlzcn, by insisting on a degree of autonomy fui artistic and scientilic production, and by fostering a "public sphere" froni which state policiies and institutions can be evaluated and criticized.

and politicians, and en che public enactment of nacional unity and artnculation in political ritual In Chis chapter 1 will focos on che secular process through which che ideal oí nacional sovereignty was incarnated; 1 mean che shaping oí che public persona oí che president of the republic. 1 will argue that the rocky process by which presidential power became routinized affords a glimpse of che way in which the state has brokered Mexico's modernity.

In Mexico, che scates active role in propitialing and channeling development and modernization has depended en institucional forms that often contradice democratic ideals of dnzenship, freedom of expression, artistic

First Time as Farce?

and scientiflc autonomy, and other ideals of cultural modernity. This fact

Disturbed perceptions oí che disjunction between the central tenets of na-

is manifested in che resilience o1 che category ancien régime' in Mexican

cional ideology and actual political practice are visible in Mexico as early

political and historical texts Eighleenth- century modernizing reforms

as the independence movement itself. For instante, José María Luis Mora,

introduced by the Bourbons are correctly casi against a classical ancien régime, which is described as corporatist and premodern, but corporatism, che ownership oí political office, and the primary importance of personal negotiation with a sovereign did not die with these reforms. Historian Frangois Xavier Guerra discusses che 1910 Mexican Revolution against the backdrop oí a still-crumbling "ancien régime," despite che fact that Porfirio

a man who worked tirelessly and to a large extent unsuccessfully at creating the persona of the liberal citizen, complained that his contemporaries believed that "[t[he constitution and che laws are here to place limits en a power that already existed and was invested with omnimodal power, and not that they are here to create and form that power."' In other words, the presidency alter independence saw its power as preceding the roles and

Díaz was indisputably a modernizing dictator and that Mexico had been

laws of the constitution, which might limit it in some ways, but not shape

independent for nearly ninety yeais when che revolution broke out.' Even

it ex nihilo. State power was not boro of a formal social contract, but the nation allegedly was.

today, political writers have resurrected che ancien régime label, but Chis time to refer to the postrevolutionarv one- party system that is in the process oí collapsing. The persistente oí che epithet ancien régime' is a manifestation of the perceived divide between che nacional ideal wherein che law has universal extension and application, and real state power, which is seco as making decisions on a self-serving and ad hoc basis. This chasm has been che declared cause of revolutions and reforms. However, reforms have failed to redress che gulf between che real and che normacive order, modern and tradicional "hybrids" proliferare, and chis process usually ends up being interpreted as a manifestation of che resihence of a nacional culture- The cycle of nationalist angst is therehy closed, because the failure of modernizing P,:,, ion and Bi,:nliiv in Al r:!; ca,: Hi, ,ory

Despite the persistente oí chis ideological disjunction, liberal theories regarding social contract, political representation, and citizenship flotar-. ished. This fact can be understood in part as a mimetic strategy for che state's survival: che adoption oí the great powers' own idiom of statehood was necessary for navigating a weak state in international waters. The temptation to cloak local struggles for national power in a language that enjoyed a degree of international prestige, a temptation that was provoked at once by imperial pressures and by che strategic utility of foreign ideas for internal self-legicimation, produced political habits that Nave been described since che early moments oí Mexican nacional independence and up until che present day as a grotesque penchant for imitation-imitation Yassian nnd Banality in Al rxiran 83 =

History

flor only oí liberal idcals, hut of everv kind of glorious foreign practice. 1 quote again froni Mora,

[i]nsulting the faith and our sovereign, Ferdinand VII, painted en his hanner (he image of our august patroness, our Lady of Guadalupe, and wrote

The raen who arroganlly chist '],al 'comtimnons are sheets of paper that

the following inscriptiom. "Long Live the Faith. Long Live Our Holiest

Nave no value other than ihar wlnch die governmcnt wishes tú give them"

Mother of Guadalupe- Long Live Ferdinand VII_ Long Live America, and

are deludcd That expression vhidt seas in some v.ay tolerable coming

Death to I3ad Government.'o

from thc hero oI Marring of jcna aod ol Austcrlitz, ro ni the inan who

Abad y Queipo subsequendy excommunicated Hidalgo and threatened to

saved Franco a thuusand timos and Icd its armies vietoriously 111 YO Russia,

do the lame to any person who persisted in fighting on Hidalgos side or in aiding him in any way.

has been repeated not lar hnm mis bv pygmics without mera, service, or presti ge s

This edict, which was soon endorsed by the archbishop oí Mexico,

Here, Mexican politicians are tiny AGicans, aping Europeans in their

caused great indignation and rape with Hidalgo, Morelos, and other mem-

banana repuhlic. But, as historian Fernando Escalante has demonstrated,

bers oí the insurgent clergy. Hidalgo made a formal reply, in which he

the citizen that was meant to monlmr these politicians was an equally fie-

swore his loyalty to the Catholic faith: "1 have never doubted any oí its

titious character, hecause the power oI die 'tate was never sufficient to de-

truths, I have always been intimarely convinced oí the infallibility oí its

lend the property and the rights of Mexlcans who enjoyed formal citizenship.° ln this context the office ol ihe presidency became a vehicle for

dogmas.`7 Hidalgo then vehemently deplored his excommunication as a partisan act: "Open your eyes, Americans. Do not allow yourselves to be

imagining sovcrcignty, and presidente built ibeir authoriry by shaping and embodying these images.

god is money, and their acts have our oppression as their only object." s He

seduced by our enemies: they are not Catholics, except tú politici their then called for ehe establishment oí a representative parliament that,

Excommunication ani) Primary Piocess"iiice Jodependence

saving as its principal object la maintain our boly religion, will promete benign laws

Once Miguel Hidalgos (1810) movement lar independence had ravaged

[leyes suaves], useful and well suited to the circumstances oí each pueblo. They shall then govern with the tenderness oí parents, they shall treat os as

severa) towns oí the Bajío regios, thc bishop oí Michoacán and erstwhile Iriend of Hidalgo, Manuel Abad y Queipo, decreed the excommunication of the priest and oí his followers.' This act, and some oí the insurgent clergy's reactlons, set the tope for l ater meraphors of national unity and

brothers, banish poverty, moderare the devastation oí ihe kingdom and the extraction oí its moneys, fonient the arts, liven up industry , . _ and, after a few years, our inhabitants shall enjoy al¡ of the delicacies that the Sovereign Author oí nature has spilled en this vast continente

apostasy.

The bishop began his edict with a citation from Luke-"Every kingtlom that is divided finto factions c11,11 he dcstruycd and ruined"-and then

In sum, Hidalgo warns against tire use oí the trae faith for the enrichment oí foreign oppressors. He identifies national sovereignty with rule oí

proceeded tu review ihe ravagcs of die wars in French Saint-Domingue JHaiti), which were caused, he reminded bis dock, by the revolution in

the Catholic faith, a rule that is to be paternalistic fin that it shall recognize the specific needs and circumstances oí each pueblo, and he imagines a

the metropole. The result of that revolt was not only the assassination of

nation guided by a single true faith that will quickly become a kind oí

all Euro pean' and Creoles, but also the des truction of four-fifths of the

Christian paradise in which poverty is eradicated by the fraternal senti-

island's black and mulatto population and a legacy oí perpetua] hatred

ment and benign intentions that exist between true coreligionists. Thus

between blacks and mulattos. No good could come from a falce division between Europeans and Americans.

Hidalgo performed a kind of counterexcommunication oí European imperialista who used Catholicism in order lo "seduce" those whom they

Abad then expressed particular chagrin regarding the fact that the cal] of disloya]ry and arras carne from a priest, ^tiligucl Hidalgo of the parish oí Dolores, who not only killed and injured Europeans and used his robes to 'seduce a portion oí innocent laborcrs,' but aleo,

sought to oppress and exploit.

Hidalgo's position found concrete jurídica] expression in the edicts oí bus follower, the priest José María Morelos. In his first edict abolishing slavery and Indian tribute (1810), Morelos proclaimed that "[a]ny American

P.+s=ion and Bnn.iy r ,. Jlex,can

Hisiory 8.l

=

Pas 'ion nnd 13ruia1ily in Mexican 85

liistory

who owes monee Lo a European is not oblit;ed Lo pav it- It, on the con-

by Morelos's declaration oí a elean siate for all, would be impossible to up-

ti-are, it is thc 1 uropean who owes. hc shall rigonxisly pay his debt Lo the

hold. They were ill suited to serve as the hasis for consolidating a huge

.Ameriean" Moreover ¡e vete lanwner sha bc set ¡ice wlth che knowl-

territory peopled by a weakly integrated nation that gained its indepen-

dge tirar il he eomni its thc satine dime nt air c othei that eontradicts a

dence at a montent oí iotense imperial competition.

mans honeste, lic- '11,111 be mmh, ti

These Iaws portrayed Turopeans as uuirious'y living oí¡ oí "Amen ca os such that there was no possihle Anacrican debt to the Europeans that liad

Dead Presidents

not been hanclsomeIv paid lor bcl„rehand and that the judgment oí

The consolidation oí a central authority has been a eomplex problem in

e rimes unid el thc Spa¡lis h reginn rs a. ses tematically unlair. In sum, che

Mexican history, for although such an authority existed during the colo-

c ountcrexcommunieation ot INC Spanish clergy by Hidalgo and Morelos

nial era in the figure of the king and his surrogate, che viceroy, establish-

tuses the nacional ideal with a Christian utopia. Paternalistic beneficence

ing a central state and authoriry after independence proved to be highly

and brotherhood would be achieved in an independent Mexico ruled by

problematic.

true Catholics, instead of by oppressors who used Catholicism to pursue

Monarchical solutions to this quandary were consonant with the ideology oí Mexican independence, which leaned heavily en traditional Spanish legal thought to legitimate itself. The dream of a smooth transition between the colonial and che independent order was simply not to be. On one side, radical insurgents were not keen to see the precolonial status quo upheld to such a perfect degree. On another, Spain did not immediately relinquish its claims over the new Mexican empire and attempted to reestablish a foothold on the continent for ten more years, sufficient time for an anti-Spanish sentiment that had been growing along with the construction oí Mexican nationalism to become virulent. Moreover, the United States was clearly and loudly opposed to che establishment of a monarchy in Mexico." As a result, monarchists were forced to set their hearts en acquiring a European monarch with che simultaneous backing oí al] or most European powers, a solution that was tried and failed in che 1860s. Thus the early fractures among the nascent national elite were connected ab initio to che contest between the United States, France, Spain, and Britain. It was not until 1867, after the French departed and Maximilían was shot, that Mexico finally earned its "right" to exist as a nation. Until that time, no strong central state had existed, and the country's sovereignty was severely limited. In the words oí a Porfirian commentator,

their unchristian aims: the cxtraction oí money and che oppression oí a nation. Morelos's political spirit would perdure because che defense oí nationals against foreign extortion and the dispensation oí Christian justice proved impossible to achieve after independence. Thus, Hidalgo s image al sovereignty as the Christian adm i n ist ration of plenty remained a utopia, and Mexican governments alter independence were just as subject to the polities oí religious appropriation/excommunication as their Spanish predecessors. A similar formulation oí national ideals can be found a hundred years aker Hidalgos cry in Dolores, issuing from the pen oí that foremost ideologue oí the Mexican Revolution, Luis Cabrera, who blasted the official celebration oí the centenary oí independence just two months prior to che first revolutionary outburst oí November 20, 1910: The celebration of our glories and the commemoration of our heroes is a cult, but those who suffer and work cannot arrive togerher at the altar oí che fatherland with [hose who dominare and benefit because they do not share the lame religion- Just as the Ch ristian's plea to pardon all debts cannot fit in the same prayer as the lew s plea tor daily bread exacted from profits, neither can títere be a unilied hnmage te our fathers by those with an insaciable thirst for power and hy the noble desire for justice that moves che hearts of the pueblo that suffers and wnrks11

[before che wars oí intervention] being a foreigner came to mean being the natural-born master oí all Mexicans. It was enough, as a few oí the excep-

This significant, indeed foundational, strain of,Mexican nationalism there-

tionally rare honest diplomats acknowledged, for a foreigner to be impris-

fore lees the national state as the ideal medium for achieving a Christian

oned for three days en poor behavior or intrigue for that person to become

community- In fact, however, the standards lar sovereignty that were set

a creditor for fifty or one hundred thousand pesos to the Mexican national

by Hidalgo, wherebv poverty would be bar'shed "in just a few years," or

budget as a result oí a diplomatic agreement. °

Ya ssi o n und Ira n „l r d.l. , nn n 1listo ty 80 =

Passion u,d Bana1,ty in Mexican = 87

History

The state had become the guarantor oí foreign interests against its own people. The bullet that killed Maximilian effectively ended the possibility oí ever establishing a European-backed monarchy, while making a highly visible international statement about the sovereignty oí Mexico and oí its

persona: the strategy oí the martyr, the strategy oí the exemplary citizen, and the strategy of the modernizer. In discussing selected aspects oí these three presidential repertoires, 1 hope to clarify one aspect oí the distante between legal forms and actual political practice.

laws. Until that time, Mexico had been routinely "Africanized" in foreign oyes. In the years between 1 821 and 1867, Mexican leaders had tried a series oí strategies for constructing central power, combining varying forms oí messianism, aspects of monarchic power, republicanism, and liberalism, in a large number oí short-lived presidencies Civen the nonexistence oí a successful hegemonic block among early postindependence elites, and given a number oí foreign pressuies that were not fully comprehended by these elites until half the country's territory had been lost, the difficulty in constructing an image oí national sovereignty and authority in the office oí the president became a major cultural challenge, for whereas political ritual and the stability oí office in the colonial period reveal a clear-cut ideology oí dependency-that is, of a combination oí subordination, complementarity, and mutual reliance-this cense oí reliance and encompassment between the centers oí empire and Mexico was decidedly shaken, and sometimes completely shattered, alter independence.

The difficulty in shaping presidential power was increased, too, by the weakness, and at times nonexistence, oí modern political parties. Political organization around che time oí independence flowed to a large extent through Masonic lodges. In the early independence period, there was only one Masonic rite, the Scottish rite, which had been imported by Mexico's representativas at che Cortes oí Cádiz in 1812. A second lodge, oí York, was established in Mexico by the first U.S. ambassador, Joel Poinsett, with the explicit ami oí consolidacing a federalist, republican, and more Jacobin organization finto Mexico's political arena, In neither case, however, were these lodges open to public scrutiny, as political parties are, and political power was taken in the name oí ideologies, such as federalism, centralism, liberalism, or conservatism, with no party structure tu back them. As a result, the construction oí the persona oí the president as the personification oí sovereignty was both important and highly problematic. It involved creating an iniage that could risa ahoye and reconcile a regionally fragmented society, an image that could also be manipulated in order to seduce orto frighten off imperial power-contradictory uses that are surely parí oí the famous distante hetween the p,?ís real and the país legal. 1 shall explore three significant strategies in the evolution of the presidential Passion nnd 13 1 '1y ,n 88

t`í CXJC11 11

11 isiory

An Arm and a Leg The saliente oí martyrdom in politics has often been noted in popular commentary in Mexico. Mexico has a large pantheon oí national leaders who were shot or martyred, including Hidalgo, Morelos, Allende, Aldama, Iturbide, Guerrero, Mina, Matamoros, Maximilian, Madero, Villa, Carranza, Obregón, and Zapata, to name only the most prominent ones. The first martyrs oí independence were Hidalgo, Allende, Aldama, and Santa María, whose heads were severed by Spanish authorities and displayed in the four corners oí the Alhóndiga de Granaditas, where Hidalgos army had massacred a number oí Spantards and Creoles. Many other leaders oí independence were also executed in later periods. When it carne to insurgent priests, Spanish authorities tried to degrade the leaders before and after execution. The subjects were defrocked in ecclesiastical courts and then turned over to the civil authorities, who dictated their sentences. In cases where military officers had to take justice into their own hands, some officers "reconciled their duties as Christians with their obligations as soldiers" by undressing the rebel priest, shooting him, and then redressing him with his robes for burial.10. Despite these and other degradations, [hese dead became the martyred "fathers" oí the nation. The use oí messianic imagery was significant en two levels: it was a way oí identifying the presidential body with the land, and it cast the people as being collectively in debí to the caudillo for his sacrifices. The relationship to kingly ideology is clear. Because Mexico was unable to enshrine its own king, in whom a positiva relationship between personal welfare and national welfare could be state dogma ("The King and the Land are One"), its national leaders had to create this relationship negatively, through sacrifice. Thus, it was through personal sacrifice that the president could attempt to convince people oí his capacity to represent the entire nation. The most successful example oí a president who relied primarily en this strategy for fashioning his persona was Antonio López de Santa Anna, who dominated Mexican politics during the first half oí the nineteenth century Santa Anna was called to the presidency eleven times, alternatively as a liberal, a conservative, and a moderate. Ideological purity was Passion and Banality in 89

Mexiean

HisIory

clearly not che way to estahlish onesdl as a durable alternatve for the presidencv in carly nineceentli ,, ntury ,Vlcxico_ Instead, historian John Lynch observes chat Santa Anua sale El ini e l as a preserven of order, not as an ideologically Inconsisccnt opporuinist 1 -he fault !,aceording to Santa Anua] las with the political par ti,, ss bici, dlvidcd Mexico and created a need for reconciliation" : 1992, 3s6

Aboye the political fray hetwee n nothing remained in the rhetoiic of the period but the fachciland ,p.nna. itsell, and so Santa Anna cultivated bis repuiation as a war heru He led clic defense against the Spanish in 1829, bis leg was amputated alter wounds acquired in cine "Pastry War against the French in 1839 (offsetting, somewhat, bis humiliating defeat in Texas), and he organized the defense against the U.S. invasion ata time oí political disarray. In 1842, Santa Anna was once again called to power, and at that point he attempted co build the rudiments oí a political geography that would have him at its center. He had a luxurious municipal theater built (the Teatro Santa Anna), with a statue of himself in front oí it. A solemn and much-actended ceremony was cnacted to inaugurare a third monument, which was a mausoleum in which bis left leg was reinterred. The significante oí Santa Anna's Icg-a limb that linked him to Hidalgo, Morelos, and all the dead heroes whose ]ove for the patria at that point was the only ideology capable of unifying the country-is best appreciated in Santa Anna's own words: The infamous words the messenger read me are repeated hete: "The majority oí Congress openly favor the Paredes revolution . . The rioters imprisoned President Canalizo and extended their aversion to the president, Santa Anna. They tore down a bronze hust erected in bis honor in the Plaza del Mercado. They stripped bis narre from the Santa Anna Theater, substituting for it the National Theater. Furthermore, they have taken bis amputated foot from the cemetery ot Santa Paula and proceeded to drag it through the streets to che sounds of savage laughter and regaling ..." 1 interrupted the narrator, exclaiming savagely, Stop' 1 don't wish to hear any more! Almighty Codi. A member ot my hody, lose in che service of my country, dragged from the funeral urn, broken into bits to be made sport of in such a barbarie mannert' In that moment ot grief and frenzy, 1 decided to leave my native country, objeet of my dreams and oí my disillusions, for all time 15

Figure 4.1. Vlceroy don Juan Vicente Guemes Pacheco y Padilla, segundo Conde de Revillagigedo, anonymous painter, eighteenth century. Oil on canas, 52 x 41. Collection of Banco Nacional de México. This is a usual representation oí a viceroy's arrival in New Spain- The viceroy is assisted on one side by the power oí arms, and en the other by che power of justice, the same two powers that caudillos claimed for themselves when they claimed to stand aboye all parties.

Civen Mexico's ideological rifes, the dilflculcies in creating a national center in the face oí interna] divisions and international pressure, the only Pa, sion nnd Daneii1 y .u Xlexican Hirirry 90

1 ieure 4.2 hnagni de iura Len releen de Frmm,nlo VII ;monymous painter, ninereenth century. Oil cn canvas, 1-40 x 98 cm_ Collcetion ui !Museo Regional de Guadalajara. 1-he message on the painCing reads. leluved Fernando, Spain and the Indies placed on your head this [imago oí the croes n 1 the bottom reads,'This ¡ion, which is the Spanish nation, will rever lel gu Ironu i¢ lit,hes rhe teso worlds of Ferdinand VII" The representation of the king oo Str ikinglq ,imitar ti) portraits of Iturhide and Santa Anna_

1 igure 4.3. Santa Anna as presiden[-

,,ood president could be a seltkss one The dead insurgents beeame ex

created equal, has been a place that only the dead can inhabit, which is

acoples ol this ideal, and the ea' licsi viable examples oí the presidential

why we sometimes fight over their remainsls

persona wcre built around the ligare ot the martyr-presidents who did not reecive salaries, whu saeriheecl theii iniilics who abandoned their lamily l'artene. who gavc [Ti' their health iris tbctr country.

Unconventional Conventionalists, or the Fetishism of the Lau,

Santa Anna lost his leg and it beeame the focus oí contention. Alvaro

It fell to Benito Juárez to create the first strong image oí the presidency as

Obregón caudillo of the Mexican Revolution, president from 1920 te

an institution oí power that seas truly aboye the fray, and his strategy was to

1924, reelected for office in 1928. and murdered on the day of his elee -

present himself as a complex embodiment oí rhe meeting between the na-

tion, lost an arni in the battle el (elava against Pancho Villa- This arre was

tion and the law. As an Indian, Juárez could stand for rhe nation; as an im-

preserved in alcohol and it hecame tlie centcrpicce of a monument built in

penetrable magistrate and keeper of the law, he attempted to create an

his trame by the man who created thc Partido Revolucionario Institucional

image oí the presidency as being aboye ambitious self-aggrandizement.19

that ruled the country for seventy-one ycars. Obregón's martyrdom was

Francisco Bulnes provides a biting creole perspective on Juárez 's distinct public image:

thus used to funnel charisma finto a hureaucracy that has insistently called itself revolutionary.

Juárez had a distinctively Indian temperameny he had the calm oí an

Two less well known and curious stories are the ends met by the bodies oí Guadalupe Victoria and of General Francisco (Pancho) Villa. Guadalupe Victoria, Mexico's first president, died in 1842. During the U.S. invasion of Mexico in 1848, American soldiers violated the tomb where his mummy and preserved innards were kept. According to one hagiographer, two U.S. soldiers drank the alcohol in which Victorias innards were preserved and died-the remains oí Guadalupe Victoria were still powerful in the

obelisk-that reserved nature that slavery promotes to the state oí comatoseness in the coldly resigned races. He was characterized by the secular silente oí the vanquished who know that every word that is not the miasma oí degradation is punished, by that indifference that apparently allows no seduction but that exasperates .. Juárez did not make speeches; he did not write books, use the press, or write letters; he did not have intimate conversation , nor did he have esprit, an element that makes thought

were placed at the foot oí the Angel oí Independence in Mexico City by

penetrating, like perfume . Nor was he subtle or expressive in his gestures, his movement, or his gaze. His only language was official, severe , sober, irreproachable, fastidious , unbearable. His only posture that oí a judge

President Calles in the 1920s.16

hearing a case . His only expression the absence oí all expression . The physi-

struggle for sovereignty. In 1862, just before the French invasion, Victoria's remains were transferred to Puebla by General Alejandro García, and they

Pancho Villa, whose tonib was desecrated and whose head allegedly

cal and moral appearance of Juárez was not that oí the apostle , or the martyr, or the statesman ; it was instead that oí a god in a teocalli, inexpressive en the

ended up in the Skull and Bones Society at Yale University, a secret society

humid and reddish rock oí sacrifices.30

U.S. patriots apparently also had a bone to pick (so to speak) with

oí which George Bush was a member-1' It would appear that Villa, who was initially portrayed by the U.S media as a great popular hero and then demonized as the bandit who had the gall oí invading Columbus, New Mexico, and getting away with it, beeame die object oí "scientific interest" by patriots in the United States, whlle Villas invasion oí Columbus is still a source oí pleasure for Mexican revnncbis les.

The politics around these remains reveals the degree to which the nation's inalienable possessions llave been vulnerable to foreign appropriatien, as well as to interna] desecration- It suggests that martyrdom has been fundamentally linked to an elten unworkable ideal oí sovereignty in modern Mexico Sovereignty, that ideal locatien where al! Mexicans are 1,e1 1 1 as 1 11 .1 B .1 ➢ .I!. ', Vrxrcan v4

His1ory

Juárez created a lasting image oí what the relationship oí the president to the nation should be: he had no need oí the kind oí martyrdom that Santa Anna utilized because his yace already proved his links to the land. Nor, as Bulnes says, was he an apostle , in that his role was to remind Mexicans and foreigners oí the role oí the law. The result appears at first as an impossible combination: the legalistic bureaucrat as national fetish. Juárez's construction oí the presidential persona as the embodiment oí the law depended on a racial element for its success. Mexican presidents who belonged to the local aristocracy could only achieve full identification with the land through the theater oí messianism and martyrdom. Juárez, on the other hand, relied on the mythology oí the Aztec past that P a s s o n a n d B a n a 1 i 1 y i ,i M e x i c a n H , t , , = 95 =

was important in Mexican nationalism as a way of establishing a credible relationship to the land without relying on messianism . When he relied on hiblical imagery, Juárez usually turned to Moses, the lawgiver and liberator, and not to Jesus and the martyrs . This was because Juárez's challenge was not to demonstrate loyalty to the land, but rather to show that he could 'rise aboye his yace." The law resolved this problem to some extent. The Indian, who indisputably was connected to the land , could identify so fully with the law that he would become faceless: a national Fetish of the law, an idol in a teocalli, as Bulnes says . This contrasts with the role of the law in the persona of the messianic president , whose actitudes in this regard were usually inspired by Napoleon. Juárez was aided in this project by the fact that he presided over the definitive defeat of European powers , the execution of a prestigious European monarch, the defeat of the clergy, and an alliance with the United States . He succeeded in identifying himself with the land not through the greatness of his individual acts ( as Bulnes would have liked), but rather through his sober image as the inexorable instrument of the law. After Juárez , two alternative images of that national fetish that is the president had been rudimentarily established : the presiden [ as messianic leader- overflowing with personality , ideologically inconsistent, and abandoning his fortune for the sake of the nation - and the expressionless leader who claims the rule of law in the narre of the nation . The fact that the two could not easily be combined is evident in a satirical verse directed to León de la Barra , interim president of Mexico alter General Dfaz's fall in 1910:

El gobernar con el frac Governing with a tuxedo y ser presidente blanco Being a white president es tan sólo un pasaporte Is only just a passport de destierro limpio y franco 21 7o certain banishment.

One could use a tuxedo like Juárez if it underlined a fusion between the Indian and the law, but if one were white and sought to be president, one could not cake on the persona of the bourgeois or the bureaucrat; instead, one needed the force of arms and a messianic language. After Juárez, the image of saving che law in che narre of the nation becarne a powerful way of claiming the presidency and of shaping the presidencial persona, and this despite che fact that Juárez's self-serving use of the law was no different from either his predecessors nor his successors.22 During ehe Mexican Revolution, Madero revolted against Díaz in the name P

,S510n

and

B,nnlity in Alrx,can

96

Hisfory

Figure 4.4. Tlahuicole, by Manucl Vilar. Collection of Museo Nacional de Arte; photograph by Agustín Estrada. This exemplar of indigenista art from che time of Juárez has the Indian embody the classical ideal of strength and beauty. The discrepancy between che potential of the Indian race in its moments of sovereignty and its degeneration, caused by foreign subjugation, was implicit in the representation itself.

Figure 4.5 I,idios carboneros y labradores de Li vecindad de México, lithograph by Carlos Nebel (1850)- This re presentati o o ol eoniempoi ary Indians is characteristic of the period and contrasta wlrh the ideal cmbodied in Tlabnicole-

of the 1857 constitution and he was punctilious in setting himself up as a law-abiding citizen. In fact, Madero combined the messianic image with that oí the law provider in his "apostle oí democracy" persona. Carranza's army called itself the "Constitutionalist Army" when it organized against the usurper Huerta; Villa and Zapata called themselves "Conventionalists" and claimed to be fighting Carranza out of respect for the resolutions oí the Aguascalientes Convention- Finally, and perhaps most important, Mexico's dominant party, established in 1929, saw itself as the institutionalized heir of the revolution, which was interpreted as the fount oí nacional comunitas whose spirit was embodied in tire constitution oí 1917. In each oí these cases, including juárez's, the nationalization oí che law was a way to construct a viable presidential authority whose actual policies often had no more than a casual or after-the-facr relationship tu the law.

Figure 4.6- President Juárez, anonymous engraving autographed by Presiden[ Juárez. Juárez, the Indian who studied law and who made Europe pay for its intervention by ordering Maximilian's execution in conformiry with that law, is the modero

Inventos del hombre blanco: Modernizalion and Presidencial Fetishism 1 have outlined two ways in which thc presidenr's persona was shaped: che messianic strategy and che indigenized-legalist strategy. These alternatives were developed at difterent moments. though hoth are components P.iseion and

Oa salii> ,, v8

;blexicnn

Hislory

reconciliation between che idealized pre-Hispanic Indian and che promise held out by national sovereignry- Juárezs identity as a civilian demonstrates the porential of Mexican society ro back this ideal, while simultaneously affirming that national liberation would not be attained by "caste wars "

IGNACIO M. ALTAMIRANO. Figure 4.7. Allanurano, lhe Indian Gmlor, anonymoiu engraving published in Evans (1870)_ Ignacio Manuel Altamirano seas, on che cultural plane, a symbol quite similar co Juárez. The Indian body elothed in European high culture was a reclamation oí what had been due te che Indiati yace. It was a consequence of sovercignry and hecame its fitting symbol_ Figure 4.8. Presidente Benito Juárez, by Hermenegildo Bulstos. Collection of che

of contemporary Mexican "presidentialism The messianic strategy was

Senado de la República (Mexico). This contemporary portrait oí a green-eyed

che first successful option because [here was no way that the presidency

Juárez hangs today in Mexico's Senate. The mestizaje of Juárez is here embodied

could feign ideological consistency in che first half oí che nineteenth cen-

in che whitening of his face, a strategy that made sense while Juárez lived.

tury. The fetishization oí che law occurred in coniunction with the consolidation oí Mexico's position in the international system and as a result oí

[In che early and mid-nineteenth century] [w]e have two theses correspon-

the polarization oí che country to a degree that only one party could con-

ding to two tendencies [che liberal and che conservative tendency], which

ceivably emerge as che victor_

struggle against each ocher because oí their respective aims and because

The third strategy that 1 will discuss concerns che nationalization oí modernization as a presidencial stracegy. According co historian Edmundo O'Gormam

ever, [hese two theses end up postulating the same thing, co wit, they both

) i i. 100

A:,'xi:nn History

they are founded on two different visions of che direction oí history. Howwish to acquire che prospedty of che United States without abandoning Passion and Bnnulity in 101 =

Mexican History

u'aditional ways of being, because these were judged tu be the very essence of the nation. Both comenta wanted thc benehts oí moderniry, but neither wanted modernity itsclf"

In other words, the contest ter nm oderniza tion (niaterial and technological progress) asas a high aim of the national struggle that was claimed by all factions, while cultural modernity was, in different ways, rejected This tendency was clearly expressed at the muro oí the twentieth century-when the contest herween liberals and co nserva tives had been transcended-in irielisnm, an ideology that posited the spiritual supcriority of Latin America over the United States and envisioned modernizing Latin American countries without absorbing the spiritual debasement created by the all-pervasive materialism that was attributed to U.S. society. Although Enrique Rodó's Ariel ties Latin spirituality to a Hellenic inheritance, the fundamental tenet oí arielismo (greater spirituality that is nonetheless compatible with selective modernization) has multiple manifestations, some oí which are present even today in the forro of indigenismo, and in nationalistic forms of socialism. Taken at this leve) of generality, arielismo presupposed a certain cosmopolitanism and a high degree of education (at least at the leve) oí the elites), combined with the maintenance oí hierarchical and paternalistic relationships within society. The cosmopolitanism and spiritual education oí the elite were required, in fact, in order to guarantee a well-reasoned selection oí modere implementa and practices to import. In other words, arielismo was an ideology that was well adapted to the circumstances oí Mexican political and intellectual elites from the end of the nineteenth century to the end oí the era oí impon substitution industrialization ( 1982), because it cast Mexicans as consumers oí modern products that retained an unaltered "spiritual" essence, an essence that was embodied in specific-unmodern-relations at the leve) oí family organization, clientelism, corporate organization, and so on.

figrtre 4.9a. Caballero Águila. Sculpturc

Figure 49b Un caballero español del siglo

lrom the Mexican pavilion of the

XVI Sculpture from the Mexican pavil-

Exposición Iberoamericana de Sevilla 1929)- These twin statues, adorning Mexico's con tribu(ion te che Ibero american Exhibition in Seville, makc

ion et the Exposición Iberoamericana de Ser dla ! 1929)

Moreover, arielismo, indigenismo, and other avatars oí this posture implicitly fostered a defensive cultural role for the state and its statesmen_ to guard Latin societies against the base materialism oí U.S. society. Given this mediating position, the state was meant to be savvy about the consumption oí modern produces. Its knowledge was derived from the humanistic education of its leaders and the spirituality of communal relations in Latin America. This mediating position allowed the appropriation of modernization as part oí the presidential manna. "Los inventos del hombre blanco' (the white man's inventions) were a third critica) prop in creating

the Spanish and Indian nobles equis a ents- Mestizo power is die logisal consequence of this vision

Pns sian arad E)aueliiy ir. Mexican His to ry 103 =

a stable view of sovereignty and of presidential power in the history oí ideological uncertainty.

In the cal ¡y nineteenth century, there are relatively few examples oí this political usage oí modernization by the presidential figure. One parcial exception is the use of statistics, to show that, morally, Mexico City was the equal of Paris, with lower percentages oí prostitutes, higher educational levels, and other illusionsr' Early efforts were usually cultural rather than technological-Santa Auras choice to build a theater as his most public work is an example. However, rhese never had the nationalist power oí the later technological imports. The image oí the state presiding over or introducing some major technological innovation or material henefit has been critica) to the construction oí the persona oí the presidenr since Porfirio Díaz's regime (1876-1910), whose introduction of the railroad did much to lend verisimilitude ro Díaz's studied resemblance of Kaiser Wilhelm. Recent examples oí the nationalization of modernization include the construction oí the Mexico City subway under President Díaz Ordaz (1964-70), Che construction of the National University's modernist campus and the development oí Acapulco under Miguel Alemán (1946-52), the development oí Cuernavaca under Calles (1929-34), the construction oí the Pan American Highway and the naUOnalization oí the oil industry under Cárdenas (1934-40), and the electrification oí the Mexican countryside under Echeverría (1970-76)_ The identification oí the president with modernization has at times been used against the more racialist imagen of the presidency as the embodiment oí national law and oí the nation's martyrs. This has especially been the case in times oí great economic growth, when presidenta usually show ideological eclecticism . The father oí this eclectic style is Porfirio Díaz, who nonetheless concentrated in his persona much oí the two earlier coniponents oí Mexican presidentialism (idenrity as racially Mexican, and idenrity as war hero)_ Dfazs unparallcled personal success in combining all rhree strands of thc presidential persona seems to have received divine sanction: the day of his namesake, San Porfirio, coincided with Mexican Independence Day; the birth oí the pero and of the nation were thus celebrated on the same day.

This almost ideal overlap between a modernizing image (gained only by presiding over the country in a moment of economic growth) and an image of personal sacrifice and racial legitimacy has only rarely coincided lince. To a cenan degree, Alvaro Obregón (1920-24) had it: his pickled arm, which was bluwn off at the I3attle of Celaya, linked him to the earth, Pas^ioe

^^nd

13anniii^ .^. Alrxisan 104 =

Figure 4.10 . Excursión al puente de Metlac, photograph by C. B. Waite (early 1900s). Feats of engineering , such as the bridge over the ravine oí Metlac, became emblematic of Porfirio Díaz and his accomplishments as president.

while his modernizing policies eventually gave him popularity with Mexico's industrial classes. Arguably Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-40) also had a credible mix of these ingredients. At any rate, since World War II, with peace in the land and sustained economic growth for a couple of decades, the image oí the modernizing president became more and more significant. Moreover, with the exhaustion of models oí industrialization organized around the national market through import substitution industralization, variants oí arielismo as an official ideology have become increasingly untenable . Therefore, modernizing presidents lince the 1982 debt crisis have gambled everything on a successful bid to be like the United States-materialism and all. As a result, the Mexican presidential image has suffered greatly, especially to the extent that presidents have failed to achieve the promised goal.

Conclusion The idea oí sovereignty was firmly entrenched in New Spain before independence, but it became an elusive ideal afterwards. The source oí this insecurity was the weakness oí Mexico's position in the contest between imperial powers and Mexicos internal economic and cultural fragmentation, a situation that made the construction of a central power difficult.

His^ory Passion and BanaIlty n Mexican 105 =

fíistory

Although tli e unccrtaingV ot o,eic pntr vaa, mast keenly telt in the periods bctwccn 1821 and 18c and h,-neern 1910 and 1939, the cultural dy-

UNA LECCION DE PINTURA. EL BUEN MODELO.

1 - I il I'll Ili'llll'llllili^Pl

11I!1llf'Ii ^ ^ ^ l ]Lhl

camics ehat wcrc unleash ed hv thca: tuxemirGes h ave bcen releva nt for

„.:.

tire whol,> nl ,slexicos independent pistan

The thrcc strategics lar utn stnicct n:; thc presldcnt.al figure chas 1 have discussed originare and culminare in ditferent moments-all three were routinlzed roto the presidencial otlice in che postrevolutionary era

- E. erta eec proteXO enmendar mi esftlo.

Figure 4 .12. A Painting Lesson, El hijo del Ahuizote, July 31, 1887; Benson Collection, University of Texas. A newspaper portrays the young President Díaz modeling himself after Juárez . The virtues associated with Juárez are civilian (constitutionalism, civism , respect for che law, firm principies , intelligence , patriotism) and Figure 4.11. General Porfirio Díaz presideole de la República para el período 1877-1880,

Indian ( abnegation, modesty, constancy, discretion, and honesty). Díaz the war

Gustavo Casasola Collection. Díaz as n war pero--a representaron reminiscent

hero had co copy some of these.

of Santa Arenas self-fashioning strategy.

,,,\1,,,,a, History

(1974) called "primary process" in his classical essay on Hidalgo's revolt. These are moments in which the original idea oí sovereignty as a moment in which the Mexican nation would be free to construct its own destiny and to ]¡ve in fraternal bliss are revived. Nevertheless, these moments oí communitarianism are always betrayed because the popular ideal oí sovereignty has been a structural impossibility for Mexico. As a result, Mexican history generates a characteristic combination oí passion and banality, with long periods oí modernizing innovation being perceived, despite their novelty, as facade or farce, and short bursts oí unrealizable communitarian nationalísms as the manifestations oí the true feelings oí the nation. The martyrs that are generated in these moments oí primary process are subsequently harnessed and appeals to their image are routinely made by aspiring presidents and used as che blueprint by which to build a more stable political geography. At the same time, this very strategy oí constructing a national center by brokering modernity through the presidential office, and by nationalizing it through the cult oí martyrs and through the racialization oí the law, is what has helped generate a national self-obsession. This obsession was fostered to a large degree by che aspiration oí liberals and conservatives, oí arielistas and indigenistas, to modernize selectively and to attain the promFigure 4.13. Arc of Triumpb Erected in Honor of Porfirio Díaz Here miliitarism, indigenism, and modernization are rolled into one. the construction of the are is a feat of engineering and architecture, a sign of rhe wealth produced by modernization, a nod toward Europe, andan identifcation of Díaz as a savior, a soldier, and an Indian.

ised modernity within a national framework. Arielista cosmopolitanism, the cosmopolitanism oí che statesman as the nations official internacional taster. is at the heart oí the preponderante oí the nation as an intellectual object in Mexico. This cosmopolitanism, which sometimes conceives of itself as provincial, has forged sagas oí national history that reach to che

Nonetheless, representing the nation internally while maintaining an adequate externa) facade has been a chronic difficulty. The importante oí the nation's self -presentation to the externa] world, and the conflicts between che states needs in this regard and its connections to interna ) social

Aztecs or to the Conquest for an understanding oí che qualities and properties oí the Mexican nation, but it is Mexico's persistent dismodernity that generates this form oí self-knowledge.

groups, led to the invention oí a state theatcr that was often divorced from the quotidian practices of state rulo. As a result oí this structural prob]em, moments oí governmental selfpresentation before foreign powers have buen vulnerable targets oí public protest, as occurred during Díaz's centenary independence eelebrations in 1910, before che Olympic Carnes in 1968, and on the day oí the inauguration oí che North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) enJanuary 1, 1994. Clashes between communitarian revivas oí che idea] oí sovereignty and stiff and self-serving international presentations oí the state have often been understood by analysts as manifestations oí what Victor Turner Pnssion

oid

13ana.ily in iltesican History 108 =

Pa ssion and Baxality in Mexican 109 =

History

such unlikely democrais as iMexico's longtinte state party (the PRI) and Mexicos traditional left. In the sphere of scientiflc and aeademie production, the government has !mil, m cnted e1rae onian measures for niodernization, doggedly promoting standards o1 production and productivity

5

that are mcant to put Mexican science in liase with an international standard." Finally, in the economic realm, the idea of competing in global markets has gained enormous autliority, and it has ser-ved to justify the transformation ot state en terp ri set that were run on a red istti butive ideology of ''national interest' and "social justice" into privately owned, competitive, and, yes, "modern" businesses-

The confluente oí al] oí these changes and themes of public discussion reflects, undoubtedly, the fact that Mexico entered yet a new phase of dismodernity in the past two decades. The 1982 debt crisis dealt a terrible blow to the regime oí state-fostered national development, and the economic arrangement that has emerged provoked an intense struggle for supremacy between diverse modernizing formulas. Those involved in this contest continuously make appeals to various idealized national audiences, but those audiences have themselves changed-

Fissures in Contemporary Mexican Nationalism

In this chapter, 1 explore one aspect oí this transformation, which is the relationship between national culture and modernity. Specifically, 1 disMexicans have been tormented with recurring modernizing fantasies and

cuss the ways in which national identity has changed from being a tool for

aspirations ever since independence Dreanis of the nation wrestling with

achieving modernity to being a marker of dismodernity and a form oí pro-

the angel of progress have been especially haunting in moments oí pro-

test against the most recent reorganization oí capitalist production. In the

found social change, such as those that are transpiring in Mexico today.

process, both the substance and the social implications oí nationalism have been deeply transformed.

Worrisome symptoms of epochal cultural and social transformation first carne to the attention oí the reading public in the mid-1980s. At that tinte, many a social diagnostician thought that Mexico had contracted

The Telltale Naco

"posttnodernity" and that its twisted historical trajecrory might at last have hrought it to that vanguard that ends all vanguards (albeit in a disheveled

One phenomenon that helps to capture the changed relationship between

state). Nevertheless, Chis notion was soon corrected by Roger Bartra

nationality, cultural modernity and modernization is the way in which the

(1987) who, having carefully analyzed Mexio's symptoms, came to the sohering conclusion that, although indeed strange things were happening

connotations oí the term naco have changed in the past decades. Until sometime in the mid-1970s, the terco naco, which is allegedly a contrac-

regarding modernity in Mexico, diese might more aptly be described as

tion oí Totonaco, was used as a slur against Indians or, more generally,

a particular form of dismodernity or, more playfully, as "dis-mothernism":

against peasants or anyone who stood for the provincial backwardness

a mixture of a quite postmodern drsn odre (chaos) and continuing aspira-

that Mexico was trying so hard to emerge out of. In the 1950s, Carlos

tions to an unachieved modernity. Unsatisfied with this state ot aflairs, M(xicos political parties and the

Fuentes described the nacos counterparts as "little Mexican girls .. blonde, sheathed in black and sure they were giving international tono to

press soon nade the issue of modernity finto their central theme- In the

the saddest unhappiest flea-bitten land in the world."' The naco, then, was

political realm, lor instante, democracy has received obsessive attention. It

the uncultured and uncouth Indian who could only be redeemed through

has become a hegentonie idealogy. bringing rogether all parties, including

an international culture

FI Sf U ICS

110

=

=

111

in

,tl osica n

=

Na ti on a i,

In the past twenty years, however, the connotations oí naco began breaking out oí their rustic conhnement to such a degree that naquismo carne to be recognized as a characteristically urban aesthetic. Similar processes have occurred elsewhere in Latin America, with tercos such as cholo in Peru and Bolivia, and mono in Ecuador. Resonating with the imagery oí colonial castas, che aestheiics of the uaco denote impurity, hybridity, and bricolage, but, aboye all, the more recent usage oí naco designates a special kind of kitsch. The naco's kitsch is consideren vulgar because it incorporates aspirations te progress and the material culture of modernity in imperfect and partial ways. We recognize a form oí kitsch here because the naco is supposed te feel moved by his own modernized image. So, for example, the Haca is moved by the sopas in her living room and she seeks to preserve their modernizing impact by coating them with plastic. It is worth noting, however, that in defining naco in this new sense, the category can no longer be confined or reduced to a single social sector or class, because the kitsch oí modernization affects upper classes quite noticeably, and 1 have in mind not only such outstanding naco monuments as former Mexico City Chief oí Police Arturo Durazo's weekend house that is known as "The Parthenon," but also many of the attitudes oí Mexico's bourgeoisie, whose self-conscious fantasies are easily perceived in the domestic architecture oí any rich post-[ 960 neighborhood. The category of naco as modern kitsch is thus directly connected to an idiom of distinction that appears to have lost its moorings in the indigenous and peasant world: it now targets that whole sector oí society that silently sheds a tear oí delight while witnessing its own modernity. And it is this self-consciousness, this unnaturalness oí the modern, that explains the persistence oí a (derogatory) Indian brand, for, like the colonial Indians, today's nacos have not fully internalized their redemption; they are therefore unreliable moderns in the same way that Indians were unreliable Christians, and so the whole country is dyed with Indianness. In addition to marking a kind oí kitsch, che epithet naco also connotes a certain lack oí distinction, or at least a lack oí hierarchy, between "high culture" and its popular imitations. Specifically, naco can be used te designate an overassimilation oí television and oí the world oí capitalist commodities. It is an assimilation oí the imitation with no special regard for the original. For example, forcign-sounding names such as "Velvet," "Christianson," and "Yuri" have proliferated in the past decades. One unusual but telling example is 'Madeinusa,' a name that was inspired by the label "Made in USA" and that is used in Panama. Broadly speaking, these

names come from comic books, magazines , and soap operas, and they are rejected by anti-naco sectors, who are increasingly inclined to use names from the Spanish Siglo de Oro (e.g., Rodrigo, María Fernanda) or from the Aztec and Maya pantheons (e.g., Cuauhtémoc, Itzamnah, Xicoténcatl). This latter group sees the former as nacos, but one could also argue that the distinction is rather one between closet nacos (modernizers who are nevertheless worried about erasing historical distinctions between high and low, foreign and national culture) and open or "popular" nacos, who couldn't care less. This is recognized playfully by some in the distinction between "Art-Naqueau," which is a more elite naco, and "Nac-Art," which is based en commercial North American culture, a distinction that flags an elitization oí history. Whereas the popular naco hreaks with the weight oí tradition (the mother is called Petra, the daughter is named Velvet), traditionalists try to appropriate History with its Rodrigos and Cuauhtémocs. Thus we can distinguish between nacos who try to affiliate to the modern vía the great national or Western narratives, and those who erase history and simply luxuriate in modernization. The popular nacos move toward the diminution oí the weight oí national and Western history brings some problems to those non- or closet nacos who depend to some degree on those histories. For example, in politics certain new populist styles have debunked long-standing política¡ forms in Latín America, In La Paz, Bolivia, a highly "cholified" city, "El compadre Mendoza" and his sidekick, "La Cholita Remedios," DJs of a popular radio station, have won important political posts. In Ecuador, former president Abdala Bucaram identified simultaneously with Batman, Jesus, and Hitler, while in Brasília, Mexico City , Buenos Aires, and Lima presidents and ministers have protagonized intense melodramasconfrontations between spouses, rivalries between brothers, leve affairs between cabinet members-that generate sympathies and antipathies that threaten to overshadow the significance oí the great narratives oí national power. Thus the new vulgarity is at times a threat to traditional political forms, just as it can threaten traditional mechanisms oí class distinction, reducing the old elite to ever-narrower and culturally obsolete circles oí "oligarchs." These threats to civilization are complemented by a growing horror toward the masses, a situation that is attributable to the combined effects of the lack oí respect for "distinction" involved in the new naquismo and the tremendous growth oí urban unemployment and crime. The fear oí looting and oí armed robbery has a counterpoint at the leve] oí distinction: fear oí proletarianization and oí blending in with the "vulgar classes."

Fissu res in Alex,can ; Valionaiism

F,s,ures in Mexican Nationai,sm 112

113 =

Political seientists are scan
This whole system ol ritualized mobilizations, segmented spheres oí

are scandalizcd by upen llrlios. and che gheist ut che Indian haunts America

political discussion, and intellectuals with privileged access to clic media

once more not as e redeemed Indian hut a, al) incdeemahie Indian.

was complemented by the once ntested power of arbitration and intervention oí the nacional iresident who became a much-sanctified figure

The emergente cal neto- tones ol chstinction that are evident in che crarsformatun of che tate ory oi r n in 1ts e llange from a diseriminatoty

[ti Chis respect, clic ene percy regime that was ir che hcight oí power

terco almed at peasants to a Iow-status aesthctics ot modernity that is

during ISI can be seco as a retashioning of the colonial system oí political

arguablv applicahle to che vast maionty of che urban population, is symp-

representation, when the viceroy was the highcst arbitrator and political

tomatie of a proeess of deep cultural cham;,e in Nlexican national spaee.

expressi ocas were channelcd roto che ritual life ol various corporations Ocae major difference hctween the two systems, however, was that diere

Until recently, nationality liad lucen e nicehanism lar modernizationI his identification emerged as early as clic wats ol independence, when ideologues such as Carlos María Bustamante placed che blame for the economie backwardness of Mexico at che leer of Spanish colonialism, and progress was neatly associated with nacional sovereignty and freedom. Moreover, che idenfilication between nationality and cultural modernity was strongly fortified in the aftermath of che 1910-20 revolution, when the state intervened actively to chape a lay, modero citizenry out oí Mexico's agravian classes. This proeess was to be achieved through education and economie redistribution, through land and books," as one agrarista from Michoacán put it.'' The result of chis would he, according to president Lázaro Cárdenas's well-known formulation, not to Indianize Mexico, but to transfonn Indians finto Mcxicans. Accordingly, the old usage of nrtco marked peasants and other traditional peoples and practicas as Indian," that is, as not yet fully Mexican. The new usage, contrarily, marks Mcxicans on the whole as not fully at

was only a very incipient public sphcre in che colonial period: the press was stringently controlled and void of all political commentary, the uni-

1

versity had no autonomy, there was no national parliament, and the Inquisition still stood as a symbol oí state vigilante over belief and expression. Moreover, the colonial system was premodern in that it was doggedly determined to prevent the separation between public morality, science, and art. On che other hand, neither can it be said that national society in the postrevolutionary era was unflinchingly modern, for although there was a public sphere in the Habermasian sense, che forums for discussion and che citizens that they included were a very restricted proportion oí the population. Moreover, although Mexico had effectively achieved a separation between church and state by 1930, it had not achieved a separation between politics, science, and art. Instead, both art and science were fostered under the patriarchal umbrella oí the protectionist state, and were ultimately

home in modernity. Nationality and national culture are no longer che

confined by it. Scientific production in Mexico has thrived disproportion-

vehicle oí modernity; they are che lingering mark oí dismodernity.

ately at its public universities, especially the national university, which until recently produced about 70 percent oí Mexico's scientific output.

Understanding the Background. i''vlodentily and Citrzenship onderlmport Substitution Lcdustrializatíon and in ihe Neoliberal Era

On the other hand, policy making in Mexican state institutions has not al-

The crisis of nationalism iir che current era has to be understood against

sound scientific policies have at times been eschewed in favor oí using the

che backdrop oí Mexico's regime of import suhstitution industrialization

educational apparatus as a mechanism oí redistribution. A similar sort oí

(ISI), which lasted roughly from 1940 m 1982 That era oí intense mod-

argument can be made for state policies in financing che arts. Few Mexican

ernization developed under the aegis oí a one-party system that was ideo-

intellectuals have escaped che ensuing ambivalente toward the revolution-

logically founded en revolutionary nationalism. The public sphere was largely centered in Mexico City, where institutional spaces were carved

ary state. At the regional level, until che 1970s Mexican culture was constituted

out for intellectuals to interpret "national sentiment" on che basis oí highly

out oí a dialectic between che capital, which was both the center oí na-

ritualized political manifestations hy social groups that had little direct ac-

tional power and che paradigmatic center of modernity, and various sorts

cess to che media of national representa tion and debate 3

oí provinces. Incorporation to modernity meant incorporation to state

Fr ssurrs

t u. ',IeL ,.t,. v'e dona 1'1m 114 =

ways held scientific production at che forefront oí its preoccupations: education has been too deeply associated with state-fostered mobility, and

Flssu res In

Mexican Natiocaulisrn = 115

institutions, especially schools, and knowledge and culture found their clímax in Mexico City. This led to a simplilied view oí the provinces as a homogeneous bedrock of tradition and backwardness, a feeling that is summed up in the famous maxim: Fuera de México, todo es Cuauhtitlán" (Outside of Mexico City, there is nothing but Cuauhtitláns), In fact, however, Mexican regions were spatially fragmented into a complex system oí localities and classes with concomitantly rich idioms oí distinction between them-I have called the ways of lile oí these spatially fragmented classes "intimare tintures-" Abstractly stated, regional cultures were made up oí combinations oí agrarian and industrial classes. The agrarian classes comprised peasant villagers, day laborees, cowboys, and ranchers, and each oí these had regional peculiarities and various degrees oí prominente in each region. On the other hand, the period oí ISI was also a time of accelerated urban growth and oí migration from rural settings to cities, giving cities a strong presente oí peasant folk, many oí whom returned to their villages at least for fiesta days and became active transformers of village social lile as weIl The entry into a new phase in social and cultural history can be traced to severa] sources, including (1) urbanization and new industrial poles oí development outside oí Mexico City-most notably on or near the U.S. border; (2) the consolidation of television and the telephone in the national space (which can be dated tu around 1970); and (3) the 1982 debt crisis and the corresponding end oí the regime oí import substitution industrialization and oí models for self-sustained growth. These changes radically altered the regional organization oí production-including cul-

investors, or on highly exclusive and specially targeted governmental scholarship programs. The status of scientists and artists as social groups was undermined. In chis way, intellectuals benefited from some decentralization and a bit more autonomy oí cultural production from the state, at the cost oí impoverishment and reduction oí the size oí the community of cultural producers, and a significant takeover oí this arca by private monopolies. At the level oí regional cultures, rural localities became less tied to their historical regions. Increasing dependence on industrial commodities, and agite modes oí communication (the telephone and TV), have substantially simplified what had until now been spatially quite intricate nested hierarchies oí productively and commercially interdependent localities, and television plus the urban experience have served to instate a more standardized idiom oí distinction in the regions. This latter aspect sometimes provokes a feeling of homogenization and oí cultural loss: the increased social role oí industrialized commodities, standardized and publicized by a monopolized medium (TV). In sum, in the era oí ISI, Mexico was made up oí a complex and differentiated set oí cultural regions. The state had a pivotal role in fostering industrialization and in creating che institutional framework for a national citizenry, and these two processes were intimately reeated. The state as educator, as employer, as provider oí social security, oí agricultural credits, or oí housing subsidies was the main modernizing agent. Becoming a fully fledged citizen, unencumbered by conflicting loyalties to native communities, was thus a sigo oí modernity.

tural production-as well as the government's place in the modernizing project.

In the past few decades, however, the mass media has created forms oí

The reduction oí the role of the state in the economy led to govern-

transregional communication that circumvent governmental institutions and that transcend their unifying power. For example, since Carlos Salinas's

mental attempts to divest from its tormer role in science, education, and art: public universities found thcir budgets strangled; Televisa, the prívate television giant, stepped up its role in "high culture," filling part oí the void that the government was leaving behind by building a major modernart museum, consolidating its cultural TV channel, and creating strong links with one oí Mexicu's two main "intellectual groups."s On the other hand, because oí the government's will to maintain party hegemony and the social system's acknowledged reliance on both higher

presidential campaign (1988), television stars were used as a main draw to attain public attendance at his rallies. On the other hand, the withdrawal oí the state as a primary employer, and its constrained sponsorship oí intellectuals, artists, and journalists, serve to sever the identity that had existed hetween citizenship and modernity. More recently, opposition parties such as the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) have used television and movie stars as successful candidates for congress.

education and research, the government tound that it could not afford simply tu abandon its ties to intellectuals, and so it developed new forms oí

Consumption , Recycling, and the Resilience of National Identity

patronage For restricted groups oí artists and scientists. Thus, state divest-

Given this general context , forms oí consumption have become perhaps the single most important signs oí the modern, and recycling is one oí the

ment left most intellectuals dependent on Televisa and other corporate Fissurrs

in

Aleen.' " = 116 =

N's dona l i sm

Fi ssu res u Alex,can Na tlonalfsm = 117 =

maro signs 11111 dion]s ot distincti un It is usehd tu distinguiste between

work the resilienee oí che pcasantry the ubiquitous presence oí personal

stracegics ot staggered dise ibution that are designed co underline degrees

servants for che middle and upper classes, the vas[ urban class of semi

of separation ron] the holy (rail ol che sr,-c alled international standard or

employed." political control over [hese seccors. whose direct dependence

tashion and recve Ing propei st h,eh involves cranstorming the use of a

on specific capitalists has o!ten been unstable, was until recently achieved

standardized iteni 1aperopriatiun resistan[ e (>r atfirmation ot ditterence).

through corruption. Corruption worked in two importan[ ways: first, specific state institu-

In che first category we hace as examples the distribution oí films,

rions were appropriated bv nidividuals who took charge oí dispensing resources and repressing dissenters: second. corruption tended to reinforce

which is spatially ordered in sueh a way that the hlms chat mark higher status are sereened in che Uniteri States lirst then in lancier Mexico City theaters and ni a lew provincial capitals and ttnally in thc popular cine-

or creare a corporate structure both beeause it involved consolidating ae-

mas. It is also evident in che phenomenon of dumping' in the tashion

eess co work via the mediauon of a politiiea! leader, and because policiical

industry -where prestigious brand, are mimlcked with cheap imitations-

leaders legitimated their position to superiors and subordinates by way oí

or in software, where piracy prevalls and few people own manuals co their

various political rituals that involved come redistribution. Thus, modern

(often slightly outdated or virus-intected) programs. On the whole, the

Mexico prolonged the haroque tradition oí popular representation in a

distribution oí brand names and goods places Mexicans slightly off the

spatially intricate fiesta system. In the current moment, however, Chis system has undergone serious

cutting edge oí international consumption. In contrast co this form oí staggered distribution recycling involves

strains. The retrenchment oí government has hegun to erode the commu-

improvisation: using generic instruments lar fixing the big brand names or,

nitarian framework that was ultimately the referent oí these various rituals.

more drastically, using produces for entirely different aims [han they were

For example, local village factions used to strive for gaining the PRI nomi-

designed for: plastic bags as plant pots, a hroken-down refrigerator as a

nation to therr municipal presidencies. The fact that the struggle occurred

trunk for storage, and so on The prevalence oí both oí these forros of dis-

within a single party signified that local village factions acknowledged the

tribution and recycling invades the whole country with a sense oí second-

encompassment of the village as a whole by both the state governor and

classness. This feeling is menacing to most political elites, including as-

the national presiden[ (both oí whom always belonged to the PRI). This

piring oppositional groups, and they correspondingly develop forms oí

tacit recognition oí encompassment helped consolidare an idiom oí vil-

distinction that stand against Americanization and turn either to Europe

lage unity that was expressed in the inclusiveness oí village fiestas.

or inward (to the hacendado, to che urban notable, to the Aztec lord) for

The contraction oí national government has meant giving up some

inspiration. In Chis way, various local and nacional elites can obviate a destiny oí becoming a middle-class periphery of Houston.

party control over Chis hierarchy, and it will certainly mean giving most oí it up in the near future. Village factions today are often funneled into sepa-

In Spanish, there is a saying, "Más vale cabeza de ratón que cola de

rare political parties This multipartisanship may well strain some oí the

león" (I'd rather be the head oí a mouse than the tail oí a lion). People who

communitarian ideologies and rituals in national space. For example,

are interested in asserting leadership need co construct themselves as

when che late Fidel Velázquez, perennial leader oí the officialist con-

being at the head oí a community wich a degree oí sovereignty; they can-

federation oí unions called the CTM (Confederación de Trabajadores

not simply be the lower-middle cog in a system oí distinction that has its

Mexicanos), announced that, for the first time, the CTM would not carry

capital ¡Ti some corporate headquarcers in Atlanta, and this situation re-

out a Labor Day parade en May 1, 1995, unions and people sympathizing

inforces the legitimacy of state-protected monopolies and political pre-

with the opposition participated in a-now uncontrolled-demonstration,

rogatives that Mexican elites, and lo some extent Mexican citizens, hace

that was widely interpreted as a rift between state and nation.

always had in therr country, thereby pitting nationalism against a globaliz-

This lame problem can also be gleaned kom another anglo. One characteristic oí Mexico's modernity has been the persiscent reproduccion oí vast social classes that are not fully incorporated into modero forms oí

Thus the incapacity oí the new state to funnel employment, and its concomitant difficulty in securing key ritual spaces, added to the severity oí the current economic crisis, creating an image oí a state that is controlled by and used for the benefit of a [hin and unpopular Americanizing elite that is overlain on a popular, Mexican nation. This image is unquestionably

F . ....... A I e , . e : A a b o n a l i s o ,

F , s s a res ,, mcx,c an Nnbonalrsm

ing forro oí modernization.

=

118

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119

=

new (although it has historical precedenes) and threatening. Corruption today appears as a more individualistic phenomenon than it was in the past: instead oí being a system that had che president at its apex and worked smoothly down from there, today higher officials are seen as plunderers who do not share with a broad base oí supporters. The connection between corruption and corporate ritual is not as pervasive now as it was in che ¡SI period, leading to an image oí a schism between people and state, Whereas the image oí the pyramid was a root metaphor for Mexican society in the period oí ISI, today the elite is often portrayed as a technocratic crust that is increasingly out oí touch with society.' In sum, the two logics oí distribution-staggered distribution and recycling-both tend to reaffirm che incorporation oí Mexico into a system oí distinction that has its capital in the United States. However, this same fact generates two forms oí nationalism to counter it; one comes from the recyclers and the other from al] manner of political leaders. Recyclers affirm difference from the international market simply by existing. Politicians need to affirm nacional difference in order to place themselves at the apex oí the various levels oí an imagined national community. On che other hand, the capacity of political leaders to portray themselves as sitting at the apex oí a cultural and political community has been seriously eroded by transformation in the economic system, whose contraction has led to democratization and to a reduction oí state sponsorship oí communitartan rituals. As a result, the pyramidal imagery that was typical oí revolutionary nationalism has heen replaced by various images oí che political elite as a free-floating crust of predators This makes their identification with the nation problematic.

Nationalísm and the International Standard So far 1 have described a situation in which demands for che extension oí che benefits oí modernization and modernity have expanded to all levels oí the regional system, while contradictions have emerged between these decires (whose pulsating vitality is evident in the ebullience oí naco aesthetics) and the very limited response froni state institutions that have heen retreating from their roles as providers. In this context, there is much ambivalente regarding che so-called international standard: free trade means producing for an international market and competing internationally, so that any Mexican product, sports hero, artist, or scientist who can compete internationally risks being transformed into a metonym oí Mexico's idealized place in a commoditized world oí equals. Thus che

"international standard" achieves a status akin to that oí truth for scíence' competing internationally is the ultimate legitimation7 On the other hand, much oí che country's population, which grew and developed under the systemic logic oí import substitution cannot easily reach this standard, and this population seeks che protection oí the state against the global market, while it asserts che value oí local cultural forms, traditions, and producís. There is thus a cultural dialectic between acceptance and rejection oí globalization that is obvious in che ambivalent position oí naquismo: enthusiasm for modernity and a (sometimes involuntary) assertion oí the individuals eccentricity. From a spatial perspective, this dialectic implies a change in the places and contexts in which nationalism is deployed. Whereas nationalism under ISI was the hegemonic idiom oí the state, an idiom that was appealed to in negotiating local political demands but that was less relevant in the day-today reality oí production and consumption, nationalism emerges today as a quotidian question that is deployed in connection to issues oí work and of consumption Whereas under ISI there was only one dominant form oí nationalism, and it was predicated en the teachings oí the Mexican Revolution and had the national state, personified in che president oí the republic, as its ultimate locus, today there are two forms oí nationalism, one that sees reaching full modernization and che rule oí the international standard as the ultimate patriotic end, and another that insists en the intrinsic superiority oí local products and traditions and that sees che neoliberal state as having traded its patriotic legacy for a bowl oí U.S.-made porridge. The first form of nationalism requires a credible bid to enter a North American economic community in order to survive. The feasibility oí this today is questionable because oí both Mexico's economic crisis and a nationalist backlash against NAFTA and against Mexican migrants in the United States, The second form oí nationalism has not yet devised a political formula that can simultaneously work in a contested democratic field and provide the kind oí state protection that revolutionary nationalism once offered.

Conclusion The transformation in che logic oí capital accumulation and in the role of the state in the economy has had a counterpoint at the level oí cultural production in national space. Changes at this level include (1) a reduction of the cultural independence oí provincial and Mexico City upper classes and a standardization oí idioms oí distinction through mass consumption; (2) a

Fis su res in Mrxlcan Nniionalism 120 =

Fistures in

Mexican Nationalis 121

eontraction oí state sponsois hlp ol scicnec and art and a concomitant growth in the control ()ver those seo tors br a untple ot industrial groups, i 31 a relative decline oí NIccico (io as the uncontested center of national modernit . 'i a neo- bardo ovci thr- runtcnis ot nationah s ni that spills in lo the ways in w h ieh tia nsfonna ti uns in the se tete ot production a nd in coi) sumption hahits are embraced oi rejcctcd, 51 a breakdown in the regional ehain oí corruption and controllcd poltieal ritual that has transfonned the imagos with which tic governnncnt is portraycd from a pyramidal metaphoi lo vatious imagos oí pa ras i tism. ani(¡ i tr, a divisiun between those who recyele witbotrt regard ro the status detinitions of mass consum ption and those who do their utmost lo be in the hrst cycles oí consumption.

PART11

AII oí this adds up to a serious crisis in the politics oí nationalism. Under the protectionist revolutionary state, nationalism and modernity carne in the same package, today nationalism can serve as a counter to globalization. However, the hopes of using the state effectively as an

G e o g r a phies of

alternative route to modernity llave not bcen renovated with ideas that make it seem more viable than the model that was already tried and exhausted or than failed attempts to foster socialism in one (dismodern) state. On the other hand, neolibcral politicians have not succeeded in reformulating Mexican nationalism in a way that preserves the sense that the nation has its own interna) system of value production. As a result, the opposition between state and nation, between a "deep Mexico" and a commercial, international, and super6eially modernizing elite, emerges as a common image oí the national situatiion. Politically, these dialectics of nationalism and national culture do not hold positive promise. Mexico is currently condemned to continue being a nation-state for a while, given the United States' ever more militant resolve to patrol its borders and control intmtgration. As long as current aspirations to modernity go unquestioned and unanalyzed, and as long as new formulas for state intervention in a modernizing project are not invented, the future looms darkly, one oí economic decline and unresolvable political divisions.

The spatial analysis oí the cultural dialectics oí modernity/dismodernity that 1 have presented here is a necessary stop for envisioning alternatives, and could be particularly usef ul en two levels- in the elaboration oí possible alternative narratives for the nation that are in line with its best real possibilities; and in understanding che cultural implications oí the geography of modernity, thereby helping to specify the sorts of social and political demands that are truly relevant in the refonnulation oí political programs, beyond ourcurrentideologicalhankruptcy

122

the Public

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ere

6

Natíonalism 's Dirty Linen: "Contact Zones" and the Topography ot National Identity

The production of knowledge, the narrative strategies, and the psychology of colonial and postcolonial relations have been the topic of a body of writing that has come to be known in the anglophone world as "postcolonial theory." Within this broad field, there is an arca of sociological inquiry that is of central importance, which is the systemic aspect of national identity production. Until recently, nationalist narratives were predominant, and they portrayed national identity and national consciousness as processes of "self-awakening " National identity was portrayed as emerging out of a dialectic that was interna) to the national community.

In the past couple oí decades, this approach has itself been shown to be an instrument of national identity production. Instead of looking for the secret of national identity within the "soul" or "spirit" of each nation, contemporary analysts have looked at the history of nationalism as an aspect of transnational relations. Local innovations to nationalist imagery, discourse, and technique are communicated between politicians, experts, and intellectuals the world over, in a complex history that leads to the standardization of various strands of nationalism. This history implicates scientific theories and measurements, narrative strategies in fiction and nonfiction, and aesthetic solutions to shaping the national image in art, architecture, and urban planning. 1

= 125 =

showto National identity has thus hcrn Ti he fashioned in transnational nctworks cal specialists, intelleeuials and pulitieians. many of whom proveed to eover thcir tracks and te cell ihcir tales as it they were strictly local nventions 1lorcover che denial ut interdci^cndency hetween nations has been shows to have a varíete c't pu,írtiea] ises Thtu. intelleetuals from colonized arcas have criticized che unes in which their countries material and intellectual contri butions have lacen appropriated bv the great powers, whose nationalism js thus casii\ icientilied with rationality" and °eiviIizanoll l'he nationalism ui we ak nations e as a result, in eonstant need of self-assertion, arad it tends to mino, che nationalism of che great powers by claiming independent or prior invention ol c ivilization for i tself 2 The shift Irom interna¡ accounts of che origins of national identity to accounts that understand nationalism as a cultural product that is generated in a web oí transnational connections is thus oí great consequence. Nevertheless, this development has nos yet provided all oí the elements that are required for a systematic account ol che contexts in which national identity actually emerges. Nacionalism, as Benedict Anderson argued, is not a coherent ideology, hut rather a broad cultural frame in which a variety oí contradictory claims are made' We know that states put forth their proposais for a national image and inaplement them in schools, museums, and public squares, but ay which points, in which social relations, is national identity pertinent, underlincd, or referred to by other actors? It is quite easy to produce lists of disparate contexts and relationships in which nacional identity "naturally" emerges: in the exclusion oí an upwardly mobile urban Aymara teenager from an afternoon social by her "white" Bolivian classmates; in the negotiation oí a business deal in broken English; or in the film that features an exotic woman who is made to represent the bounties oí her country to potencial foreign investors ... The list oí identity-productog social relationships Is limidess, and placing its diverse items in the Trame oí a broader política¡ economy is a challenge. 1 seek here to put order in the various sorts of contexts in which national identity "naturally" emerges. The master is of some importante to the general project of this book, which js to understand the conditions for the production oí "Mexico" as a polity, as national identity, and as national

achieved statehood long before as territory was bound together in a "national marker" or by a "national bourgeoisie." As a result, the territorial consolidation of the country mas a long, eonflict-ridden process involving secessions, annexations. civil wats, and forcign jnterventions. National consolidation carne hall a centup alter independenc e. and was still called roto question on severa¡ late, occasioos- As a result, understandi ng the process of identity formation in Mexico is both a historical and a sociological challenge_ It is a historical challenge because jt has been such an uneven and differentiared process. Ir is sodologically demanding because identjdes are always relational; che specihication of che relationships that generate national identity ¡mphies a sociology of national identity.

The case is thus a paradigmatic context for what 1 have called "grounded theory": the confrontation oí a historical and a political problem that requires sociological innovation The theoretical requirement here is constrained by che historical object (Mexico), an object that is generally believed to be provincial. The knowledge that stems from that which is provincial is usually thought to be parochial and prosaic. As opposed to England, France, Germany, or the United States, the Latín American countries have generally not been held up to be che cradle oí anything in particular that is oí world-historical significance.s Moreover, even Latín Americás status as "Western" or "non-Western" is ambiguous, and it thus falls short in providing a radical sense oí alterity for Europeans. Thus, the continent has not usually been cast in the role that "the Orient," Africa, or Oceania have played in che Western imaginary-at least it has not often done so for the past couple oí centuries. Mexico and Latín America have much more often been portrayed by Europeans and Americans as "backward" than as radically different.6 On a theoretical plane che, continent would thus appear to be destined to play Sancho Panza to the North Atlantic's Don Quixote: not a radical other, but rather a common, backward, and yet pragmatic and resourceful companion. An inferior with a point oí view. A repository oí customs and relations past, where universalizing theories that were built Lo explain world-historical phenomena are constantly applied, and yet are often too high and disengaged from ininiediate interese Even now, when the very notion oí a historical vanguard has been so thoroughly questioned, the so-

culture.

These conditions have often been precarious.^ Like many peripheral nations, Mexico emerged as the result of che collapse oí an empire more than because oí an overwhelming popular desjre for national independence. Nationaljsm was thus nos widely shared at che time oí che national revolutions. Moreover, like most Spanlsh-Amerjcan countries, Mexico Na bona li, m '. D!riy Liten 126 =

cial thought emerging from these provinces is soniewhat cumbersome when it is put to work elsewhere, usually requiring further extension and translation. "Grounded theory" is a kind oí theory that fijes more like a chicken than a hawk. My aim in this chapter is to propose a simple generative principie for Na i ie r: a Í i, n Ls

Dirty

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Linen

national identity production in peripheral postcolonial societies. From this general principie 1 derive four classes of social dynamics that generate particular frames oí identity production. Each oí these is discussed and illustrated with historical examples from Mexico. National Identity in tbe World System (Sand)o's Lersion) Weak national communities adrift in the international system constantly run the risk oí indecent exposure, of involuntarily revealing the tenuous connections between national imagery and everyday practice. Quite simply, a country's weakness in the internacional system undermines the basic tenets oí modero nationalism and thereby calls national identity into question_ These basic principies are, first, that the nacional state is a vehicle for the modernization oí a people that shares a set oí values and traditions; second, that this process of modernization chiefly serves the interests oí national community and not those of foreigners; and thed, that nationalism is a sign oí progressive modernity and not oí backwardness. The peripheral postcolonial condition poses constanr chalienges to the most fundamental dogmas oí nationalism. This is my general structural principie. Te this we should add one general historical principie, which is that peripheral nations generally develop in a forcefield that is shaped by two

al" in contrast to others who are portrayed as "foreign_" This specification is necessary because many contacts between persons, or between persons and objects that represent other persons, are not marked in this way, even when differences in nationality exist, The ongoing implementation oí "neoliberal" policies in Mexico, for example, has led some people to "foreignize" the government officials who have furthered these policies. From their point oí view, neoliberal officials are serving the interests oí U.S.-controlled institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and they are following teachings oí their equally American professors at Harvard, Chicago, Stanford, or MIT When this powerful movement oí reform began, however, there were a number oí intellectuals and politicians who had been calling for a "return" te the liberal policies oí Benito Juárez and Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, Mexican nacional heroes oí the nineteenth century The same set oí policies and relationships were "indigenized" by sume and marked "foreign" by others_ Thus "neoiiberalism" in Mexico is an ideological tendency that involves questions oí national identity for some, and not for others. For a cultural contact to be considered under the definition that interests us here, it must serve to construct a difference in national identity between actors.

contradictory impulses: che desire to appropriate for the nation the power and might oí the empires that they have broken away from, and the impulse to shape modero national comnwniues based en an idealized bond

Frames of Contact

oí fraternity between citizens. These two impulses can be thought oí as a

The concept oí "contact frame" refers tu the relational contexts in which

tension between liberalism and ("internar:' colonialism, a tension that is heightened by weakness in che international arena. Maintaining the sys-

such contexts from the dynamics oí nation building and transnational

rem oí interna) differences inherited froni the colonial world, the hierarchical differences oí race, sex, and ethniciry that are used to organize ex-

are thus the minimal analytic units oí a vast topography oí national

ploitation can he seco as antagonistic to the ideal of the nation- a charge that can be levied not only by the lower classes oí the country, but also by foreigners, who can use the charge to raise their own claims. It is in relation to these principies that one can develop a sociology and a topography of the frames of identity production in which national identity is generated.

national identity production occurs. We can identify classes or types oí interactions that can be isolated en the analytic plane. Contact trames identity. For example, there is an entire class oí contact frames that is produced by the logic oí commodity production and consumption under capitalism, which is an international system that national communities can never completely encompass or regulate: a shop that sells foreign goods in La Paz, Bolivia, is called "Miamicito" (and so provides a frame that marks both the foreignness of its wares and the nationality oí its customers); during the 1970s, the Latin American left referred to

National Identity

Coca-Cola as "the sewage" (las aguas negras) oí Yankee imperialism, and

Our subject is the interactions that generate an awareness of differences oí ascription among actors, contacts between actors who identify as "nation-

thereby framed its distribution and consumption as so many episodes in the national struggle. We shall identify severa) such classes oí contact frames.

Nn ti"un l^sre ', Diriy Linera = 128 =

Nai,onnlism's

Dirty Linera

= 129 =

"(onfacf

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ol

;Valiou,il

Id rntily

Por example , ir wc look at che history of Mexico, a number oí antiforeign manitestacions hace eentered on commerce- anti-Spanish senti-

¡Ti traditional gu>gnpha diem is n diste nr tittn hetteeen the coneept oí "zone ° ian 1nternal ly huno eeiie us sp le e a,el 7egion " thc functional in-

ment in che first repuhlic id to the sacking of Mexico City 's Parián Market in 1828 This in turra preceded che expulsion of che Spaniards,

tegradot of chtterenc kinds'' -1 1nt1 - hall cal] ara iTi te rnal ly homoId, 1 -.J1 C unmct iones are integrated geneous class of contact franxs a

who only eight years earlicr liad been proclaimcd to be fellow Mexieans

finto a broadcr "regiod' ol national identity production that includes a zone ol state institutions that delirae r^ghts vid obligations tor citizens and produce intagcs and narratives tal n:^tionali-c and iones oí local and class identity production ihat are egoalle t r [ti,_! 1 b us contact iones are parí

by the triumphant leaders of independence Sonic oí the most acutely xenophobic movements in Mexican history associate foreigners' supposedly pernicious influence with thcir position as husi ncssmen . This was true of che anti-Chinese movements in Sonora during che revolucion and of

of the region uf nacional identity production which is che national space,

lournalists complaints againsr itinerant commerce hy lews and Arabs in Mexico City during the 1930s Morcover, there are numerous occasions

complete with che cultural production ol clic state and the interna ] idioms

when che products themselves have been seen as transporting a pernicious

oí distinction that give shape co national culture. These national spaces are, in therr curn , part of a global system of identity production. A ty-

foreign influence . Thus, much oí che activity oí the interior ministry's censorship commissions in che 1950s and 1960s was geared to chis. For years

pology oí zones oí contact hice the one see are proposing here thus forms

tírese commissions were in charge oí censoring comics, films, and other

part oí a hroader project , which can be conceived oí as a topography oí

products oí mass culture when it was judged that they conspired against basic Mexican values . In other words , anti-Spanish , anti-Semitic, anti-

national identity.

In Chis chapter 1 distinguish among loen classes of trames oí contact in che topography oí national identity . Thev are generated by (1) che material culture of capitalism ; ( 2) che ideologica1 tension between tradition and modernity that is necessary to che tounding oí nation-states ; ( 3) the entropy of moderni zacion , which is intrinsie to che development process; and (4) che ínternational field of ideas and models oí civilization , science, and development that forros parí oí what could be called the civilizing

Chinese, and anti-American discourses have been constructed around the space oí comnierce and iniported material culture." This is significan [ because the causes oí cach oí [hese xenophobic movements were in fact different from each other The anti - Spanish movement at che dawn oí the republican era was related to the competition between England and che United States for political hegemony in Mexico and to power struggles between local parties ; che anti-Chinese

horizon oí nation - states 1 now describe each oí these trames oí contact using Mexican examples in order to understand how che contact frame

riots were spurred en by menibers oí regional political elites who saw the

challenges the stability oí national regimes

eign" in che 1920s and 1930s was a strategy to diminish an activity that

International Business and Intjorted Material Culto re The tour types oí contact zones that 1 discuss are abstractly related to an intrinsic quality ot nation-states. they are political communities within a world system ot communities , but they are part of in economy that cannot be contained by national boiders This quality of nation-states means that economic modernization ( and ics agents ) can generate spaces oí national identification and confronration . This is especially che case in 1 peripheral " nations , for which technol ogical innovation and capital often come from abroad- In these contexts espeeially, consuming commodities

Chinese as easy cargets; the identification oí itinerant commerce as "foraffected established businesses . Despite these different motivations, however, the identification oí foreign businessmen and products as a danger to national integrity is a viable political argument because they do not conform co Mexican national customs and interests.

In the 1920s and 1930s , che Mexican press emphasized that the trade in narcotics in Mexico's northern states was in che hands oí foreigners: Chinese , Americans , and Russians . Vice was being brought in from abroad. During the Díaz Ordaz presidency in the 1960s , an attempt was made to restrict che importation oí films and records that promoted the hippies' "effeminate decadence ." Díaz Ordaz 's crusade against American

or adopting productive techniques ol foreign origin can be understood in

pop culture went hand in hand with his repression oí a number oí middleclass social movements . More recently , a proposal before Congress sought

relation to nacional identity

to bao the carteen show Beavis and Butthead from Mexican television 1 D: r ly 130 =

Na iion a ls 131

Dirty

Linera

because it perverted the nations values, especially as regards proper adoIescent behavior.» International business constantly produces national identity because businessmen can be credihly portrayed as furthering foreign or private interesas at the expense of the national community. Also, the exogenous material culture oí modernization can be perceived as corrupting morais or subverting che ruling forms of cultural distinction that can easily be nationalized. Thus, the fact that national communities do not successfully encompass and control the national economy generates a zone oí contact that is manifested in an open-ended number of contact frames. In each oí these frames, a social actor identifies a producr oran agent as foreign" and as opposed to the "national" collective interest This way oí framing the national interest usually advances more particular interests that are unnamed and fused into the national collective

duced deep rifts between national versions, une oí which sought to preserve the Catholic and Hispanicist traditions, while the other sought to found nationality squarely on liberal principies, and was fervently antiSpanish and anticlerical. These two nacional versions even honored two distinct heroes oí independence and two different dates for national independence." Each side accused the other oí lack oí patriotism and oí collusion with foreign interests. This situation changed with che end oí the civil wars that followed the French intervention (1867), a peace that involved a pragmatic arrangement between liberal and conservative factions under a universally acknowledged liberal hegemony. The peace also allowed Mexico to make a concerted effort to galo international respect and to attract foreign investment. This involved dispiaying the individuality oí its culture to foreigners, an aim that was more readily achieved with tequila than with whiskey and with indigenous buipils before manufactured shirts. Since that time,

Tbe Tension between Tradition and Moderniiy The second type oí contact zone arises From the very logic oí nationalism as an ideological construct It is known that , in different ways , nationalism depends en ideological constructs that tic tradition" to " modernity." This dependency is necessary because modero nation - states are supposed to be vehicles for che modernization oí collectivities ( nations ) that are, in their turn , defined in a genealogical relation to a "tradition ." 10 This ideal relationship can be precarious , however, especially in the case oí weaker nations . When national tradition is perceived to be divorced from or opposed to modernization , a contact zone emerges. In Mexico, postindependence nationalism appropriated the preHispanic world in a way analogous to che Furopean appropriation oí classical antiquity, but with a twist . The Aztccs were the forerunners oí independent Mexico ; the colonial period was a parenthesis that served to bring Christianity and certain traits oí civilization , but it also barbarously degraded the condition oí the indigenous peoples . Therefore , in principie, the glorification of che pre-Hispanic past did not imply claims en behalf oí che contemporaneous Indians because their habits and condition were seen to be the result oí colonial degradation Thus, in the early postindependent era , modernization could readily be made tu trample over indigenous traditions without challenging national identity , The same was not true, however, with respect to che preservation oí Catholicism and oí a number oí che mores oí the Spanish colonial worid.

Thus, modernization in che tirst half oi che nineteenth century proNa tiona 1i s rn

s L),r iy Line

the official construction oí tradition necessarily visited certain features oí Mexico's rural and artisan life, not only the pre-Columbian past.

At the same time, the relationship that the state was trying to create between tradition and modernity continued to hold. In some cases, the existence oí a "Mexican tradition" made it possible for Mexico to claim a particular modernity, but it never denied the nation-state's fundamental and eternal aspiration: modernity and modernization.12 Therefore, the great official points oí pride couid not and still cannot reside principally in the world called "traditional": the modern must be granted a privileged place in the national utopia. Thus, some oí the crown jewels oí Mexican state nationalism have been President Santa Anna's theater, Emperor Maximilian's boulevards, Don Porfirio's trains, Lázaro Cárdenas's nationalized petroleum industry, Miguel Alemán's Acapulco and the National University campus, López Mateos's National Museum oí Anthropology, Díaz Ordaz's subway and Olympics, and Echeverría's highways, Cancún, and nationalized industries. Oí these examples, the National Museum oí Anthropology is exemplary in that it combines traditional aesthetics with an avant-garde architecture that relies heavily on state-of-the-art technology. In this formulation, tradition is like the country's spiritual dimensien, which is incorporated as an aesthetic into a unique modernity that is the country's present and, aboye all, its future. However, Mexico's position as a relativeiy peor country in the international order threatened the ideal relationship that nationalism constructs between tradition and modernity, making it into a fissure where iones oí transnational contact could endanger that very nationalism. Na tton a lism 's Dirty Line,,

132= = 133=

Touris ts, ti av elers. ucientists and othci inyuuitive foreigners llave gen-

phase of national development spurred by a strong, closed state that want-

111,11 sector, and ver rhe states caerally tended to roen rowarci thc triditiona

ed ro transform che country's position on rhe international scene While

pacity tu get visitors to apprcc rat, che allegeel conneetion hetween che

President Díaz Ordaz sought tu show che world a Mexico that was ca-

tradicional and che niodern has a lseavs bcen lim,tu el . For example El te

pable oi hosting che Olympics-a Mexico with a recently inaugurated

Lolov describes thc history c,l iht hippie movement in Mexico as a case ol

subway system, an Olympic village built expressly tor rhe event. and an

cultural producrion in thu curnt, i ot transnational communication.

architecturally impressive new gym, pool, and sradium-a number of

Antong his sources Zolov cites tire PI ¡[r> Guiáe to Alexico travel guide,

people who rejected the labor and very idea of progress looked for mush-

which llegan to be publishcd in che 19(,0, espeeielly for eountereultural

rooms in Huauda, walked aromad in peasant sandals and changed che

tourists. In its hcvdav, Chis hool: served t, oricnt die hippie ro counter-

very image oí Mexican youth

cultural pilgi image centers and to nvaid Indico with otficial Mexico. In a

The contact zone that inverts che hierarchy oí tradiniion and modernity

passage dedicated to the problems that hippies suffer when they cross the

also touches the history of anrhropology. This discipline's fieldwork

border, for example, the guide points out thar, tu beat che system, "we

methodology made middle- and upper-class Mexicans and foreigners privi-

look like sniall town teachers or collcge students from che early Sixties

lege che peasant over che local schoolteacher or the village merchant.

[when we cross] - . The bordee ofhcials lave it""

Anchropological fieldwork gave cultural authority lo people who in their

In Chis case, che foreign visiror is disguising herself as rhe Mexican gov-

own regions had been disdained or even silenced for their supposed back-

ernments ideal of an American visitoi a clean-cut student or teacher eager

wardness, a practice that world be repeated and reinforced by travelers

ro visir the Mexico that the government was interested in exhibiting.

who were attracted to Mexico's indigenous people and peasantry.

Once Chis tourist crossed rhe bordee, however, she presumably removed

The search for the aurhentic, in both science and travel, sometimes inverted che scale oí prestige; by showing little interest in Mexicos modero sector, travelers interested in authenticity exposed its lack oí distinctiveness. The sector that was paraded internally as che vanguard and latest cry oí modernity was oid hat to che foreigner. By revealing rhat the country was not on the cutting edge oí modernity and by nonetheless exalting its traditional sector, foreign visitors and scientists could destabilize the ideal relationship between tradition and modernity that is so essential to all nationalism. Thus foreigners in che traditional world generare a contact zone that produces nationalist reactions.

her bra, put che beads back un. and ibera moved across the national terrirory with greater interest in Mexic is "hackward" arcas and more suspicion oí as "progressive" sector than was desirable. The contact frames that tomism and scienrific srudy open up between che traditional and modero worlds had their first problematic moments long before thc hippie movement. The U.S. and European travelers who carne to Mexico in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s frequently felt more attracted to che rural, indigenous world than ro che modern, urban one, which generally was less modern than their own cides. However, at that time che attraction that rhe foreign intellectual felt for the indigenous world went hand in hand with rhe states own renewed interest in identify-

The famous educator José Vasconcelos discussed the politics oí chis

ing with that world- rhe Mexican Revolution had reconfigured the ties be-

contact zone in his autobiography, in which he describes his childhood on

tween che indigenous and modern worlds in some respects. Also, even

che Mexico-U.S. bordee. Vasconcelos recounts that, as a Mexican child

many ofhcial Mexican indigenistas ot rhe penad trequently sought inspira-

who crossed roto che United States every day to go lo school, he was im-

tren for che modern in the indigenous. '' On che other hand, as che revolu-

pressed by the fact that che U.S. school textbooks shared his sympathy

tionary order hecame more routinized and Mexico entered a modernizing

with Mexican Indians and rejected che Spaniards. As an adult, however,

era with ever more tenuous tres tu rhe agrarian and popular world oí the

Vasconcelos viewed che love that Americans professed for the Mexican

revolution, the relationship with che traditional world became more pro-

Indian as a thinly veiled desire to replace che Mexican Creole with an

pagandistic, and foreign visitors' and intellectuals' lack oí interest in mod-

American. By denying che ties between Mexico's modernizing elite and its

crn Mexico could become irritating.

indigenous traditions, che country was defenseless against U.S. imperial-

The counterculrural hippie movement was rhe niost conflictive moment in tire recent history of chis contad zone because it coincided with a

strengthen an imperial center against Mexico's government and officiai

.A'

D

L

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en

Na

13-1

ism." Other active agents in this contact zone do not necessarily seek tu

clon =

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sm'c

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135

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culture. However, these agents can create doubts about che government's effleaey or even che legitimacy of its modernizing goals.

The Disorder of Modernization Modernization as we have seen repeacedly. is critica) to che legitimation oí che nacional state. When modernizarion desrroys an aspect oí the status quo that can be claimed as a nacional tradition, a contact zone emerges in which che modernizing agent is assimilated wirh foreignness." When traditional sectors oí the country are portrayed by foreigners as more accomplished than the modern sector, or as being in an unhealthy competition with it, a contact zone emerges- There is yet a third related source oí nacional identity production, which is the entropy of modernization. Our third type oí contaet zone is generated by the difficulties that nationalists face when the disorder that is produced by modernization is exposed. In order to understand che contours oí chis contaet zone, wc need to review che place that modernizing projeccs have in che cultural production oí che state. The culture that states produce has diverse purposes. On one hand is what Arjun Appadurai has called the "ethnographic state."1e This is che form oí state cultural production that describes che national populationwhich is che alleged subject oí che state--by manufacturing censuses, questionnaires, histories, and statstics. Alongside the ethnographic state is che "modernizing state"-the form of nificial cultural production that seeks to ]ay out the task oí development Once "che population" is described, che ethnographic state's scales and measures serve to define lacks or scarcities such as "poverty,"'illiteracy," and "unhealthy conditions," as well as a series of growth- and progress-oriented measures that define the efficacy oí governments.'7 Together wirh these two aspeccs of state cultural production is a third, which is che production oí che councrys image for both international and domestic consumption. This includes cultural production for attracting tourism, internacional sports events, international congresses, national museums, television scations, and schools- All institutions that are presentad as national dedicate at leas[ come effort to shaping or conforming to che national image. A fundamental difficulty for Chis third aspect oí state cultural production is that the national image is not at al] easy to manage.

Erving Goffman's cheacrical mecaphor of ' front stage" and `backstage` describes che relationship between a subject's public presentation and what he or she wants to hiele or proteet_18 -1-he state production of nationalism seeks to construct spaces where che official image oí che national N a t i o n a L: m U: r y 13Fi =

Linee

takes material form and can be displayed to insiders and outsiders; that is, states seek to create a "front stage" (public) image characterized by an ideal combination oí modero and traditional components. They usually seek to show a booming country that marches inexorably toward progress and modernity. However, the very creation oí this public image leaves disorder in its wake: che history of tourism is che supreme example oí chis. In Mexico, Cuernavaca was probably che first modero tourist destination, developed during che 1920s and 1930s. Cuernavaca's main attraction was its stupendous climate, its proximity to Mexico City, and che fact that both the nation's jefe supremo, Don Plutarco Elías Calles, and the U.S. ambassador, Dwight Morrow, built residentes there. This attracted both che Mexican political class and an important contingent oí American retirees. In addition to che climate was che Casino de la Selva, which offered distractions to tourists who might otherwise get bored by che quaint and che picturesque. However, che casino was also seen as a bad influence en che population, presenting an undesirable image oí Mexico as a place where foreigners could shed che moral strictures they faced in their own countries. Reflecting on chis, Presiden[ Lázaro Cárdenas judged that che casino created undesirable frames oí contaet a form oí tourism based on che promotion oí public vices. The "ugly" side of tourism is not easy to mor out, however, and around tourist centers che differences between foreign tourists and national workers in terms oí their consumption and purchasing power became apparent. Therefore, beginning wirh Acapulco and continuing wirh Cancún, Ixtapa, and others, che cides constructed for tourism are "twin cities": a "front stage" coas[ and hotel zone is exposed to rhe tourist, and "backstage" zones combine poverty, prostitution, and so on. This relationship between che presentable side and its hidden consequences makes a number oí politically volatile frames oí contact possible. For example, in her work on prostitution in Mexico City during che 1920s and 1930s, Katherine Bliss describes che discussion that took place in che capital eity government about che creation oí a red-light district near the La Merced market. The neighbors organized to protest against che project. Among their arguments was that the red-light district should not be authorized because it would be located on che mute between the Mexico City internacional airport and downtown, and so would be one oí che first images that visitors would have oí che city.'v

In the lame way that a housewife fries to make sure that her visitors stay in che parlor and do not see che mess in che bedrooms or kitchen, che National ; s nl 's Dirty Linera 137 =

goventnrent. tuurist adoso \. and a yund number ol patriots seek tu dis-

habitants of that liminal zonc wcrc said tu have a dubious sense oí belong-

play an mergo of urdo and clc:uil.ness to lcrvigncrs, and the strain in -

ing or even ot loyalty to tic country, a faer that was reflected in their

volved in riese etlorts easilV turras ini, a peliucal iiahiliiv. In a 191(1 essay

impuro pocho language zoor- suit clothing, and other marks of cultural ini-

orlad I.os dos patriousmns 1ic i r') patnoti>msi. Luis Cabrera, who

purity Controlling rhe "border zone" proved to he impossible for rhe

svould he one c,d the principal idcr...,gucs ^l tic ,Mexican Revolution, de-

.Mexican govern ni ent. however and the incorpora tico ot ever-greater pro-

scribed bote tic Purlirian elite ccrganized a spcctaeular celebiation of the

portions ot Mexico into rhe backstage" of US economic interests has

independence centennial tor tire bunetit mainly oí toreign investors. The

been an inexorable process. Peasant villages from al] over the country

tesdvities wcrc so concemad w.th managin tic national image thai when

have been turned into rhe seasonal equivalent of dormitory com mun ities

a ragged group o( women s.orkeis orgamzed ihcirown eelebratory mareh,

whose inhahitants traed to work in inferior conditions. as 'illegal mi-

it was brutally dispersad be the police. fhc natumal image is diftlcult ro

grants,' in the United States, while rnagtiiladora assembly plants can now

control, not only because it is difficult to keep the ragged workers from

set up shop un any porrion ol rhe territory Cultural impurity can no

the view oí the investors, but also because rhe very occasion of a national

longer be contained at tic border, and the dark sido of modernization is

show is a tempting occasion for union leaders tu display them. A better-

harderto hide than ever.

known exampie oí a similar polirical conrext is the violente oí the Mexican '68, which was ried to upholding rhe national image during rhe Olympics.

The Scientific Horizon as a Contad Frante

Indeed, President Díaz Ordaz and ihe antisrudent social sectors spoke insistently of evil foreign infiuences that goaded rhe innocent Mexican student: only a foreigner would seek to sully Nlexicos public image before rhe world Other cases, such as the bordee cides oi norrhern Mexico, present the lame probleni in a more toutinc fashion- These cities are all part of bicephalous urban sets often calied "twins," though if they are twins they are clearly of rhe fraternal kind, because, even though they develop in tandem with one another, they are not ideorical one parí oí the urban zone is located in the United States and rhe other in Mexico. The relationship between rhe Mexican and U5. parts of the urban border zone has not been symmetrical, but rather symbioric and in many senses rhe cides en the Mexican side have generally been a "backstage" for rhe U.S. cides. The Mexican border town's prosperity has depended en abortion clinies, di-

The final type oí contact exists because nation-states are supposed to march togetber toward progress Without this ideal, there would be no obsession with national history, because modero history as we know it is only understood in tercos of rhe dogma oí progress. The universal importance that al] nation-states atcribute to progress implies that there is always a civilizing horizon or vanguard oí progress on the international level. This civilizing horizon is identified in tercos oí technological development, scientific advances, and rhe techniques used to govern the population. The civilizing horizon serves tu measure a country's individual progress as well as different countries' relative progress The parameters used tend to be produced in countries with robust cultural and scientific infrastructures. Therefore, science, art, and fashion can destabilize the nation's dominant models.

vorce lawyers, judges, bars, prostitutas, sweatshops, garbage dumps, and

The recent work oí Alexandra Stern en Mexican eugenics provides a

so ora. The fact that Mexican cides constirute the backstage oí U.S. cities

good example oí the ways in which scientific development constitutes

threatens nationalism's fou idational credo: nioderniry is for the nation's

a zone oí contact.20 Between 1920 and 1950, a number oí medical doctors

own benefit and not for foreign outsiders.

and anthropologists participated in international eugenics congresses,

The Trames of contact created he the entropy of modernization can generare extreme nationalist reacrions. 'l la was rhe case in Cuba, where rhe image of Havana as a brothd seas ara important morivation for many revoludonaries to risa against die Batista regime. In rhe case oí Mexico's northern border, rhe very conLept u( a °border zone," whieh for many years occupied a marginal position tr'ith res peer to the rest oí rhe country, was supposed to resolve the contradictions of this contact zonc. The in-

read international journals in that discipline, and formulated ideas about the Mexican racial and genetic inheritance. Their work served two ends: un rhe one hand, it strengthened the "mestizophilic" Mexican Revolution's antiracist argumenta; ora rhe other hand, it tended to characterize Mexico's various poor populations (from rural Indians to urban workers) as comparatively dehcient. Eugenics' racial relativism (each race was supposed to be adapted to a specific environment and so was in some respects superior, N a l i o , i a li> ni

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Uir1y Linen

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and in others inferior, to the restl and its simultaneous characterization of the Mexican majority in terms of a series of relative lacks offered hope for eventual equality between Mexico and European peoples. It also offered ample justification for a kind oí "interna] colonialism" Eugenics offered a way to objecrify and quantify dilterences between poor Mexicans and ideal nornis represented by clic elite This in turra permitted the state's development mission to be detined, while clic peor national majority could remain scientifically deva]ued. Ar rhe same time, the potential uses oí race science to undercut che imagined potential of Mexico's "halfbreed" race is well known and was always a potential liabi]ity for the nationalists. The introduction oí new ideas and theories ahvays presents challenges and opportunities to governments and Yo processes oí national identity formation. The ideas oí "scientihc socialism" allowed opposition movements like the guerrilla movenient led by Genaro Vázquez in southern Mexico in clic 1960s to refer ro die Mexican governnient as the "disgovernment' and to propose a series of demands to che state in name not on]y oí Marx and Lenin, but also in that oí thc heroes oí national independence. The monetarist ideas oí clic Chicago school oí economics allowed a group oí technicians ro take control of che Mexican state, accuse the previous governing elite oí backwardness, and describe the Mexican state as "obese." The scientific ideas of Darwin Freud, and Marx were at the center oí a schism in the Mexican educacional establishment in che 1920s and 1930s, and they were used tu rethink nationality. The Lamarckian notion that acquired characrerisrics are inherited Ied some members oí the Porfirian elite ro advoeate an aggressive policy of European immigration before reforming che Indian rhrough education. Each oí these movements has liad implications for national identity and the precepts of nationalism_ The scientific contact frame produced by the international civilizing horizon destabilizes dominant formulas oí nationality and good government, it presents growth opportunities for certain sectors and threatens others.

or interna] political facuonalism that can profit from assimilating economic competitors to foreignness.

The second and third types of contact zones are produced by the difficulties that weak nations Nave in managing the national image. The second emerges as a result oí the comparative weakness oí these nation's modern sector. This situation al]ows foreigners or opponents to the dominant nationalist scheme to attribute greater value to the "backward" than to che "modern" sector, and even to portray che modero sector as antagonistic to tradition, and therefore as failing to develop a trae or successful nationalism. The third type oí contact zones emerges as a result oí the difficulty that these same governments face in controlling clic modernization process, and in successfully sweeping the adverse aspects oí modernization under the carpet. The fourth type oí contact zone is produced by the instability that is generated by che (international) civilizing horizon. This contact zone, which is produced through che mediation oí scientists, professionals, and artists, can destabilize the national image by portraying it as old-fashioned and out oí tune with modernization. Conversely, nationalists can try to reject a deve]opment in these fields by portraying it as alien to che national interest, to che national aesthetic, or to custom, Like each oí the other contact zones, this fourth type lends itself to shrewd political usage and can respond equally to interna] factionalism and to important changes emerging from abroad. 1 have extended Mary Louise Pratt's term contact zone to refer to transnacional spaces oí national identity formation." As we have seen, however, the concept oí "zone" implies a geography oí regions: a zone is a kind oí place within a system oí functionally related places. What position do these contact zones occupy in a broader geographyz The Trames oí contact that we have analyzed are relationships that emerge from che tension between che nation-state as a certain type oí political and cultural community and the fact that modernization neither begins nor ends in such a community. This fact is problematic for nationalism because nation-states

Reflections ora the Four Types of Coni acl Zoiies

are erected as forms oí social organization for coordinating moderniza-

1 have identified four types oí contact zones AII are related to the nexos between modernization and nationalism as it develops in weak or peripheral nations . In che first case, there is a contact zone created by the instances in which foreign business concerns or imports unsettle local arrangements or mores , This is a zone that may appear whenever there are technological innovations , changes in che inrensity of foreign investment, A'a ti ona l., m ,

Di r;y

Li raen

tion: zones oí contact with che rransnational dimension oí capitalism and progress can therefore cali roto question sorne oí che basic precepts oí any particular nationalism. Moreover, che very process oí shaping and extending nationalism opens a country up to foreign interesas and forms oí consumption that can undermine che nationalism that made room for them.

This is the case with frames oí contact that open up because oí the relationship that nationalism postulares between tradition and modernity. This Na t,o,a1,sm 's Dirty Line

140 141 =

rel aci onship rxisted becau,c co, h t ountrv tones part of in interna ti onal

For example, when che Mexican state assigned iisclf clic task oí mod-

avstem antl sn must inain a sensc ('1 ,pccilit it, tAlorcover, in che case ot

cinizing, national elites unniediately took on thc cosinopolitan role par

poste olonial ur b ❑ ckwartI c ountrics nacional mingo)ante is ni ore readily builc out of their tndittonai „^ tuna thar their modera sector,. In che

excellence they were clic Quicial agcnts oí forcign contact hecause their

Mexican case it has proved ca,ier ttu t unstn.ct a nacional singularity on the

access te thc civilizing honzun. 11111, clic comprador elites" oí Mexicos

oasis of pulque ¡ol k dancing wov en or;tpc. and bce1 tacos than on the hasis oí whiskey, rock rol], tuxedos and French aiisine even when the latter may

nineteenth ccntury inhabited a contact zone that ideally served to dis-

alto be local producís At the sanie ti;ne thc dencificatlon of che nations

that were undesirable co che naton_ l heir maturity and special role gave them license to fashions and affectations that thcy would then try to bar

sutil with che traditional world and its bode seith che macicen world is an un-

patriotism, their resourccs and their educated tate gave them greater

criminare hetween the aspccts oí modernity that were desirable and those

stable formularon because cho seorld callctl traditional" persists as under-

from general consumptton in their countries C )nly a strong cultural elite

devclopment and in a series of relationships of domination that are gener-

could design the ticket that a weak and backward country needed to be

ally understood te) be continuotis with colonial domination. Foreigners pursue their own relationships witIi those modcrn and traditional worlds,

allowed into the "concert of nations"

creating a zone of contact that can challenge nationalist narratives.

leged position in the arca oí foreign contacts. The migrant who manages

However, Mexican elites have not aIways been able to maintain a privi-

In addition, 1 showed that the scenic prescntation oí national achieve-

to become the owner oí an auto-repair shop in Los Angeles can return to

nients mobilizes resources that can ¡Ti tara spoil the presentation. Just as Brasilia, the model city of Brazilian modernity, provided the material con-

bis village with more money, prestige, and knowIedge oí the modero than

ditions for che growth of shantytowns that could never enibody che

converse more extensively and gain more information from an American

supreme rationality of nationality, so were al] che great tourist projects and

anthropologist than the mestizo rancher who oppresses him. Moreover,

grand international macroprojccts boro with their own dirty twins, On

the spectacular growth oí the middle class in che second half oí the twen-

che other hand, even che most avant-gardc example oí national modernity

tieth century also made che political brokerage oí the "civilizing horizon"

ages , thus creating new challenges to national identity and the state.22 In each oí tírese cases, contact tones frame relationships in which che

increasingly difficult to sustain. Thus, neither che government nor the po-

logic of national development clashes with che transttational logic oí modernization, and they exist because che production and consumption oí

che old political boss there. An Indian from Zinacantán, Chiapas, may

litical claes has full control over the national image. Here, it seems to me, is a key to understanding the interna) dynamic oí the frontiers oí social distinction, and even oí violente. A social move-

commodities is a transnational process, because people can cross national borders for work or recreation, and because there is an international hori-

ment that can cast doubts en che national image may become the object

zon oí scientific and technological progress. Therefore, contact zones are border arcas between the logic oí the nation-state and capitalist progress

bers had been designated as part oí che nation's traditional residue prefers to shape its own separate political community and paths to progress.

that exist within che national space.

Violente also erupts when che state insists on controlling spaces where

oí state violence. At times, violente explodes when a group whose mem-

there is little possibility of establishing the ideal order in a permanent

Condusion

fashion but where the ideal order must nonetheless be asserted. This is the case oí violence against itinerant commerce or against Ilegal housing set-

1 conclude with some thoughts on che iniplications that diese Trames oí

tlements. It is also occasionally deployed against social movements that

contact have for che construction of interna] frontiers between social

governments cannot assimilate as properly national because they conspire

groups in che national framework. It is clear enough that frames oí contact

against the country's public image. This is the case oí much oí che repres-

created by commercial and tourist relationships, labor migration, and sci-

sion against youth subcultures.

entific and artistic production produce instabiIity in che interna] forms oí

We cannot conclude from these examples, however, that patrolling the national image is only che contera oí the government, oí political classes, or oí other elites, for these sanre contact zones are also used to denounce

social distincrion. This instability is rcilecccd both in fashion cycles and in the reeonfiguration and reproduction of social classes. Nntiun.i Ii t Si

I)uity Lite,; 142 =

Nn oci a alisen ',

1)irty

143 =

Linera

sectors oí these very elites as strangers to the national community. Thus, elite-directed attempts to change mores and social practice can be targeted and ridiculed as Americanized, Francophile, Jewish, or Oriental. Attempts to professionalize che state bureaucracy have ar times been portrayed as "technocratic" reforms, and therefore as Aniericanizing. Criticism oí new forms of consumption, such as lasr-food chains or brand fetishism, are other common examples.

7

On the political plane, rhe Porfirian cultural elite, the científicos who had such a key historical role in shaping Mexico's nacional image, was portrayed by Mexico's revolutionaries as foreign. Marxist parties during the Cold War portrayed the Mexican government as a pawn oí US. interests, Harvard-trained President Carlos Salinas was often compared to the national traitor Santa Anna alter che tal¡ oí che peso in 1995. These denunciations are thus used both in che construction oí difference and in the organization of political opposition_ Nation builders try to fashion che national image the same way that

Ritual , Rumor, and Corruption

people build a house. Starting with che most modero materials and designs at their disposal, they want to have diverse, functionally and hierarchical-

in the Formation of Mexican Polities

ly organized interior spaces, including spaces for exhibition to whoever comes in from outside AII this is ideally governed by the political equivalent oí a paterfamilias who seeks rhe entire lamily's orderly modernization and regulares contacts between his home and the outside world, However, national architecture and space do not have che stability oí a house and che government lacks a patriarch's security because the nation's internal order is always warped by transfcrmations in the conditions oí production, consumption, and communication Therefore, nationalism's dirty finen can be exposed by the exploited stepdaughter, the disinherited son, or che affronted mother if there is a window-a contact frame-that permits them to do so. This relative openness and permeability oí national space becomes a dynamic facror in che production oí fashions and distinctions, but iris also the roor oí xenophuhia and violente.

This chapter provides a perspective en the connections between ritual and polity in Mexico. Evidently, constructing even the roughest map oí this relationship is a daunting task, both empirically and conceptually. Nevertheless, as che number oí historical and anthropological studies oí ritual and politics grows, so roo does the peed to construct various organizing perspectives.' 1 shall propuse such a vantage point here by exploring the historical connections between various sorts oí rituals and che development oí a nationally articulated public sphere. My ultimate goal is to clarify the connection between political ritual and che constitution of political communities in che national space. In order to carry out chis aim, 1 propuse a fine oí historical and spatial inquiry that is driven by a set oí methodological and theoretical innovations that may be summarized as follows, First, 1 hypothesize a complex relationship between che existente oí aneas oí free political discussion and the centrality oí political ritual as an arena where political decisions are negotiated and enacted. At any given local level, the relationship between public discussion and ritual is negative: ritual substitutes for discussion and vice versa. However, when une sees the relationship in an integrated national space, che relationship can be complementary: localized political rituals become che stuff from which a (restricted) nationally relevant public

Naiionnli^u

,

Diriy

Line

144 =

145 =

sphere dcnves t6 legitimar ^ Sea ond. 1 p i ipocc a few chava, teristi es of the gcographs ot public sphcies 'in tht plural cmphasizing thc fact that

a remarkable , continuous , prívate correspondence with all of Iris governors and some jefes políticas and local notables In this corres pondenee, regional

mes. and that thc sonso idation 'a: national puhlic opinion has always

issues were frankly discussed , instructions were received, and suggestions were provided _ Governo rs would in their tu rn , ineet with representatives

hcen an pruhlcmati<- aran r. fhiid 1 post ibat thc ucaoon ot a nacional

of what Guerra calls the principal collective actors of their regions rep-

puhlic sphcrc in dhis spatially scgmcnied liuld ot opinion and discussion

resentatives of villages , jefes poi lícos, heads oí elite families of hacendados, merchants , and miners , and they would engage in closed - door discussions that paralleled those that had been carried out with Díaz . Finally, these

ci vic discussion in Mesico has br cu sepincntcd along class and regional

nvnlvcs creating mechanisms ior piivilcgcd iiucipretations ot a dtffuse popular v ill 1 therciorc cxplorc thr relatr'nship hetwecn political ritual, rumor and thc di amati_ation ui :ntcrests 1inally, 1 argue that there is a general iclationship betsrcc n politieal ritual and localized appro-

leaders would institute the new policiesThus, public opinion seas constructed almost exclusively by elites, and

tions is historically linked to thc contlicting dcmands oí antagonistic local

there was no open nacional or regional forum for civic discussion during the porfiriato (or, a fortiori , in any oí the previous regimes ). On the other

groups, a factor that strengthens the importanee of ritual, oí festivities,

hand, the various collective actors whose leaders were hrought together in

and of the redistrihutive actions that are associated with them. As a result,

closed-door discussions also had their own local forms and forums oí com-

there is a connection between loo ring the bill of these rituals and the ways state institutions involves the production uf ritual, so the patrons oí these

munication , some oí which involved free public discussion and some oí which did not , and the criterio oí inclusion in these foroms were also diverse and not always hased en citizenship . This is why it is necessary to

rituals have a degree oí control over thc local branches of those institutions,

speak oí public spberes ( in the plural).

Locating Public Spberes

Overview of Mexican Public Spberes

Fran4ois Xavier Guerra has painred a portrait of Mexico's nineteenth cen-

Mexican cities in the preindustrial age had as their main collective actors local urban elites (merchants, miners, hacendados, church authorities, civil and military authorities), artisanal guilds, and petty merchants, Indian

priations ol state institutions (cunruptiuii Che expansion oí state institu-

in which state instl tutions are appropriated The ineeption and growth oí

rury in which he maintains that Mexico's tradicional political and social organization was leh without a political ideology and program to support it alter independence- Without the monarchy, the nation's regions, its political bosses and clients, its corporate indigenous communities, hacendados, and retainers had to create or accommodate to a system oí political representation that was in theory based on equal individual rights.2 Thus an idealized national community was shaped by an elite made up oí military leaders, hacendados, miners, merchants, and intellectuals whose discussions occurred in insti tutional forums provided by Freemasonry, by che development oí a commercial press, by a few urban literary and scientific institutes, and in salons and social gatherings (tertulias)- This elite was the national public opinion that mattered, and its ideas and ideals were formally nationalized in institutions such as Congress, the supreme court, and the national presidency As a resulr, there was considerable distante betwecn what oceurred in the national public sphere that was shaped by the opinion oí these men oí substance and the way in which popular intereso were actually interpreted and dealt with by thc government. For example, Porhrio Díaz maintained Ri we1, I^u mc a 3J t or, upiion .tó =

community members, andan urban rabble that at times acted collectively but had no official corporate status , In rural arcas , major relevant collective actors for Chis early period included textile workers and miners, inhabitants oí haciendas and oí ranches, and inhabitants of peasant communities. Most oí these collectivities were organized in the religious plane in cofradías (sodalities for the cult oí saints) and were also visible as collectivities in the period's best-attended events, such as bullfights, the entrada oí a viceroy, archbishop, alcalde mayor, or priest, or major religious festivities.3 Participation in these cofradías provided occasions to discuss the internar affairs oí the collective actors. This is probably the cause of the occasional conflicts that emerged between local authorities and slave and black cofradías, and oí colonial regulations regarding the place and time when these brotherhoods could meet-4 The organization around the cult oí each collective actor's patron saint also allowed discussion and expression oí collective interests within each of those groups. Colonial society offered no political arena in which discussions could Ritual, Rumor ,

and

147

Corrup lion

be publicized and broadened, so each group depended on the crown's justice. Direct arbitration, added to investiigative political reporting (climaxing in the famous visitas), was crucial- Newspapers, which were introduced in the 1720s, did not become a Iorum for public discussion until the late eighteenth century, and then discussions were limited to scientific and technical questions. For the most parí, newspapers provided short information briefs en the ritual life of che city, glorifying the political life of the colony (for years, each issue of the Gaceta de México began with a short biographical note on a past viccroy or archbishop), and occasionally announcing major international events (battles won in Europe, ships coming in and out of Veracruz and Acapulco) In short, collectivities were represented in the ritual life of the kingdom but their problems were not examined in a national forum of public opinion. Instead, collectivities relied on the crown's justice and en its respect for acquired and traditional rights and prerogatives (usos y costumbres) or, at best, on some discussion and debate of these rights in the town council. Each of these corporate groups was nade up of networks of families, friends, neighbors, patrons, clienu, and allies. These networks have generally not been characterized in communicative terms by free dialogue and discussion. Elite families, for example, have been known to gather hundreds of members in family rituals and to construct complex webs of communieation within these large groups. Yet, most uf these familia) decisions and debates could not be raid to occur democratically because members do not confer in an unrestricted fashion. lnstead, discussion occurs in a hierarchical framework: women and men argue in different ways and places, and there are rules of seniority and significant status differentials between major power holders and weaker family members, who are systematically inhibited from participating in discussion. Thus there is a rich ritual lile in elite families, where che results ot complex negotiations, alliances, and decisions are displayed, but these do not add up to an "open" forum of public discussion, Instead, familia) ritual and communicative practice are more akin as a decision-making process to what Habermas called "representative publicity," that is, public representation of the whole en the basis of hierarchical status, and not as the result of free internal discussions The same conclusion applies to the typically smaller kindred of peasants, workers, artisans, and small merchants: we see significant familia) rituals, strong channels of information, and opinions coming from all members of the family, but only 1imited intrafamil ial discussion by members as Rl i,,ai,

Rumor.

and Lovupiian

1.18 =

equals. Instead, information and opinions are weighed by powerful family members who make up their minds and impose their decisions.° Of the main agrarian collective actors (hacienda and ranch dwellers, mine and obraje textile workers, and peasant communities), only peasant villages developed institutionalized local public spheres. Unions were prohibited in haciendas, factories, and mines, and the fact that hacienda workers often lived en the land of the owners limited upen discussion between members of those collectivities. Instead, discussion was informal, with no forum to focos collectively en a single issue and to sound out a collective will. Dsscussion among equals operated as rumor, while public lile was dominated by ritual and by centrally controlled forms of publicity. In most peasant communities, in contrast, we have both a ritualized display of community and a public sphere based en discussion and deliberation. This public sphere has had various forms, with institutions such as town meetings, meetings of thejuntas de mejoras, the Lion's Club, or the asociaciones de padres de familia serving as forums of discussion. Discrimination by sex in these forums varíes and has received little systematic attention from either anthropologists or historians7 Although my impression is that they are usually dominated by men, there is also plenty of female participation, and many key instantes where women are the central players.s But it must be noted that, in addition to the various community-wide fomms, there are sex-specific forums of discussion and debate, including paradigmatic forums such as the cantina (bar) for men and the water well or the washing arca (lavadero) for wornen, and these should alert us to the need to describe the gendered spaces of discussion and their interconnections in various local contexts,

In sum, the institutional spaces that stand out as having been arenas of discussion among equals are associated with village or urban life. The bar, the well, the village or school association, the cofradía, the Rotaries, or the town meeting allow for some public discussion that may have been somewhat less limited by the strictures of family authority on one side, and state authority en the other. The articulation of various local forums finto a national public sphere developed in distinct historical moments: (1) after independence, with the constitution of a national public sphere, (2) with the birth of modero industry during the porfiriato, (3) with the incorporation of a workers' sector into the reigning party after the revolution, (4) with the emergence of middle-class professional groups in the mid-twentieth century, (5) with the emergence el an independent union movement (1970s), (6) with the emergence of social movements that do not explicitly represent class Ritual

Rumor ,

and C o r r u p t o r

149 =

nterests but focos rather on sclcc t, (i ["Lo s such as housing, women,s rights dctense against developmeni prolects and so un. Although 1 do not wish to go Inn, cach ^,1 these developments here, a

nineteenth century are we1i knowm a de jure separation oí church and state, and a convulsivo history ol struggle over local rights between various classes and communities

tew considcratiuns on the tran,f t,nnation of tic public sphere are needed.

The second sign1Ocant c oii idt ratiun on tic tra nslormat ion of rhe pub-

1-irst, with ndcpendence, a natiunnlls articulated public sphere emerged

lic sphere concerns ihe toi ination ol a modern proletariat and its historical

tor the tirst time wnh the commcrcial pies and Congiess as its two maro

connections to the public sphere_ In the mirial phascs of modernization,

torums. This ttansition meant that arbitration troni rhe political center

the Mexican proletariat found little room for eepression or representation

was no longer rhe only or even ncces,arily the principal, way of arguing

in government. A proletarian public sphere did emerge, however, around

lor rhe rights uf a colle( tive actor In,tead ol mercly eepressing rhe collec-

trade unions and with tic hclp of tic pcnny press, and it produced two

tivitys inclusion in rhe realm by rcay uf tic malo liestas, riese collectivi-

of Mexico's most noteworthy intellectuals, rhe anarchist revolutionary

ties sometimes found their usos y wslinuhres ^ traditional rights) being debat-

Ricardo Flores Maltón and rhe artist fosé Guadalupe Posada.

cd and changed in rhe new national public sphere, and this without any

In other words, the early srages oí modernization-especially in mining and in textiles-saw die constitution oí proletarian collective actors and the articulation oí rhe proletariat to the national public sphere, although both oí these processes were hindered by state repression, as well as by low literacy rates and by the many social ties that Mexican workers Nave with nonproletarian kinsmen and friends.

local imput_ This was notahly the case of indigenous communities, whose traditional instirutions carne under aitack almost immediately alter independence, and who lost most of lucir legal protection in just a few decades. Moreover, most oí the social actors of rhe period were illiterate and lacked properry and other chanctcristics liar were deemed central to

After the 1910 revolution, such proletarian organizations and voices

being a citizen. Because oí this, tic ritualized representation oí a national

found much support from government, which took a leading role in orga-

order continued to be oí significance, although liberal governments fought

nizing and coordinating union confederations-first the Confederación

hard to wrench this system oí representation out of the hands oí the

Regional de Obreros Mexicanos (CROM) and later the Confederación de

church and into those of civil authorities. This process was politieally

Trabajadores de México (CTM), which still hobbles along today. This

painful and was never achieved in its entirety. The difficulty was in part

process, however, also led to the formal inclusion oí unions in the official

owing tu rhe fact that the civil framework set up by liberals had no room

party apparatus, a simation that ultimately weakened that class's interna)

for formally recognizing rhe collective actors that were on the scene,

forums oí discussion and compromised proletarian inclusion in civic, non-

whereas these had previously been acknowledged in rhe organization oí

governmental forums. A comparable process occurred with peasants who,

cofradías, in the commemoration of patron saints, and in major religious fi-

thanks to the political strings that were attached to land reform, were ef-

estas such as Corpus Christi and Easter.

fectively incorporated in the state's "masses." Thus we get relatively weak

In other wurds, rhe creation ot a national public sphere, "fictitious"

presente oí these two classes in the nationally articulated public sphere.

and highly iniperfect though it was, was a real threat to the traditional

This meant that riese collectivities maintained arbitrated and ritualized

status oí collective actors, because it set up an arena where new rules

relationships with rhe state that were in some respects comparable to

could be made that affected rhe very toundations of the collectivities in

those that existed in rhe colonial era, except for rhe fact that rhe state-

question. In this respect, the struggle against the clergy in rhe nineteenth

through a particularly rich development of nationalist mythology-was

and twentierh centuries takes on special significante, for rhe conflicts

able to wrench most oí these ritual functions away from the church.

were not only connected to the power of the church as it has usually

Among rhe first collective actors to ron headlong against this "neobaroque" system were rhe new middle classes. Ricardo Pozas Horcasitas has described this process in his study oí the medical doctors' movement oí early 1960s. These doctors cared little for revolutionary rhetoric. They had already been trained in a fully modern era, and expected rhe benefits oí modernity without rhe forros oí state tutelage that had been imposed

been considered (land, wealth, induence through schooling), but they issued, much more subtly, because rhe church had provided spaces oí representation and political mediation for a series oí collectivities. This tan headlong against the liberal project of creating a national citizenry that was shaped by individual opinion The ultiniate results oí this clash in the Ritoai. R

, .' n d p t 150 =

RitualRurn ar

and 151

Co r rup tia n

on most peasant and working-class collectivities. They also expected to control their own discussions and to have free access to the press,9 The government showed a distinct unwillingness to open up to these new political actors, either by conceding liberties for self-organization or by allowing greater freedom oí access to media and policymaking. Repression oí the emerging middle classes continued throughout the 1960s and

tors" and have pointed to their internal forums oí discussion and their connections to the state through ritual, closed-door discussion and decision making, and to the national public sphere. In addition, 1 have given some elements with which to imagine these various collectivities in their regional locations. It is in connection to these factors that a profitable discussion oí the place and role oí political rituals can take place.

into the early 1970s, after which point the government began to embark on a series oí political reforms that are collectively known as "the transition to democracy."

Middle-class pressures on the Mexican corporate state (movements oí doctors, schoolteachers, students, parents' associations, etc.) grew in tandem with the development of the new social movements," which were no longer strictly class-based and were not directed toward the control or redistribution oí the benefits oí production, but rather centered on the conditions oí reproduction: housing, urban services, pollution control, schooling, parks, transportation costs, women's rights, and so on. It is important to note, with regard to tírese movements, that many oí them were not new in a strict sense: Castells has described the renters' strike in Veracruz in 1915 as a case in point, and urban riots in the colonial and early national period were concerned with issues such as grain priees, conflicts between church and state, and abuses by priests.10 What is new about the movements beginning in the 1970s is their scale, which reflects rhe vertiginous growth oí cities, and particularly oí Mexico City, the diversification oí demands on government asan institution responsible for providing an ever-expanding set oí services and forms oí social protection, and the fact that, being goal-oriented, these movements sometimes lacked mechanisms for defining participants as stable members oí collectivities. This final point means that movements usually jell around leaders and issues and can then decline to such an extent that they define ageneration rather than a collectivity that reproduces through time AII oí these conditions meant that the "new" social movements had enormous potential for widening the base of discussion that made up national public opinion, and that they were not easy to incorporate to the sectorial apparatus oí the official party and the state. The combination oí these variegated pressures, including those from professional and protoprofessional middle classes and nonincorporated unions and peasant communities, forced the state to develop new strategies oí encompassment and inclusion, as well as to expand forms of access to national public opinion.

1 have provided a historical overview of Mexico's main "collective acRitual,

Rumor .

nnd Corruption

Political Ritual in National and Regional Space A poignant introduction to the role oí ritual in consolidating Mexican political communities can be found in the early contact period, which was a time when the capacity for dialogue between Spaniards and Indians was minimal, and powerful interests were vested in maintaining some miscommunication between them.' 1 At that time, a Franciscan friar, Jacobo de Testera, sought to create an atmosphere that was propitious for the rapid conversion oí Indians, an atmosphere that would not require extensive communication between Indians and priests. To this end he used a form oí pictographic writing in which icons were to be spoken out in indigenous tongues, while the rounds that were thereby emitted approximated those oí the Latin orations oí the Mass. Through a mock form oí reading, Testera put Christian orations in the Indians' mouths: they read out "flag" and "prickly pear" (pantli, noxtli), he heard something quite like "Pater noster,"'2 and this misunderstanding allowed both parties to participate in a critical communitarian ritual: the Mass. Thus, ata time when there was no bourgeois public sphere in Mexico, before the existence oí a national language or even oí a coherent project for a national language, rituals were a fundamental arena for constructing political boundaries and relations oí domination and subordination within the polity, Gruzinski has written extensively on the crucial significance oí nondiscursive forms oí communication in the conquest and colonization oí the Indians. He has shown the centrality oí icons in this communicative process, and has even spoken oí a "war oí images" in lieu oí public debate. At the level oí images, and especially in ritual, pragmatic accommodations between participants may occur without any corresponding accommodation at the leve) oí formally stated policy or discourse. This sort oí politics-pragmatic accommodation while formally adhering to a discursive orthodoxy-has been insistently remarked upon by observers oí Mexico, some oí whom trace its beginnings to Hernán Cortés, whose dictum to King Charles-"I obey, but 1 do not comply"-has become famous.13 Ritual, Rumar and Corruptio

152 = = 153 =

In fact historian Irving 1 ' onan) tclt tila[ Chis was a debning character,stic ol the dominan[ aesthetic se nsthihtp ol the soalled Baroque era roughly 15RU-I?SU,, which wm bascd on regid adhcrencc to a iew basic principies of Catholic dogma ano to tilo apphcation ot wit to embroidering around thcni" L.ikcwisc, Gntsinsk, argues that clic transition finto the Baroquc era ot represemation was eceompanled by an attack en [odiar, Icarning, by che decline of che boak among the popular elasses, and its utbstirution bv Imagcs that wcrc conventional_" This protoundly antidialogic t,, [1,1 did nnt dic along with lile Counter-

and rumor. Specifically , 1 argue that both ritual and rumor can be seen as occupying spaces of expression that cannot find other ways into the public sphere . Ritual can serve as a way of constntcting a high leve ) of regional integra tion with unly a nunimum substratum oí common culture and, especial ly , of discussion _ This view leads away Iron' looking at Mexican history as a simple secular process toward democracy and modernityThird, 1 discuss the connections between ritual and corruption . This puint helps te) clarify che ways in which tire state is locally appropriated and in which a hegemonie order is constiituted-

Retormation_ Nlexicus Fnlightenment and 1'ositivist eras were also eharaeterized by tilo use of modernity as a rhetoric that departs from everyday

Ritual and tbe Expansion of Siate Institutions

practico in civic life.10 Generally spcaking, anthropologists and historians have recognized that Mexico has a Icgalistic, formulaie tradition that is combined with keen political pragmatism, a pragmatism that has often been compared co Machiavellianism." The flexibility that Mexicans may lack at the leve) oí formal political discourse and discussion they have in political practice, and these accommodations are enacted in ritual and its imagery. Correspondingly, the study oí ritual allows us to witness the ideological articulations of a sociery that has always been both highly segmented and systematically misrepresented in formal discourse. In sum, ritual is a critica) arena for che construction oí pragmatic political accommodations where few open, dialogic forms of communication and decision making exist. In other words, there is an inverse correlation between the social importante oí political ritual and that oí the public sphere. Moreover, one could add a cultmalist argument to this sociological one. once the Spaniards abandoned al] serious attempts truly to convince and assimilate Indians into their sociery, certain aesthetic forms were developed (the colonial versions ol "baroque sensibility"), and these became values that permeated tire socicty deeply, affecting family relations, forms oí etiquette, and other social forms in al] social strata. Thus Mexican ritual and ritualism would have both sociolugical and cultural roots. This very general appreciation is merely a starting point, however, for in order te organize the variegated literature un political ritual and, furthermore, to propuse an agenda for futuro research, we need te arrive ata more precise formulation of the specific soits oí political work that ritual does and has done in different regional and historical contexts. 1 focos en three majo poincs here: First, 1 argue that political ritual reflects the dialectics oí opposition and appropriation hctween sute agencies and collectivities. This point leads os away froni a simple opposition between popular and state ritual- Second, 1 discuss sume of the intcrconnections between ritual Ritual, Rumor . ., n,i i onruption 154 =

A good starting point is to explore the relationship between Foucauldian institutions (with their techniques oí bodily discipline) and rituais that aim to construct an image oí consensus around a notion oí "the people" (el pueblo). In a study oí the history of patriotic festivals in the state el Puebla (1900-46), Mary Kay Vaughn shows that tilo interconnection between schools and festivals passed through two stages: during the porfiriato, festivals were organized by the local jefe político with the aid oí the local elite oí hacendados, ranchers, and notables. Civic fiestas emphasized the patriotic participation oí Pueblans especially (May 5-the battle oí Puebla-was the main celebration). At the sane time, schools catered mainly to the notable families and, te a lesser extent, to inhabitants oí the main cabeceras (municipal seats), but they decidedly excluded the rural and poor majo rity.'a

After the revolution, tilo strength oí schools was undermined concomitantly with the strengthening oí the agrarian community and the weakening oí the regional elites. Schoolteachers did not have the coercive power that prerevolutionary jefes políticos once had, so they could not organize local work parties in support oí the school and federal funds were insufficicient, This situation began to turre around in che 1930s through the reviva) oí the patriotic fiesta by the teachers, who now used competitive sports to draw in a wide constituency. These sporting competitions became a venue for local social lile as well as for traditional forms of competition and sociability between villages and barrios. As a result, local agrarian communities vied in getting schools built and provided the badly needed support for their sustenance. Hence, perhaps the most fundamental modern institution oí discipline and uniformity, the school, spread not so much as a result oí state imposition as by its capacity to bridge and reconcile state piares with various forms oí local politics. The school became, in fact, an alternative arena for Ritual, Rumor ,

a,,d corruption

155

giving materiality and visibility to local communities in a way that is analogous to che role that the church had played in che colonial period, and ritual (the patriotic festival with its attractive sports features) played a central role in che expansion oí schoolsjust as che religious fiesta, with its secular and spiritual attractions, had been central to che earlier expansion oí che church. Vaughn provides a valuable clue for understanding che ways in which che revolutionary state succeeded in taking representational functions

oí che church, because schooling Bases movement across che nacional space in search for work, and therefore ultimately contributes to weakening che agrarian community. 1 merely suggest that che system oí political and cultural representation oí the Baroque needs to be taken seriously as a preceden[ in order to understand che role oí political ritual to chis day, and that Chis is because religious and civic ritual is a key to understanding the expansion oí state institutions in Mexico.

over from che church. In che Porfirian arrangement, schools and patriotic festivals were mainly organized by and for regional elites, and che church still provided che broadest arena for che political assertion of eollective force in its fiestas. It is only alter che revolution, with che decline in the coercive power oí local politicians and che introduction oí competitive sports, thar che civic fiesta became a forum in any way comparable to the church fiesta, and, interescingly it is only at chis point that oral schoolteaehers mustered the local supporr they needed to really expand che school system with the tight budgets that they have always had.'o In other words, state institutions cxpand in a fashion that is dependent on che local, regional, and nacional politics oí culture. The institutions that creare an idea oí simulcaneous nacional development are also constrained by che various local cultural and political (orces. The results oí this situacion have varied historically as che force oí modero institutions has grown, but ovcrall they may be synthesized as follows: in Mexico, public opinion and nacional sentiment still have public popular ritual as a critica[ forum, and che leveling media oí che bourgeois public sphere (newspapers, television, Congress) have generally been used as a cool for providing a discursive interpretation and solution to the ritual manifestations oí "popular wilL" Evidently, Chis situation had been intermingled with che lack oí a formal democracy in Mexico, but it would be a mistake to attribute Chis lack oí democracy exclusively to a dictatorial imposition from che presidency: authoricarianism is the product of complex interconnections between various local, national, and international forces. Moreover, there developed a culture oí accommodation to [hese circumstances, including wellestablished forms for expressing political demands, for interpreting them, and for resolving them

This does nor mean, however, that che role oí political ritual has remained constan[ in Mexico since che Baroque era, Nor does it imply a simple substitvtion oí church ritual by state ritual The extension oí schools has long-term effeces on che local community that are distincc from chose

Rumor, Ritual, and the Puhlic Sphere l have argued that throughout Mexican history there have been various social organizacional forms and collective actors that have nor developed the sor[ oí open discussion of che classical bourgeois public sphere. This does not imply, oí course, that communication does nor exist within these groups, or that they are incapable oí arriving at eollective agreements or oí representing [hese agreements in public. It means simply that public sentiment is formed in communicative contexts other [han [hose oí an open dialogue between equal citizens. Hierarchical organizations such as landholding families, haciendas, or factories do nor have free interna) discussion, nor can their individual members always participare in che formation oí national public opinion because they have usually had restricred access to the media. For che members oí these subaltern groups, opinion is formed in che sor[ oí concext that Erving Goffman has called a "backstage": in che kitchen, io the washroom, while bending down to plant or pick, in che marketplace, or in che anonymity oí a crowd.

These are the spaces where information flows. Because they are "backstage," they are typically seco as subversive oí official truths as well as oí the national public sphere, and they are correspondingly feminized. Thus, in Mexico, "frank," "open" talk at public meetings is often contrasted to "washerwoman' s gossip" (chismes de lavadero o de asotea), and political dialogue is characterized as "manly" (direct, open, rational ), whereas rumor is cowardly (it occurs behind one's back), it is 'women's talk" (chisme de viejas). This form oí mapping gender onto che frontstage/backstage relationship between public spheres and che multistranded currents of rumor can be understood as a ploy for undermining che validity oí rumor and it should not be taken as a de facto correspondence between a feminine/ masculine dichotomy and public sphere/rumor. The same rumors that are feminized and called "washerwomen's gossip" one day can be hailed as che egregious "sentiments oí che nation" che next day. Moreover, backstage

Riturt 1, liu mor, a,i Corruptfon Ritunl, Rumor, 156=

and C orruption

157

identi fication of a movement with "the people," and as such its demands c ommunication i s 1111[ a prer'ogative nt wumen. just as niany women engage in public speaking-

It is useful to think oí rumor a, Inllnwing rhe negativo mold of rhe variuus public spheres that hace (10011 dostusscd AVherevei civic discussion and open argument are precludcd bv thc a,ymmetries oí power, alternative communicativc relationships 0merge and rumor predominates. In Mexico, rhe nationaily articulated puhlic sphere has never achieved widespread credeneu-roo many coitos aro excluded from it. Because of this, people usually pretor a personal marco ot inlnrmation gossip'1 to a merely official one ' This situation leads lo Mexicos classical legicimacy crisis. how to interpret, conform, or channel whatJosé Marca Morelos called "the sentiments oí the nation" As we have seco, intellectuals have had a leading role in fillIng this communicational void, just as newspapers became a privileged media for the interpretation of national sentiment. Nevertheless, intellectuals, like rhe oracles oí old, need signs. Going out and asking citizens in a systematic fashion was always seen as problematic, and has only gained ground in reccnt years-21 This is because the poli involves making the backstage front stage; in other words, it involves constructing a free-flowing, confessional relationship between citizens and the state, a relationship that involves a corresponding notion oí govcrnmental accountability. Because chis accounrability did not exist under authoritarian forms of corporativism, neither could a candid relationship be built except in cases where "dtizens" felt that they had little to lose, and perhaps something to gain. The signs that intellectuals and politicians read are therefore complex, for political manifestations are interpreted mainly in their expressive and symptomatic dimensions. Hence che work oí interpreting national sentiment does not end with che gathering oí opinions, for opinions chat are unlinked to action, opinions that have no practical consequence, are easily discounted as 'women's gossip" or "talk." -1 he true national sentiment is only meaningful in connection to puhlic action, to political ritual. 1 say "ritual" because the weakness oí Mexico's national public sphere guarantees that political events will be interpreted symbolically, with expressive dimensions counting at least as much as instrumental ones 22

Moreover, significant differences emerge between political manifestations that are geared to the media and events that are oriented to direct action in smaller-scale collectiviries_ Inreresting in chis respect is che use oí masks in two recent cases, that of' Superbarrio" in Mexico City and that oí the neo-Zapatistas in Chiapas. The use oí masks allows for a more abstraer

k

,,unl,

x",,,-,

,,nd ('o,r,, pii oe

can he put forward in a clearer way to che public and che specter oí cooptatiou of a specific leader ur of a small co nsti tuency dimi nishes. The use of niasks is a Brechtian son ol strategy, ellacing rhe individual and stressing che social persona by rclyi ng >ir imagos denved from the mass media This is entnely difterent from ritualized social movements that are not directed to che media ihat represen[ national public opinion, for example, in small towns, In [hose cases, che people" are represented directly by known people, and it is che prescnce of particular individuals that convinces others to join in_ Consequentl y, [hese movements are not mediated by a national public; they are direct expressions oí local opinion and, although at times they seek support from national inedia and public opinion, they do not usually entertain high hopes for che efficacy oí these mediations. Also interesting is the use oí inversions of public and domestic realms in mediated versus face-to-cace movements. Whereas in local movements these sorts of inversions are direct appeals to revolt, in mediated movements they serve as poented appeals to public opinion and are thus gestures oí revolt Thus, middle- and upper-class women take to the streets oí Mexico City to protest che construction oí a highway or to protest the high costs oí a devaluation. This provides powerful "photo opportunities" for an urban movement. Similarly, ranchers from the Altos de jalisco fill Guadalajara's central square with tractors to protest new agricultural policies. The inversions oí public and domestic spheres are usually more sharply subversive in smaller communities, where local opinion can immediately be swayed. For example, when women took to che streets in Tepoztlán in 1978, che men backed them and took over the municipal presidency. In che mediated urban context (which is an ever-growing field, given the current expansion oí che national public sphere into ever-deeper levels oí the regional system), inversions are used as appeals to a public opinion that will then exert pressure on government by nonviolent means.

In sum, whereas niany collectivities are routinely recognized and reconstituted in rituals that can substitute opon interna) discussion, there are also political manifestations oí public sentiment that are created in backstage contexts, socialized through rumor, and converted into specific movements that can be analyzed as political ritual because their significance depends on their modo oí insertion in a body oí public opinion that is not smoothly created out oí discussions in che public sphere. The theatrical element is therefore oí special importance. The centrality oí ritual in che constitution oí polity can therefore be understood in two dimensions_ en che one hand, rituals can be expressions Ri tua i, Ru,ll or, ,,,,d Co rrup 1 io = 159 =

of collective vitality and interests within the sanctioned political order; en che other hand, public political manifestations are understood as expressions oí a public sentiment that is construcied in the backstage, and that has therefore not (yet) been harnessed by che state. This second dimensión means that political movements are heavily ritualized. They are in fact the maro signs that political interpreters read. Corruption and Ritual 1 Nave suggested three important roles that ritual has in the constitution oí political communities in Mexico First, on the most general level, ritual is crucial because social segmentation and power relations undermine dialogue in the nacional community. Second, ritual has been used to build alliances between local collectivities and state and church. The dialectics oí this process involves competition or struggle between collectivities or classes, and alliances with state or church are used to further local interests In those struggles. Third, ritual is critical to the constitution oí national public opinion in an authoritarian state because it is the principal sigo that interpreters read, occupying a role that is analogous to that oí the poli (and that is no less manipulable); ritual substitutes for a bourgeois public sphere. In this section, 1 inspect the relationship between ritual and corruption in the Mexican system. The problem oí corruption can be understood en three levels: first, on a functional leve] (what it does for government, what it does for individual participants and victims); second, at the leve! oí aceusations oí corruption (what a discourse oí corruption does in the world oí politics); and third, at the leve] oí the moral sensibility of a people (how discourses and practices oí corruption affect personal attitudes and definitions oí self). Throughout Mexican history, corruption has consisted oí appropriating portions oí state or church machinery for private benefit (arguably), to the detriment of the state's interesr as well as that oí the public. However, these appropriations serve various functions and have varying implications during different periods. For example, throughout the colonial period, official governmental posts were seen as prizes that the crown handed down in recognition either oí social proximity or oí past favors, or else in exchange for money. Correspondingly, officials were expected to profit from their posts they were not civil servants, but rather royal servants. Comparable situations have existed well inca the modero period.

Because the church was the fundamental arena for collective expressien, and because it had its own independent sources oí taxation, corrupR i ^ u n 1,

Rumor ,

., u d

160

tion in the church was also important. Local constituencies could at times play these two sets oí ambitions off against each other. Villagers participated fervently in their fiestas in parí as a show of alliance with the church, which might then intervene in their favor against the abuse oí landowners or officials, whereas suits against priests could be brought to civil authorities. Local ritual could also stand as an affirmation oí local rights against both church and state, both oí which could easily conspire against the subaltern classes. Ritual had a mediating role in the colonial period, where the boundaries, strength, and rights oí a collectivity could be expressed at the same time that alliances were forged with the church or the state. In this context oí negotiation, corruption was reflected in what might be called an extended "cargo system." Anthropologists have been prone to take a narrow view oí what religious cargos are about, stressing their significance in indigenous communities and their links to forms oí prestige that are allotted only within the limits of traditional communities. In fact, variations oí "cargo systems" exist and Nave existed throughout the national space, and the burden oí paying for celebrations has usually reflected the expected distribution oí the benefits oí reigning. For example, Mexico City notables and officers had to come up with money for all sorts oí commemorations oí the roya] family's affairs, as well as those oí the viceroy. Smaller towns and villages had to incur parallel expenditures to commemorate their saint's day. But it was these very forms oí public festival that also gave political recognition to these places and allowed for the funneling oí resources to the community leadership. This same logic survived finto the national period. In Tepoztlán, for instance, carnival became the most expensive fiesta and was bankrolled to a large degree by the local notables. This contrasted with the humble barrio fiesta, which was paid for by collective contributions. Local notables funneled their money reto comparsas (dance organizations) that represented their barrio oí origina thus notables created solidarity with poorer mcmbers oí their barrios and subsequently depended en this local basis oí support to successfully control municipal offices during the nineteenth century and most oí the twentieth century.

In the Morelos highlands, de la Peña has described how hacienda owners increased their popularity and that oí the municipal notables by contributing resources to the local fiesta 23 Finally, in Zinacantán, the classic and much-debated instante oí the traditional "cargo system," Cancian has shown that financing local fiestas was a crucial item oí prestige and local power for many years, and that the system only carne into crisis when the

Corrup Ritual, Rumor ,

and Corrupi,on

161 =

local economv di vcrsihed and thc population greca, creating a spbt be-

a collectivity is receiving sorne benefits froni che state once it has a leader

, e capnalist en t repreneurs. 21 tween che oldcr peasant notable, and 1,)LI

or a class that appropriates che state and representa it locally, [hese leaders

Che elders hace kepí Clic voung genci auon Irom sponsoring che Gestas, and

are expected to foot thc hill of much political ritual for che ritual will

che cargo svsicm has therctoie declinad .1, a locos of political expression.

se:-ve as a manifestation ol clic colleccivitys continuad vitalicy to higher

The correlauon between iinanc ¡Ti,,;Icov inca and real) 1118 che benehts

officials. Thus fiestas are usually signa of che vitalicy of both "che people

of che state for oí appropriating local branc bes of che state) has parallels in

and che state." "Corruption underwrites Chis whole rclationship because

che ways in which che PRIs poliurtl cam pait; ns are financed- Until che

che state is only extended inm ch(se col l ecti vicies on che condition chat it

demociatic refxms of che 1Oleas. calculatmg costa ol olticial parcy can -

be locally appropriated'usually by local elites) and that some oí che bene-

paigns seas imposible, becau,c hisioad ol ,corking ,,ah a cencialized eof-

tits of chis appropriation spill ayer to tire test ol che local population

Icr and budget amipaign c osi, wc 1, dillused among supporcers, all of

Finally, rituals presenc popular moral standards regarding corruption_

whom expected co bencht 1ront ihc tate in cxchange for diese expendi-

Ungenerous leaders are shunned, as are leaders who do not finance fiestas

tures. Governors and municipal presidenu usad up che ir budgets to show

or do not recognize or acknowledge their own people.2 1 In general, an

their personal support ot a presidencial candidate and, through that per-

ethics oí respect, generosity, and comtnunion is enacted, and chese values

sonal support, the support oí che collectivities co which they were linked.

provide che rudiments oí a technology that is used for articulating che na-

Union leadership that had privileged support from che government used

cional polity. In this respect, che Catholic ritual is a standard that continu-

union funds and working hours co support che candidate_ As in the fiesta,

ally haunts che politician.

participants in campaign events were also nieant to gain things for them-

These pervasive connections between ritual and corruption, both in relation to local appropriations of state machinery and in che construction oí an ethics oí xhose appropriations, demonstrate che critical significante oí che study oí ritual for understanding hegemony in che Mexican national space.

selves: a day off work, free food, and a fiesta, or at least a renewed relarionship with cheir immediate patron_ Thus, political ritual has been cied to corrupton beeause che finaneing oí ritual reflecta che actual or expected ways in which local leaders and communities appropriate porcions of che state apparatus-these rituals are enactments both oí a persorialized style of state redistribution and oí che power oí the whole constituency vis-h-vis che more abstract nacional state. The connection between fiesta and corruption does not end here, however, for mosc fiestas combine a concrolled and an unrestracned aspect. Solemn Masses are followed by turkey in nicle sauce, drinking, and dancing; carnival ends with the High Mass of Ash Wednesday; political rallíes rypically are followed by free-flowing strcams oí alcohol. Even che most Apollonian rituals, such as che once popular oratory contests, were peppered with occasional comic or lyric moments, and secular festive events such as the bullfight or che cocklighc tended co reccive some governmental supervision, wich formal moments wherc supervision was asserted. This combination oí political control and unrestrained popular expression made the fiestas occasions where a certain complex hegemony was enacted, for popular expression was at once unrestrained and encompassed by the authorities. This is che mosc surte sense in which political ritual can be said to he tied to che history of corruption: fiestas assert the significante of a collectivity vis 5-vis che state and chus they have been used to jockey for position on che nacional map. On che other hand, once l, i u a I k u ni c ..

, i n .I C o r r u p t i o n

162 =

Conclusion 1 have explored che connection between ritual and political communities by looking at public spheres developmentally. In the process, 1 have suggested relationships between rumor, ritual, and corruption. Thís analysis leads us away from three trends in che study oí political ritual. The first is che one that divides rituals finto state versus popular ritual- The second is che trend that fries to construct a secular progress between premodern ritual and modero democracy. Against che first trend, che perspective developed here stresses the dialectics oí opposition and appropriation between state agencies and various collectivities. This dialectic affects both che constitution oí subjectivities by the state and che ways in which state institutions are locally appropriated. Against che second trend, our perspective stresses che persisten[ obstacles to che creation oí a bourgeois public sphere in Mexico. Mexican modernicy continues to segment and exclude large numbers from che promised benefits oí citizenship and modernization, and Chis has allowed for a continuous reconstitution of a ritual ]¡fe that has ics origins in che Baroque era. Ritual. K iim co and = 163 =

Corruption

For these reasons, the specter ot an `ancien régime" seems never te die in Mexico: ir survived the 1857 colis ti tution, it survived che revolution, and it may oven survive che current transition to democracy. The regional study of ritual offers a way of specifying these relationships, of understanding their historical evolution, and of clarifying the nature of social change in che polity.

8

Finally, a third trend that must be modified is the one that seeks to synthesize national culture by way of che study of national rituals. Our contribution to chis perspective is to show nce significante of developing an overall geography of ritual as a necessary prior step. Once this is done (and chis chapter is only a heginning of such a geography), che social and political referents oí rituals can be clarified and placed in their proper perspective. Because our fundamental thesis is that political ritual is substituting for arenas oí` discussion and argumentation-creating hegemonic idioms oí agreement between various and diverse points of view (cultura] and political)-the study of these rituals can serve as an entry to understanding hegemony geographically, but rituals cannot be used to homogenize the culture of their participants in any simple way.

Center, Periphery , and the Connections between Nationalism and Local Discourses of Distinction b

It is now commonplace to recognize that centers and peripheries have historically constituted each other: "the Orient" was as critica] for the formation of a narrative about "che West" as European colonialism was to the formation of Asían nationalisms, che Americas and Spain mutually constituted each other, and, much more generally, ideas regarding cultural and economic modernity and modernization rely on constructions of "tradition" and therefore on producing peripheries. A somewhat less understood dimension of center-periphery relationships is how peripheralization and centralization are practices that can help us to understand the ways in which localized idioms of distinction and political language are created This point is often overlooked because of the strong temptation to portray centers and peripheries as stable and homogeneous and then to make these categories into vast abstractions: "the West" is central, "the Rest" is peripheral; "the First World" is central, "che Third World" is peripheral. If prompted for greater detail, then a speaker may say, within the Third World, metropolises are central, rural areas are peripheral, or formal sectors are central, informal sectors are peripheral. Such attempts to classify places as central versus as peripheral tend to bracket the fact that center and periphery are always coexisting as elements in idioms oí power and oí distinction throughout che social system, Ritual.

Rumar,

a":i Corruption

164 =

165

hecause center--periphery tropel are hiera rclucal in Louh Durrmoti LS sense, that is, they involvc complenxntants and encnmpassment' Thus, althciugh one may igree that in lile late mneteclith celLUrv Britain could, on thr rvhole be s_lassllied as central tu lile rer n'Id sestent, while India eould hv counted as a periphery. we can alpe, rutunni_c that ccnter-periphery discuurses viere equally rclevnnt tur lile dcr clopment ot distinetion in

notion of "eulturé' and practica] reason. Part oí thc conceptual diffieulty stems also from lack o1 attention to rhe analysts oí spatial systems, and speci fically tu the disti ncti un hetween various uses of center/periphery as an organizational scheme The contlation ot a center-periphery scheme ur the organization ot produaion with a ccnter-periphery scheme tor political domination and a center-periphery logic ot cultural distinction leads inevitably to the sort ot abscracted and idealized cores and periph-

both places In Chis chapterl explore lile histnricnl tnmtrlr mation ul centel, Periphery as a va

luc-lacten svctem rt or^anlzm sial cpaee_ [Ti ti,, anthropoIogicaliy

lamuus village ()j Tepoztlán, iNiexlt o blq purp use u tu show historien.]

cries that we seck to reject. It is thc muddle in lile spatial model-a confusion that can be shared by cultuialists and pragmatists-that sets the stage tor Chis ethnogra p hic paradox

clianges in ti,, ways in which the Lento, has buen locally construeted- 1 also aim to demonstrate a few of Lile competing strategies for centraliza-

Consciousness of a Peripheral Status

tion and marginalizarlon as they base playeel out in local pulules of distinction and in che enunciation of local demands to state agencies or for

Tepoztlán is located about seventy kilometers south oí Mexico City, in what was until recently lile agricultura) periphery oí the state oí Morelos,

rational public opinion. By focusing on center/periphery as a key metaphor in the dialectics of distinetion within Tepoztlán, 1 wish to ]cave a nagging paradox behind. When analysts rely en center-periphery metaphors in order to understand what Redfeld called °folk soceties they tend either to exoticize lile marginal society by analyzing it as it it viere culturally coherent, or to deny the existente of a collectively g,enerated "eulturé' and to substitute that notion with a more atomized, indlviduallstic culture of multiple adaptations. In other words, they tend either to "orientalizé' a reified local culture or to dispense with the notion of a locally generated collective culture in favor of sumething like 'adaptation' or even "rational choice." In the case oí Tepoztlán, Robert Redfield fell finto the orientalizing trap by overdrawing the separation hetween 'folk and "urban societies, while Oscar Lewis dissolved Tepoztccan "eulturé' finto a set oí pragmatic adaptations to an environment that was shaped by nationally dominant classes and políticos.

This theoretical bind emerges in numerous forms throughout the anthropological and historical literauue_ Olten, differences map opto the opposition that Marshall Salilins called "culture versus practical reason," where the culturalist will emphasize lile internal coherence oí local culture (and thereby construct a sharp break hetween the culture of peripherfies and that of centers), while lile economic reductionist will emphasize rational adaptations that generate statistically verifiable differences within and between localities that do not add up tu a holistic local culture. Nevertheless, lile conceptual origins of this muddle are not restricted to che (by now largely transcended ^ opposition hetween a Saussurean-inspired p ¡ , d: .i 111 11 1e1 11a1 1 s = 166 =

whose capital is Cuernavaca Until the early 1960s, chis meant that villagers were primarily peasants, many of whom were called "Indians" by city folk. The town as we know it was created between 1550 and 1605 in response to Spanish authorities, who concentrated the more scattered indigenous inhabitants of the jurisdiction called Tepoztlán luto a nucleated settlement, Thus, the very constitution oí this agricultural village was to sume degree orchestrated from without. Later, investors and power holders organized the region that is today called Morelos in such a way that irrigated sugar fields in the lowlands would benefit from cheap seasonal labor, firewood, and grazing lands provided by an impoverished highland peasantry that was concentrated in villages such as Tepoztlán. This decision was renewed from lile time oí the formation of Spanish landed estates in the late 1500s to the moment oí industrialization, beginning in the 19505.3

In short, Tepoztlán occupied a peripheral position from the time of its colonial reconstruction. Economically, it was to serve as a source of tribute, of revenue through commercial exploitation, and oí cheap seasonal labor in lowland plantations. Politically, it was defined as an indigenous jurisdiction that was to be controlled from a distante by a Spanish alcalde mayor who was, in turn, named by the heirs to Hernán Cortés's estate, lile Marquesado del Valle. "The center" has tilos been "in the periphery" for most oí Tepoztlán's post-Conquest history, both in the sense that it has had a critical role in fashioning the place, and directly through specific institutions and individuals that have been charged with administering this peripheral status, Center,

Perip1,y,

andC

167 =

ineluding evangelizing priests, indigenous nilers, merchants, schoolteachers, policemen, and municipal officers. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that hoth centrality and marginality have been elaborated in Tepoztecan mythology. One revealing set oí stories that deal with these aspects oí Tepoztecan society are about El Tepoztécatl, the mythical "man-god" oí Tepoztlán who was meant to be both the local ruler in the pre-Conquest period and the first Indian to become evangclized in the region (en September 8, day oí the Virgin oí the Nativity, who is said to he his mother and who is also the patroness oí Tepoztlán).^ The story of El Tepoztécarl has two niain portions. One occurs before and at the time oí Conquest when El Tepoztécatl vanquishes the lords oí major surrounding towns, thereby gaining centrality for Tepoztlán. A second refers tú the period shortly alter Conquest, and it runs roughly as follows: Tepozrécatl's lile was exemplarv He helped and protected al¡ of bis subjects and Tepoztlán thrived more during his reign than ever before. One day Tepoztécatl wcnt to visir Mexicn City and he found thar people were having great difficulties in raising rte maro bell to the tower oí Mexico's cathedral. Since Tepoztécatl was a friend oí rhe god oí wind, he enlisted his hele and the wind god blew a srrong whirlwind thar blinded everyone white it raised Tepoztécatl finto the air, brll and all When the people looked around, Tepoztécatl was already in rhe church tower sounding the bell, much m cveryone's amazement. In order to thank Tepoztécatl for his hele they gave him a box and told him to bury it in rhe maro square of his village Tepoztécatl received it with joy and walked back to Tepoztlán When he arrived there, people asked him what was in the box He answered thar thcy had given him the box and thar he could not open ir, but rather liad to bury it, which is what he did. However, people's curiosity was roo great and they dug the box up that night and oponed tt rhe next morning When they oponed ir, four white doves flew out in different direetions. Onc posed itself en the church tower, another on the tower of Mcxicos cathedral, a rhird en the hill where Tepoztécarl lives, and rho fourrh in the town af Tlayacapan. That is why no one discovered what Tepoztécatl had been given, hut allegedly tt was a greattreasure -

Upon receiving rhe news oí what rhe curiosity oí the keepers oí the treasure had brought them to, Tcpoztécad said- "The doves that flew out oí rhe village were fortune, but thcy new went tu enrlch other towns, and our C en ter,

Per,pbrry.

village shall always be poor. There shall be intelligent people, but they shall leave the place just as the doves thar you freed lefa "s

As a whole, the story provides a genealogy oí Tepoztlán's poverty and oí ¡es destiny always to lose its brightest lights to other towns. More subtly, the story also notes the role oí Tepoztecans in the construction oí the center. In point oí fact, a number oí Tepoztecans did work in corvée labor to build Mexico City's cathedral during the colonial period,6 but Tepoztécatl's role with rhe cathedral's bell is also potent symbolically because the bell was the principal marker oí time in the period, and, ultimately, oí the dominion oí the Spanish faith. Finally, the story makes Tepoztécatl a staunch ally oí rhe church (Tepoztécatl as rhe first convert, Tepoztécatl as ido¡ basher, Tepoztécatl as son oí the Virgin oí the Nativity), thereby representing Tepoztlán as a voluntary subordinare to the colonial regime, despite the fact that die village was burned no the ground by Cortés during his campaign against the Aztecs in 1521 because its lord would not become his ally.7 In sum, the legend oí Tepoztécatl is a story about Tepoztlán's terms oí submission. These terms, which are performed yearly on the day oí the Virgin oí the Nativity, include, first, public acknowledgment oí hierarchical encompassment oí the village by a larger political society centered in Mexico City and identified with the church; second, a recognition oí what Tepoztlán has brought to the center; third, an emphasis en voluntary subordination to and adoption oí this order; fourth, a proud affirmation oí the continuity oí local tradition, a continuity that is enunciated in the very act oí recalling Tepoztécatl as man-god, as ally oí the wind god, as lord oí the mountain and guardian oí the village. The story oí El Tepoztécatl thereby reflects, to a significant degree, the prolonged vitality oí a colonial discourse oí hierarchy and marginality. It would be mistaken, however, to imagine that this colonial discourse oí encompassment is the only way in which center-periphery relations have been constructed by Tepoztecan ideologues. In fact, there are several center-periphery discourses operating simultaneously, and their signs and artifacts are constantly manipulated in local jockeying for status, wealth, and power. By way oí illustration, 1 shall consider one example oí a more modero formulation of Tepoztlán's peripheral status, beginning with a story written by Joaquín Callo titled "The Intruder." `The Intruder" is an allegory. A group oí blond foreigners whose characteristics make them a composite oí communist spies, evangelista, and anthropologists has come to Mexico with the mission oí "study[ing] the

and Conneetians

108 =

Comer,

Perlpbery, 169

nnd Conneetians

customs, the psychology ot che people ol che vdlages. their ways oí lile,

again in thc carly days of Tepoztecan tourism, beginning in che 1940s,

their thought their degree of c olture and. above all, their religiosity

when prominent artists and intellectuals settled in Tepoztlán and found in

They believed that it was c.uier
che place a kind of prototype ol the true Mexico More recently, in the

to attract them to their own pOint ol t iew" Che leader oí the group (who

1960s, local movements against hippies" deployed a similar discourse oí

has been nanted Ivan°i goes to Ccpoztlán He asks v illagers all sorts of

mustie purity and tradltionali sm a purity that has also been mobilized at

questions that are intended t o Libvert the dominan[ order by iinplying

times against Protestan[ missionizing, in discourse highlighting che value

that Tepoztecans are being exploitcd be caplralists, by government, and

oí lile in Tepoztlán as against che migratory experience in the United

by priests-

States and in che 1990s, for niustering local and external allies in massive

After his inicial inquines. v,.n loes to ( ucrnavaca ro cable a message

mobilizations against two modernizing projeets a suburban train that was

thar reads °Trentendous soeces It is case to attract these sandal-wearers

ro link Mexico City with Tepoztlán and a development project that was to

(huaranbudosJ: rhev can'[ rcad They only cat tortillas, beans, and their

build a golf course and an urhan development on communal lands.

explosive mole." Nonetheless, this impression of Tepoztecan ignorance and

This most recent social movement has been of such proportions that it

pliability proves deceitful, because, with their kindness, the purity oí their

led, among other many things, to che overthrow oí the municipal council

faith, the beauty oí their ways, and, predictably, their women, the

and to the promotion oí a "popular council" in in; stead. The ceremony in

Tepoztecos succeed in converting [van to their persuasion:

which the new council was sworn in makes powerftil usage oí the ideological mechanisms discussed here:

He became convinced rhat people are happier in liberty, in peace and tranquillity. He found that although [he, is poverty [in Tepoztlán], conditions

Before a crowd oí three thousand in a popular assembly [asamblea popular],

are not wretched and that people's convictions are worth more, much

Lázaro Rodríguez Castañeda took office today as che first mayor oí che

more, than promises oí equaliny rhat are ncver kept because those that

"free, constitutional and popular municipio oí Tepoztlán" In a symbolic

manage the party rule the lives and goods of others.

act, che Lord oí che Wind, El Tepoztécatl, gave Rodríguez the red oí rulership [bastón de mando] as Che new tlatoani of the community - The new popular

Ivan takes a job in a nearby hacienda and courts Catalina, "a pretty dark girl with large eyes," but he is mmdered by the men from his parta. This story is not especially popular or well known in Tepoztlán, but it

municipal presiden[, who shall load Tepoztláds destiny, swore that en no account shall he allow che Club de Golf El Tepozteco to be built, nor shall che municipio become "che parrimony oí any oligarchy"1°

rehearses a number of themes that are popular among romantic enthusiasts oí the place, who stress both che ignorante and humility oí the people

Although "the intruder" oí Joaquín Gallo's story is ambiguously por-

and their greater purity and simplicity. The story also usefully summarizes

trayed as communist agent, U.S. evangelist, and foreign anthropologist/

a discourse that has been deployed by Tepoztecans themselves in their

psychologist, and the story is true to some oí che political usage to which

political dealings with outsiders, a srrategy that involves mimicry oí the

the discourse oí Tepoztecan "simplicity" has been put, one must add key

idealized "Indian' oí Mexican narionalist discourse.

agencies oí the Mexican government itself as critica¡ targets oí this dis-

One early instance oí this mimctic srrategy occurred in 1864 when

course oí cultural purity. This distinctly modero peripheralizing discourse

"Tepoztecan Indians' went ro pledge allegiance to Maximilian oí Hapsburg

involves the double move oí portraying ordinary Tepoztecans as Indians

and simultaneously petitioned hico to solve a land dispute with neighbor-

and as true representatives oí the nacional ("popular") soul, thereby legiti-

ing haciendas. These "Tepoztecan Indians' were led by members oí che

mating polirical mobilizations that can serve to negotiate che terms oí the

local elite .9

Iaw and oí state policy. The discourse is also for aspiring politicians, inso-

The portrayal oí Tepoztlán as "Indian" is central in the cultural con-

far as it does not deny che ignorante oí the villager, and thereby provides

struction oí a class oí notables during che porfiriaato, whose members fled to

political leaders with acople room for negotiation or manipulation. It is an

Mexico City during the revolution and tounded a Tepoztecan colony that

ideology that can be deployed both to defend the village against actions

was active in Tepoztecan politics and cultural affairs during the 1920s and

oí an "external agent" and to cal] for progress.

1930s, reviving local indigenismo An idealized Indianness was deployed ry

and

Counec

170

=

In short, Tepoztlán's position asan agricultural periphery, as a source oí tions =

Center ,

Periphery ,

171

and Connections

=

migran[ workers for the United States , Mexico City, and Cuernavaca, as a poor municipio within the state system, and as tourist site-is recognized culturally in complex discourses oí marginaliry . Nevertheless , it would be mistaken to take this as justification for labeling Tepoztlán simply as "a periphery," a simplification that obscures more than it reveals. Instead, the complexity of even rhe two peripheralizing discourses that we examined thus far signals that Tepoztlán has occupied severa ) peripheral situations, often simultaneously , corresponding to varying ways oí organizing economic and political space As a result, one symptom oí economic marginaliry-for instante , peasant production - can serve to claim centrality in political discourse in rhe shape oí "Indianness ." In the sections that follow, 1 shall review rhe relarionship between center -periphery ideologies and the dynamics oí distinction in Tepoztlán.

Cadena." Although the interpretation oí this document is demanding, a few interesting elements emerge with clarity. First, "Tepoztlán' was, at that time, the name oí a jurisdiction roughly equivalent to todays municipio oí Tepoztlán, but perhaps not the name oí a nucleated village." The jurisdiction was made up of fine calpulli. In other words, Tepoztecans of this period did not yet cal) their primary neighborhood units barrios (a term that is in use in the 1580 "Relación de Tepoztlán"), but still used the Nahuatl term that designated a social organizational unit that was conceived as a patrilineage with an attached territory. Oí [hese nine calpulli, Ateneo was that oí the local tlatoani, and thus rhe highest-ranking calpulli. By the time oí the 1540 census, a number oí Tepoztecans had already been baptized, presumably by the Dominican Fray Domingo de la Asunción, who allegedly baptized El Tepoztécatl oí the story narrated earlier, and who brought down and shattered rhe main ido) dedicated tu the tutelary god

Indio, de razón, and notable m rhe Organization of Llrban Space One key element oí Spanish colonialism was the equation oí urbanity with civilization. The extreme opposire oí rhe urbane and civilized person was, oí course, rhe uncivilizable barbarian who, following Aristotle, was thought oí as a "natural clave," that is, as a creature entirely devoid oí reason whose bes[ hopo was to be ruled by a rational person and harnessed to civil society (see Pagden 1982). The barbarían was an entirely physical begng, oí brutish force, ruled by his own emotions-a wild man alone in nature. Between rhe wild man and the cultivated aristocrat there were, of course, gradations of civility and coarseness. A logical corollary o( Chis view was that signs of urbanity became a factor in local and regional politics of distinction. the construction oí churches, oí squares, and oí public offices are an example, but there are others, including the official status awarded to a town (be it ciudad, villa, or pueblo, cabecera or sujeto, etc.), the proximity of hotises to the central square and church, the durability oí materials with which houses were built, the layout oí streets, rhe layout oí a graveyard, and, not least, the general bearing oí rhe inhabitants.

In Tepoztlán [hese elements and others have been deployed in varying ways and for diverse purposes and, athough we do not yet have continuous evidente for rhe history of diese uses, there is sufficient documentation to sketch a general outline oí rhe role of urbanity (and thus "centrality") in local politics of distinction. The hrst major colonial census oí Tepoztlán was carried out around 1540 and has been translated from Nahuatl into Spanish by Ismael Díaz Center ,

Prri pire,y .

an.i Connections

172 =

Ome Tochtli, building a provisional church at rhe foot oí the steps leading to Ome Tochtli's hilltop temple.'

The census shows, too, that rhe households oí nobles included mayeque serfs or slaves, and that not all oí rhe local population were ethnic Tlahuica Nahuas (Carrasco 1964, 1976). Thus, chis first census suggests a class structure in which the principal divisions were those between the nobility, macehuales (conimoners), and mayeque serfs or slaves. The village was further divided finto Christianized and pagan people, a social fact that was marked in the villagers' names, which appear as either Christian or indigenous in rhe census. Around 1550, rhe Dominicans began construction oí a convent and church with a spacious open-air chape!- Although we know little regarding the specific location oí each of the vine calpulli prior to [his time, it is clear that these units begin to be identified as barrios around this time, keeping both the name of the calpulli and adopting a patron saint. The noble calpulli oí Atento thus became Santo Domingo Ateneo, taking rhe name oí the mendicant order that dominated the village unti! the parish was secularized in the mid-eighteenth century)4 Three other calpulli became the barrios oí San Miguel, La Santísima Trinidad (calpulli Tlalnepantla), and Santa Cruz (calpulli Teycapa). The other five calpulli became the outlying hamlets oí Santa Catalina, Santa María, Santo Domingo, San Juanico, and San Andrés. Thus, four calpulli were aggregated into the nucleated Villa de Tepoztlán as barrios, while rhe other five became sujetos oí that villa. The difference between the villa and its sujetos was subsequently marked in terms oí urbanity. the villa (which 1 shall henceforth cal¡ "Tepoztlán") had Center,

Peripbery,

and

173 =

Connections

the ntain church and monastees It sc as alst^ rhe seat ot rhe government of

Tino Local Strategies for Reworkinq "centrality°

tic repúb6cu1 estahl¡sil cd according tu tic New 1 aws o1 1542.

Center-periphery dialectiics in Tepoztlán have usually peen experienced

The idcntity ot Santo Ih nningn as a bario rd nobles may slowly Nave

as a set oí local disti nctions, and not as a mere replica of a system oí dis-

icen tlndcrmined bcginning ss ith tic csils- Spanish prohihition against

tinction that has its center in Cuernavaca or Mexico City. One oí Robert

Indian nobles kceping claves. ( )n tic saholc dre internal structure oí the

Redfield's firmest convictions when he observed Tepoztlán in 1926 was

barrios tended toward structural equival ent e, cach barrio be ing 1nhabited

that Chis was a "folk society, that is, a place that was lis own cultural cen-

by a series of noble prindpr,ic, ano ala. risudi s ommoners while the wholeju-

ter, where information and cultural artifacts from outside the village were

risdietion seas under tic political dntninion ol une or two majar noble

reprocessed and assimilated in a highly discriminating way. Although

lamilics that took up Spanish la.t Che most lamous and eontinu-

Oscar Lewis was more concerned with rhe impact of national conditions

ously impon taus ot riese lamilics sr as tic Rojas tamily, whose members

and events en local society than was Redfield, he did not question the fact

held thc principal political offices wrth great frequency from che seven-

that these conditions were reworked locally.1fi Both authors perceived that

teenth to the nventieth ce n tu tics."

rhe connections between rhe interests oí regionally dominant classes and

Thus, centrality and marginality werc slowly redefined during the sixteenth century A city center, with rhe church, a square, and government buildings was establ ished, and rhe most worthy subjects lived clase to it. On the other hand, hierarchy hetwecn barrios tended to dissolve and was substituted by a relationship ot structural equality and competition between them. This relationship ol competition is expressed in each barrios efforts tu build its own chape]. Thus, centrality was indexed by urbanity, and cultural distinction was arranged in some consonance with this idiom of centrality. Correspondingly, Tepoztecan elites (including a few Spaniards) tended to occupy the village center They also were bilingual Spanish and Nahuatl speakers, dressed in the Spanish mode, rode horses, and so en, thereby occupying a nodal position in a political organizarion of space that had Spanish towns as coros and ¡odian jurisdictions as peripheries. Moreover, although for

local dynamics oí distinction were actively mediated by Tepoztecans. In this respect, rhe indiscriminate application oí rhe term subaltern for local Tepoztecans and for Tepoztecan culture would present some difficulties, because Tepoztecans have often combined wage labor with more independent forms of work, such as subsistente farming, artesanal production, and petty commerce. They have therefore preserved political and cultural spaces that have been limited-but not necessarily occupied-by regionally dominant classes.

Correspondingly, rhe constructs oí centrality that we have reviewed were contested since their inception in rhe early colonial period and well into rhe second half oí rhe twentieth century, when the very definition oí centrality began to shift significantly. In this section, 1 wish briefly to identify two local strategies for manipulating centrality. The first is a form oí asserting a disjunction between political centrality and social - moral cen-

oí Tepoztlán hecame Hispanicizcd and identified more closely with

trality; rhe second is a way oí appropriating the center for discretionary local usage . 1 review riese two forms here in order to demonstrate that ideological mechanisms oí contention and appropriation are well established. In later sections , 1 will review the transformation of center-periphery

Tepoztlán's urban institutions

dialectics in modero Tepoztecan history.

severa] centones the outlying sujetos oí rhe jurisdiction oí Tepoztlán were in positions almost entirely analogous to those oí the villa's own barrios, Chis began to change slowly, as some inhabirants of the central barrios

The whole process can be imagined as a shiit froni an initial hierarchi-

The first strategy is to reject professional politics and political dis-

cal relationship between calpulli, to a tendency for structural equivalente

course entirely.17 By relying on traditional ideas about the nature oí sickness and health, about rhe necessary complementarity within the peasant

between barrios (and hierarchy between rhe villa's Hispanicized center center oí Tepoztlán to see themsclvcs as more urbano and less "Indian"

family and rhe central importante oí reciprocity for social and cultural reproduction, this strategy convincingly casts peasant agriculture as an

than inhabitants from outlying barrios and hamlcts This third phase

inherently "clear" activity and politics as a necessarily "dirty" one. Peasant

gained momenwm alter 1ndependence, wirh die introduction oí an ideal

production is "clean" because its goal is to fulfill an entire cycle oí produc-

oí democratic politics.

tion and consumption within the household, exploiting no one, and relying

and rhe barrios), to a tendency lor some inhabirants oí barrios around the

a-i Cono eclions

r. P.iipi., 174

Center,

Peripbery , and Connecllons = 175 =

instead un a "natural" complementarity hetween the sexes, between young and old within the household, and on reciprocity between households.'" These relations oí complementarity and eyuality resonate in a powerful way with local ideas concerning health, nutrition, and the body.19 Politics, on the other hand, is inherently "dirty" because the politician's livelihood is based on producing and mcdiating confiict. As a result, political speech is to be systematically distrusted because it is always masking the politiciads interest. The popular apliorism "A río revuelto, ganancia de pescadores" (roughly, Muddied waters benefit the fisherman) is used to describe the politician: his job is to generare confusion and then exploit societal conflict for his own benefit. On the whole, these ideas reinforce a habitus that has local society as Its center, insofar as they orient peoples actions toward strengthening relarions oí complementarity and reciprocity within and hetween households and provide, in the process, a view oi the meaning and goals oí h fe that is not brokered or mediated either by the city or by the state. Moreover, the state, its representatives, and its activity ("politicians" and "politics") and capitalist merchants and produccrs are seen as living off oí the contradictions oí clean people, contradiciions that are tire unlucky result either oí necessity (as when an individual is landless) or oí foolish disregard for the precepts oí local wisdom_ This ideology does not deny the power oí the state and (he market, but ratlier sees its power as an evil that must perhaps he endured, sometimes resisted, but never emulated. The relation oí local society to state agents is casi not as a relation oí complementarity, but rather as a relation of exploitation. As a result, regional loci oí power are not seen as the center of local society, but ratheras externa) to ¡t. The second strategy for reworking the ndationship between Tepoztlán and the centers of power that encompass it 1 cal¡ the "artificial flowers strategy," in honor oí an episode in the local school during the 1860s, when a community member was dispatched on the long walk to Mexico City to purchase artificial flowers that wou¡d serve as (loor prizes for student conrestants The strategy consists of enshrining urbanized or industrialized

gory (''Indian") that refashioned elements oí the local life-world. In identifying with the romanticized Indian oí national mythology, Tepoztecans could stake a claim for special treatment within the national state. At the same time, however, utilizing this strategy also meant learning nationalist discourse and exhibiting this learning in public. It is not coincidental, then, that Tepoztecans who used this strategy since the 1 860s promoted schooling actively, while insisting simultaneously on activities such as learning the Mexican national anthem in Nahuatl, or performing local folklore in schools or political rallies. This strategy has also been used to market local products for outsiders and to protect selected resources from unleashed market forces. The adoption oí urban discourses regarding the value oí pure air, oí the picturesque beauties oí the village, or even oí the "vibrations" oí the mountains and the pyramid have served simultaneously to defend local resources against the intrusion oí unwanted corporate investors and to commodify local resources. The very same discourse that is used to sell an agriculturally worthless piece oí land with a good view at an exorbitant price is used to bar the construction oí a building that will block that view. The same discourse that is used to convince fellow villagers to "work for progress" is used to bar unwanted forms oí investment or state intervention from the village. Thus, although a center-periphery dialectic has been at the core oí local cultural history since the early colonial period, and although Tepoztlán as a whole can plausibly be described as "a periphery" because its centers are outposts oí more significant centers, and because local conditions oí production have been dictated by dominant groups who have privileged other spaces, we must also recognize che existente of local ideologies and practices that rework dominant center-periphery ideas in significant ways, ranging froni a rejection of centers oí power as legitimate centers oí value, to a discretionary refashioning oí center-periphery relationships that serves to transform and to reposition local society vis-á-vis the state and the market

objects that represent ítems that are tound profusely in a natural state in the local environment (such as Howers)_ This is tren used to link local society ro the national community or to elite culturc in a highly discretionary rashion, both to malee claims on powerful individuals or state agencies and ro hector the local population toward more involvement in state instituGons or in idioms oí distinction that come from dominant centers.

Por instante, the self-identification of Tepoztecans as "Indians" before emperor Maximilian of Hapsburg was a form of enshrining an urban cateCenier,

Peri,ohrry,

and Con,, eci,ons

Class Strife and Redefinitions of Centrality 1 have argued that, although it is legitimate to classify Tepoztlán asan economic and political periphery , power centers have always been present there both indirectly ( shaping the contours oí Tepoztlán as a productive space ) and directly ( in the form oí agents and agencies and in local ideology and cultural production )_ 1 have also singled out two alternative strategies Center ,

Perip bery ,

and Connecl,ons

16 177 =

rhat are deploved ro reforme ni manipulatc center-periphery relationships

However, the military defcat of Zapatismo did nos lead to the recon-

local ly In this section. 1 wish to danta the social impon of these straregies

struction oí the Porfiriao settem_ The seizure of the nauonal presideney

hy inspecting the svay in which ccntia]ity ,vas contestad in a ti especial ¡y

by general Alvaro Obregón in 1920 i nstared the remaining ZapaUStas ¡Ti

conllicted moment [Ti the altermath al the Vlexican Revolution-

the Morelos siare governmcnt. Zapatista general Genovevo de la O be-

Class contóct n otten a latero thanc in iepoziecan political history - It

came military commander ot die region, all oí which allowed Tepoztecan

has usually bcen subsumed ¡nio pe,litical baulcs that cut across classes,

Zapatistas lo express their convictions and hopes for land reform and po-

making che language ol class sirife roto the son ol discourse that James

Htical change openly.

Scott has callad a hidden tianscript re lerriiig to the faet shas most forms

The village's notable families had emigrated to Mexico City at the stars

nl class struggle involving peasaot are nos articulated openly or explieitly,

of rhe revolution and lived in the neighborhood of Tacuhaya, where

lavoring instead more oblique torno ol enunaation through resistanee_

a Tepoztecan colony oí exiles was established- These exiles, including

One significant historical exception to this role did occur, however, in the

not only the town's main caciques, bus also tes principal intellectuals and

years immediately following the Zapatista revolt of 1910-19.

many people oí more humble origin, formed an association, the "Colonia

Tepoztecans suffered rerribly during the Mexican Revolution. The village was burned down on severa] occasions, many were abducted by the federal army, others fought alongside Zapata- Peaceful villagers were forced lo ]ive in the mountains for months al a time, where they suffered famine and plagues , while others fled to Mexico City, Cuernavaca, and Yautepec.20

Tepozteca," which was simultaneously a historical society, a philanthropic

In many ways, the revolutionary process destroyed the central insti-

However, nos even the intellectuals and politically active individuals oí the Colonia Tepozteca were united under the banner oí an old-style cacicazgo. On the contrary, at least two prominent ones were affiliated with the socialist and Obregonista labor confederacy that dominated Mexico City politics in the early 1920s, the Confederación Regional de Obreros Mexicanos (CROM). This combination oí factors allowed for the conformation oí a sort oí local Zapatista politics that had never emerged in a coherent fashion during the highly uncertain years oí armed insurrection.

tutions oí the porfiriato. In 1911. local Zapatista commanders burned the municipal archives, where land records were kept. The houses oí local caciques and oí the church fathers, even the church building itself, were periodically turned roto barracks, and the region' s main haciendas went up in smoke. Nevertheless, the destruction oí the region did not lead to a simple collective takeover. Instead, Zapatistas were divided among themselves and much oí Tepoztlán's local leadership was killed in interna] frays.

society, and a political group. The Colonia took an active role in reactivating local education, and it published a newspaper on Tepoztlán using rhetorical formulas that were reminiscent oí the prerevolutionary intelligentsia's indfgenismo.

Moreover, the unpredictabiliry of the outcome oí the war between

Local Zapatistas allied themselves lo the Mexico City CROM leader-

Zapatistas and Federales was such that villagers had to learn to live with

ship, raised the red-and-hlack banner oí Mexican anarcho -syndicalism,

both factions. Although most of the town's pacificas sympathized with

and created a CROM-affiliated' Unión de Campesinos Tepoztecos" (UCT)

Zapata, they usually portrayed hoth Federales and Zapatistas as a menace.

that gained the support oí the Zapatista state governor and oí President

By the time the pacification of the village came in 1918, local Zapatistas

Obregón himself. Moreover, there was a family oí Tepoztecan peasants,

did not contest the command of a relatively benign federal army officer.

the Hernández brothers, who had been officers in Genovevo de la O's

Instead, his main opposition carne from elites who wanted to regain con-

army and who quickly became the armed branch oí this movement. 1 do

trol oí local government. Thcy expected to be reinstated now that Che de-

not have space to detail the ways in which these political relationships un-

feat oí Zapata was certain. Moreover, most Tepoztecans who fought with

folded in the highly turbulent 1 920s, and shall turn instead ro the ways in

Zapata lefr the village to do so, and ofren came back lo Tepoztlán almost

which social space and centraGty were reconfigured during Chis decade.22

as srrangers , hnding that many of their possessions had been taken by

We have sean that representations oí civilization relied on symbols oí urbanity, symbols rhat were concentrated in the center oí the town, which is where state, church, and niarket had their seat and where the most substancial citizens resided. This view oí civilization had the potential oí expanding outward from that center, a tendency that was manifested in the

those who had stayed, and fearing overt política¡ identification as rebels both because oí the military defear of their movement and because most local Zapatistas had dispersed in various armed hands and did not return to the village as organized units." Per ipbrry

ar,d C. or n r c tions

178 =

Center.

Perip hery,

and Connecii"ns

179 =

urban iza tion oí barrios, che improve ni erito¡ barrio chapels , che expansion oí education , and che adoption of urban ways , including shoes and dress, and tire adoption oí certain pieces of furnicure ( mainly beds , in che early twentieth century , hin also solas , cables , and later radios , television, etc-). "Che adoption of modero status symbols occurred principally at the individual leve) , through education language practicas , and forms oí conP agai tsc proper folk ," " sandal-wearers" sumpcron tht pitt da Ind ans i -s1, and users of rhe fork , che bed, and ( ) a mainst che table against users oí tortillas as eacing implements , mats (petates) for sleeping , and scools around che hearth for eacing . However, che movement oí "progress " was also visualized in aggregate form, making some places more civilized and modero than others , according to whether they had roaos , houses built with solid macerials and so on In che Tepozdán oí the porfi riato and of che 1920s and 1930s, progress was correspondingly expressed in barrio competition . The fact that local elites lived in the three " lower barrios " that are adjacent to the plaza allowed those barrios to be identified as scronger , wealthier, and more civilized, despite che fact-demonstrated by Lewis-that there were numerous poor residing in chem 21 It is not surprisi ng , chen , that postrevolutionary conflicts oven che definicion oí centers and of their place in local society were manifested in che very conception of local urban space. The political situation oí che 1920s produced intense conflict between che old Porfirian elite and che members of che new Unión de Campesinos Tepoztecos , a conflict that revolved around control over che municipal presidency, over che local milicia, and oven che exploitation oí the communal forests.

nival celebrations. In doing so, che centrales sought to maintain the older core-periphery ideology that saw "che party oí progress" as a movement that expanded from che center outwards and successfully encompassed a portion of che local poor, at che very least those who inhabited che lame barrios as che rich.

In other words, che centrales strongly resisted being identified either as rich or as che old caciques. Instead, they wished to be seen as progressives who were interested only in improving local conditions. They tried very hard not to appear hostile to che local poor. In a characteristic example oí what 1 earlier called che "artificial flowers strategy," for instante, a writer who used the pseudonym oí El Tepoztécatl, and who routinely addressed Tepoztecans from the pages of El Tepozteco-a paper put out by che cacique-dominated Colonia Tepozteca-wrote: "Even out most humble neighbors-once they have been invested with the representation oí public functions-are owed unconditional obediente, not only because oí che representation of authority that they wield, but because chey wield Chis authority because of che morality oí their public actions and because oí their good personal habits" (El Tepozteco, December 1, 1921). Taking on che voice oí El Tepoztécatl to address his compatriota, Chis political writer apparently favors peasant political power, but is in fact subtly stressing the critica) importante of "progressive" behavior in political posts: What can be expected of a town that is mled by authorities plagued with vice that, forgetting che investiture oí which they are unworthy, and having lost all dignity ... instead of making public show of their morality and

Members of che Unión de Campesinos Tepoztecos felt that local peasant demands could articulare wich a nacional and regional movement, represented by che CROM and Zapacismo ( respeccively ). Radicalized Tepoztecan peasants imagined a comcnunity without a local landholding elite but ehat could still be parí of national politics. As a result, they tried to marginalize tire old class of caciques that had traditionally represented che national center in che village . Acnvists called for che death or expulsien oí local caciques as they rallied under che red-and - black banner. Significantly, these caciques were also referred to in Chis period as "los centrales," that is, as che people froni tire towns center.

In their turn , che centrales defined supporters of che UCT as " Bolsheviks" and, in a stunning strategic move as `los de ancha," that is , as inhabitants of che tour upper barrios that were removed from che plaza and could not compete successfully in expressions oí urbanity such as the expensive car11, .,".i

111 n,r bono

good conduct creare public scandals in such a drunken state that, because of their indecent accs, they deserve not only immediate demotion but also exemplary punishment?

This apparently neutral cal) for civilized behavior subtly reasserted a prerevolutionary politics oí distinction, by calling for reinstating religion'24 public morality, the significante of education and oí literacy.25

The care with which che old elite dealt with this issue, never discounting local leadership out oí hand because oí their class origins, but judging them instead en their distinction, reflecta che power oí the movement pitted against them. ft is not coincidental that almost all political articles in El Tepozteco are signed with pseudonyms (mainly "El Tepoztécatl" and "Alexis'che Aztec and the Hellenic) and that they take en an impersonal and allegedly impartial voice. By presenting their faction as che party of education, the centrales mapped che factionalism oí the period onto a distinction Center.

Peripbery,

and Conneclians

81 =

between Che backward' upper bar nos and Che ° progressivc lower ones,

[ion oí production in sugar haciendas to incrcased pressure on land resulting

and rejccted thc map thot pttted pca,ant' ron, all barrio, against inhabi -

from population growth and Clac rise of a small-town agrarian bourgeoisie-

tants o l the ccntee

steadily increased tensions between villages and haciendas. It was at Chis

This illustrate, Che vulnciahil,ts ol ni,[,n ihe periphery, as well as Che czistencc ol altcrnatisc e Hiena lor inarp inahzati on and inelusion

junction that Che revolution broke out, destroying Che regioris haciendas and initiating a new stage in the organization of economic space.

in a system ol distinction lor ssheruas sr ntpathizers of the Unión de

Although some aspects ol Che old economic system were revitalized

Campesinos lepozte,os streesed ns therr criterion ol inclusion or ex-

alter Che revolution (see Warman 1976), Che economic organization of

clusion 'Che acople versus thc cacique,' 'the acople versus ¡os cen-

Morelos never regained thc clear-cut features oí carlier periods. Industriali-

aks, therr oppone-nt, invokcci o dl.tinc[ion based on urbanity that was

zation oí selected arcas began in Clac 1950s. Tourism, construction, and

then mapped onto thc lower versus Che upper barrios inhabitants of upper

real estate have picked up steadily, crops have shifted, seasonal migration

barrios were portrayed as ignorant, poor Indians"'0 In Chis way, an appar-

to the United States has ebbed and flowed These and other factors have

ently innocuous cal[ fui progress in lact vas used to reconfigure urban

contributed to a much more diversified set oí economic relations, which in

space against the peasant coro-periphery model that was based en class.

turn translate into a multiplication oí economic "centers."

A significan[ innovation of 1920s politics is that there was a concerted

On Che whole, these twentieth-century transformations have altered Che

attempt by soma poor villagers ti, control ocal government, and thereby

hierarchical order that once existed between localities, moving progressive-

to disentangle the connections between the power oí the state and the

ly away from a system that was characterized by a neat overlap between

power of money Redfield unwittingly rctlecred Chis novelty when he in-

economic and political space to a system with important disjunctures be-

genuously classihed politics as a imito occupation (that is, as uncouth or

tween various economic interests and che hierarchy oí political administra-

Indian).27 Although Chis may nave beca truc in 1926, it was entirely false

tion. In some cases, these changes in Che spatial organization oí economic

in the prerevolutionary era. In fact, the idea oí making the village as a

production have been overlaid on Che old agrarian core-periphery organi-

whole roto a peasant outpost within a broadly based workers' union whose

zation oí the region. Such was the case, for instante, oí industrialization,

main source of governmental support was in the national presidency was a

which proceeded in such a way as to Cake advantage both oí the preexisting

deep change from the prerevolutionary spatial model, when the Morelos

infrastructure oí Che region's main towns and oí the cheap labor that could

state governor, who carne from Che region's hacienda-owning elite, named

be gotten from peasant peripheries. Other activities, such as tourism and

Che subregional jefes políticos and dominated Che municipal presidency in an

construction oí weekend hemos for people from Mexico City, operate ac-

alliance with local economic elites. Thus, Clac terms and Che very nature oí

cording to a logic that is largely independent oí Che principies used to orga-

che presente oí state and market poseer were the object oí a local politics

nize space in Che agrarian era.

that was manifested in a struggle over local categories of centrality and

In this section, 1 shall review aspects of the reconfiguration oí centerperiphery dialectics in Tepoztlán since the 1950s. 1 shall argue that al-

ntarginality

though Che old dialectics oí distinction successfully spread the ideals oí progress throughout the village, transcending the oid divisions between

RecentReconfi'guratíovis of Centmlity avd Maej¡nolíty

Che center and Che barrios and even between los de arriba and los de abajo, the

In an carlier work, 1 suggested that Che analysis oí regional culture can pro-

result has not been a simple incorporation oí Tepoztlán and oí Tepoztecans

ceed by looking at Che ways in which residual, dominant, and emergent

roto a standardized idiom oí distinction (if, indeed, such a standardized

forms oí organizing economic and administraiive space are interwoven in a

form can be raid to exist). Instead, Che space that was historically shaped

specific place 28 In Che case oí Morelos, [lacre clearly was a long-lasting eco-

in the struggle over local power and distinction has left room for forms oí

nomic organization oí regional space hased on interdependencies between

subjectivity that are not shaped in a simple fashion by state discourses and

lowland segar and rice plantations and poorly irrigated highland villages.

institutions.

This organization entered a critical state during Che final decades oí the

1 have argued that since independence there has been a progressive civilizational movement in Tepoztlán This movement was spurred through

nineteenrh century when a series of tactors-ranging from Che intensificaPer

C e n t e r , P e r i p b e r y, 183

and C o n n e c t i o n s

competition between individuals and by comperition between villages and barrios. "Progress" also involved attaching local culture and history to national mythology, a move that served multiple, and not always commensurable, purposes, including enhancing tire position oí the local intelligentsia and political elite, marketing local resources for outsiders, and defending Tepoztlán against specitically targeted state and prívate development projects. I have also noted the existence oí an antipolitical, and to some extent "antiprogressive," discourse that upholds the autarkic community composed oí independent households as its ideal. This discourse can be allied to that oí the progressive nationalist's, since the very existence oí a traditional culture is a significant instrument for claiming positions vis-ávis the state, but it can and has also stood against "progress," opposing nomerous state and prívate schernes leading up to rhe massive protests against a golf course. When rumors first circulated regarding plans to build a road linking Tepoztlán Lo Cuernavaca, they were received with much enthusiasm: "If this [project] comes to fruition, it will be of great importance, because Tepoztlán will be visited by foreign and domestic excursionistas."29 The image that Tepoztecans had then was oi tourists who would come te spend the day (excursionistas), visit the pyramid, and ¡cave a few pesos behind in local food stalls or perhaps in an inn. Matters developed quite differently, however. The road connecting Tepoztlán and Cuernavaca was finished in 1936, and Tepoztlán did receive some excursionistas in the 1940s and 1950s, as well as a small mimber oí promincnt artists and intellectuals, some oí whom helped bring state resources Lo ti e village.30 Beginning in the

lectuals, artists, financiers, and politicians. At the same time, the large number oí daily visitors that come to the pyramid and the market have been a boon for local commerce, especially in the market and around the plaza, and for several hotels, restaurants, discos, and video stores. Tourism and colonization produced changes in the center-periphery dialectic. First, the colonists and homeowners have acquired a collective identity that is separate from the village. Although a number oí these individuals have good tres in the village, when tensions arise, people in the valley are spoken of as "foreigners" or as "Tepoztizos" (false Tepoztecos). At the same time, social and cultural differentiation by the traditional eight barrios has been erased thanks to this same process, because barrios are all roughly equally urbanized and land value is roughly equal throughout. The premium placed on scenic beauty no longer makes living close to the plaza particularly desirable, and the wealth oí the local elite is overshadowed by that oí the new inhabitants. As a result, the last severa¡ decades have brought the traditional divide between the city center and the barrios to a close. In its stead there are now divisions between the village and the valley, as well as between the traditional old barrios and some oí the new settlements on the margins oí the village, which are poorer, have fewer urban services, and include significant numbers oí migrants from outside the village. Second, the growth oí the real-estate market has made agricultura¡ value a secondary consideration in the organization oí space. This has combined with long-term shifts in family economies to almost completely sever Tepoztlán's identity as a periphery oí a lowland agricultural core. Growth in the local construction industry, in petty commerce for tourists,

1960s, however, the nature and scale of tourism and colonization changed dramatically.

and in services for weekend homes began making Tepoztlán into a recep-

In 1965, a direct freeway to Mcxico City was built, leaving Tepoztlán less than an hour away from the ciry. As a result, weekend homes prolifer-

disappeared. This process did not occur without conflict or resentments-

ated, and the price of land began tu rise- L.arge portions oí the Valley oí Atongo, just east oí the village, had been bought up by three investors in the 1940s and they resold plors slowly, favoring settlement by families who maintain a relatively rustic look hut who are wealthy by village standards. Beginning in the 1980s, and especially aker the devastating 1985 earthquake in Mexico Ciry, a number of middle- Lo upper-class people moved permanently to Tepoztlán, forming schools for their children and engaging in varying degrees with local Tcpoztecan society. By the early 1990s, )and prices in Tepoztlán were among the highest in the country, and the village had a number oí famous homeowners in its midst, including intel-

tor oí migrant workers, and wage labor in lowland agriculture has all but for instance, in connection to water usage by weekenders for lawns and pools while local agriculture lacked irrigation-but it has continued inexorably, making agriculture finto a complementary economic activity.

Third, tourism and colonization also involve the adoption oí a series oí values that come along with commodificatiom the construction oí Tepoztlán as a "natural," "traditional," and "picturesque" place has had its truth-value confirmed in the market. So has the idea oí the place as a cite for an alternative lifestyle te) that oí the modern ciry, a process that opened a market for earrings, incense, crystals, tarot reading, and tai chi lessons, as well as for crafts that are made elsewhere but sold to tourists locally. From the perspective oí center-periphery relations, this process gave a

Cen trr, Ver,póe,v 184

an,l Counectio ns

Centre,

P „¡pi,ery , 185

und Con nec tío ns

new twist tu lile earlicr nativism, whiclt liad inainly scrved to tic the vil-

cual and wood from the comnrunal forests but, beginning in the 1950s, it

lage lo a national mythology and wa, used in appeals te) the state The

received support from income coming from local construction and from

cCmmodificatian ol lepoztl,in a, a ,c Mn,' ul scenic bcauty and oí an

work in tbe burgeoning new industries around Cuernavaca-

al terna ti ve cultural traditiion operas the place up to a kind of multicultura] -

This process did nor however lead lo lile full assimilation oí Tepozre-

ism whose paraphernalia ,ncludes (,uatem,lan k, t,, incense, masks

cans finto formal-sector svhite- and blue -callarjobs because the biggest

from Guerrero, herbal medicine, Kun;; Fu (,aen Mai, and su ora. The con-

growth in high school and college graduates-heginning in the late

struetion ot place nos, combine' rhe nativist idcntilication of Tepoztlán

1970scoincided with thc siome in employment frrr these sectors. As a

as a center o¡ Mexicanness seith constructs emerging ¡ruin the hippie

result, reliance on self-employment and/or on trying tu control local

movement, and espeaally that mixture of ,piritual rraditions known as

sources of employment has grown, making these educated sectors highly oriented lo communiry lile and te) Tepoztlán as a place that can provide a

New Age "

In sum, tourism and colonization nave dramatically reshaped the dynamics oí distinction in Tepoztlán Although tourism does not employ the whole village by any means, it has aflccted land erices, patterns oí urbanization, and the definition of what constitutes a local resource. From the perspective oí economic cores, the town has gone from being a place where agricultura) labor was cheaply produced lo a place where city folk can find reprieve and alternatives tu their lives As such, Tepoztlán has moved from being a periphery of Morelos's irrigated lowlands to being a posh periphery oí Mexico Ciry; it has also gone from providing labor, grazing lands, and wood lo lowland haciendas lo providing scenic beauty, goods, and cervices for tourists and colonists. These processes have helped to expand urban services in Tepoztlán at a quick rate and, as a result, economic differences hetwcen the village center and the barrios, or between upper and lower barrios, have practically disappeared. New divisions, however, have emerged between colonists oí the valley, who are sometimes portrayed as "foreign," as rich, or as eccentric or sexually promiscuous, and "real' Tepoztecos These divisions between trae locals and new arrivals ar times also spill into antagonlsm against migrant workers, who come mostly from Guerrero, but can come from as far away as Oaxaca or even Guatemala. Finally, peasant agrictdture has diminished in importance (not only because oí tourisin), although it does remain as a complementary activity for families. Another shift that accounts for a modihcation in local core-periphery dialectics has been the rise of wage labor and oí professionalism. Beginning in the 1930s, villagers invested in the education oí their young. This process, which was aided by connections with politically influential visitors, gave Tepoztlán an educacional edge over tire vast majority oí Morelos. In the 1970s, there was a relatively largc number of Tepoztecan schoolteachers,- today there are also many Tepoztecan professionals in a host oí helds. The growth in local education was tirst bnanced by the sale oí charCeurer, Pr, ery ,nA connec t,ou^ 186 =

crucial space for reproduction This is reflected in the fact that some, though by no means all, oí lile leadership and militancy against projects such as the golf course and lile fast train has come from these educated Tepoztecos. This apparent paradox can be better understood if we acknowledge that professionalization and skilled industrial wage labor presentTepoztlán with yet another alternative core-periphery structure, wherein the socalled formal-sectorjobs that are controlled by the state and industries are a core to an "unemployed," "underemployed," "self-employed," or "informally employed" periphery . In this context, Tepoztlán is a home in the periphery that deserves to be defended against intruders who not only will change the Pace oí Tepoztlán, but will also not employ skilled Tepoztecos and ruin a valued community and lifestyle by Booding the town with educated and higher-income colonists who will impact further on scarce local resources, including water and land, and eventually squeeze local inhabitants out of their homes. The expansion oí education in a period of economic uncertainties has strengthened many an educated Tepozteco's resolve to re-create a local tradition. The cense of a new investment in the locality has also been strengthened by migrants who spend months working in the United States and Cavada. A significant proportion of migrant dollars are invested in bettering homes, buying furniture, and in domestic infrastructure in lile village, thereby reaffirming the value oí Tepoztlán as locus oí cultural and social reproduction, and once again casting Tepoztlán as a periphery to new centers, this time in the United States and Cavada, while retaining the place's desired and cherished value as the Bite oí reproduction, as the end oí their investments.

These three elements-tourism, the rise oí ara underemployed educated class, and migratory labor to the United States-have transformed the center-periphery logic in significant ways. Internally, the spatial layout oí Cera ter, Pule bery,

and connectioin s

= 187 =

the village is no longer part of an idiom of centrality, except in the distinetion between vil ley and con ter and, Da more subtle tone, between neighborhoods oí poor niigrants from Guerrero and the rest oí the barrios. Centrality is, however, assertcd in the wav in which Tepoztlán' s status as a "puré' place gets reconstituted, and here we see a confluence between the symbols that attract tourists to Tepoztlán and che ways in which professionals and migrants invesr themsclves in the place- 1 next illustrate the nacure of this confluence with changes that Nave transpired in the ways in which the local carnival is celebrated-

Carnival In earlier sections, we saw that neighborhood and village have been social organizational units that embodicd distinctions such as those that separate Indianness from urbanity, wealth froni povcrty, and so en. These dynamics generated competition between barrios, a competition that tended to make them homologous with one another. cach barrio had (and has) its chapel with its patron saint; cach barrio was meant to have its own charac-

tween night and day, between wet and rainy seasons, between rich and poor, and between ¡odian and mestizo- However, the symmetry that is so crucial to the kind of coherent worldviews that are posited by structural analyses such as Bock's prove to be historically precarious when we try to articulate them te the history oí distinetion. Instead oí trying to fiad such a transcendental symmetry, we can look to the carnival, to the barrio fiesta, and to the symbolism associated with place in Tepoztlán as arenas in which the changing relations between places are manifested. In recent years, for instance, the barrio oí Los Reyes changed its carnival sigo from a badger (a nocturnal animal associated with the mountains and with the dry season) te a little king (representing the Theee Magi whom the barrio is named alter). San Sebastián, who once shared the opossum with the barrio oí Santa Cruz, has since changed to a scorpion, and San José adopted a leal instead oí sharing Santo Domingos frog. Although these changes alter the apparent symmetry and neat intertextuality oí the previous arrangement, they are not a reflection oí the decline oí carnival or oí barrio fiestas- Quite che contrary, these fiestas are perhaps even better attended today than they were a couple of decades ago.

ter, reflected in an animal nickname (specifically, toads, lizards, ants, opos-

lf we inspect recent changes in the carnival carefully, we note three sig-

sums, badgers, and maguey wonns); cach barrio organized its own fiesta;

nificant ítems: flrst, carnival comparsas now incorporate all eight barrios of

and barrios organized collective work parties for various purposes. In ad-

the village and no longer exclude the upper barrios; second, today's bar-

dition to chis tendency toward homology between barrios, we noted that center-periphery dialectics were once expressed in an opposition between

rios never share their nicknames in carnival (it used to be that San José and

the lower barrios around the plaza and the poorer upper barrios. This op-

the opossum); therd, some barrios have taken up symbols that are simply

Santo Domingo shared che frog, and Santa Cruz and San Sebastián shared

position found ritual expression in carnival because the biggest expendi-

indices oí the barrios name, relinquishing the obscuro symbolism oí ani-

ture for that fiesta, the fabrication of
mal names: San José is a neighborhood that was always known as "La

and paying for prestigious bands, was hankrolled by barrios and not by

Hoja" (the leal), and it is no longer represented by a toad but by a leal; Los

the village as a whole. Only the dirce lower barrios had sufficient resourees to organizo successful dance cornparas-

Reyes is no longer represented by a badger but by the Magi; and San

Anthropologist Phillip Bock did a Lévi-Straussian analysis oí barrio

These shifts reflect several facts that relate to our discussion oí centers and peripheries. Barrios are no longer an índex oí differential urbanity. There is no longer an opposition between che central and the upper barrios, a fact that is reflected not only in that comparsas now bring together upper and lower barrios, but also in the fact that barrio symbolism is used strictly as a form of individuation, and noc as a way oí expressing alliances, as was the case when San José and Santo Domingo, two lower barrios, shared the toad, or when Santa Cruz and San Sebastián, two upper barrios, shared the opossum. Also, the new version oí carnival reflects a loosening oí the ties between the ritual cycle and the agricultura) cycle, a fact that is manifested in the current discomfiture in handling and understanding the

symbolism in Tepoztlán." He argued that tbe sigas oí barrio identity, including animal nicknames, barrios saints' names, barrio fiestas, and carnival comparsas, were part of a "tradicional Tepoztecan cosmovision" that was alive and well when he studied it in the early 1970s. According to such a view, the distinctions between barrio animal names and the separation oí the village roto an upper and a lower poition are al] parí oí an elaborate symbolic code that representa che organization oí Tepoztlán asan indigenous agrarian village. If we pay attention to the dates oí the fiestas and organize barrio symbols along an axis of symmetry that corresponds with the above/helow division, chen these symbols suggest distinctions begente ,

'eripó ,ry.

.,r.d C,,,.r, ec ttons

188 -:

Pedro abandoned its maguey worms for a representation oí its chapel.

Comer, periphery,

o„a Connect,ons

189 =

tradicional animal nicknames I he signilieance or even the range of asso-

ready-nade imagen from the media that circulare as widely as Tepoztecans

ciations of soma ol [hese animal, n lost un nurst local peoplc, and so they

can hope to circulare playing with consumption, and fantasizing with

triad ro wced out dilficult or unplc.oant svmbols. such as San Pedro''

exotic sexual affairs All are dreams that are shared while dancing in the

maguey wormc, that could set theii upe Ii ir ndieule. Instead ol being in the

carnival oí Tepozdán

hands ot barrio cldcrs, nim 1i otnual barro, symbolism today has fallen finto the hands of schooltcac hers who ser thc carnival symbolism nor as a reflecrion of traditional prochietive teehniqucs and social organization, bur racher as parí ol a timeless local tradition cdebrating the village ¡Ti short, harrio symbolism ir. , ii nivai ntanilests sevenl of the changes

Condusion Center and periphery are mutually dependen[ terms.More inportant, they are ni a relationship [fiar is constantly renegotiated This fact is sometimes

we have been discussing Urbanity is no longer the principal sigo of een-

forgotten because oí the political dividends that accrue from reifying cen-

trality [Ti local idioms ni distinction .Nci ther is there a clean-cut spatial

ters and peripheries. It was expedient in the 1960s to define the whole oí

division between the party of progress and the party of tradition. The

Latin America as a periphery to a northern Europe and North America.

enormous vitality oí "tradition" masks the fact that agriculture has been

But the very ease with which we fall prey to such reification is a sigo oí the conceptual difficulty involved in spelling out the ways in which center-

steadily receding as a defining activity for Tepoztecans. The key position taken by educated Tepoztecans in reshaping barrio symbolism makes the

periphery relations are intertwined. This difficulty stems in part from the

fiesta a celebration of an idealized tradition whose links to older forms oí

tendency to collapse economic, political, and cultural core-periphery

production and social organization are increasi ngly tenuous.

structures as if these relationships al¡ mapped onto each other neatly. They need not do so.

This picture, however, does non reflect the vitality oí local sociery even as it can be gleaned from fiestas such as carnival, for alongwith the decline

In the case oí Mexico, for one, nationalism was built not en the culture

oí the core-periphery dialectic that was hased on an agrarian political

oí the bourgeoisie or oí the urban proletariat, but rather around the ro-

economy, we find new personal investments in the place and its signifi-

manticized figure oí the Indian and peasant. As a result, the cultural

cance vis-á-vis "the outside worid." These pulsations are obvious not only

core-periphery structure (which can be abstracted out oí an analysis oí

in the huge crowds oí tourists and locals who are present, who are danc-

the dynamics oí distinction) is impacted and thus does not follow neatly

ing, who are drinking and eatnng, but also in sope of the symbolism oí the

from economic considerations. For instante, Tepoztecans have claimed, at times effectively, a special tic to lo popular in order to negotiate conditions

carnival itself, particularly in the cosuimes. Lavish expenditure en elaborare carnival costumes (chinelos) is a com-

with the state. Economic marginalization can place a particular group oí

mon investment among Tepoztecos who work as migrant laborers in the

people in a politically advantageous position as potential representatives oí "national culture."

United States and Canada. Their savings allow them not only to improve their houses and to buy consumer products, but also to participate lavishly in Chis expensive fiesta. Many other Tepoztecans, educated and noneducated, wage earners and petty merchants, also invest in these expensive costumes. In 1993, chinela carnival costtnnes were embroidered mainly with four kinds oí motifs: (1) stereotypical (calendarike) images oí Aztec prinees, princesses, and pyramids that reallirm the village's lineage in the dominan[ nationalist discourse, (2) figures irom cartoons such as Donald Duck, Tweety, and so un, (3) voluptuous women either in the sexy Indian or in the Barbie-doll modos; and 14) hect caos, tequila bordes, or Coke, These images play with the diversification ot economic centers that Tepoztecans deal with, reaffirming an idcalized imago oí the Indian, appropriating

p ice .^u.l = 19U =

CuuuecHani

Theoretical positions that take only economic factors as their criteria for organizing core-periphery models tend to tender the complex politics oí center-periphery invisible. Instead oí visualizing a politics oí distinction that permeates most oí the world system at every level, this strategy tends to envision regional blocks competing with each other. For instante, Immanuel Wallerstein (1974) used countries as units in his classification oí the core-periphery structure oí the capitalist world system. This makes sense to the degree to which, as Wallerstein argued, the transfer oí capital between nation-states has been a crucial mechanism for capitalist expansione Following this same logic, analysis who seek to go beyond an international core-periphery structure and finto peripheralization within a particular country have been logically drawn to concepts such as "internal C e n t e r , P r r i p by'

and C o n n e c t o n s

191 =

eolonialism," which still allowed arelatively clear-cut division between centers and peri phcries. Unfortu late y, [hese views tend tu imagine places as distinctly "central" oi "peripheral," instead of as loci with different kinds of center-periphery dialectics_ 1 hope to have shown here that "clic center" has always been present in Tepoztlán, but that the processes of claiming centrality and of peripheralization have changed hisrorically. In fact. in at least one key moment during the 1920s, a traditionally defined centra-'s capacity to encompass and, hence, to successfully peripheralize the whole village was seriously called finto question-this despite che fact thar, from a macroeconomic point of view, M-lexico (and Tepoztlán) remained as "peripheral" as ever. 1 also showed that peripheralization in che period following industrialization, especially since che 1960s, has hecome an increasingly complex phenomenon due tu the coexistente of competing logics and loci of "centrality": che relationsh ip with che nation-state is now strongly influenced by transnational currents of Tepoztccan migrants, by urban middle- and

Families with construction workers, petty merchants, or skilled laborers in their midst still like to grow sorne coro for their own consumption, and al] are worried about having sufficient water or about retaining or acquiring a small plot for their children to build on. In Chis context, claiming peripheral status from one angle can serve to challenge a competing form of peripheralization. Nativism is used co counter large corporations and large-scale development projects that threaten Tepoztlán as a Bite for social reproduction, while economic necessity is used co legitimare commercialization of local culture and resources. The ideal of personal progress heles spur migrants on their difficult journey north, and the ideal of coming back to celebrare the fiesta helps to keep them going. It should not be entirely surprising, then, that so many Tepoztecans-peasants or wage-earning, educated or not-are willing publicly to take on an indigenous identity that was described by Judith Friedlander only three decades ago as "forced identity," for this is parí of what it takes to reproduce at che margins.

upper-class colonists, by educated and wage-earning Tepoztecans, and by che very process of commodifying local culture and resources. This diversification of economic centers and che definitive decline of che old agrarian core-periphery structure Nave produced significant ideological alterations, even though some of [hese are niasked by che apparent continuity of traditions such as che earnival. Not long ago, local politics of disti nction di fferentiated che uncouth peasant indio from che urbanized and educated citizen. At the same time, ,orne Tepoztecan intellectuals were invoh'cd in dignifying Indianness using che "artificial tlowers" srrategy, rhat is, by teaching Nahuatl, literacy, learning che nacional anthem ín Nahuatl and so on. This strategy allowed [hese intellectuals simultaneously to reinforce their position as what Redfield called correctos" and to stake a polihcal claim for che rown vis-ávis che state_ From a peasant perspective, however, all of [hese strategies were bese kept at arm's length, separare ron che morality of reciprocity and of household production rhat was at che center of their lives. In this period, the terco indio was indeed what Judith Friedlander (1975) called a "torced identity"; in other words, it was a discrimi natory term used to discount a peasant's authority as a pubhc speaker oras a progressive citizen. Today it is increasingly difficult ro categoriza Tepoztecans as Indians, as peasants, or as suhjects in need of civilization. There is no unified local elite. There is no single encompassing economic center. At che sane time, che importante of Tepoztlán as a site of social reproduction is as strong as ir ever was Migrants wanc their (modernizad) honres to come back to. Peril,br^y

,,nd f o n.eeiio

192 =

Cenier, periphery

and Connectfons

= 193 =

P A R T 11 1

Knowing

the Nation

9

Interpreting the Sentiments of the Nation: Intellectuals and Governmentality in Mexico

My aim in this chapter is to inspect the sources of legitimation that have allowed Mexican intellectuals to represent national sentiment or public opinion, It is common to contrast the role of intellectuals in Mexico with their role in the United States: Mexican intellectuals are thought to be more involved in public debate and in political society, while intellectuals in the United States are thought to be cloistered off from that world by a well-greased academy that makes them into erudites or technicians. This opposition often leads, in turn, to an argument regarding whether the social position of the Mexican intelligentsia in fact follows a more European, and specifically French, model. These contrasts can be misleading, however, lince they may be taken to imply that the differences between Mexico and the United States are simply the result of the application of distinct models of knowledge production. Both French and American examples have been chosen by technicians and policy makers to model Mexican governmental institutions. The hospitals, educational establishments, and prisons that were created or reformed during the porfiriato (1876-1910) were often imaged on French models. The establishment of El Colegio Nacional, which is a more recent creation, was inspired by the Collége de France. The influence of the United States as provider of institutional models has been equally great,

= 197 =

cspeeially sine( \Voild \Var II ami thc new e: univcrsities and rescarch faulnles Nave oitcn h)llowcd Amercan ryalnple,. I rencli ¡in ti United States

Vicente Güemez Pacheco y Padilla from publishing che results oí a Mexico City census that he had comml,sioned, and freedom of the press was only

institutional modelé Nave Jiu, cu,, yiSicd n AIcxico since che late nine-

granted for a few brief montNs ni 1 812. As a resulta che hrst major publica-

teenth cenulrv and so thev cannLII hc malle tulle lo account lar the srrate-

tions presenting the Spanish colonies from the viewpoint of a governmen-

,gics that Mexican intellec ulah harc Incd t', epll:sent nati:mal sentiment

tal state thc works of Alexander von Humboldt, had a powerful effect on

Instead, a more general analysu ol che hlstoncal connections between

American nabo nal ists.' Hun,bol dts portrayal oí the Spanish-American

state-furmation and intellectuals w rcquiral In chis chapter, 1 contribute

realms as functioning wholcs, complete with an aggregate population

tn this endeavor by inspcct:ng che rc a.ionsh ii between intellectuals rep-

(divided into races), maps ol rhe rcabns, and discussions of their com-

reacntation ol popular sentiment and thc hisutnV ol what .Aliehel Foueault

poundcd resources helped nationalists imagine their countries as autono-

called govcnvn cntalit}," that b to sar thc h:stoly ot thc ways in which

mous units, and themselves as their would-he administrators. The dia-

che state described and adntinistercd .Muxicos population. My general

logue between scientifcally aggregated knowledge of the population,

contention is thar tlie economic and political circumstances surrounding

public discussion, and state administration thus had only a short, and rather

Mexican independence produced a long dclay in the effecrive implemen-

explosive, colonial history.

tation oí a governmental state1 During chis protracted period, a style of

This fact is coupled with another, which is oí equal significance. At in-

intellectual representation that gamed its authority from political revolt

dependence, most Spanish-American countries were not well integrated

complemented che sor[ of scientific representations of the Mexican people

economicaily. The new national elites were usually landowners, and the

that are associated with governmcntaliry. The representation oí national

commercial and financial concerns that had tied the empire together were

sentiment was produced not only by referente to a set of indicators culled

most often controlled by Peninsular Spaniards.Independence therefore

from censures and questionnaires, hui also by giving meaning and direc-

inaugurated processes oí territorial disarticulation and disaggregation, and

tion to the cacophany oí popular social movements and insurrection.

nacional consolidation would be won only after a protracted sequence oí

My general claim is that although statistics were generated and popu-

pronunciamientos, caste wars, civil wars, and foreign interventions. As a re-

lations were cared for and managed by Spanish administration since the

sult, peaceful administration was encumbered, census taking was irregular,

sixteenth century, the state and die church kept their information en the

and the consolidation oí a working scientific establishment was slow.

population and deliberations on general policies private. Systematic infor-

Mexican independence was won in 1821, but a securely functioning gov-

mation en towns and provinces reas centralized in offices such as that oí

ernmental state did not exist until the 1880s.

the roya] cosmographer, or placed in che hands oí high royal officials such

There is thus an extended period in Mexican history when a com-

as visitadores or viceroys, but they were not scrutinized by a "public." In the

monly accepted scientific image of the population, oí its desires and its

anclen régirne, public sentiment reas a phenomenon associated with towns

propensities, was not attainable. Intellectuals' reliance en the instruments

or cities, and títere was no consolidation of opinion at the leve) oí the

oí governmental administration was thus necessarily mixed with the inter-

realm, much less oí the entire empire. Correspondingly, statistics, maps,

pretation oí public sentiments on the basis oí their attachment to revolts,

or reports could be controlled by specific communities or corporations,

revolutions, and social movements, and these movements were commonly endowed with authority to discredit "scientific" representations of public

but not in the narre oí a broader polity °

The notion oí a public that transcended che hounds oí the town or ciry and extended iota the broader realm was consolidated slowly only during the late eighteenth century. With this development, statistics became a matter of general interest, because they measured che common good. However, the tension between che nadan that statistics were privy to the king and his representatives and the idea that they were che niirror in which the public could measure its oren improvement extended to the end of the colonial period. As late as 1791. the Inquisition barred ViceroyJuan fn larp rrtinb

Ihe ^, ..wt.rlr I9H =

oi

tbe .Alalion

opinion.

In che Mexican case, chis nineteenth-century phenomenon (which was common to Spanish America and indeed to portions oí Europe) was extended far loto the twentieth century thanks to che Mexican Revolution oí 1910-20, and to che fact that che state that was spawned by the revolution was a one-party regime that was led by an inordinately powerful president. Thus, regardless oí French or American influences, both oí which have provided critical instruments for che representation oí national sentiment, Inlerpretln9 tbe Senliments of lbe Nalion 199 =

Mexican intellectuals have spoken for the people with some autonomy vis-á-vis the classical instrtaments of governmentaGry. This is my argument at its most general level.

Populations, States, asid Nationalities Benedict Anderson argued that New World nationalisms were the first of the modern era, that nationalisni moved from rhe periphery oí empires to their very coro. Although this contention is debatable, it is undoubtedly true that American nationalisms sprang up relatively early on the world scene. What is less clear is the nature oí (¡le relationship between nationalism, sovereignty, and statecraft, hecause rhe domina that nationalism spawned independence movements can just as easily be inverted, and one could just as readily claim that it was th( prospect oí severing ties with Spain that shaped Spanish-American nationalisms_ It is tempting to resolve this question by pointing to a dialectic between nationalism, the push to independence, and then the further propagation of nationalism as a result oí the contest for independence itself, However, it is worth considering this matter more closely, because the

and deaths, deaths oí principal inhabitants oí the cides, masses pleading for the welfare oí the Spanish fleet, and Te Deums oí thanks for being spared from plagues, but also with lists of the cargo and names oí the ships that entered Veracruz and other ports. In the second era oí the Mexico City Gazeta, this genre oí reporting was complemented with discussion concerning "the public" and its improvement.s Perhaps the best way oí capturing this novel concern with the progress and welfare oí "the public" is a genre oí writing that I am tempted to call "the scientifically marvelous." We know, today, oí the curious genealogy oí discourses oí the marvelous in the Americas, oí their deployment as propaganda and as a silencing mechanism in the sixteenth century, and oí their centrality in the perception oí contemporary Latin America as the Bite oí a disjointed modernity, in the literary movement oí the real maravilloso.ó In the late eighteenth century, we have a specific subgenre oí writing the marvelous-which is, oí course, found also outside of the Iberian worldthat exalts the wonders oí nature and oí science. The pages oí the Gazeta, a paper whose dedication te useful things was decreed by the king himself, are replete with examples:

specific contents oí "nationalism" vary significantly according to its con-

In the measles epidemic, whose remnants still sting this jurisdiction, a child

nections to the various aspects of statecraft, and these variations in turn

oí age seven was sickened by it and by smallpox simultaneously, such that

afford a perspective on our theme, which is the specific spaces for intellec-

the right side of his body was pocked by measles, while the left side was

tual production that are characterisde of 1 atin American, and specifically Mexican, modernity

hlled with smallpox, with nor one grain of smallpox mixed with one of measles.(November 17, 1784, 186; my transiation)

In the last decades of the eighteenth century, New Spain underwent a significant shift in the ways in which publicity and "the public" were dis-

In this case, the exact separation oí the infant's body in halves is the

cussed, with an emergent class of "reasonable people' (gente sensata) reject-

object oí wonder. As in so many instances oí what is judged to be mar-

ing so-called baroque forros ol ceremony and championing enlightened

velous, it is the combination between the infinite and the exact that is

views oí the common good. They were aided by enlightened monarchs

awe-inspiring, the precision that denles randomness and thereby allows

who shared their suspicion oí the ' obscuiantist church" and oí sectors oí

the viewer a glimpse oí a higher order. This repon is an itero from a broad

the old nobility. This shift corresponds to a recomposition and expansion

genre in which natural phenomena are shown co be motivated by a divine

oí New Spains upper classes, with new individuals entering the Mexican

order, and inquiry into the natural world is thereby made compatible with religion.

nobility and the expansion of urban classes of merchants and artisans as the countrys economy grew.4 Late-eighteenth-century conceptions of "the public" can be culled from the Gazeta de México, Mexico Citys periodical, which reappeared in 1784 in a novel forro alter a lapso of two decades in which no regular newspaper was published. The carlier Gazeta oí Mexico City and the Gazeta de Lima liad dealt almost exclusively with public ceremony and commercial information, with covcrage of commemorations oí royal births Iuiee r, tin g ibe

Seo 1IVeer;

of tba Nnlíon

Another kind oí example oí rhe "scientifically marvelous" dwells en the unsuspected potency ofthe ordinary: Don Ángel de Antrello y Bermúdez, inhabitant oí this city (oí Guadalajara) with a letter dated on the fifteenth of the past month (oí October) notifies the Supreme Government wirh the goal that Chis news he published, that the plant called Ajenjo, which in Sonora is called Estafiate, ground and mixed with water, together with the root oí Palo Blanco, or, if chis root is Inlerp re^ing

ihe Sen( im en ts

200 = 201 =

of tbe Nntion

laeking, cha[ ot Chamisa, or I:, ri lla. kn^,wn in Sunora whcic it grows in abundo rato) as yatamote. is highls ci lican iuus, I drunk, co cure iabies-

[ion to his obligations and sought always co be instructed in Che useful natural sciences, which were not incompatible with his onice .. - Our curato gathered 'm his hotue a ver" modest salon ¿ trrlulia made up oí che

'ilbid., 193; mv translation

vol and the barher thr only lwo champions sebo had any polish ¡n a

In Che sane H*av that natural llana' m rcecaled hcavenly inrervention, so too did Che unsuspected potential ot nature iu marvclous uses and the

country tilled with Choros and rorrghncss Decemher 2> 1784, 2; my translation1

promise ro heal and to bel p. The gente of tire sLienGfically marvelouc as it is forme¡ in Che Gazeta

Thc eountrys intellectuals clearly had Che public welfarc in mirad This

combines ara interest in publie weltarc inri contirmation oí the role oí God

was ro be attained through Che ipplication of sciences and arts that were

and of religion in Che transition ui nurtlcrnicp and toward Che progressive

compatible with religion he pious tcchnician seas Che personification of

improvement oí living conditions hhc inrervention of God is manifest in

Che useful citizen.

Che uncanny. Science, in Chis sense, has a double mission: discovering and proclaiming God's hand in nature and seo ing a publie whose very adop-

Dialectics between the Tecbnician and tbe Spirit Medium

rion oí all that is true and useful is a ratification oí a deep and mysterious rationality. The people who subscrihed to the view that public acclaim seas the measure and proof oí having discovered a divine rationality were known as gente sensata, or "reasonable people They opposed the pomp and ceremony oí the retrograde church with a modernized Catholicism in which the progressive discovery of God's ways was tied to Che improvement of the living conditions of the public In this respect, Miguel Hidalgo, leader of the first armed revolt for Mexican independence in 1810, is paradigmatic, a mystic oí national independence, a priest, and a man impassioned by Che useful sciences. Scientifically Inclined nationalists and nationalistic scientists were commonplace at this time.

This particular form oí validating truth is compatible with Michel Foucault's ideas concerning governmentality. states define a population, establish parameters to measure its progress, introduce new productive techniques, and then legitimize their own existente on the basis oí the adoption oí [hese improvements. In Chis sense, governmentality creates characteristic spaces and roles for intellectuals, for the engineer and the inventor, for Che economist, rhe hygicnist, and Che statistician, and, indeed, [hese are some oí Che main sorts oí intellectuals who appear in debates during Che late-eighteenth- and carly-nineteenth-century Gazetas

Certainly these ideas regarding Che public as the cite where truth about nature is put to its ultimate test were related to the development oí nationalism in Mexico, though one might note that they were also broadly compatible with Spanish absolutism and, indeed, with any forro oí modero statecraft. Independence, however, brought with it a dizzying political instability-an instabiliry, moreover, that led to the dramatic increase in the relative backwardness oí the new Spanish-American countries, with respect to Che United States and northern Europe.7 The relative decline oí Mexico carne along with unmitigated competition for control and appropriation oí state institutions, and this contest made the simple adoption oí material improvements by "che publican insufficient basis for interpreting national sentiments. The strategy oí governmentality, though centrally important throughout Che modern era, was insufficient once independence destabilized government. It is in this context that a second method for interpreting public sentiments became important. This method maintains that popular will is visible during times of revolution and revolt, but is difficult to ascertain in times oí apparent peace because systems oí coercion over individual opinion are in place. In peaceful times, Che people were ruled by the existing

As if to illustrate the social competition of the lower echelons oí Chis

powers: political bosses, hacienda owners, mine owners, who each had a

intelligentsia, ara editorial response te) a teclinical debate that filled entire

ferrous hold on their workers and dependents The vote merely echoed

issues oí Che Gazeta invents a hypothetical readership in an imaginary

the wishes oí chis political class

village:

The establishment oí a state hased on democratic representation was always a distant goal, never an accomplished fact. Although numerous attempts were made to establish a system of representation based on reliable ways oí counting the population and on the capacity to guarantee equality

In the town of Cozotlán, abundant in sadness and scarce in amenities, there resided a curare who combined a satistactory leve¡ of coniprehension with great diligente because oí which he remained unsatisfied with mere elevoIn lerp rrling Ibe 5ru,r ",,i,, 202=

lote rpreting

Ibo Srr.limenic 203 =

of lbe

Nalion

before the law to al] citizens, rhe successful establishment oí credibility was another matter-s It is arguably thc case for instante, that rhe 1994 and 1997 elections were the firsi fati- elections in Mexican history, Polis and polling were not being used widely in Mexico before 1988.9 These difficulties stemmed principally from the force oí various corporate structures in rhe society, ranging from haciendas, to the church, to the army, to indigenous communities. Underlying their strength was the weakness oí the privare sphere oí vast numbers oí Mexicans. There have always been many people who were dependents in Mexico, either because they were servants, or sharecroppers, or peons living en their master's

more developed countries became an aspect oí state theater in the more backward ones. Early national statistics in Mexico mobilized the study oí variation around a mean in order to demonstrate that the people oí Mexico City were as educated as those oí London, that levels oí prostitution in Mexico were lower than those oí Paris, and that levels oí prosperity were comparable to those oí the same capitals. These statistics were not reliable or useful for interna ) social engineering , the way that colonial statistics had been. Instead, they were intended to create a mystique oí modernity that would help secure a place for Mexico in the concert oí nations.

property. Dependents have never nade ideal liberal citizens, for the de-

Any bid for being taken seriously in rhe international arena involved

fense oí individual rights is meant tu be hased on secure property and a

such forms oí state theater. During the porfiríato (1876-1910), which was rhe first time in which such a credible bid could be sustained, there was

competitive labor niarket (servants were explicirly barred from citizenship in early legal codes). In the twentleth century, rhe "urban informal sector," which is enormous, produces other forms oí dependency. The state was thus incapable of upholding the ideals oí liberal citizenship for the poorer sectors oí society, and therefoie political representation depended, and was perceived as depending, on thc muscle oí regional and local elites.lo An example that clarines the nanlre of rhe problem is rhe case oí Texas before its secession in 1836. The Mexican constrtution oí 1824 abolished slavery Nevertheless, as tensions hetween Anglo-American colonists in Texas and the Mexican government mounted in the late 1820s, the Mexican government repealed rhe prohihition oí slavery in the case oí Texas as a way oí appeasing rhe colonists. In short, the Mexican state did not have rhe power tu guarantec citizenship to its population, but relied instead on the power oí various local elites who could mobilize or demobilize popular classes to such an extent that in certain instantes they might even be able to enslave them without effective state restrictions.'1 In a more general way, one might argue that rhe continued presente oí a vast peasantry and, especially in the twentierh century, oí a populous urban informal sector has meara that rhe state culture of governmentality, hased on censuses and en other forms of state ethnography, as well as on rhe construction oí measures of progress, has never been intellectually sufficient for founding credible political representation. These standard mechanisms for measuring popular will are effective only to the extent that the state has the means for regulating rhe lives oí its people.

What is more, rhe growing concern with backwardness-a concern that began to develop about ten years alter independence and that becarne acute alter rhe war with the United Stares in 1 847-meant that some of the forms of state CLIture that one associates with governance in 1n trrp reting

tbr n 1 i rn 1': 1, 204 =

of

1be

Nal on

much display oí rhe visible signs oí modernity. Díaz created an elite police corps, the rurales, whose uniforms and organization gave a semblante oí order to a country whose association with banditry was legendary. The first national census was taken in 1895 and then regularly every ten years beginning in 1900, and the capital city became the cite oí government interventions that were oriented to making the city finto a credible capital oí a modern nation. 1 shall dwell briefly on certain aspects oí this strategy.12 The national state was only lightly inscribed in Mexico's landscape before the 1 880s. In many oí the most important state capitals , institutes oí science and arts existed as an educational and intellectual counterpart to the structure oí state legislarures. These Institutos Científicos y Literarios tried to recruit students from each municipality every year, thereby creating a structure oí education that would impact the whole oí each state's political life. This method oí intellectual representation, which was parallel to the ideal oí democratic representation, has not yet received much attention from historians, and we do not have a good comparative view oí its operation , but it is clear that it did not achieve a nationally integrated public sphere. This fragmentation oí the public sphere, which corresponds to the lack oí a national dominant class (that can only be said to have emerged after rhe construction oí the railroads, beginning in the 1880s), is reflected in the fragility oí the state's inscription in rhe landscape. According to Carlos Monsiváis, there were only seven statues oí heroes in the whole oí Mexico's public squares before 1876.13

With Díaz, however, effective centralization oí the state was achieved, along with the consolidation oí a national bourgeoisie. These achievements coincided neither with a florescence oí democratic institutions nor Tnterpreting

t b e S e n t i m e n t s o f t b, N o t i o

= 205 =

with Che universal extensic>n ol civie r nrtue -except, of course, at the leve]

Madero was famously upright, a guardian of impartnality and oí the ra-

of state thcater The pcrfiri,ilo mac hav e ] ecn the heyday of bondad labor,

tionality oí justice, as is evident in Chis fragment from one of his speeches

but in Mexico City. Díaz presentad iii imap,c ol federal demoeraey by lin-

pronounced soon after toppling Díaz:

uig the new Paseo de la Retare,,, bnt,le ard with two busts ol notables from each ot Che republie statcs The capital city thus became a site where local leaders were tranvorlacd finto Che nic to nym ic si gris ol an imaginary demoeraey

The strategy ot political representation that was drst consolidated under Díaz is still usad todav Durinc ethnogrophie work on Che staging of public ralees during che presidenual campnign ul Carlos Salinas in 1988, 1 noticed that in each state tour. thc presidential candidate delivered speeches that contained a simple formula: he would begin by acknowledging the greatness oí Che state in which he mas, by naming prominent historical figures of the state, who were usually political heroes or prominent artists, intellectuals, and the like- Tiren he would value their contribution in terms oí what they mean[ for Che nation- For instance, Salinas said that he was proud to be in Puebla, thc region oí Aquiles Serdán and the birthplace oí the Mexican Revolurion, Chihuahua was the state that harbored Benito Juárez during his campaign against Che French invaders, Veracruz was Che land oí poeta and popular artists who, like Agustín Lara, had brought international recognition to Mexico. In each speech, the region was recognized, but its value was only realized at che leve) oí Che nation. 10 This is a legacy oí Díaz's regime, when Mexico City was effectively set up as the Bite in which national value was realized. However, although Che centralization of Che state under Díaz allowed for the development oí a more reliable set of measurements with which to count, poli, and represent 'Che peoplc,' capital accumulation in Che period relied en labor repression, and Che stability of the central state itself depended en robust authoritarian practices. As a result, che governmental intellectual whose infancy we have tracked al¡ the way back to the pages oí Che Canela de México in Che 1 780s liad only limited credibility and was used as much as an element oí state thcater as the means for actual governmental administration. The tension between che representation oí the people by way oí the state's governmental sciences and its representation through direct and unmediated access to national sentiment thus became a structural feature of Mexican development The figure oí Francisco 1. Madero the revolutionary leader who toppled Díaz in a vast popular movement, provides a curious instance oí the intimate and unsolvable concradiction between a governmental intellectual and one who representa popular opinion through a more mystical tia. f^!i^^pruin )

^6e , i i,,, Eni' nt it,, Na,,on 200 =

lo Che suffedng and working peoplc. Chis is to soy that 1 expect everything from your wisdom and prudcnce That you should consider me as your best friend. that you make moderate and parriotic use oí the liberty that you have conquered and that you have faith in Che justice of your new governors - because from Che political point of view your situation has undergone radical chango, going from the miserable role oí pariah and slave Lo Che august heights oí that ol the citizen- Do not expect that your economic and social situation shall improve sharply, because this cannot be attained through decrees or laws, but only by Che constant and laborious effort oí al] social elements . - Know that you shall find happiness in yourselves, in dominating your passions and repressing your vices, and in developing your willpower in order to act always according to the dictates of your conscience and oí your patriotism, and not according Lo the ways oí your passions. Finally, 1 urge you to seek strengch in uniry and to make the law the norm oí al] oí your acts.15

However, there were not yet any reliable mechanisms for feeling the pulse oí Chis new world oí august citizens and impartial judges. Knowing Che popular will was, in the end, a matter oí faith, it required Che ability to tap finto the secret reservoirs oí national sentiment. In this respect, the other, private face oí Madero as a religious man and especially as a spiritualist is not as contradictory as it has been made out to be-16 As a leader who proved capable oí mobilizing a broadly based nacional movement in entirely undemocratic conditions, Francisco Madero Che progressive democrat needed the guidance oí his alter ego, Francisco Madero the spiritualist and medium. The duality oí Che governmental intellectual and oí the intellectual as spirit medium oí the popular will is here conjoined in a single, politically explosive figure. In sum: Whereas an early form oí interpreting national sentiments is based en the public's adoption oí useful and progressive measures, Mexico's instability, its increasing backwardness, and the authoritarianism that was its most readily available remedy al] conspired to produce a second method oí interpreting the sentiments oí the nation- This method recognizes that political representation in the public sphere is insufficiently developed, so that popular will is conceived oí as a rumor that can be interpreted through exegesis oí popular actions, with revolutions as ultimate loci oí authenticity. In te rp re ting Ihr Sen i,m en ts = 207 =

of tbe Nation

In times ot unrest, as during the perioel berween 1821 and 1876 orbe tween 1910 and 1940, or again since rhe revolt in Chiapas in 1994, appeal ro social movements and to revolutions as the privileged sites oí public opinion is quite extended, while che capacity to build legitimacy on the productive effects of a state culrure oí governmentality declines, turning the scientists and technicians of these periods into objects oí ridicule whose pretense of method is broken by a rcality that will not cede tú positivist inspection. During momenrs of stahi1ity and progress, however, the public acceptance oí these technicians grows, hut even then their material dependence on a state that relies on che mediation oí a political class for the management oí a largo "dependent" population occasionally undermines their credibi1 ity

note, since many modern states subsidize only che bureaucratic, "governmental" intellectuals. In Mexico, governmental subsidies to che press are substancial, and there are a number oí institutions, ranging from statefunded presses to universities, cultural institutes, museums, fellowships, and scholarships that are routinely used to fund Chis kind oí intellectual.ls The significante oí these "inrerpassive" intellectuals for the Mexican nation is a function oí the states capacity to creare a working relationship between che countrys diverse corporate sectors. In this sense, postrevolutionary government investment in interpassive intellectuals can be clarified if we contrast Mexico's situation to Ortega y Gasset's (1921) famous analysis oí the breakdown and decomposition oí Spain. Ortega described a situation, which he named "particularism" and described as a breakdown of the consciousness oí inter-

Interpassivity and Governmentality

dependence between che nation's principal segments. This breakdown

The concept oí "i nterpassiv i ty" is useful lar understandi ng the dialectic

was caused by the lack oí an attractive and viable nacional project. In that

berween the two forms oí intellectual production and che two kinds oí

context, che various sectors oí society-the army, the proletariat, che

spaces for intellectuals that 1 have oudined so far. n Interpassivity is a kind

bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia-turned inward and did little to seek inter-

oí relationship in which the anticipated reaction oí an interlocutor is acted

sectorial alliances. This inward turn was led by parochial leaders, each oí

out by the emissary oí the original message. Zizek gives canned laughter en television asan example

whom imagined a perfect identity berween his own sectorial interests

In the Mexican case, both of che techniques for interpreting che sentiments of the nation that 1 have oudined ',and that 1 am tempted to cal]

and those oí che general public. The famous military pronunciamientos oí the nineteenth century were, for Ortega, paradigmatic oí the phenomenon oí particularism:

"bureaucratic" and "charismatic") are built en the silente, or at the very least en che incoherente, of popular expression. The will oí the people is read either by interpreting silente as complacent appeal oí the governmental state, or according to the interpretarions oí intellectuals, whose speech is meant tes be the symptom oí the expected reaction oí a public that is unable co articulare views in the public sphere. In this sense, che role of intellectuals in Mexico is not limited to that oí technicians oí governmentality-which difterentiaces che country to some degree from the United States. The role of somatizing national sentiments, the interpassivity oí national intellectuals, is based not so much en the professional drive for specification, isolation, and classification as on developing narratives about the progress oí popular will that conform to the circumscances of social movements and state policies- We thus have as national intellectuals both the technician and che medium, the bureaucratized professional and the "interpassive" charismatic intellectual.

The state subsidy oí intellectual mediums" or agents entrusted with acting out expected popular sentiments is a historical fact that is worthy oí In lerpreling

tbe Sr„„ n,e n., of

eNalion

The pronunciados (military rcbels) never believed that it was necessary to struggle to obtain victory They were sure that almost everyone secretly held their same opinions, and so they had blind faith in the magical effect oí "pronouncing" a phrase. They rose, then, not to struggle, but rather to take possession oí public power.19

Mexico's situation in the postrevolutionary era had both similarities to and differences with che Spanish case. On the one hand, it was, and to some extent remains, a deeply segmented country. On the other hand, the revolutionary state was able to put forth a more or less viable and attractive national project. National unity, however, still rested on a culturally segmented and inwardly oriented set oí sectors, most oí which had weak intellectual representation In Chis context, it is perhaps not so surprising that the state took such an interest in fostering an intelligentsia that could somatize these various sectorial interesas and place them into a single, though highly restricted, discussion that in Mexico has been called "public opinion." Interpret:ng tbe Sentiments

208 =

209 =

of ibe Nation

hulent_ As a result, the instruments of governmentaliry have usually been

E ondusion

unevenly applied, owing lo che states insufficient resources and the nature The analysis ot che spaces tor ntellecwals ti, one hackward country allows

oí capitalist development in the region. Moreover, given Mexicos posi-

us lo look ar the rclationship between pal tics and antipolitics in Latin

tion in the international arena given its need to attract forcign capital and

i erent light In NI, xican polities ot che past century, a A rnerica under a (f

ro gain a measure of respect trom the great powers, govermnentality itself

dialectic between so-called téourm and iio6Lco+ has been widely noted

became something that needed lo be convincingly exhibited. The sci-

Similarly, in countries such as Elide Argentina and Brazil, military gov-

ences oí state administration needed to be presented as developed and

ernments developed ela hora te an ti polit:cal discourses_ theirgovern-

effective, a fact that in itsell has generated the suspicion that they are nei-

ments were cast as technical administra tions. not as properly polltical."'

ther. This complex history of governmentality in Mexico thereby provid-

l his discoerse ot antipolitics is assudaied with a specilic kind of anti-

ed a relatively secure space for nongovernmental intellectuals.

intellectualism Chilean universittes and culture spheres were dismantied in all but their most technical wings during rhe military government, and an appreciation oí the hureaucratic, as against the charismatic, intellectual has remained there lo this day. Similarly, during the porfiriato in Mexico, the intellectual-cum-political elite took on the pretentious narre ot cienlífícos Porfirio's policy would be founded in a positive science, that is, on the hegemony oí the governmental state. Even then, however, [hese pretensions were understood lo be at least in parí an aspect of state theater, and a distante between the país real and the país legal, between the state's image of the country and the country itself, seas at times grudgingly acknowledged As a result, charismatic intellectuals, though dangerous lo the regime, were not entirely alien lo it. The Mexican Revolution, however, provided a new fount and bedrock for popular will, one that brought back the claims oí all past revolutions, and revolutionary governments took it upon themselves lo create spaces and to provide resources for an intelligentsia whose role has been lo function as an interpassive agent oí popular opinion. These spaces include an "autonomous," but state-funded, National University, and governmenthacked spaces for relatively free artistic expression and publication. This contrast might provide a key for understanding why the Mexican state has fostered a certain sor[ of intellectual and artistic production, whereas other Spanish-American countries nave invested much fewer resources in these activities. It also frames the question of the connection between engaged public intellectuals and academics or cechnicians in relation to a set oí issues that transcend the question of which models-French, British, German, Spanish, or American-were iniported. All were imponed, and all were subordinated to the logic outlined liere. Michel Foucault's idea of governmentaliry is of special pertinente for understanding the strategies with which intellectuals have represented national sentiments because Mexicos entry to modernity was highly turtutor pte i ir;

1', S, ..,r: rn1' 210 =

af

t1r Natfon

In te rp rrtrng

tlsr Sent,.,,is 211 =

of tbr

Nation

massacre and been a champion of democracy since the s 9sos, be accused of writing official historya In an interview with Milenio regarding Chis debate, historian Lorenzo

l

Meyer went furtber and argued that in Mexico there has never been an official historya And yet, I would argue, it moves.

o

1 call the history that is written lo provide the pedigree, Co identify tbe imagínary subject, and lo províde che governmental horizon of che state "official history." In Micbel Foucault"s tercos, this is a °history from che present,"as opposed Co a "history of the present." Its function is Co give the state its pro per cerófcation, and Co shape and dírect a national community. Enrique Krauze's criticism of Mexican presidents and presidentialism has tefe the revolutionary regime's nacional mythology intact in its most important points; invigorated in its central dogmas, it is now readyfor its new tenants,

An Intellectual's Stock in the Factory of Mexico' s Ruins: Enrique Krauze 's Mexico: Biography of Power

This chapter concerns Che practice and use of history in Mexicos great epochal transítion. It is about the relationsbip between intellectuals, the state, and che market, and espeeially about che privatization of Mexicos cultural apparatus. As sucb, this essay and che debate tbat it provoked are one of che early episodes of what has become a battle over che cultural policies of che Mexican state. I reproduce bere my original text with no modifications, though I Nave added tipo neto footnotes Co call attention Co mistakes in my original text that were pointed out by Mr Krauze in bis responses. Tbey are of little consequence.

This essay mas fruí published in che American Journal of Sociology 103, no. 4 (1998): 1052-65_ ft was subsequently translated asid published in Mexico in the newsniagazine Milenio (May i i, 1998), where it geneated a broadly publicized exchange ivith Enrique Krauze.1 Tbis debate became somethin,/ of a curiosityfor those tobo follow Ihe affairs and daily practice of intellectuals_ Although it gravitated toward the ad bominem remarle more [han lo proper inl ellectual a rq,nnen tation, the episode is itself a performance of che central themes of tbis book ibe role of intellectuals in nation building, tbe role of scient c disciplines (in Chis case, of history) in this process, and Ihe significance of iones of contact as points of tension were all irarnatiaully enacted- Me Krauze countered Ihe elaims tbai 1 malee in Ibis essay by arguing, arnong other things, that bis book could not be called a "ruin" because it had sold i n;illion copies, and that my review, which he cbose Co frame as an attack by "an acuden,ic o; "a public 6rtellectual,"was motivated by a serse of personal frustration untó tbe Alexicun milieu 1 was portrayed as baving accepted a position in tbe American academy becas se 1 lacked viable alternatives in Mexicos university system and, finally, as Múter Lomnitz tbat is, as a foreigner or, u,bat is much worse, as a Mexican who had choca; tire Llnited States overMexico Tbis chapter is thus itse f an exaniple of Ihe telationsbip between contact tones and che production of ihe nation lts publica ti on nlso generoted sorne debate around the category of 'oficial history" Ir bis response lo [bis essay, AIr Krauze declared hirnsef to be amused by my argumenta in ibis rojard, Hato eaula he, lado had denounced che 196s student

At the end of every presidential term (sexenio), Mexican presidents become involved in a frenetic yace oí inaugurations; their posterity depends on it. Hospitals, museums, universities, dams, highways, subways-all of the signs of modernization and progress that every president promises-must be inaugurated, along with a large bronze plaque giving credit to the president, whether the building is finished or not. My brother, a scientist, once witnessed the inauguration of a research facility by outgoing president López Portillo in 1981. The inauguration occurred in a building that was made to look finished, complete with lawns, potted plants, and the rest of it, As soon as the president left, a presidential team came in, rolled up che grass, picked up che potted plants and took them to the site of the next inauguration.

This practice, which betrays so much about the economy and legitimacy of Mexican presidentialism, is certainly one of the sources of what Brazilian literary critic Beatriz Jaguaribe has called "modernist ruins." The rush to legitimize a presidency or a governorship is enmeshed with the economy of public expenditure, and both conspire to produce veritable monuments to the grandiloquence and corruption of the governing elites that are, at the same time, inhospitable and alienating for ehe intended user (°the public"). The fascinating thing about these modernist ruins is that they betray Che gestural quality of much of Mexico's state-led modernity. An ln relleclual's

212 = 213 =

Stock

1 he central tenet of archltectu ral modernism ti til1ts practicality) serves

meant filling the universiry with a staff Chal was not always well qualified-

as a sereen tor a second rationale-. w11( 11 u 1cilit ieal . the story of Mexicos

Although the results of Chis huge expansion ot the educational system in

progressive state vede an enormous pork barrcl.

the 1970s were mixed, criticisms of its perverse effects were particularly

hhis aspcct cf Mexicos nü)dcl 111 1\ t:as n•at pUCtiC II ly captured by the Seottish eecentrlc and surrealist AII I dwaH lames, wbo built ntajestic ce-

harsh, because he formula ot state-driven expansion was no longer sustainable alter Che states fiscal crisis in 1982.

ment ruins lo¡ die jungles ot thc Huasteca to swallow up When he was

The National University and other public institutions carne under se-

asked why he pude Chis cosdy extraca;-ance. Edwards elaimed that it was

vere scrutiny, and their ruinous aspect was widely puhlicized as the de la

to confuse tic al-chaeclogists ..f thc )atare.

Madrid administration slashed its support of Mexican public institutions

Like Mr lactess ruin,, Ncxicos nodernist mies llave very personal

of higher learning. This was Che dawn of a new era in Mexican cultural

signaturas, which are oteen tiose ol Clic prrsidcnt'vilo sponsored them-

life, an era marked by privatization and by growing differences between

So, whereas archaeologists of Che c-Columpian past use site names to

an increasingly proletarianized mass of low-prestige teachers, a somewhat

label historical epochs (e-g, Monte Albán 1. II, 111, or Tlatilco IV, V, and

fancier stratum of publishing academice, and a new cultural elite that fases

VI), archaeologists of Mexicos modcrnist ruins would be wise to rely en

writing with business.

Che names of thc presidents who sponsored them, for example, Alemán 1

Changes in Mexicos cultural world have been so deep that the analysis of their impact on the quality of cultural production has been suspended to a surprising degree. There is so much that is new in the institutional arrangement of Mexican cultural life since the 1980s: changes in training programs and in the profile that is expected for entering a university career, growth of privare and public universities, and Che emergente of cultural groups with wide media access.

and II, or López Portillo I, II, and III.

Although Che discussion of modernist ruins usually brings to mind housing projects, hospitals, bridges, and basketball courts, Mexicos cultural world is also littered with [hese ruin,. The central axis of cultural modernity-which is a productive relationship between science, art, and the constant improvement of che quality of lile ("progress")-was historically so feeble in Mexico that, beginning in the 1920s, the state took a proactive role in strengthening it- This role has been as open to demagogy and corruption as any other modernizing project.

There are signs, however, that the time is ripe for a critical look at today's cultural milieu , for the eras first monumental modernist ruins are now becoming clearly visible. This year it seems that Mexico City's main

Until the 1900s, the states hmction as patron of the sciences and the

private art museum may Glose its doors.4 It is also clear that most Mexican

arts had met with relanve success-the National Autonomous University

private universities are not funding research. However, in Che world of cul-

was built, as was the National Polytechnical Institute. The arts flourished

ture, Che most significant ruins are always the cultural works themselves.

under state patronage, and Mexico began to make a credible bid for a

The appearance of Enrique Krauze's Mexicos Biography of Power (Harper-

place among modere nations. The revolutionary prestige of government

Collins, 1997) is a landmark in this respect, it is a "period piece" that al-

and the accelerated modernization chas began around 1940 fostered a rela-

lows us to scrutinize the effects of power on intellectual production in a

tively snug relationship between middle-class ideals of mobility and the

sector of Mexico's intelligentsia.

state's self-image as the prime engine of modernization.

1 propose to do just this. A discussion of Che organization of Krauze's book, of Che connections between Krauze's intellectual project and pis po-

Mexican sociologist Ricardo Pozas has shown how Chis relationship first cracked in 1964, when medical students and young doctors rejected the state's authoritarian forms of decision making and embarked on a series o[ strikes that were violently suppressed.' 1 he seque) and culmination of this conflict occurred in the student movement of 1968, which ended with the massacre of hundreds of students at Tlatelolco square, in Mexico City. The killings at Tlatelolco provoked a new spurt of construction of modernist ruins. Under President Echeverría the whole of Mexico's university system expanded was' beyond che countrys capacities, which

Mexico: Biography of Power is Enrique Krauze's most ambitious book. It combines into a single work three hooks in Spanish (Biografías del poder, about

An 1n:r l 1 T, lile l's 1!ork

An In1r )lee tual "s Stock

214 =

sition in Mexico's cultural milieu, andan appraisal of the value of this book as a work of history opens a clear perspective en the use of history as a gesture in the struggle over who gets to represent Mexico.

Organization

215

the leadership of the Mexican Revolution, Siglo de Caudillos, about the Mexican presidency in the nineteenth century, and La presidencia imperial, which covers the Mexican presidency from 1940 to the present). In addition, Mexico: Biography of Power ofiers a brief synthesis oí political power and political culture in che colonial period. This is the only work available, in English or in Spanish, that covers such vast territory The complexity oí the subject matter is made manageable by giving history a direction and a premise- Both oí these are offered with disarming simplicity, For Enrique Krauze, the history of Mexico is the history oí the struggle for democracy. So much so that, echoing Fukuyama, he ends this book by asking Mexicans

American readers, and to some political groups in Mexico, it is notdefensible as the key to understanding that history . The books central premise shares the pleasingsimplicity oí its teleology: This book threads the lives of the most important leaders during the last rwo centuries finto a single biography oí power, but 1 am in no way subscribing to an outmoded (and unacceptable) great-man theory oí history.° Thus, while writers and academice the world over worry about the "death oí the subject," Krauze is busy anthropomorphizing national history and providing it with a "biography." What 1 hopo to convoy is that in Mexico the lives oí these men do more

tu bury once and forever Cuauhtdmoc with Cortés, Hidalgo and Iturbide, Morelos and Santa Arana, Juárez with Maxi ni filian, Porhrio with Madero, Zapata and Carranza, Villa and Obregón, Calles with Cárdenas, al[ oí them reconciled withm the same tomó But Mexico would hace to be less pious roward as modero actors. There can Inc no re, onciliation with Tlarelolco.

than represent the complexities and contradiction oí the country they carne to govern or in which they took center stage for a rime at rhe head oí armies fighting For chango or for a return to the past (or for both). The accidents oí their individual lives aleo had an enormous effect on the directions taken by the nation as a whole- Personal characteristics and events

Krauze feels that the 1968 massacre at Tlatelolco should not be forgot-

that in a moderately democratic country might be mere anecdotes-

ten because that conflict was largely about governmental democracy.

interesting , amusing , or trivial-can in Mexico acquire unsuspected dimen-

However, the fact rhat the 1968 movemcnt did not involve or affect Mexico' s peasants nor the majority of os poor does not seem to matter

sions and significante. An early psychological frustration, a physical de-

Mexico's peasants are asked ro "bury Zapata; who called for land for those who work it, but never to forget a middle-class movement that demanded democracy. The organization of political history around the story oí democracy is highly problematic in a country whose fundamental viability was in question during most oí the nineteenth ccntury. Moreover, although democracy has been a significant political issue during most oí Mexico's modero history, it has often not peen the principal political aim or site oí contention. For instante, the Mexican Revoltition (1910-20) begins as a democratic revolt under Madero, but it quickly turras finto a broadly based and rather inchoate social revolution with vatregated demands, ranging from agrarian reform, to labor laws, to national control over resources, tu radical state secularism. On the whose it is fair to say that these demands, and the dynamics oí the struggle for power itself, overshadowed democracy as the main issue. This fact is confirmed in the political success oí the official state party (PRI), a party that was decply undemocratic but that left considerable room for social demands. In short, although the organization oí Mexieo's political history around the epic of democracy is pleasing for A n lu t, llrr i ^, n 1.

Stock

fect, a family drama, a confused prejudice, a tilt one way or the other in a man's religious feelings or his passions, even a local tradition automatically accepted could literally alter rhe late oí Mexico, for better or for worse7

According to Krauze, then, presidential biographies in Mexico collectively shape what he mystically calls the nations "biography oí power." However, he does not want this te be identified with a "great-man theory oí history" but wishes instead to provide the premise with a kind oí cultural specificity. This is because Mexico's historical roots combine "two traditions oí absolute power-one emanating from the gods and the other from God [he means the Aztec and the Spanish tradition]-this political mestizaje conferred a unique contection with the sacred on Mexico's succession oí rulers-" s What wer have, then, is a great-man theory oí history with validity confined to Mexico. As a result, Mr. Krauze continually asserts that Mexico is unique and fundamentally different from the rest oí the world. This exceptionalism is convenient because it allows him to ignore the parallels between Mexican history and other histories, parallels that would diminish the force oí the contention that presidential biographies have systematically "altered the fate oí Mexico-" On the other hand, since Krauze claims exception for Mexico on the basis oí the peculiarities oí the Aztec and Spanish mixture, A n I s t c 1 1 , , i a a l ' s Stock

216 = = 217 =

this leads straight back to Mcxicus oflidal history, which this book dis-

purity He sets himself as a liberal and even as a "heretic,"10 an indepen-

1incdy reproduces: Martín Cortés son ot Hernán Cortés and La Malinche)

dent intellectual who cr'i ticizes Mexican authoritaria nism from the sanc-

was "the hrst Mexican" (p 52, Hernán Cortés was "che spiritual antithesis"

tity ot his private worldIn fact, however, Krauzes prestige and cultural poseer do not come from

ot Moctezuma ip. 44Moctezuma and Cortes''created a new nationaliry the instant they met" (p. 47 theiu veas no True ethnic hatred" in Mexico

1968, nor is he comparable on an intellectual plane ro Cosío Villegas, let

from the colonial period forward p 491; slavery in Mexico was sweeter

alone to Octavio Paz. Krauze's prominente is, instead, an effect oí a more

iban in rhe United States (p 50 and so on In short, the fabricated saga

recent story. With the debt crisis in 1982: the Mexican government carne

of rhe mestizo as national protagonist is swallowed whose, hook, line, and

down hard on al[ salary carnets real minimum wages plummeted to hall in

sinker. ']-he au thori tative narntion ul Nlcxlco, ¡ate and tortune rehearses

less than tive years (a fact that, like almost every economic consideration,

and reaffirms officia1 history, but with a twur. instead of culminating with

goes unnoted in Krauze's book) Among rhe wage-earning population,

rhe progress wrought by rhe Mexican Revolution (which liad been the

one of the sectors that was hit hardest was rhe educational sector, and the

End oí History until recendy), it culminares with rhe democracy that

universities in particular.

Krauze's 1968 generation is supposed to have engendered.

When che debt crisis hit, the government was unwilling to maintain universiry salaries at in their traditional middle-class levéis, and so it created a system oí evaluation that sidestepped university regulations oí promotion and that rewarded only productive academice. 'Publish or perish" carne to have a very literal meaning in the Mexican academy. However, rhe process oí internal stratification in the university system did nor come without a substantial cost both for the prestige oí academic work and for rhe possibility oí surviving as a beginning scholar. As a result, whole ,;enerations oí potential scholars were either significantly slowed down or

Krauze: Biography of Power Krauze's history can be read in two keys: rhe first key is the the saga oí democracy into which he wants to shoehorn Mexican political history; the second is rhe saga oí his own intellectual genealogy. This second epic, which is barely visible to an English-speaking audience, is nonetheless critical, because Mr. Krauze is in rhe business oí representing che nation to rhe outside, trying hard to garner credentials with which to construct himself as rhe kind of privileged interlocutor that other Mexican intellectuals have been: Octavio Paz, Carlos Fuentes, Diego Rivera, Rufino Tamayo.

destroyed. At the same time that rhe Mexican state strangled its universities, it did not abandon its patronage and contact with intellectuals. The de la

Enrique Krauze began his careen with a book on what he called "intel-

Madrid (1982-88) and Salinas (1988-94) governments coupled their tight

lectual caudillos" oí rhe Mexican Revolution (the term caudillo originally

policies toward the university with generous contracts and subsidies to

referred to military leaders whose charisma allowed them to vie for con-

specific intellectual groups. The principal groups gravitated around two

trol over countries and regions; ir is a political form that was characteristic

literary/political journals: Vuelta and Nexos. These two groups accumulated vast cultural power in rhe 1980s and 1990s: Héctor Aguilar Camín, former

oí Spanish America's nineteenth cenmry). Krauze then hitched his wagon to rhe star oí Daniel Costo Villegas, a prominent liberal historian who directed El Colegio de México and who created a workshop that was known as rhe "factory oí Mexican history," where much oí the history oí rhe porfiriato and the Mexican Revolution was written.9 Alter Cosfós death, Mr.

director oí Nexos, member oí the '68 generation and erstwhile leftist, was a close friend to Carlos Salinas de Gortari. He created a publishing house, Cal y Arena, whose books were widely distributed, publicized by Nexoscontrolled public TV Channel 22.

In an effort te create a voice for himself, and perhaps to emerge from under rhe long shadow oí his mentors, Krauze identifies as a member oí the 1968 generation, a generation that was marked by the student movement and by its violent end at the hands oí the Mexican state. Like a number oí others, Krauze relies on this identity to acquire the semblante oí

On his side, Enrique Krauze, rhe principal entrepreneur oí the Vuelta group, received support from President de la Madrid for his "biographies oí power" project (comprising rhe porflriato to Cárdenas sections oí Mexico: Biography of Power), a project that was printed by the government-owned publishing house Fondo de Cultura Económica, a prestigious press that sidestepped its traditional role oí publishing scholarly work. During that same period, Krauze and Vuelta began doing business with

A: 11 te e, Tu,, l's Stock

A n ln tellee tu nls Stock

= 218 =

= 219 =

Krauze became the impresario and subdirector oí Vuelta, Octavio Paz's cultural magazine, from which he derived most oí his intellectual cachet.

Televisa, Mexicos television giant that had effectively been a communications monopoly for decades, thanks to os special ties to government. Televisa had a largely negative role in Niexicos transition to democracy, a fact that has been widely recognized by independent political observers of Mexico, including Che United Nations This did not stop self-styled democratic pero Enrique Krauze trom becoming one of the company's partners. Krauze is co-owner oí Clio. a publishing house devoted to populartzing his version of Mexican history and producer of historical soap operas that have devoted some effort to rehabilitating Porfirio Díaz 1876-19 10), the liberal dictator and formen archvillain oí official history. In short, Krauze's power was amassed in a moment in which the government turned its back on pub r, education and research and subsidized a process of cultural privatization that had similar characteristics to other privatizations_ enormous concentration of power in very few hands, and the formation oí a new elite. Whereas Daniel Cosío Vlllegass facton, of history" was built in a pubhe institution and whereas his lactory produced books that were signed by the individuals who did the researeh, Krauzes lactory oí history is private, and only he Cakes Che crecía For big rollers in Mexico's cultural enterprises, research is a menial task Thus, where most historians work alune or with one or two assistants, Mr- Krauze lists sixteen in his acknowledgments, two oí whom are as acconiplished as historians as Krauze himself.'t His heavy reliance on dais privare lactory" is Che reason why Chis book is such a good mirror ole presiden ti al power. the resources that Krauze musters have allowed him to write a monumentally ambitious work, but his rnethods make him unsurc at cvery toro. Mexico: Biography of Power is a hollow monument.

Mallon, and Stephen Haber is not cited, nor-in most cases-are their ideas assimilated in Che text, despite their indisputable relevante to the subjects covered." Like the politicians who have always stressed Mexican exceptionalism, Krauze roo is interested in Mexico's insularity; by turning his own coterie oí friends and mentors into the principal thinkers and actors in Mexican history, he can easily aspire to become Mexicos representative in Che media. The use el the work oí Mexican scholars is equally problematic. For instante, in his treatment oí the 1968 movement, a chapter that is meant to be the high point of Che book, Krauze gives preeminence to two intellectuals-Cosío Villegas and Octavio Paz-both oí whom were marginal to the movement and of an older generation, but were nonetheless central to Krauze's own development Cosío Villegas gets no fewer than thirty-three mentions in the text oí this book; Mexican historian Edmundo O'Gorman, who was arguably a more profound thinker, gets none." Perhaps the oversight is due to the fact that O'Gorman publicly disapproved of Krauze's biographies oí power. Citations of significant books written by members oí a younger generation oí Mexican scholars are another notable absence-they are potential competition. In addition to the political motives behind these oversights, there is another Iikely cause for Krauze's sloppy use oí secondary sources: Che factory This hypothesis comes to mind because there are a number oí instances when a key historical work is indeed cited, but its conclusions are not assimilated in the analysis. Or else a work is cited in one context (perhaps being worked on by one oí his research assistants) but then fails to appear as a source in another part oí the book where it could have done a lot of good. For example, French historian Frangois Xavier Guerra has developed

Krauze as Historian

quite a complex view oí Che modernization oí Che Mexican state in the nineteenth century. Guerras view is that between independence (1821) and the

This books main empirical conrribution is a set oí interviews that the author or his assistants made with important political figures as well as a much-publicized, but rather disappointing, diary oí President Díaz Ordaz. Most of the book, however, is based on published documents, as well as on secondary sources. The use of [hese secondary sources provides another key for the archacologisi of tNicxicos modernist ruins.

During Che past twenty years or so, US. and British historians have written a sizahle proportion oí the most relevant works en Mexican history, yet Che work of historians suela as Jolan Coatsworth, Alan Knight, Eric Van Young, GilbertJoseph Anthony Pagden, John Tutino, Florencia A u l o t e : : , , iu al'e Sioek 220 =

revolution (1910), Mexican political society changed from being made up of corporations that were built around personal ties in villages, guilds, and haciendas, to a modero society in which these personal ties could no longer hold the country together. As a result, Che personal power of Porfirio Díaz (1876-1910) is, for Guerra, both the culmination and the swan song oí what Krauze calls a "biography of power." Guerra is cited en a factual matter, but his general argument is ignored Moreover, Guerra fails to appear in Krauzes discussion of political theory in independence, where he would have been very helpful. In sum, the cavalier use of secondary sources is possibly the only true cense in which Krauze can be called liberal. An Intellectuul's Stock 221

The Aulhorily of Opinion

received 68 percent (p. 763) In this book , opinions are facts , and they both change along with rhe intended readership.

Enrique Krauze has had two principal mentors. Daniel Cosía Villegas and )ocavia Paz. Krauze took Cono Villupass tactorv oí history , privatized tt, and made It into his own political niachine Prora Paz Krauze has tried to emulate grandeur, scope, and boldness -I he resale is not always badAlexico: Biog raphy of Poioer is c,itainly a teadable book However, Krauze's attempts at Paz-like holdnes, al,o llave a , ery perverso effeer, which is ihat they liberare Chis book trom rhe usual strictures of historical evidenee. Krauze has made a name loe him,cli in iM, xico by calling for a "democraey without adjectives," but he aeeni, ent,rely incapable oí offering a history without opinions 14 More of(en [han not, these opinions are stated as if they were facts. In Mexico, I3iogniphy of Power we are asked to believe, for instance, that there were only two "trac ethnic wars" in Mexican history (p. 780), and that Cosío Vlllegas's criticisms oí President Echeverría 1 1970-76) were the bravest thing any Mexican had published in one hundred years (p. 746); we also learn rhat' Juárez the Indian" "was all religion" (p. 167) and that his invocations of God and Providente were carried out "without hypocrisy" (p 166) In short, the dictatorship oí what might usefully be labeled "the Krauzometer_" The translator, Hank Heifctz, has done a commendablejob not only in avoiding the annoying changes in register that characterize Krauze's Spanish prose, but also in trying m tone down the Krauzometer as much as possible So, for instance, in La presidencia imperial (the Spanish- language book that comprises Parts IV and V oí Mexico. Biography of Power, and which appeared simultaneously with it in the spring oí 1997), Octavio Paz's Labyrinth of Solitude is "the most importanr book oí the Mexican twentieth century" (100 en the Krauzometer, p. 152), but it is only "one oí the most important books of rhe ^tilexican tventieth century" in English p. 364, and an 80 on the Krauzometer) Similarly, in Spanish, Krauze asserts boldly (100 on the Krauzometer) [hat President Díaz Ordaz (1964-70) did not lie in his memoirs (p_ 355), but in English he asserts that "[i]t is unlikely that they are al] líes" (pp. 728-29, and only a 55 en the

h

Biography and Power Certainly, Krauze's factory has produced a readable book, with much information in it, including sume new information and a wealth oí aticedotes. Although nono of this information makes a significant mark on rhe historical interpretation of modero Mexico, it does add richness and legibility to chis facile and ideologically loaded test In Mexico, Krauze's version oí history is being massively consumed in soap operas, which is an appropriate-though perhaps not harmless-venue for it.

There is, in addition, another good selling point for Chis book, which is che idea that biography is a useful vantage point for political analysis. 1 have already argued that Chis interest in biography led Mr. Krauze to che great-man view of history that he allegedly rejects, but more attention to Krauze's biographies is warranted. The first thing to note about [hese presidential biographies is that they rarely provide che kind oí psychological insight that the author was hoping for. This unevenness is due not only to the space and detall devoted to various presidents (Miguel Alemán gets seventy-five pages, Manuel Ávila Camacho gets twenty-seven, Miguel de la Madrid gets eight pages), but also to the format of the chapters. For instante, whereas we get an attempt to portray che family history and youth of presidents and caudillos between Porfirio Díaz and Gustavo Díaz Ordaz (1876-1970), there is no parallel information for che more contemporary presidents (beginning with Echeverría). Krauze thereby declines any attempt to provide a more profound portrait oí the three presidents with whom he has had a personal relationship (de la Madrid, Salinas, and Zedillo). The irregularity oí rhe quality oí biographical insights is also a product oí Krauze's rush to represent, which leads inevitably to an imprudent reliance on common sense. For instance, Krauze tells os that

Krauzometer). In Spanish, Miguel de la Madrid won his election because

[r]evolutions have been organized around ideas or ideals, liberty, equality,

the people voted for him personally, and not for the PRI (p. 402, and 100

nationalism, socialism. The Mexican Revolution is an exception because,

on the Krauzometer-president de la Nladrid was a generous patron ro Krauze); in English, the people voted not for de la Madrid personally,

primordially, it was organized around personages . The local histories from which they [these personages] began, their family conflicts, their lives

but rather for bis platform oí moral renovation (p. 763, and 80 en the

before rising to power, their most intimate passions-all are factors that

Krauzometer). Moreover, in Spanish, de la Madrid won the election with

might have been merely personal, though perhaps representative, if these

76 percent ot the vote (p_ 402 ), whereas in English he seems only to have

were merely privare livcs But they could not be in Mexico, a country

An Ir,1,1;,,t,,i , Sieck

An In tellectual ', Stock

- 222

223 =

where the conccntration of pos+ el finto a single person (tlatoani, monarch, viceroy, emperor. President, caudillo, jefe, ^, Ledute) had been the historie norm across the centuries.''

The trouble with this is that no disti ncti nos are made regarding the significance oí biographies, say, for a tlatoani and for a president, or for a caudillo and a monarch_ Instead of attentpting to specify these different forms oí power, and then seeing their connection to biography, they are constantly collapsed ¡rito a single cumposite, which is then-sometimes anachronistically-turned ¡rito che giirnresscnce oí Mexicanness. Throughour the book terms such as monarch, tlatoani, tbeocratic, and caudillo are used as metaphors for other forms ol power. The Mexican presidency is "like a monarchy." The president is "like a tlatoani-" Presidential power is "almost theocratic° Jose Vosconcclos and Daniel Cosío Villegas were intellectual "caudillos;' and communications magnate Emilio Azcárraga was a "caudillo of ¡ndustry These comparrsons and metaphors mas be innocent enough in daily parlante, but ¡I your thesis ¡s that there is a special connection between che details of a leader's biography and the counrry's destiny (p. xv), then the difference between an actual monarchy and something that has similarities to a monarchy, an actual caudillo and someone who is compared to a caudillo, an actual tlatoani and a president, hecomes critical. For example, the power of a revolutionary caudillo like Emiliano Zapata was, especrally in its origins, charismatic People followed him because they shared his cause, were often ¡n desperate straits, and because they believed in him_ Zapatas biography ¡s critically important because it is the source oí che social connections of his inner circle (whose biographies in turn affect outer circles), and because his persona gave credibility and direction to che movement as a wholc. As a result, che epic oí Zapata's life takes a messianic turn, similar to what we lind in a number of revolutionary caudillos ¡n Mexico, beginning with Miguel Hidalgo, whose political usage oí the passion play was perceptlvely analyzed by Victor Turner (also not cited by the author). Krauze argues that the biography of Zapata and of Hidalgo is critical for understandi ng their movement, destinies, but one might argue, conversely, that the construction of their personas was shaped by che context ¡n which thcy acose as leaders_ It is certainly no biographical accident that led Zapata, Hidalgo, and even Madero to cake up a messianic, Christian narrative and construct their persons around it. Specific forms oí power such as presidencies, monarchies, grassroots leadership, and so en imply A u I n r , , ,t,,1 l , elock 224

different kinds oí relationships between che leaders biography and the exercise oí power.

For instante, in European monarchies, the idea oí "the king', two bodies" implied full identity between the king', well-being and the prosperity oí the land. The king was like an embodiment oí his kingdom. Indeed, in the case oí Spanish America, Philip 11 decreed the production oí censuses and maps oí the entire realm (the famous Relaciones geográficas). The maps and descriptions he received were concentrated in his palace at El Escorial and in the office oí the royal cosmographer, and the information in those censuses and maps was privy to che king. At the same time as he received the maps, he sent out portraits oí his person to che four corners oí the realm: the king concentrated the full image oí the realm in his palace; the realm received, in its stead, the bodily image oí the king.16 The relationship between biography and che application oí power in this case is certainly distinct from that oí Mexico's nineteenth-century presidenta. The connection between presidencial power and personal benefit inverted che central dogma oí monarchy_ Nineteenth-century caudillos like José María Morelos and even Santa Anna wanted to be thought oí as servants, not as lords, oí the nation. As a result, nineteenthcentury presidenta ("caudillos") routinely modeled their public personae alter Cincinnatus-a renouncer (much as George Washington did in che United States, and Rosas did in Argentina). However, Krauze wrongly reduces Santa Annas constant show oí retreating from che presidential chair to a psychological quirk ("he detested the direct and daily exercise oí power"), when in fact it was a variation oí a classical theme in the theater oí presidential power in nineteenth-century Spanish America.17 Whereas the monarch identified his personal welfare and prosperity with that oí che realm, early presidents and revolutionary caudillos used personal sacrifice as a legitimating device_ As the presidency became a stable political institution, the office began to require less dramatic personal sacrifices and the image oí che "civil servant" became more prominent-this was the image thatJuárez adopted for himself, but it was not routinized in Mexico until well finto the twentieth century. Krauze ignores all oí this. For him, charismatic power is a constant in Mexican history, che product oí a mythified fusion oí Aztec and Spanish "theocracies" As a result, he reduces the differences in the persona oí various leaders to che details of their biographies. This error leads to the kind oí Mexican exceptionalism that 1 objected to earlier (to the proposition that there ¡s something about Mexico that makes all oí its leaders into tlatoanis-or did, until the fateful events of 1968, which brought about a An In tellectual's Stock 225

new generation. led by Krauze, anurng others, who Nave finally hrought

oí che Mexican state, of some powerful-government-related-business-

demoeracv co Mexico, thc Fnd ot Histoiy ti aLo Ieads him to eurious at-

men, and, by now, on as own private resources. The systcm also benefhts,

tempts to diflerentiate "authentie (ron inauthentic" leaders.

howcver, from che fact that che readership in che United States-and to

Antonio López de Santa Anna Ii,r Krauze is che epitome of che fake.

some excenc in Europe-has preferred to have a small handful oí author-

lis powei was theatrical, opcratic and worse, tt was divorced from che

ized voices on Mexico rather than co cake che country seriously as a site oí

nation's roots-never mind that che nation did not yet effectively exist

cultural and intellectual production. It has been economical and conve-

Thus, commenting che rise of Benito Juaren (who, unlike Santa Anna, is

nient for Americans and others to simply tuve ¡Ti to Carlos Puentes,

portrayed hese as being 100 percent authentie--"a puye-blooded Indias '),

Octavio Paz, or Enrique Krauze and to take whatever they say as repre-

Krauze saos that'Tclhe country would now he governed by a group of

sentative of whatJosé María Morelos called "che senciments of the nation

young mestizos who were closer tu Mexican soil, closer to indigenous

However, che power co represent Mexico in Chis way, to embody it in a

roots" (p. 151). Which brings us back co che fundamental characteristic oí

single intellectual, is as dead as che autocracic power oí the president.

Chis ruin: it is little more than a rcenactment of the nacional myth for the

When he was at the height oí his power, President Miguel Alemán wanted the Nobel Peace Prize. President Luis Echeverría tried for the secretary- general oí the UN, and Carlos Salinas wanted to be president oí the World Trade Organization. These un-kingly desires reflect the nature oí presidencial power and the limits oí presidencial biographies: they are not the main axis in the history oí Mexico. 1 like to think that this book is the intellectual counterpart oí these desperate presidential moves: the concentration oí cultural power in the hands oí a few intellectuals has been linked to the authoritarian power oí Mexican presidents, and the current democratization asid debilitation oí che presidential office promises to end this form oí "intellectual caudillismo."

1990s. In De Critique of ihe Pyramid, a post-1968 reflection en what Fiad gone awry in Mexico, Octavio Paz wrote a trenchant criticism oí Mexico's Nacional Museum oí Anthropology. His main complaint was that the architecture oí the building and as layout made the museum's Aztec hall finto the culmination and synthesis of al] pre-Hispanic culture. This construction oí the Aztec enipire as both the centerpiece oí the pre-Hispanic world and che antecedent oí the independent Mexican nation negated cultural pluralism, idealized a scrong central state, and falsified the preColumbian past.

Krauze's book is very much like that museum. The fusion and confusion oí tlatoanis, caudillos, viceroys, and presidents, and the thesis that the course oí Mexican history was dictated by Díaz Ordaz's ugliness, by Santa Anna's theatricality, and by Juárez's religiosiry and puriry, makes this book as much of a Mexico City-centered account oí the history oí power in Mexico as che Museum oí Anthropology ever was. In chis allegedly critical review oí the Mexican presidency, che presidents are fetishized, and the social history oí the country is collapsed finto nationalist myth. The peculiarty oí Krauze's generation of mythmakers is that they are not builders oí state institurions, but have instead used state patronage to build private niches for themselves- Two Mexican intellectuals oí the 1968 generation have been emblematic in Chis transicion, Héctor Aguilar Camín (former editor oí Nexos) and Enrique Krauze (former subdirector oí Vuelta) ,18 These intellectuals have been in che business oí creating their own "faetones oí culture." They now speak from these niches and ventriloquize "Civil Society," much as ',lava priests once interpreted the commands oí a Talking Cross. So far Chis new mude oí cultural production has counted on the support A,, luir ! I e..u al e,ock 226 =

An In trllec tu al 's Stock 227

11

Bordering on Anthropology: Dialectics of a National Tradition

The current sense oí crisis in U.S. and European anthropology has been widely debated Beginning with a series of criticisms oí the connections between anthropology and imperialism in the 1970s, the critique oí anthropology moved no deeper epistemological terrain by interrogating the riarrative strategies used by ethnographers to build up their scientific authority and their role in shaping colonial" discourses oí self and other. The field oí anthropology in the United States and Europe is still reverberating from these discussions.' Less well known and less understood, perhaps, is the quieter sense oí unease and transformation in anthropological traditions that one might cal] "national anthropologies." By "national anthropologies" 1 mean anthropological traditions that have been fostered by educational and cultural institutions for the development oí studies of their own nation. These traditions began to be the object oí reflexive interest in the United States and Europe during the 1970s, alongside vocal criticisms oí colonialism_ Their significante for reshaping anthropological theory was brought to the fore in the 1980s.'

Noteworthy among these interventions were two short pieces by Arjun Appadurai arguing againstholism in dominant metropolitan anthropological traditions. Holism, for Appadurai, was "a g]aring example oí the making

oí theoretical virtue oí a range oí infirmities oí practice,"' infirmities that included the "tendency for places to become showcases for specific issues over time."^ This tendency was weaker in peripheral anthropological traditions, because they developed not so much for the production oí a general account oí "Man" or oí "Culture," but rather to confront social problems in the ethnographer's own society, a society that was always problematically integrated to "the West." Thus, in the 1980s, peripheral anthropologies becarne part oí a process oí diversification and specification oí anthropology, a process that countered the grand holistic narratives oí earlier generations that used India asan excuse to reflect on hierarchy, Africa to reflect on lineage structures, or the Mediterranean to think about honor and shame. This movement against grand holistic narratives and toward the diversification oí the field is perhaps the principal symptom and effect oí globalization on "metropolitan" anthropological traditions. However, the effects oí "globalization" on national anthropologies is not so well understood. Globalization has involved a number of powerful changes in these places, including transformations in the role oí national governments in development and educational projects, the demise oí "national economies" as being even ideally viable, and changing publics for anthropological works. These general tendencies seem to produce differing effects in distinct countries. These differences are influenced by factors such as national language (former English colonies having some comparative advantages here), the role oí local anthropologies in managing national development, and their impact on nationalist narratives. In this chapter, 1 provide a historical interpretation oí the gestation of the current malaise in one national tradition, which is Mexican anthropology.s Peripheral nations with early dates oí national independence, such as most countries oí Latin America, have had national traditions oí anthropology that evolved in tandem with European and American anthropology from its inception. The histories oí these national anthropologies is still not very well known, in part because oí the disjunction between the ways that anthropology is taught in the great metropolitan centers and in national anthropological traditions. Whereas in Britain, France, or the United States, anthropological histories are traced back in time within their native traditions, "national anthropologies" often emphasize tiesto great foreign scholars, thereby placing themselves within a civilizational horizon whose vanguard is abroad. Commenting on this phenomenon, Darcy Ribeiro once said that his fellow Brazilian anthropologists were cavalos de santo (spirit mediums who spoke for their mentors in Europe or the United States). The works oí anthropologists oí the "national traditions" thus Bordrring

o n

An t bro pology

228 = 229 =

appear co be discontinuous svith each other lh use a .Mexican illlustrati on,

tu the management oí a backward population and as incorporation finto

che influence of Boas on Camk, and ol ( cure on che carlier Chavero

"nacional society" (materials from che 1880s to che 1920s); the consoli-

tends to mask che genealogica1 rclations between Camio and Chavero.

dation of a developmental orthodoxy (materials from the 1940s to thc

It is therctore no( surprising thai althnuuh che existente of chis class oí

1960s); and che attempt to move from an anthropology dedicated co che

national anthrccpologies is wcll knosen it has not buen suffictently theo-

study of Indians" co an anthropology devoted to che study oí social class

1

rized. How does a discipline that otees so much to imperial expansion and

(materials from the 1970s to che 1990s). 1 begin by contextualizing the

globallzation--indeed, a discipline that has otten conccived of itself as

current unease in Mexican anthropology, and move from there to the historical discussion

che study of racial or cultural othcrs" thrive when os objects of study are the anthropologist's co-nation_tls- H,osv are chcories and mechocis developed in American or European anthropologies deployed in [hese

19x8-95: "Criticism has been excbangedforan officiai post"'

national traditions; Is there a relati onship between the current transforThe 1968 student movement produced a generacional rupture in Mexican anthropology. Its manifesto carried che disdainful title of De eso que llaman

mations of national anthropologies and che crisis of anthropology" writ large?

antropología mexicana (Oí that which they call Mexican anthropology), a

The study oí Mexican anthropology is instructivo for the broader class of national anthropologies. Mexico developed one oí the earliest, most successful, and internationally influential national anthropologies.6 The institutional infrastructure of Mexican anthropology is one oí the world's largest and its political centrality within the country has been remarkable. This is linked both to the critical role that Mexico's archaeological patrimony has played in Mexican nationalism and to anthropology's prominent role in shaping national development. However, the success oí Mexican anthropology in that nation's project of national consolidation is today its

book that was penned by a group oí young professors oí the Nacional School oí Anthropology who were playfully known in those days as 'The Magnificent Seven." The magníficos had had the daring to criticize that jewel on the crown of the Mexican Revolution that was indigenista anthropology.

principal weakness. The sense oí crisis in contemporary Mexican anthropology moves between two related concerns: che high degree oí incorporation oí anthropology and anthropologists into che workings and designs oí the state, and the isolation and lack oí intellectual cohesiveness of the academy. The conecto with the co-optation of Mexican anthropology in particular is a recurrent theme. In addition, there appears to be the sor[ oí disjunetion between research, criticism, and useful and positive social action ("relevanee') that has also been the subject of recen[ attention. This chapter claims that ^Mexican anthropology has reached the point where it must transcend the limitations imposed by its historical vocation as a national anthropology. In order to lend credence to chis normative claim, 1 explore the development of Mexican anthropology from the midnineteenth century to the present by focusing on four dynamic processes: the historical relationship between the observations oí foreign scientific travelers and the production of a national irnage (materials used for this section range from che 1850s to che carly 1900s); che relatiionship between evolutionary paradigms and the development of an anthropology applied Ben enng on ,1nih'cpology 230 =

1

By 1968 the identification oí Mexican anthropology with official nationalism was at its peak. The new Nacional Museum oí Anthropology, which was widely praised as che world's finest, had been inaugurated in 1964, and the Nacional School oí Anthropology (ENAH) was housed on its upper floor. The institucional infrastructure oí Mexican anthropology was firmly linked to che diverse practices oí indigenismo, including bilingual education, rural and indigenous development programs throughout the country (concentrated in che Instituto Nacional Indigenista, INI), and a vast research and conservation apparatus, housed mainly in the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH). Mexican anthropology had provided Mexico with che theoretical and empirical materials that were used to shape a modernist aesthetics, embodied in the design oí buildings such as the National Museum of Anthropology or che new campus oí the National University. It was charged with the task oí forging Mexican citizenship both by "indigenizing" modernity and by modernizing the Indians, thus uniting all Mexicans in one mestizo community. In Mexico, Chis is what was called indigenismo. According to che magníficos, Mexican anthropology had placed itself squarely in the service oí che state, and so had abdicated both its critical vocation and its moral obligation to side with the popular classes. The 1968 generation complained that Mexican indigenismo had as its central goal the incorporation oí che Indian finto the dominant system, a system Borderine

on Anthropology 231 =

that was called national" and "modern' by rhe indigenistas, but that was better conceived as "capitalist' and dependen[." Mexican anthropology was described as an orchid in the hothouse of e lexico's authoritarian state, coopted and entirely saturated by irs needs ami those oí foreign capital.

Mexico City papers reponed that Arturo Warman was charged with pleading with former President Salinas on behalf oí President Zedillo to put an end to a one-day hunger strike.10

Moreover, the legitímate actions of early indigenistas, their tres to the Mexican Revolution, had been exhausted. In the words one oí rhe magníficos, Guillermo Bonfil. Today we can contrast rhe reality of Mexican society with rhe ideals oí the revolution and establish che distante between the two . It would be diffieult ro doubr that these days we can no longer do justice to the future by

Principal Thesis My contention is that the image of anthropology's history repeating itself in a never-ending cycle oí state incorporation is misleading. In this chapter, 1 seek to elucidate the origins and historical evolution and current exhaustion oí Mexican anthropology as a confined, national, tradition.

m a intaining rhe same programs that were levolution ary sixty years ago.

The concerns that characterized anthropology in Mexico even before

Those programs have either run their nurse or else they have been shown

its institutional consolidation in the late nineteenth century related to the

tú be ineffective, useless, or, worse yet, thcy have produced historically

historical origins oí rhe nation and to rhe characteristics oí its peoples.

negative results.°

The study oí rhe origins and oí the attributes oí the nations "races" was especially important in Mexico, where independence preceded the forma-

Thus, the authors oí De eso que llaman nrtropología mexicana called for Mexican anthropologists tu keep rheir distante from the state. They

tion oí a bourgeois public sphere. Until very recently, at least, Mexico has

should steer clear oí a policy (indigenismo) that had the incorporation oí the

been a country in which public opinion is to a large degree subsidized and

Indian finto "national society" as as principal aim. "National society," noted Arturo Warman, was always an undefined category that simply stood for what Rodolfo Stavenhagen and Pablo González Casanova had called "in-

dramatized by rhe state. Anthropological stories oí national origins and oí racial and cultural difference were therefore useful to governments and they were routinely projected both onto the nation's interna) frontiers and

ternal colonialism" as early as 1963. The aim oí Mexican indigenismo had

abroad, Anthropology has helped to reconfigure the hierarchical relations

been rhe incorporation of the Indian into the capitalist system oí exploita-

that develop between sectors of the population, and it contributed to the

tion, and in so doing it had abandoned the scientific and critical potential oí rhe discipline.°

in Mexico, as elsewhere, the strategies and role oí rhe state in shaping the

Not surprisingly, tensions grew strong in the National School oí Anthropology, and they culminated in rhe expulsion oí Guillermo Bonfil

formation and presentation oí a convincing national teleology. However, contours oí society have been deeply transformed from the 1980s on. The crisis in anthropology today is not as much about rhe discipline's absorp-

from the school by director Ignacio Bernal. The fact that a number oí indi-

tion by the state as it is about as uncertain role in rhe marketplace. An en-

genistas remained loyal to rhe government during and alter the 1968 move-

lightened vanguard may no longer realistically aspire to fashion and shape

ment was sean by rhe sesentayocheros as a final moment oí abjection, and it

public opinion for interna) purposes, and discourses regarding cultural ori-

marked the end oí that school's dominante in Mexican academic settings.

gins and social hierarchies are no longer central to the allure oí the coun-

Twenty years later, however, Arturo Warman, who was rhe most famous

try for foreign governments and capitalista- In this context, there is a real needforinvention

oí the magníficos and author of a number of books that were critical oí Mexico's agrarian policies, accepted rhe post oí director oí the Instituto Nacional Indigenista, and later that oí Secrerary oí Agrarian Reform under President Salinas. From chis position Warman conducted rhe government's agrarian policies, which were directed precisely to incorporating Mexican peasants roto forma of production that are geared to the market. Thus rhe co-optation oí the anthropological establishment seemed to repeat itself, complete with as own momeni of drama: in March 1995 the Ro rdrrin4

oi Ani h^opology = 232

Anthropology and the Fashioninq of a Modera National Image Shaping an image oí national stability, oí collective serenity, security, and seriousness oí purpose, has never heen an easy task in Mexico. It was absolutely impossible to accomplish in ehe decades following independence (1821), when governments had to operare with unstable and insufficient revenue, a foreign deht that was impossible to pay, constant internal

Bo rderinq on Antbropology

233 =

which recapitulates the advenmres and impressions that he and the collector HenryChristyhad on their trip to Mexico in 1856- To my knowledge, this book has never been published in Spanish, and it is not widely known or read in Mexico. This is odd at first glance, given .Mcxico's legitimate daim to have been the muse that inspired the discipline that in Oxford was at times referred to as "Tylors science."'t The lack oí attention to Tylor's Mexican connection seems even stranger given the peed that countries like Mexico have had to remirad the world that thev have not been absent in the process of shaping the course of Western civilization.1i Mexico's failure te) appropriate Tylor's Anabuac seems less perplexing when we actually read the book. Tylor described a Mexico whose presidency had changed hands once every eight months for the previous ten years, a country whose fertile coastal regions were badly depopulated, and whose well-inhabited highlands were bandit infested and difficult to travel. Mexico was also a country that was sharply divided by race, where the whites and half-castes were hated by the Indians whom they exploited. Figure 11 .1 , The Horsea ni] thr Zapilott, in Evans (1 870), p. 506 The buzzard (here misspelled) became a regular motiv in travel writing on Mexico during the nineteenth century. Buzzards figure in the first Mexican impressions oí both Fanny

Tylor's first vista oí Mexico is the por[ oí Sisal, in the Yucatán, and it gets the Mexican reader off to an uneasy start, suggesting the fragility oí Mexico as a polity and its lack oí cohesiveness as a nation:

Calderón de la Barca and E. B.Tvlor. Here, Colonel Albert Evans uses the image to

Cine possible article oí expon we examined as closely as opportunity

end his book on a suitably pessirnistic note: "As wc went down by rail from Paso

would allow, namely, the Indian inhabitants. There they are, in every re-

del Macho to Veracruz, we lookcd from dhe window oí what had been Maximilian's imperial car, upon a scene by the roadside which struck me nearer to the heart, and filled my soul with sadness . a poor old steed-who may have borne Santa Anna and his fortunes in his day, or hetter seved the world by drawing a dump cart for a grading party-had been mrned out to die. The zapilotes [sic]-which are among the insnmtions of the country-watching from afar saw death 's signal in his glazing eye, and wheeling down froto their airy heights, came trooping from

spect the right article for trace: brown-skinned, incapable oí defending themselves, strong, healthy, and industrious; and the creeks and mangrove swamps oí Cuba only three days' sail off. The plantations and mines that want one hundred thousand men to bring them into full work, and swallow aborigines, Chinese, and negroes indifferently-anything that has a dark skin, and can be made to work-would take [hese Yucatecos in any quantity, and pay well for them.14

all directions to the coming feast' (Evans 1873- 505-6),

revolutions, a highly deficient system oí transportation, and frequent foreign invasions. The image oí Mexico abroad, an image that had been so important to Mexican politicians and intellectuals even before Baron von Humboldt published his positive accounts oí New Spain, had turned very contrary indeed. Naturalists and ethnographers who followed Humboldt's

Tylors first impression was a disturbing reminder oí the fragility of the links between Mexico's people and its territory. His observation revealed what is still today something oí a dirty secret, which is that Mayas were indeed being sold as slaves in Cuba at the time. But if Tylor's first impressions were unsettling, Mexican nationalists would find little solace in his conclusions:

steps took a decidedly negative view oí Mexicos present and a pessimistic

That [Mexico's] total absorption [finto the United States] must come, sooner

view oí its future.11

or later, we can hardly doubt_ The chief diffieulty seems to be that the

A useful point oí entry for understanding ehe labors oí early Mexican anthropologists is a discussion oí Edward B Tylor's travel book on Mexico,

American constitution will not exacdy suit the case- The Republic laid down

Bordcr,n.t

o ,.

Anfi;ro polo9y

= 234 =

the right oí each citizen to his share in che government oí the country as a Bordertng

o s A =235=

universal law .. making, it is true, so me slight exceptions with regard to red and black men. The Mexicans, or at least the white and half-caste Mexicans, will be a difficulty. Their claims lo citizenship are unquestionable if Mexico were made a State oí the Union; and, as everybody knows, they are totally incapable oí governing themselves ... [Mjoreover, it is certain that American citizens would never allow even the whitest oí the Mexicans to be placed on a footing of equality with themselves. Supposing these difficulties got over by a Protectorate, an armed occupation, or some similar contrivance , Mexico will undergo a great change . There will be roads and even rail-roads, some security for lile and property, liberty oí opinion, a flourishing commerce, a rapidly increasing population, and a variety oí good things. Every intelligent Mexican must wish for an event so greatly to the advantage oí his country ...1$ As for ourselves individually, we may be excused for cherishing a lurking kindness for the quaint, picturesque manners and customs oí Mexico, as yet un-Americanized; and for rejoicing that ir was our fortune to travel there before che coming change, when its most curious peculiarities and its very language must yield before foreign influence.16 Tylor's Mexicans were in most respects an unenlightened people.

Mexican schooling was dominated by an obscurantist and coirupt church (Tylor mentions Che case oí a priest who was a highwayman, and discusses the laxity oí priestly mores) 17 The legal system gave no protection to ordinary citizens, who were at a structural disadvantage with respect to soldiers and priests. The population avoided paying taxes because the government was ineffective. The country as a whole was in the hands oí gamblers and adventurers, and Mexican jails offered no prospect oí reforming prisoners.

Ethnologists and historians oí the period must have been struck by the Mexican governments incapacity to control the connections between the nation's past and its futuro, a fact that is demonstrated by Tylor and Christy's activities as collectors oí historical trophies, but even more potently by Tylor's remarkable description oí Mexico's national museum: The lower story had been turned into a barrack by the Government, there being a want of quarters for tire soldiers. As the ground-floor under the 1 2. Porter ami Bakerin MMexicu, in Edward B . Tylor, Anabuae ( 1861), p. 54.

cloisters is used for the heavier pieces oí sculpture, tire scene was somewhat curious The soldiers had laid several oí the smaller idols down en their faces, and were sitting en the confortable seat un the small oí their backs, busy playing at cards. An encerprising soldier liad built up a hutch with idols and sculptured stones against the statue oí the great war-goddess Teoyaomiqui herself, and kept rabbits there. The state which the whole 13ordering

en

Anihropology

= 237

opment of anthropology in Mexico (and, indeed, in Britain) was to a significant degree shaped by che negative imprint oí chis book and others like it. After the publication oí Anahuac, things in Mexico took a different turn than che one that Tylor had envisioned- Instead oí being invaded by che United States, Mexico was occupied by France, which made the best oí che American Civil War to regalo a foothold en che continent; and, although Tylor was not entirely wrong in thinking that a number of Mexicans would welcome che intervention of a great power, civil strife and resistanee against the French proved stronger than he had anciicipated, and che curo of world events frowncd upon Mexico's second empire. Alter its "second independence," however, Mexico had yet to show that it was a politically viable country, a country that was capable of attracting foreign investors, a country that could embrace progress.

Cine important move in Chis direction is a book written by Vicente Riva Palacio and Manuel Payno, boda of whom would later lead che manufacture of a new history of Mexico." El libro rojo (The red book) (1870) was among che first of a series oí lavishly printed and illustrated volumes of the final third of che nineteenth century. It is a brief history of civil violente in Mexico, told by way of an illustrated look at executions and assassinations, much as if it were a book of saints. El libro rojo is remarkable for its ecumenical reproach oí civil violence. Illustrated pages are dedícated equally to Cuauhtémoc and lo Xicotencatl ( Indian kings who fought on

Figure 11.3- 1-lon- Willian, fi- Srto,trd Tranoiiug io klrxico, in Eva lis (1870), p. 18. A characterisu cal ly uncritical re preseuc^tlon ot American power in che period-

place was in when chas left te che tender mercies oí a Mexican regiment may he imagined by any one who knows ti liat a dirty and destructive animal a Mexican soldier is. '"

Mexican anthropology has liad multiple births, the writings oí the sixteenth-century friars, and especially of Bernardino de Sahagún, are frequently cited, hut so are those ol Cicole patriots and antiquarians writing in the seventeenth and eightecnth tentarles, or che foundation of the International School oí American Archaeology and Ethnology in 1911 by Franz Boas, and the creation oí che tirst department oí anthropology by his student, Manuel Gamio, in 1917.'" Anahuac represents an unacknowledged, but not a less important, point of origin, for Tylor's first book was the sort oí travel narrative that anthropologists, including Tylor himself, tried to trump with che scientihc discipline of anthropology, retaining the sense oí discovery and of daring of che gente while reaching for systematizacion and eniotional distante -2o For Mexican intellectuals, however,

Figure 11.4. Dolcefarniente, unsigned etching from Felix L. Oswald , Summerland

Anahuac nanied the unspeakahle but omnipresenc nightmare oí racial dis-

Sketches, or Rambles in the Backwoods of Mexico and Central America (Philadelphia, 1880),

memberment, nacional disintegracion, and tire shameful profanation of the

p. 185. The image oí a lazy and obscurantist church was a staple oí anglophone

nacion's gnndeur by che state itsclf. Anahuac in other words, is a work that

writing en Mexico from che time oí Thomas Gage's work in che seventeenth cen-

hoth British and Mexican anthropologists would write against- As in a

tury to the writings oí Edward B. Tylor and beyond. Here the priest' s siesta illus-

Freudian dream, che primal scene has peen carefully hidden, but che devel-

trates Oswald's observations on Mexico in che 1870s. Bordering en

[ l o r d o r ; n . ; o , A i, ropo logy =

238

=

=

Anthropo logy

239

opposite sides during the Conquest), to conquistador Pedro de Alvarado and to Che Aztec emperor Moctezuma, to Jews who were burned by the Inquisition and to priests who were massacred by Indians, to marooneel African slaves and to a Spanish archbishop. Even more remarkably, the pantheon of martyrs includes heroes on alternare sides oí Mexico's civil struggies oí Che nineteenth century _ Father Hidalgo and Iturbide; the liberals Comonfort and Melchor Ocampo, and the conservatives Mejía and Miramón. Even Maximilian oí Hapsburg, who had been executed by the still-reigning president, Benito Juárez, was given equal treatment. El libro rojo sought te shape a unified Mexico by acknowledging a shared history of suffering. Ideologically, this was Che course that was later taken under General Díaz (1884-1910)22 El libro rojo was primarily directed to unifying elites, as is shown by the book's guiding interest in state executions, rather than in Che anonymous dead produced by civil strife or exploitation. The unification oí elites involved taming the nation's war-toro past and projecting Chis freshly rebuilt past finto the present in order to shape a modernizing frontier. It is therefore not surprising that the pacification and stabilization oí Che country that followed slowly after Che French intervention required the services oí an enlightened elite, which carne to be known as the cient(cos, in order to shape Mexicos image. This is the subject oí derailed work by Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo, in his book Mexico at the Worlds Faus and clsewhere. 1 will Ilustrare the kind oí work that was accomplished by Chis intelligentsia by referring to a book that was published in English and French by justo Sierra and a team oí illustrious científicos in 1900, Mexico Its Social Evolution. This work is oí special interest not only because Sierra was such a prominent and influential figure in Mexican culture and education, but also because it was printed especially in foreign languages, and its lavishly produced illustrations seem to answer point by point the negative comments and images oí Mexico offered by Tylor and other travclers. The hrst, most fundamental strategy followed by Sierra's team was to make Mexico's evolution compiehensible and parallel to that of France, Britain, or Che Uniced Statcs (that is, to readers oí French and English). Thus, Che narres oí the authors and historical personages were anglicized, Figure 115. Statue of tbe.blexican Godlrss l War (o, oj Denth) Teoyaomiqui ( 1861), in Edward E. Fylor, Anabuac p- 221 Soldicrs used Chis stone to build a rabbit hutch.

trom "Jane Agnes de la Cruz" ro "William Prieto," and parallels hetween Mexico's evolution and that of Che civilized world were explicitly or implicitly established. Carlos ("Charles") de Sigüenza y Góngora is placed alongside Isaac Newton, Río de la Loza is followed shortly by Auguste Comte, and photographs oí museums, hospitals, and courthouses built in Victorian or Che latest Parisian styles were displayed on page alter page- This mimetic Bardrrii^9 on An tbropala2y 241

strategy was common aniong tMcxic u's elite literary and scientific cireles of the Belle hpuque, but it is takcn Lip in a punctual manner by Sierra, who cndeavors to show that cach of cite hallmarks ol progress exists in Mexico. Tylor complamed uf che state ol ahandon of ^Vlcxican education and its suhordination tti a retrograde ehureti lusui Sierra piovided diseussions of che development of Mexican positice scic ice Tvlor smiled ironically at che lack ot actention citar reas given tu Mcxicu's history and patrimony Sierra shows che Nacional Musevm ot ^nthropulogy and che ways in which Nlexicos once contlici toro roces I-mec bcen neacly studied and organizad in it 1inally, Tylor notcd cite arhitrariness of Mexico's governnient and che lack oí justice and institu tions of social reform. Sierra shows che rapid and impressive development ol courts of law, of councils, hospitals, schools, museums, and prisons In short, while Tylor spoke oí a country that had becn ravaged by revolution, Sierra'% book spoke oí evolution. In chis dialectic between Tylors and Sierras books one can catch a glimpse oí che central role that anthropology has had in Mexico's history. In a rather simplified way, one could say ciar the international aspect oí anthropology has the capaciry tu destabilize nationalist images oí Mexico. by imaging che parallels between Mexico's development and that of the

Figure 1 1.6. The Nacional Preparatory Scbool, from justo Sierra, ed., Mexico Its Social Evolution, tome 1, vol. 2, p. 480. Finely printed photographs of modero hospitals,

nations that produce anthropologists who tiavel.

laboratorios, libraries, prisons, schools, courcrooms, town halls, and railroad

Mexicds nacional anthropology has worked hard to curb these tendencies

stations fill che pages oí Sierra's book.

Shaping Narralives of Internal Hierarchy, Organizing Governmental Intervention in tse Modernizing Process In addition to shaping and defending the nacional image, Mexico's anthropology had from the beginning a role to play in the criticism and organization oí interna) hierarchies, Even before che risa oí any solid institucional framework for che development of Mexican anthropology, diseussions and writings en roce and en

In the lame period (1845), the Constitutional Assembly oí the Department oí Querétaro gives a more nuanced account oí che racial question in its state "The wise regulatory policy oí our government has proscribed forever che odious distinctions between whites, blacks, bronzed, and mixed races. We no longer have anything but free Mexicans, with no differences among them except those imposed by aptitude and merit in order to select che various destinies oí the republic."24 However, the authors go en:

che historical origins oí Mexico's Acoples were constantly deployed in We would abstain from making Chis sort of classification [i.e., racial classifi-

order to orient strategies oí government. The Boletín de la Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadística, Mexico's oldest scientific periodical (founded in

cation] were it nor trae that just as politics prefers to treat citizens as essen-

1839), has many examples of chis. Statistical and population reports that

tial parís of che nation, so does economics prefer to consider their specific

viere drafted in che 1 850s and 1860s ofren carried sections on roce, for

condition, nor in order to worsen it but, en the contrary, to seek ics im-

instante. Thus, luan Estrada in his repon on che Prefectura del Centro oí

provement. Without a practical knowledge oí che peoples [los pueblos], we

che state oí Guerrero, says that OJf che 25,166 souls in the prefecture,

cannot improve their civilizacion, their morality, their wealth, nor che

20,000 are Indians. However, wliat is paintul is that che remaining 5,000

wants that affect them.25

are not educated, nor do they relcaio from uniting with che Indians in their designs to exterminare che HispanoNlexican rase.°2s

The congress then proceeds to discuss che qualities and deficiencies not only oí Querétaro's three main roces (Indians, mixed-bloods, and

R o n d e r i n g o n A n t h o p o l o g y B o r d e r f r g o n A n t b r o p o l o g y 12

=

243

=

Mexicans, he also mentions the black population in the Veracruz region, and divides Mexican Indians into three types: brown Indians, red Indians, and blue Indians. These "blue Indians," known in Mexico at the time as pintas, were the troops oí general Juan Álvarez that had overrun Mexico City shortly before Tylor's visit, and they were "blue" because many of them had a skin disease that orases pigment in large patches. One oí the principal tasks oí anthropology as it began to develop in the 1 880s was to put order into these regional hierarchies oí race and to tic them into a vision oí national evolution oí the sort that was so successfully displayed in Sierra's Mexico: Its Social Evolution. A key strategy for chis can be found in Alfredo Chavero's work on pre-Columbian history in Mexico a través de los siglos (1 888), a work that develops an evolutionary scheme for pre-Columbian history that implicitly organizes hierarchical relations between the yaces in the present. Chavero describes Mexico's pre-Columbian past as if it had been waiting underground for his patriotic generation to bring it back to life. figure 11 J National Museum, Salan of the Alonolitbs, from justo Sierra, Mexico Its Social Evolution, tome 1, vol. 2, p 488.

Throughout the ravages oí colonial destruction and the revolutions oí the nineteenth century, the colossal Mexican past slept under a blanket oí soil: But our ancient history had been saved, and all that could have perished in

Creoles), but also importan[ distinctions within the Creole race according to levels oí education. Thus, while the highest class oí Creoles is circumspect, controlled, and similar to the ancient Spartans, the classes beneath them can be fractious. Statistics supplied by the state of Yucatán for the year 1853 include detailed discussions oí the relationship between race and criminality, show-

oblivion shall today rige to our hands. Even if [hese hands he guided more by daring than by knowledge, they are also moved by love oí country, a love that embraces the desire tu preserve oíd memories and ancient deeds just as the great hall oí a walled castle keeps the portraits oí each oí its lords, che sword of the conquistador and the luto oí the noble lady 2a

ing that Indians are less likely to commit violent crimes than castas or

After claiming the possession of the noble treasures oí the past for his

Creoles, because the Indian race is belittled (apoc(jda), either naturally or as

country, Chavero proponed an evolutionary story for pre-Columbian

a result oí degeneration- Correspondingly, Indians indulge in petty theft,

Mexico. This story had blacks as the initial inhabitants- However, these

and they do so systematically, The Indian steals, More [han anyrhing he

blacks were weaker and less well suited to most oí Mexicos environment

is a thief, and Chis he is without exception, and in as many ways as he can

than the race that expelled them from al] but the torrid tropical zones: the

However, because of their petty nature, these thefts escape the action oí

Otomis. For Chavero, ir is the Otomis who can be truly called Mexico's

justice, and so are not recorded in tire annals oí crime."26 Statistics from

first inhabitants. However, the Otomis were not much better than the

the department of Soconusco in Chiapas in the lame period divided local yaces into ladinos, Indians, blacks, and Lacandones.27

tongue, a people that was contemporaneous with humanity's infaney:29

It is clear from [hese reports that rhere was not a fixed national system of racial composition, but that the races, and even to some extent the specifics oí rheii character varied substantially by region. Even 1_dward B. Tylor's classification ol Mexican races reflects Chis, for although he foregrounds the relationship between Indians, hall-castes, and SpanishBorde ring

o', A n 1 b i o p o l o g y

blacks: they were a population oí troglodytes who spoke a monosyllabic

Life in [hose days could be nothing but the struggle for sustenance. Families were formed only by animal instinct. Intelligence was limited inside the compressed crania oí those savages ... And just as nothing linked them to heaven orto an eternal god, so too did they lack any nos tú the earth; there was no fatherland [patria) for them.30 Bordering

o n Ant bro p ology 245 =

Despite there unpromising hegininga, che intcriority ol che Otomis did flor deeply star che natian pri ele Instead 1t actually proved uselul to uflderstan el ing eontem poiuiv ras ial hit iarchies 1 ortla' Otomis initia ted ara svoluu oflan nx,vulile lit that culmi naced s, ah che magnilieent Nahoas, a tate ahuse appearance seas auctnding tu C llavero, e untemporancous wirh that ot the greate i yilizations ol Lgypt, India, and China Moreover, the Oro mis otrer a valuable perspectirc iruni svhieh lo comprchcnd the condiclan of thc Indians CiLI11TI 11- C haveis s prescnt lar che Otomís acre che India,i Indians _ thcy were che cunnuu cd peoples ol tliose sello wcre later in therr turra , conquered Because ol this, thcy allow che Mexican to rela-

-tivzechSpansCoquetdrimnshweg acionlhstry But did these first peoples acquire any culture ? We are not surprised to find them degraded and almost brutish lin che historical penad . They were toro apart by invasions without recciving new lile-blood [savia] from che conquerors, and inferior peoples desecad and perisla when thcy come finto conraer wirh more advaneed people We sroulcl he wrong to judge che state oí rhe ancient kingdom of Mexico befare che Conquest on che basis of our prescnt-day Indians'

[Ti one stroke Chavero has established both the grandeur oí the Mexican past and che kcy to comprehend lis lall, and so has put aside the painful image that foreigners still projecred of Mexico in Chavero `s day. Mexico's prehistory and its contemporary momear mapped onto each other, they conipleted one another The images of the Negro , Otomi , and early Nahoa races in figures 1 1.8a-c illustrate chis point. whereas Chavero used archaeological pieces to portray the early Negro and Nahoa races, he relied tan a drawing oí a contemporary " Indian rype " to portray the ancient Otomi. The contemporary degenerare ' odian rype maps onto and indeed substitutes for rhe missing image of the early and unevolved Otomi, just as the

Figure 11.Sa. Cabeza gigantesca de Hueyápan , in México a través de los siglos, vol. 1, p. 63.

ancient grandeur oí che Nahoa completes che image oí Mexico 's future as it is being shaped by che científico eliteMoreover, there is a striking similarity berween Chavero 's description oí the degraded Otomis and contemporaneous descriptions by foreigners oí che Mexican Indian . For example , U.S historian Hubert Bancroft wrote a diary oí his travels to Mexico at the tinte sehen México a través de los siglos seas in preparation , and he makes che following comment regarding the pervasive fears os U.S annexation aniong Alexicans:

fathom ... If there were nothing else in the way, the character oí the Mexican people would be objection enough . The people are not the nation here as with us; che politicians are absolute . There is no middle class, but only the high and the low, and che low are very lose indeed, peor, ignorant, servile and debased , and wirh neither the heart or the hopo ever to attempt to better their condition. 1 have traveled in Europe and elsewhere, but never have 1 before witnessed such squalid misery and so much oí it. Sit at

But what che United Stares seants nt iMexico, sellar benefit would accrue

the door oí your hotel, and ven will see pass by as in some hellish panorama

from adding more terntory, whar clic nadan has lo gain from it 1 cannot

che withered, the deformed, che lame and che blind, deep in che humility oí

rdcris) ..,. .nibi , ^pologJ =lao=

Bordering

o t A = 247

Figure 1 1.8c. Cabecita de Teotihuarrín, in México a través de los siglos, vol. 1, p. 69.

debasement, half hidden in their dingy, dirty rainment as if the light oí heaven and the eyes of man were equally painful to them, hunchbacks and dwarfs, little filthy mothers with lude filthy babes, grizzly gray headed tren and women bent douhle and hobbling en canes and crutches.32

In the Pace of these devastating impressions, Chavero and his generation strived to make Mexico presentable to the patriot, to make it defensible vis-a-vis the foreigner, and especially to attract foreign allies. The success oí this great concerted effort oí the Porfirian intellectual elite has been discussed by Tenorio-Trillo, who calls the team oí Mexican intellectuals and politicians who pulled it off "wizards." This is perhaps not much oí an exaggeration. Fernando Fscalante has reminded us that during most of the nineteenth century, Veracruz, a town that was so plague-ridden that Figure 1 I,Sb- Tipo otontí, in México a envés de los siglos, vol. 1, p. 66

it was known as "the city oí death," was nevertheless the favorite city of the Creoles, because going there was the best way te) get out oí country.

The special role oí Chavero and other early anthropologists was to suggest a certain isomorphism between the past and the present. By creating a single racial narrative for the whole country, diese anthropologists Bordering

o n An thro pol oyy 249 =

eould shape the invernal tionuers idt mod erniza ti on whilc upholding a

smell of the indigenous terco lar turkey), Chis was taken as an insult.s'

telcology that nade progress and cvulution in integral aspect el Mexican

Gamios involvement in the revalorizaron of indigenous culture seas part

civilization Moreover, this strategy involved using hístory te moralize

of a long-terco civi lizational process for the Mexican elite.

ebout the present. which w;u are inuncnsely popular aetivity in Mexico that had significant grassrouts appeal ',

Unlikc his Porffrian predecessors, however, Gamio telt that the role oí the anthropologist seas not only to present the past as a vision of a pos-

The generation of Porhriati anthropologists would use this evolution-

sible future , but also to intervene as the enlightened arco of government,

ary theory as a frame for shaping iA'lexicos imago, but rcvolutionary an-

as the arco of science that was best equipped to deal with the management

thropologists would use it to interv ene direcdy in native communities.

of population , with forging social harmony and promoting civilization

The key figure in Chis development is Manuel ( amio who was so suceess-

Thus, lar Camio, the actions of the anthropologists were the actions of

tul that he is generally considerad the "lather" of Mexican anthropology

the nation itself. In a prologue to a booklet that published the inter-

Because Gamio's story is well known, 1 shall only briefly recapitulate

national reactions to La población del valle de Teotihuacán , Gamio explains that

Manuel Gamio met Franz Boas when the latter founded the International

he puts this compendium of flattering comments into print not asan act of

School of American Archaeology and Ethnology in Mexico City in 1910.

self-promotion , but rather because La población del valle de Teotihuacán "is a

Boas, as Guillermo de la Peña has shown, felt that Gamio was the most

collective work that has national dimensions." Moreover:

promising of the young Mexican scholars and invited him to do his doctoral work at Columbia." Gamio also reccived support from Carranza's

The opinions and critica) judgments not only praise the scientific methods

government even before its final triumph over Villa, and in 1917 he creat-

that preside over the research brought together in this work and the social

ed the Department of Anthropology of Mexicos agriculture and develop-

innovations and practica ) results that were obtained . There is also , in sev-

ment ministry, From this position, Canijo organized a monumental study

era) of the most distinguished foreign judgments, the suggestion that a

oí the population of the Valley of Teotihuacán In San Juan Teotihuacán, Camio found a perfect parable for the Mexican nation. The valley of Teotihuacán was rich, but its people were poor; the ancient city was the sise of astonishing civilizational grandeur, but the current inhabitants had degenerated as a result of the Spanish Conquest, exploitation, and the poor fit between Spanish culture and the racial characteristics of the Indians- Just as important, perhaps, the setting offered up the raw materials for the presentation of a national aesthetics, a strategy that had already been implemented by the authors of México a través de los siglos and the architects of Mexico's exhibit at the Paris World's Fair of 1889. This work is continued and deepened by Gamio, who attempts not only to extend the use of an Indian iconography in

number of other nations follow Mexico's example in favor of the well-being and progress of their own people , a judgment that will undoubtedly satisfy the national consciente,"

On the other hand, the fact that Teotihuacán and the Department of Anthropology of the Secretaría de Agricultura y Fomento were both national symbols did not make them equal, for whereas Teotihuacán stood for the nation because of the wealth of its territory, the grandeur of its past, and its racial and cultural composition (which reflected a fourhundred-year process of degeneration), the Department of Anthropology was the head of the nation from which the promotion of civilization was to come. This is most potently brought honre in the instructions that Gamio gave to bis researchers before they began fieldwork in Teotihuacán:

Mexican publishing and architecture, but also to adopt an indigenizing aesthetic for enlightened classes, and to bring a serious engagement with

We then suggested to out personnel that they shed the prejudices that can

indigenous culture to bear on modern technologies in architecture and

arise in the minds oí civilized and modere men when they come into con-

cinema. 35

tact with the spirit, the habits and customs of the Teotihuacanos, whose

The elevation of traditional cultura for the consumption of elite classes

civilization has a lag of four hundred years. We advised that they should

was a matter of some controversy and it was often disdained in the re-

follow strict scientific discipline in the course of their actions, but that they

stored Republic and during the por)iriato (it can still be controversia)

should make every effort to temporarily abandon their modes oí thought,

today). For example, when a critic ol 1871 described Guillermo Prietos

expression, and sentiments in order to descend in mind and body unti] they

poetry as "versos chulísimos oliendo a guajolote" (beautiful verses that

molded to the backward life of the inhabitants 38

Borderiuy ^n An1bro pology = 25U =

Bordering

o n

Anthro p ol ogy

251 =

The pioneering works of Alexandra Stern have shown che connections

Figure 1 19a. Tipo de hombre indígena del

that existed between the work oí Canijo and other "mestizophilic" nation-

valle de Teotihuacán, froto Manuel Camio,

alises and the eugenics movements" ()ne of the aspects of chis relationship

La población del valle de Teotihuacán, vol. 2,

that is pertinent here is that the view of che current population as degenerate, as having been made to depart from che best developmental possibiliUes of in; yace, went along with quite a challenging and revolutionary set of policies. Indeed, as a high government oficial leading an official project, Gamio had an interventionist role in local society that was entirely different froto that of foreign anthropologists. By his recommendation, the government raised che salary of che arcas tour hundred government

place 41. These samples froto a series of niug shots illustrare Manuel Canijos concern with race and racial types. Canijo celebrated indigenous culture and mestizaje, but he shared che scientific esrablishment's concerns with racial degeneration_

employees (mostly employed in che archaeulogical dig and in che various development projects that Gamio promoced) in order to nudge up the salaries that local hacendados paid their peons- Gamio had lands distributed to peasants. A new road, a railroad station, medical facilities, and educational facilities were built. The combined power of an integrative scientific method, embodied in anthropology, and its practica) use by a revolutionary government was so dizzying that Gamio compared che mission of the Department of Anthropology with che Spanish Conqucsr

Figure 11 .9b_ Tipo de hombre mestizo del valle de Teotihuacán, from Manuel Gario, La población del valle de

We believe that uf che aciitude uf governmcnts continues to be of disdain

Teotihuacán, vol, 2, plato 48

and pressurc against thc indigenous elcment, as ir has been in rhe past, their failure will be absolute and i rrevocab Ir. -1owever, if rhe countries of Central and South America begin, as Mexico has already begun, a new conquest of the indigenous yace, their failure shall turn inm a tiiumphal suecess.40 Thus, che disconrinuities between Gamio and Porfirian ethnohistorians

or eth noli nguists such as Chavero or Pimentel are as interesting as their convergences: both believed in che degeneration of Mexican races alter che Conquesq hoth believed in che grandcur of Mexican antiquities; and both placed their knowledge in thc service of nacional development. However, che Portirians did so mainly as parí of an effort tú present Mexico in che international arena, as a contribution to efforts to bring foreign migrants, foreign investments, and tourism to Mexico, whereas Canijo took these theses and applied them not only to shaping the nacional image, but also to the art of governing.41 By doing field research, by creating his own, "integral," censuses, and by intervening in a direct and forceIul manner in local reality, he could at once particípate in rhe Porfirian imaging process and hele fashion internal frunricrs.4r The similarities and differences between rhe two anthropologicol styles parallel the similarities and differences between che Porfirian and die revolutionary governments: EtorAerinq

on

.lni bro1, ology

252

Figure 1 1.9c. Tipo de mujer indígena del valle de Teotihuacán, from Manuel Gamio, La población del valle de Teotihuacán, vol. 2, plato 50

borh were modernizing regimos that seished tu porrray the republie as

a prominent United States, British, or French anthropologist in chis period

being led by enlightened and scicntitic vanguards. but whereas the Porfirian

(which has rather revealingly been labeled the "golden age" oí Mexican

regime placed its ht ts mosdy on din,vos posible convenience tu

anthropology)s

torcign capital the revolutionarc ¿;o^ernments tried m balance their ef-

Instead, foreign anthropologists sought mutually bencficial collabora-

torts ro attract loreign investors ansi tupir i onnnrtment tu interna) social

tions, or else they were as unobtrusive as possible. They worried about

and agrarian rclorm This latter formula seas leen ¡ir the twentieth century

being able to pursue their research interests and about being able lo send

as the more atiractive and desirahle ¡Ti Mexico

students to the fleld- Even so, the orthodoxy oí Mexican official anthropology still faced an external challenge, a challenge that is endemie to the

Cmtsolidation o^ ,l National Anthn'poÍmly

very proposition of a nationalized scientific discipline- In this period oí industry and progress, the challenge of foreigners was threefold: they could

When the 1968 generation accusud tMexiean indigenistas of shaping a strict-

uncover the dark side of modernization, in the tradition oí John Kenneth

ly national anthropology, Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán was probably right to

Turner's Barbarous Mexico; they could adhere to the Indian and reject the

accuse them in turn of not having rcad the indigenistas closely.43 Aguirre

moderna or they might further the political interests of their nations at the

went ahead and named a number of cases of studies that had been done by

expense oí the Mexican government. 1 will briefly exemplify how [hese

Mexican anthropologists abroad; he could also llave usted the active

dangers were perceived in this period by examining two incidents.

interest that indigenistas from Gamo and Sainz on showed in exporting

In December 1946, President Miguel Alemán had just taken office. University oí Chicago anthropologist Robert Redfield and two high officials oí the Mexican government (Mario Ramón Beteta and Alejandro Carrillo) were invited to discuss the president's inaugural speech on Mexican national radio, The event generally went off without a hitch, except for a newspaper article attacking Redfield's position that appeared La Prensa Gráfica. After reciting Redfield's impressive scientific credentials, Fernando Jordán focused on a question that Redfield had raised, which was whether the industrialization oí Mexico would not carry with it a radical change in the mores oí the Mexican people. Would industrialization not involve the standardization oí indigenous cultures? Would it not diminish the beauty oí a people that had well-defined ethnic characteristics, a people who gave great personality to Mexico? The radio host who was interviewing Redfield responded quickly that "the traditional moral structure oí the Mexican people is so strong that not even three centuries oí Spanish domination were able to change it in the least." However, Fernando Jordán reacted less defensively:

Mexican anthropology lo other locations. Nevertheless, one can still argue that the 1968 gencration was correo on this point, for the anthropology that Mexican indigenistas exponed seas a national ant h ropology, geared lo shaping connections betwecn rho ancient pass, contemporary ethnic or race relations, and national modernizing projects- As the Mexican governments moved from the early proactive stages of the revolutionary period to institutional consolidation in an era of much industrial growth, the position oí anthropology became at once atore institutionalized and less capable of challenging the status quo The period that runs roughly from 1940 into the late 1960s is a time when a nationalist orthodoxy prevailed This is also the time when most oí the great state institutions that house Mexico's large professional establishment were buile the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (1939), the Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia (1939), the Instituto Indigenista Interamericano ( 1940), tire Instituto Nacional Indigenista (1949), the National Universirys Sección de Antropología (1963), and the new Musco Nacional de Antropología (1964). The growing strength oí the Mexican state and the institutional consolidation oí anthropology, alongside foreign (principally U.S.) anthropologists' interest

If Mr Smith, Mr. Adams, or any other tourist who had spent one month in

in alterity and the delicate position of American researchers in Mexico

our country had raised the lame question, he would have reaffirmed the

during the Cold War, are al¡ factors that conspired to take the sting off oí

conception that we have of many oí them. We would have thought him

foreign anthropologists as harsh critics44 It is impossible lo imagine the

superficial and naive.

kind of candid commentary that we read in Tylors book regarding, Por in-

However, the question was raised by Dr. Redfield, a professional eth-

stanee, "what a destructive animal a Mexican soldier is" being published by

nologist, a renowned sociologist, and author oí a number of books about

IIn rder , nl

An i l , ro poiogy ?54

Bordering

on Antñro po logy = 255

Mexico and its aboriginal cultures . his thus impossi ble to believe that Redfield's question was foolish or i dl,. But in that case what does it mean? In our vi ese, it mearas severa) things at rhu same time.. that Mexico, for che scholar, only has a proper ¡o, ni when it is viewed through the kaleidoscope oí native eosttune, dance, and through the survivals of preHispanic cultures and the "folklor'ic' misery el indigenous people- But ir chis is part of Mexico, it is not Mexico i tsell, and it is not what our nation wishes tú preserve-

Jordán is shocked that a 1amous sociologist could replicare the superficial opinions oí a tourisc, but hc offers an explanation oí Redfield's true motiven From annther point oí viese, and given che u-ajeete ry oí American anthropologists, Redfield's question can be finte rprcted in a differen1 way. We feel that it expresses the researchcr's fear of losing the living lahoratory that he has enjoyed since the days oí Frederick Starr [annther University of Chicago anthropologist]. He fears that he will no longer be able tu vivisect the Otomi, Tzotzil, Nahua, or Tarahuman cultures. He tremoles at the thought of seeing the Tehuanae dress, or the 'curious'' i ags of the Huichol, being replaced by the overal[ that is necessary ora the shop (loor or the wide pants needed in agri culture He is expressing his ideal oí stoppi ng our natiods evolution in orden ro preserve the colorful miscrv of our Indians, a misery diat will provide material for a series oí books-most of which are soporific-in which the concept of culture will be represented by a set oí isolated and static "ethnie" attributes that Nave no 'elation to rhu Indiads dynamisni.

The foreign anthropologist is interested in exoticizing Indians, in maintaining Mexico as a kind oí laboratory or ecological preserve, and not in solving the countrys pressing social and economie problems. As such, his opinions and research ideals should be rejected in favor of a more

Figure 11.10. Untitled photograph of a Moya woman, by Frances Rhoads Morley, from Robert Redfield, The Folk Culture of Yucaton, 104. This portrait oí indigenous beauty

interventionist approach, an approach that is committed to modernization

is the kind of romanticization that Fernando Jordán objected to. It was also a

and social improvement. Foreigo interest in traditional cultures is wel-

source oí friction between Robert Redfield and Oscar Lewis in their diverging

come insolar as it explores the roors and the pocential of the Mexican

portrayals oí Tepoztlán and of poverty.

people, or insofar as it adds its efforts to the practica] guidelines set by governmental projects, but when foreigners begin to value the traditional over che modero, what we have is a pernicious forro oí colonialism.

We should note that Fernando Jordán's osen implicit program for the Indians (and Chis was a journalist seno studied anthropology in the National School and was favoring President Alemán's modernization program) denies anthropology as Redfield understood it The "interna] colonialism" oí li o r d e r i n y u n A n t h r e p 256 =

ogy

Mexican anthropology could not uphold diversity over progress, whereas the postcolonial U.S. or European anthropologist could not intervene directly in Mexico, and thus had a vested interest in diversity. National anthropology and metropolitan anthropological traditions relied on each other, but they also denied each other. Thus Gamio could not be a tate cultural relativist Iike his mentor Franz Boas and still retain his brand oí B o r d e n n y o ra An thro po1ogy

=257=

3 Thc book was detaniatory of Mexican institutions and of the

applred anthropology, flor troulcl h
,Mexican way of lile;

variety oí applicd proiccts that (,armo likecl to iuggle As a result, che de-

4 The book veras subvcrsive and anti - revol ut i otra ry and violated Article 145 of che \Icxiean Consti tution and was , therefore, pun-

grce oí mutual ignorante that is t olera te d bc twcen these t ra di ti ons generally, and betwcen Mexican and LLS aiithropologies in particular, rests on cpistemological conditions that run decper than mere patriotic rejection

ishable with a twenty- vear jail sentence becausc it incited to social

or language barrters-

dissolution; 5 The Fondo de Cultura Económica, che author, and the book were all cited for action bv che Geography and Statistics Society to the

For exaniple, afrer the publication of thc Spanich-language edition of Fi ve Pernil ics in 1961 Oscar 1 c wis rcnarkcti

Mexican Attorney Geneials Ofhce; and Some oi thc A1cxica nj tevIew^ c
6 Oscar Lewis was an FBI spy attempting to destroy Mexican

others very negative But even in tire good unes 1 lee] there is some resent-

institutions^s

ment of che fact il was a North Amercan, a gringo, who has acquainted the

Much of che Mexican intelligentsia rallied to the cause oí Oscar Lewis at this point, including some anthropologists such as Ricardo Pozas, who had heen highly critical of Five Families, because they saw in the Society's attack che hand oí the govermnent trying to keep all eyes off oí the destructive effects of Mexican modernization, that is, off of urban poverty. Nevertheless, Arnaldo Orfila, che great Argentine editor and then director oí the state-owned Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico's most prestigious publisher, was Torced to resign from bis post, and Lewis published the third edition of Tbe Cbildren of Sánchez with a prívate publisher. The implications oí [hese two cases are clear. The whole set of views that in Mexico carne to be called "officialist," and which more or less served to demarcate che limits of mainstream Mexican anthropology, had a tense relationship both with anthropologists who might romanticize Indians to the degree oí rejecting modernization, and with those who studied the wrong end oí che acculturation process, that is, the unhappily modernized end. If che anthropologists doing the work were American, then these tendencies were all che more menacing. Moreover, the rejection oí [hese foreign works was also a way oí reining in work done by Mexicans, work that could he seen as unpatriotic or as bookish and irrelevant. This was, in fact, pretty much what the official attitude to the 1968 movement boiled down to: student unrest was creating a poor image oí Mexico abroad precisely at che time when the nation was on display, at

world, and even Mexicans, with a little cl che misery in which so many families live.

1 regret it very much if I havc offended some Mexicans with my work. It was never my intention to hurt Mexico or Mexicans because 1 have so much affection for them . Many times 1 huye suggested that it would be good if some Mexican anthropologists would he willing to Icave tlieir Indians for a while and come to my country to study che ncighhorhoods ol New York, Chicago or of Che South. 1 have even offered assistance in getting grano for them.°e

Nevertheless, the project oí Mexicans studying the United States has not yet come to fruition_ The very idea of a national anthropology runs against it: what would a book by a Mexican en the United States be used for? Unless, oí course, it were a book about Mexicans in the United States, or about American interests in Mexico. There is no public in Mexico, no institutional backing for this product, which would then be destined to be either an erudite curiosity, or w(jrsc, a Mexican anthropologist doing the Americans' job for them47 There was no possible symmetry of che sort imagined by Lewis in bis welLmcaning but also slightly disingenuous comment. Thus, che threat of a scientific indicmient ot Mexican modernization by foreign scientists remained, and .4exican reactions to che publication oí Oscar Lewis's Cíldren of Sdecbez ( 1964) were even more severe than they

the time of the Olympic Games.

were to Five Families. In a letter to Vera Rubín. Lewis summarized che attack that the Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadística mounted against

Conclusion: The Exhaustion of a National Anthropology?

bis book:

1 began chis chapter by noting che sense of estrangement, of being condemned to eterna] repetition, that has surfaced on occasion in recent

1 Thc book was obscene beyond all limits of human decency, 2 The Sánchez family did not exist. 1 had nade it up; I l o r d r r i u g o ,,

A
=

o

4

258

y =

B =

o rdrriny

o ti An ibrop o l o9y

259

to state relations with certain middle-class sectors than to the need for anthropologists as technocrats. The existente oí certain highly visible anthropologists in government masks the relative decline oí the political significante oí national anthropology for the Mexican state. Moreover, in the stages that I have outlined, there is a distinct sense oí exhaustion oí the possibilities oí the national anthropology paradigm: it began with the task oí fashioning a credible national image that could do the work oí harnessing the transnational machinery oí progress. From there, national anthropology complemented this task with an active role in the management oí the indigenous population (which in the early twentieth century could mean a concern with the vast majority oí the nation's rural population). This development oí the anthropological function gained much prestige from the revolutionary government's capacity te Figure 11 1 I

The Sánchez Family, in Oscar Lewis, Fina Families, p. 213. The Sánchez

tamily opens a vista to the underside of modernization crowded living, unhygienic conditions, promiscuity, and the disaggregation of communities.

years-the sense that anthropology in Mexico is destined te take its place inside a government office, regulating the population, writing the governor's speeches, or presenting a dignihied face for the tourist; the sense that Mexican academic anthropology will always be confined to its preexisting public, to a national public that carel only about the solution to the "Great National Problems"; the uneasy feeling that nags the student oí Mexican anthropology when she realizes that Francisco Pimentel was a high official in Maximilian's court, that Alfredo Chavero was the president oí the Sociedad de Amigos de Porfirio Díaz, that Gamio was the founder oí the Departamento de Asuntos Indígenas, undersecretary oí education, and director oí the Instituto Indigenista Interamericano, that Caso was founding director oí INAH and ENAH, that Aguirre 13eltrán was director oí INAH, that Arturo Warman is Minister of Agrarian Reform ..

This atavistic sensation is, nonetheless to some degree a false une. There is a useful corollary of Marx's Eightcenth Brumaire that 1 think can be usefully applied here, which could he something like "moins ca change, moins c'est la méme chose" (the less things change, the less they remain the same). The pattern oí absorption oí Mexican anthropology by the state is in some respects quite diffcrent today from the times when anthropology had a central role to play in national consolidation. The multiplication oí state-funded anthropological insritutions in the 1970s and 1980s seemed to respond more to the growth oí the educational apparatus and

distribute land and to mediate in labor and land disputes.

The year 1968 marked a watershed for Mexican national anthropology because the student movement reflected a shift in the relative importance oí Mexico's urban population. Correspondingly, the magníficos and others no longer called for absorbing Indians loto the nation, but argued for a more theoretically inclined anthropology. In fact, each oí the major moments oí Mexican anthropology, from the científicos to the revolutionaries, to the anthropology that blossomed alter 1968, has involved a "theoretical inclination." Each has looked to the international field for inspiration or for authority, and intellectual leaders at least have had direct connections with the most prominent leaders oí the international field. The apparent paradox, however, is that once theoretical inspiration is channeled into the national anthropology model, dialogue with the international community gets reduced to conversations with arca specialists at best. However, as 1 have shown in detail, there are causes oí substance that restrict the relationship between national anthropology and its metropolitan counterparts, for the relationship between these two sorts oí anthropologies has more often been one oí mutual conveniente than oí true dialogue, because anthropologies that are devoted to national development must consistently choose modernization over cultural variation, and they must balance studies oí local culture with a national narrative that shapes the institutional framework oí the fieid. In 1968 there was momentary awareness oí the conceptual and political confinement that was embedded in "national anthropology." However, De eso que llaman antropología mexicana was still, unwittingly perhaps, a version oí a national anthropology: "Our anthropology has been indigenista in its themes. Even today it is conceived as a specialization in particular

13ordering Border,ng on

Antbropology

A 260 = 261

problcros. Lnligenun u is atumizin;; and it t, id, to intcrprct its materials in an isolated lashion i tu sí núsmos. In.iolo!ion, h,t, rejednl ibe compara tive ntetbod t n t i lbe global w:alysu o l ti,, roud:n 1 r. .a Ími oro particip rte.`'" By emphasizing che comparativa methoct 111050- crtOs s retained che sense oí the national m-hsdc that was indispcmablc boite to nretropolitan traditions and

12

m,Mexican nationallst anthropology Thev retained, in otherwords, che liolistic prentiscs that werc lato c riticized hy Appadurai and others. Not surprisin Iv tlien che hnl phasc ol Rlcaican nacional anthropology 1'icOs -hOs s,as in exp ttsisc niumcnt 111,1t liad a number oí things ¡Ti common with the hcad} days ol C atnio. lo¡ che anthropology of those years liad to rcinvent a nation that no longer liad an indigenous baseline but was still centered on taking conunand ot projects oí national development. The cal] tú develop a holistic and coniparative study oí "che societies in which Indians participate" was thereforejust as prone to the vices of bureaucratization, theoretical sterility, parochialism, and co-optation by

Provincial Intellectuals and the Sociology

che state as indtjenisino liad been Today there is no longer a viable way oí isolating tire nation as che anthropologist's principal political and intellectual object, and Mexican anthropology has to diversify its communitarian

of the So-Called Deep Mexico

horizons and rcinvent itself.

In an eloquent book that quickly became Mexico's best-selling anthropological work, México profundo (1987), Guillermo Bonfil portrayed Mexican reality as an overlay oí two opposed civilizations: a subordinated civilization that stems from the millenarian agrarian culture oí Mesoamerica and that has a variegated set oí locations and permutations in contemporary Mexican society, and another, Western and capitalist, civilization. Bonfil explored the characteristics of che Mesoamerican tradition in the contemporary setting, usefully disturbing categories such as Indian and mestizo, and then proceeded to show how that civilization has been shut out or marginalized from Mexico's dominant civilizational scheme. His book calls for che reassertation oí the Mexican tradition in the critical contemporary moment, and thus his analysis feeds directly into today's political debates. My argument with Bonfil's book is not merely academic. The image oí a deep versus an invented Mexico is a key trope in a specific kind oí nationalist language that stems from a justified rejection of the social and cultural impact that multinational capital has had on Mexican society. Despite the ample justification for a nationalist reaction to current trends in Mexico, however, the "deep" versus "artificial" imagery stands on very shaky sociological ground and therefore is an ineffective political alternative, despite its obvious ideological appeal. Bo rletin^

o,

An ti2to po lagq

=2i,2=

=263

=

i There is a sense in which BonhI's civilizational approach is merely a refashioned inversion of Che modero st trope of tradition versus modernity,

ent sorts oí places and the major transformanons that regional and national systems have undergone

sharing premises with formulations such as the Chinese road to socialism"

1 propose to meet Chis challenge by focusing in Chis chapter on the ge-

or "the japanese way to progress." Ir can be read as a cal] for pragmatic

ography oí two interconnecred social categories: intellectuals and public

accommodations berween local forros of social organization and grand

spheres Specifically, 1 wish to exemplify how a fine-grained analysis oí the

strategies for progress and indust vial i zar ion, while it simultaneously claims

dynamics oí cultural distinction in a small region helps us to understand

the moral preeminence oí rhe local tradition over the grand narratives of

the ways in which local publics are articulated to a national public.

capitalism and socialism. From un analytic perspective, however, Bonfil

Intellecruals and forms oí puhlic discussion depend on and reflect the

does not offer a detailed formulation oí Che dialectics that have existed be-

geography oí cultural distinction, and by studying their nature and con-

tween so-called tradition and modernity since rhe inception of a modero

texts we can understand why some social groups have no voice in national

mentaliry in Che late eighteenth centupy or since the inception of capitalism in rhe sixteenth century -

public opinion. It is only by specifying these mechanisms that we can at

One worrisome conseque rice ol Chis shortcoming is that the political application oí Che "deep versus invented imagery must ultimately rely on

once criticize tire current political and social systeni and avoid a simple primordialist nationalism that offers little promise oí efficacy and many political dangers.

a system uf reflned discrim ina tions wherein certain privileged subjects,

1 shall interrogare Che history oí distinction and community represen-

usually nationally recognized intellectuals or pohGcians, are placed in a

tation in localities from the municipio oí Tepoztlán, Morelos, that, because

position of interpreti ng Che true national sentiment. Because it cannot ex-

oí their varying size, locarion, economy, and position in tire state's admin-

tract Mexico from Che world capitalisi system, Che "deep Mexico" image

istrative hierarchy, represent different niches of Morelos's regional political econorny.

tends to re-creare or revitalize Che sort of authoritarian nationalism that was characteristic oí the period of growth ander import substitution, a na-

By looking at Che historical development oí ?hose communities' inter-

tionalism rhat had many positivo aspects, io be sure, but that is bankrupt as a viable political formula roday

nal mechanisms of representation, 1 hopo to help develop Che rudiments oí a geography oí intellectuals in Mexico's national space.' 1 have chosen a

However, Che very case widi which 1 Nave formulated this criticism

rural and semiperipheral arca to initiate Chis geography, because insuch

may obscure Che intuitive appeal of rhe imagery of a deep versus an in-

regions one can discern Che contexts for Che emergente oí persons who

vented Mexico, an appeal that undoubtedly stems from the ascertainable

can articulare local senriment to state discourses and vice versa. In small

fact that large sections of Mexico's population are and Nave historically

towns it is also easy to specify some oí Che difficulties that aspiring intellectuals face in that process.

been shut out oí the national puhlic sphere. They have been "muted," and are correspondingly absent from Che dominant forums of political discussion and public debate and Nave little access ro Che media of publicity.

Definitions

These forms oí exclusion have been denounced both as a rather subtle form oí racism and as infernal colonialism. In sum, "deep" and "artificial are images that re-creare an obsolete and unpromising forro of nationalism, while at rhe same time they are at least successful in indicating and denouncing profound rifts in Mexican society. The question is, how can we provide a wcll-grounded sociology oí these processes oí political and communicative exclusion? Conceptually, the challenge that we face involves understanding Che ways in which the national space is articulated, both politically and culturally. che various and diverse forms of political representation and discussion that exist in differProoi r.ciel Inirll; ctuals 264 =

I wish to begin by clarifying my usage oí two terms : pubiicspbere and intellectuals. For Che first term , 1 quote from an article by Geoff Eley who, following Habermas, says: By "Che public sphere " we mean first oí al] a realm of our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed - Access is guaranteed ro all cirizens. A portion of the public sphere comes finto being in every conversation in which privare individuals assemble to form a public body. They then behave neither like business or professional people transacting privare affairs, not likc members of a constitucional order subject to

Provicrial lnie llrc taats 265 =

the legal cutis train tc ol a s tate buteaut rae, t 1]tzcns behave asa publie b, ,!v when thee ennfcr in an 11 n1(e)r111, 1 roshum-tira, n, with the guara,,¡,, at freeelom nl ...... 'rv .ind ; sst r 1 nr,n and thc Ircedom to express and puhlish lhcir opl nio hs -aP=,u1 'tuuc: ol ge ns-ntl inturest. In a large pldslic liudo 11111 klnd ul 1111nmnti.1uon rc luu as spcu llc nteatu tur transmitting tnlormauon and 1ntl uc lit, ng, thosc whu reeelve ,t Today newspapcrs and maga-roes. radio a1•.d 1 A are d e ntcd,a of the puhlic sphere.

rent latid froni Spanish hacendados or ranehers, and 1 Nave found not one Spaniard, or anyone using the tide of "Don" or Doña registered in the birth, death, and marriage reatrds found in the local parish (starting in tic carly seventeenth cenrury and continuing wtth come interruptions into the mid- ntnetecnth ccntulo There was some basis lor gami ng greater prosperity in those communities through politics. The post of alcalde carried with it exemption from tribute payments, and there are documents that sugges t that ,hese alcaldes

As for the seconcl terco l have- trnmd May Wchers definition of intel-

ntay occasionally have pocketed son te inoney in their mediations with tire

lectuals to be the ntost usetul tor nto purposes here. for Weber once de-

cabecera and, particularly, in their organization oí cooperative efforts for

fined intellectuals as "a group ol nten vvho by virtue oí their peculiarity

the cabeceras church and church lestivities: some alcaldes paid villagers less

have special access tu certain achicvements considered to be'culture val-

,han they in toro charged for candles and wax pi esented to the church, for

ues,' and who therefore usurp the Icadership of a culture community-'"

example.° However, the most substantial cases oí corruption in Tepoztlán's

Thus we are concerned with two dimensions. the representation oí com-

history all occur in the Villa of Tepoztlán and not in its dependent hamlets

munities, and the cultural values chal can he suf licientiy difficult to acquire

(sujetos).

and sufficien tly iniportant to authorizc one ndividual's representation

In the hamlets, political bosses gained their positions because oí their centrality in a kinship network: they were elected from and by the local elders.' They were thus centrally located and deeply identified with local society, and interna) rifts probably reflected divisions between families who aspired to those central positions, much as they do today.

while di sauthori zi ng anothers^ Because intellectuals as we define them here are concerned with the representation oí communities hy virtue. oí specific culture values, an understanding oí local-leve) intellectuals necessarily requires a look at local systems oí class and cultural disti ncti un. 1 will discuss localities that

This situation changed only in certain respects with independence.

correspond roughly tu two major types of places in the region oí Morelos:

Local inhabitants were no longer legally classified as "Indians" then.

the village oí Tepoztlán, which was until recently a peripheral agricultura) town and is a seat oí municipal power (cabecern); and the hamlets oí Santo

Moreover, starting in 1856 with the creation oí the civil registry, people

Domingo, Amatlán, and San Andrés de la Cal (all oí the municipio oí

communal land were registered for the first time in 1857, and then again

Tepoztlán), which are small nucleated villages that surround the municipal

in 1909.8 On the other hand, the political equivalent oí the old Indian alcalde was now named by the municipal presidents to the post oí ayudante

cabecera and that were, until recently, occupied almost exclusively by peasants and farro laborers. 1 begin with a discussion of the hamlets, and will

adopted Spanish last names en masse, and privately controlled plots oí

municipal and received no reniuneration.

sent workers to tire mines at Taxco and Cuautla under the repartimiento sys-

Although we know little about the expansion oí haciendas in earlynineteenth-century Morelos since John Womack's view was first contestad, in the case oí Tepoztlán there is evidente that haciendas encroached on the municipio shortly after independence' In fact, the ejido latid that was given back to Tepoztlán after the revolution in 1927 was a restitution for this postindependence land invasion. It is possible that hacendados oí that period either wanted to force more laborers to work for wages or, quite simply, that they felt that che chaotic political situation at the nacional and regional leve) allowed them to get away with invading Indian communities. Thus, inhabitants of those villages that bordered en hacienda lands were possibly more latid-hungry in the nineteenth century than they

tem oí corvée labor. Local latid bases were mcager, villagers were forced to

liad been earlier.

proceed from diere to the municipal seat.

intellectuals and Ibe Representation of (onmtunity in Morelos The Hamlets For most oí their colonial and modern history, inhabitants oí the hamlets in the municipio oí Tepoztlán have peen parí of a single class , oí a single culture. During the whole colonial period, diere were no economic elites in the hamlets' Inhabitants were peasants, they were also involved in animal husbandry and in selling wood to nearby haciendas and ranches. Villagers paid tribute to tire Marquesado del Valle, and for some years also

Pr0vln. rai

ii1el 266 =

P rorillucrl 1atellectu 267 =

On the other hand , internal community differentiation does not seem to have grown during this period . The registration oí lands would seem to

in the municipal seat, and this was reflected in the issue of intellectuals and the intellectual representation of communities.

point to a tendency for a weakening of communal links in favor oí the for-

There are no known local intellectuals from these villages for the

mation a " prívate sphere " and its corresponding inhabitant : the "citizen."

preindustrial period. Schoolteachers who worked on and off in these

This was , in any case , the liberal agenda behind policy changes . However,

places were hired irregularly by local families and stayed even more irregu-

it is difficult to ascertain whether or not those changes had a significant

larly. Starting in the 1950s, the villages began producing a few school-

impact either en community or on local society in the nineteenth century,

teachers oí their own. However, the ministry oí education's placement

for thesc villages were al] highly endogarnous , and there seem to have

policy works against hiring nativos in local schools-at least in the early

been communal policies not to se]] local lands to outsiders . 10 Moreover,

stages oí a teacher's career. None of the hamlets ever had a resident priest,

the registration oí plowable l ands as private property in fact simply for-

and the posts oí ayudante and-after 1927-of communal lands represen-

malized the arrangement that existed in die colonial period , while land

tative were not particularly associated either with literacy or with intellec-

that was not arable retained its communal status.

tual leadership (although reading was always an asset), but rather with

These policies were reinforced alter 1927 , with agrarian reform, when inhabitants of some oí the hamlets reccived lands in restitution for what

social centrality within the hamlet or with personal ties tu Tepoztlán's municipal president.

the haciendas had taken a century carlier. Communal tenure was also of-

We can understand a little more about the social spaces that were avail-

ficially reinstated , and a new local official, the Representante de Bienes

able to aspiring intellectuals in these hamlets by looking at recently gen-

Comunales, was charged with ovcrsccing in assembly that made all deci-

erated ethnographic information. In the early 1980s, Santo Domingo

sions concerning local communal lands- Resistance against selling large

was divided into two factions, one that had sided with a modernizing

tracts oí private lands to outsiders remains a factor even today , as land de-

Presidente de Bienes Comunales, who had opened the communal forests

velopers have discovered en more than one occasion . 11 In sum, the ham-

to commercial exploitation in order to pay for the road that allowed

lets were socially quite homogeneous during the whole colonial period,

motor vehicles and electricity to come up to the town for the first time,

and finto the mid-twentieth century.

and the faction that opposed him.'° Interestingly, these two factions were

In the decades following the introduction of che first industries in

identified in spatial terms with two sides oí the village, and each side was

the region, beginning in the mid - 1950,, two new economic groups

known by an animal narre: the tecolotes (owls) were en the eastern side, and

have emerged. out-migrants who retain local ties (returning either en

the xintetes (lizards) en the western side. The reasons why this factionalism

weekends - if they live in Mexico City or Cuernavaca-or seasonally, if

between conservatives and progresistas could be made to coincide with a spatial division oí the whole village can be found in the relations oí kin-

they are working in the United States or Callada ), and political mediators who acquired new significante in the processes oí connecting the villages

ship and patronage around the political leader-whole core oí support

to modero life ( in the construction of the villages road, in bringing

was mainly near his own residente.

schools and electricity, etc.).

Now, up to this point, the category oí "intellectual" would be very

Major political divisions , which in the hamlets have always been

problematically applied in Santo Domingo: local cultural values were not

linked to competition between major families , now pitted "conservative'

susceptible to being controlled or monopolized. The people who had

factions-who sought to maintain communal land, forest , and water re-

gained the respect oí the entire community had done so en a strictly con-

sources intact-against progresistas ( or "modernizers "), who justified com-

sensual basis, and they could not lord their knowledge over anyone with-

promising some oí these resources or even consuming them entirely, in

out losing their capacity to represent that person.

exchange for the advantages and comforts of progress and civilization.

In my own ethnographic work in the municipio in the late 1970s and the

These factions are common both ro the municipal cabecera at Tepoztlán

early 1 990s, 1 learned that there is a discourse on "respect" that is often

and to all oí the hamlets . However, the specific connection between con-

generated when one interviews a person; for, in interviewing someone,

servative and progresista factions en the one hand , and the history oí cul-

there is implicit acknowledgment of the other's authority. Many people who

tural disti nction en the other , was somewhat different in the hamlets than

want to reaffirm their right to represent the community to the outsider,

l ror',,,

, ,al

i li t,

268 =

^nals

Provincial ( ntellece als 269

arad especially to ara educated outsider hogin or end their parley by saying

are almost exclusively found in the town next dooe On the other hand, in

somcthing like "In [his tosen es eÍv-one n.pens me That's heeause 1 re-

Borne factionalized villages, like Santo Domingo during the 1970s and

speet evers one I-veryone knosas mc inri greets inc. and 1 greet everyone

early 1980s, curanderos tdentilied closely with local factions, and witchcraft

There is no one scho doesn i n.pee t me and so on However it some-

accusations tlowed between them_

times happens that when somc^,'te c¡si dise uvcrs who vou Nave been talking to, he orshe proceeds tl) dise edit the individual in question and to

In other words, either curandero power is closely associated with political power and can be used as ara instrument oí it, or else the curandero seeks

svarn you about taking hico seri,,ueis It ie Indo wonder that Oscar Lewis's

ro be disassociated from political identification and use bis or her knowl-

iniormanis told him that kedlields mani i nlormant had a head full of air

edge for the benefft of any taller If the curandero uses his art to gain world-

1 tu turra Nave been told that 1 Lwi , ;nionnants v,ti pulling his leg, and I

ly power, he will be called a witch by his political enemies and in chis way

know that it has been said that 1 spoke tt,e, mueh with a mara who is not

his authority to represent the communiry gets subsumed under the power

even a "real Tepozteco." When authority is based on respeto, it is always

oí a political faction. It is only in the second case, when the curandero re-

consensual, and if au intellectu al pases his or her authority exclusively on

nounces the active pursuit oí political power for himself, that the curandero

respeto, he or she will only very oecasi o nally be successful in "usurping the

can become a successful local intellectual.

representation oí a culture communit." An intellectual whose basis is strictly consensual can never be prof essiona 1 ized.

Because oí the fact that curing is seen as a gift that is magically revealed, the whole organization oí curanderismo as a system of knowledge is spatially

In the hamlets, positions of l eadership and access to knowledge were

simple and not amenable te) building a bureaucratic or quasi-bureaucratic

1imited to a certain circle of people. con]posed usually of married men,

hierarchy. localities have one or more curanderos, whose power and effec-

and often oí married men with ma ny grown brothers and sisters or chil-

tiveness for both good and ovil purposes are contrasted with those from

dren. Within those circles, howevec the only roles that involved control-

nearby villages and hamlets. These curanderos are al] members of the peas-

ling cultural values that were not easily accessible to the whole age group

ant communit and they are usually not devoted exclusively to their cur-

were those of healer (curandero) and witch (brujo). Since the 1950s, school-

ing powers: the money or species that they get from healing complements

ing has hecome another way of acquiring some scarce cultural values, but

what they caen from farming, wages, or small-scale commerce.

schooling also tends to lead one out oí the communiry and finto skilled

There is a second leve) oí healers who Nave regional, or sometimes

urban jobs or bureaucracies that Nave very few local institutional spaces.

even national and international, reputations. These healers sometimes live

Having good or evil powers over health and the body was traditionally

in larger towns, and they can charge very steep prices. A healer oí this

seen as being available to people by, one of two means: either one is born

kind who operated in Yautepec in the 1980s, and who was much sought

with a calling (it is said in Santo Domingo that a child who is born with a

after by Tepoztecans, earned roughly the equivalent oí three months oí

morral, or pouch, under her ami is destined tu hecome a person of knowl-

minimum wages each working day.t'

edge; twins too are believed to be born evith these powers), or one could

These professionalized healers or witches have clients from the hamlets (people who were not cured by their local healer, or who mistrust the local healer because oí his or her connections to possible enemies) or from other healers, as well as from their local cities and elsewhere. The greater degree of commercialization oí their practices also tends ro separate them from local politics: they have a clientele they cater to in exchange for money, and their sustained connections to local communiry factions are often tenuous. In sum, the small peasant hamlets oí Morelos traditionally had only two social roles that could successfully amass knowledge that was not available to everyone. One was that of the local politician, whose mediating position in the power network made him privy to information and

acquire power by revelation, either through possession by los aires, by touching lightning, or by ingesting psychotropic substances near a cavewhere los aires dwell-and finding healing powers there. The knowledge that healers and witches Nave is thought to he revealed in dreams or in conversations with plants or spirits In other words, there is no socially standardized route that leads to this posta on of knowledge. Moreover, connections between the knowledge of curanderos and political power can be quite problcmatic, curanderos often uy tu disengage themselves from local iufighting for feas that they may eventually be isolated as witches. This is probably why it is so con]mon in the Mexican countryside to fiad people claiming that they have curandera in their village, but witches

Provincial

270

ln tellec tua ls 271 =

news that was not necessarily accessible to all, che other was che healer or witch, whose powers are not believed to be reproducible at will, and who

tourism, and a local ethnic reviva) that has been produced by intensified

is eonfronced with a tough choice: either to subsume his or per powers

economic dependence en cities and on wages, so his project has met with success.

under [hose of interna) factional and political divisions, orto withdraw trom political and factional affairs as much as possible. Consequently, in these hamlcts there has usually been a large extent of democracy ti, che forro of town meecings and discussions-a firm basis for che representation of che col lecrivity-coexisting with a very narrow platform for the formation of profession al intellectuals. Moreover, the values that need to be cultivated co gain respect within the community involve a kind of humility that Gmits che capacity of a respected man to serve an

Recently, Amatlán was officially declared by che state of Morelos to have been the birthplace oí Quetzalcoatl, renamed "Amatlán de Quetzalcoatl," and now dons a polychromed cement statue oí che god nextto the town's basketball court. Don Felipe also sold a plot oí land to an investor who built the village's first hotel and restaurant: "La Posada de Quetzalcoatl," which offers tours to visir a famous local curandera, tradicional temaxcal baths, and a naturalist diet.

artieulatory function for any extended period of time. Any attempt at mo-

Not content with these accomplishments, Don Felipe teaches school-

nopolizing such a representation by an average person is susceptible to

children the Mexican national anthem in Nahuatl, and invented a 'Tiesta

mockery and ridicule. Solemnity and respect ac che community leve) are

de Quetzalcoatl" celebrating Quetzalcoatl's birthday, held on the las[

only achieved by representing group ieclmg in a low-key, unpretentious manner, because representation gained through respeto can be taken away at will.

Sunday oí May. When a friend of mine asked a young man about his

Thus, che cultural homogeneity of che hamlcts produced a kind oí para-

partieipation in the fiesta, he undermined Don Felipe's legitimacy as a representacive oí local sociery by saying, "Oh, thats justa fiesta de Don Felipe"' (Don Felipe's fiesta)

doxical effeco on one side, nce hamlcts had an inordinately open forum oí

In chis example, we perceive che emergente oí a system oí interna] cul-

local discussion and debate-as other ethnographers who have worked in

tural difference in Amatlán-a difference between [hose who are keyed in

these sorts of places have recognizcd, o ora che other side, there is no local

to local history as a way oí refashioning the relationship oí the locality to

basis for any privileged intellectual representation oí che community and,

che national state (and thereby to tourism and other forros oí investment)

what is much woose, che cultural values chal have been accessible to all in

and those who are not. However, it is still che case that the local assembly

che village have not been thc ores that allow access co che mediated national pub'lic sphere.

and public sphere are politically connected to che outside through the ayudante, through schoolteachers, and through che conimunal lands repre-

Because of chis, che hamlers were always vulnerable to representations by individuals who had agendas that were not constructed in local public

sentative, bot they have no reliable quotidian mechanism for having their voices heard in the nacional or regional public sphere.

discussion This fact, which can be glossed simply by saying that the hamlcts had no local intellectuals who could effeccively mediare between the local community and state or prívate institucions, had two sorts oí effects. First, it made che inhabitancs of che hamlcts easily available to stereotyping by outsiders. Second in che ntost recen[ period, following the industrialization and urbanization of much of Morelos, it has meant that newly educated individuals who reside locally can also indulge in chis sort of approprration For example, the hamlet of Amatlán notr has an intellectual, a schoolteacher who married into [ce village and who has been the most active Nahuad revivalist in [own. Don Felipe has promoted che idea that the preColumbran prrest-god Quetzalcoatl was boro in Amatlán. There is a happy eoincrdence between Don Fclipes nativism, rhe regional promotion of

Intellectuals and the Representation of Community in the Cabecera This situation was never che same in agrarian poluta) and market centers such as the village oí Tepoztlán, which always had greater interna] cultural distinctions [han its politically dependenthamlets and, consequently, more oí a platform for generating its own intellectuals. Because Tepoztlán was che seat oí a pre-Columbran polity, it was made into an administrative center in che colonial period. Tepoztlán had an Indian governor, who presided over che whose jurisdiction (including che hamlers), as well as a convent that housed at least one prrest and, until che mid-eighteenth century, several monks. In addition to chis, che population density olí che village and the availability oí some land r ❑ thejurisdiction attracted Spanish settlers, oí whom there appear to have been three or four families at any one time. 15

n Provincial

Intellectuals 273

Thus, in the colonial period 7epoztlin liad two axcs around which cultural distinctl ons were orgainzeii an echnie axis (fila 1111Y opposing

voice oí [hese villagers was therefore anchored sturdily to their posinon within che community; outside tire village they were merely indios-'-

Spaniards and Indians, and in axis ot wealth and poseer 10 Indian gover-

This issue has been sugisiiicant roto che modern era. for when a peasant

nors in this arca, m e Isewhcrc in ccnttal ylcxico, tended ro come from a

is asked to speak auchoritatlvely by someone of a higher status, the

single family, [Ti tisis case che Ruias lamils' sehie h cante co acquire a sub-

response will sometimos be something like "1 don'[ know anything, 1 Nave

stantial antount oí wealth in )and, cattlc plows, horses, and houses. This family and a couple oí others rook on many markers oí cultural and ethnic

no education, 1 am foolish" In chis light, Robert Redfield's division oí che Tepoztecans of 1926 roto two categories, tontos (fools) and correctos (proper

distinction. clic ncher mcnihcrs nt che Rojas family spoke and wrote

people), is more informative iban Oscar Lewis thought, for tonto in this

Spanish as cee11 as Nahuatl roda hol,cs. lived [Ti che center oí town, mar-

contexi is someone who is not authoiized to speak publicly someone who

ried Spaniards, and adopted a Spanisli las[ sume as well as che tales oí Don

is incapable of holding a cultivated conversation with an outsider, while

and DoñaThe question oí las[ narres is Interest'mg Ion oca purposes here, because

correcto means well-mannered, and referred to people who had a status from which to converse with representatives oí che state, foreigners, and

che idea of lineage was crucial to Spanish nonons oí nobility and honor:

so oals In the colonial period, the possession oí a last name often indexed

being able to trace one's line hack to a knight who warred with che Moors,

chis distinction.19

who was a conquistador or carly scttler of New Spain, or who had on

In contrast to che namelessness oí the commoners, to their lack oí position outside oí che local community, some Indian governors sought to create a Iine, a mechanism oí distinction that would allow them to reproduce their privileges transgenerationally. They thereby took on a last name and became ladinos, that is, they hecame deft at the ways oí che Spaniards. Thus, the language oí distinction through blood, honor, and civilization was also adopted within the indigenous sphere by che Indian governors, whose representation oí the indigenous community, ironically, was founded on the Spanish notion oí lineage. The cultural values that [hese Indian governors controlled and used in order to represent the community ¡ay precisely in their bicultural adeptness: their constructed Spanishness vis-á-vis che Indians and local Spanish society, and their constructed rootedness in che Indian community by way oí the Spanish notion oí lineage. Arij Ouweneel (n.d.), who has studied Indian governors in the Valley oí Mexico, has found documents certifying lineage and family Crees for [hese Indian governors. Despite the paucity oí our knowledge oí che question oí intellectual representation in che eighteenth century, it seems likely that there were no channeis available for an institutionalized production oí local intellectuals that mnght represent che community by virtue oí their cultural values. AII mediation was in che hands oí che Indian governor, who was elected by virtue oí his lineage and wealth and was not che representative oí a "culture community." The only local intellectuals that could access privileged cultural values and use them to represent the community were either those

sorne occasion served Chrlscendom was o¡ ten critica) for claiming noble status, and Spanish commoners who cante co the New World sometimes transformed their place oí origin inio a las[ name that became the inicial point oí such a Iinc. In contrast to chis, Indians in Tdpoztlán did not bear las[ narres at all, hut rather were baptized with compouncl first narres, such as José Diego or María Gertrudis, and these narres were not inherited. Thus, when a censos taker or a local inhabitant wantcd lo specify which José Diego was being referred to, the name of che plot en whieh his house was built was uttered. José Diego Limontitla, for exaniple, oí José Diego Tlalnepantla. f-iowever these house-sitos could nos funccion strictly as a paternal last name for the purposes oí honor and lineage because-although the preferred form oí residente alter marriage is and was patrilocal-there always has been some neolocal as weil as uxorilocal residence alter marriage. In other words, the house name could not function as a reliable marker oí lineage; indeed, the image oí a line or lineage among most Indians was difficult to maintain. Instead oí chis, chere were large barrio families that were mainly but not exclusively connected through che paternal line, and communalquasi-¡ami lial-identity at che leve) ot che barrio or village was thereby enforced. Thus, if an Indian commoner leh his or her own village he or she would have nothing but a given name-no family history, only communal history. The ensuing lack of familial honor was sure to disauthorize chal person's speech and had che effect oí blending che individual into an urban mas,- One could not speak publicly if une was a "nobody." The Prc'p,n

i, ,i In:riierluals 2?q

listed in out discussion oí che hamlets (i.e., the "respected mas" and che curandero, with al] oí their intrinsic limitations) or che priest and the teacherPronlnC,al

Intellectuals 275 =

Howevet; in the colonial period , access to diese Iatter offices was denied to Indians. Thus , che intellecrual represenmtion oí the community toward rhe outside was monopolized hy (acoles and Spaniards . The rest were mostly tontos. Given all of chis, ir is easy to understand how and why open contestatren oí che representation of che community could lead to violente. In 1777, Manuel Gamboa , lépozdánc residenr priest , decided to give limestone that liad been collecred by villagers in communal faenas to the priest oí nearby Tlayacapan ter his church _ The women oí che village, who felt abused by the priest on many counrs , turned over the lime cart, provoking tic priest roto a rage that he venced by beating one oí the women wirh his cave . This prompted Tepoztecan men roto action, and was the spark ot a rebellion that led to che destruction oí much property and to severa) deaths , The lack of a communal voice that could authoritatively counter that oí che priest madc way for a violent confrontation. On the other hand , the presente of a priest ( and oí schoolteachers in some periods) meant that there was an authoritative voice that could represent the village, and Chis voice would be heard regardless oí the assessment of Indian governors and oí the villagers themselves , as is obvious in che trials thar followed che rebellion . In these trials , Gamboa used his authoritative portrayal of rhe villagers as parí ot his defense che Indians were idle drunkards couples lived in sin for tmwo ycars before getting married, they sold their children to pay thcir debts , and so en. Meanwhile , villagers were not asked or authorized to produce a cuunterrepresentation oí themselves and their defense was limited m a series oí accusations against the priest?Ó In sum , Tepoztlán had a firm system oí nrcrnal cultural and class distinction that contrasred with that of che hamlets . Tepoztlán also had intellectuals from early on , most importantiv , its priests . However, in the colonial period , riese intellectuals were outsiders , and so we get the same sorr oí cleavage we had in che hamlets between the authority oí village public opinion and the authority of (external ) intellectuals representing che village.

Independence broughr sorne changes ro chis situation . Most important, che fusion that had been under way between che wealthy members oí che Indian nobility and che local Spaniards seems to have been accomplished rapidiy . Tepoztlán was socially and culturally divided roto two groups : che common people ( or "d c vulgar class ") and los notables This Iatter term is interesting not only becausc it was che national term for prominent citlzens , but also becausc ir eflectively fused che political preemi-

nence oí che old Indian political elite (who used to be known as principales) with che racial-cultural pretensions oí che Spanish ethnic elite (that used to characterize itself as a class oí gente de razón), The term notable implies both che political preeminence oí a principal and cultural distinction oí a de razón. In che 1 860s, Tepoztlán's notables were a group oí about thirty tiren and their households, al] oí whom belonged to six or seven families that descended both from che old Spanish and Indian elites. These notables monopolized the function oí political representation (municipal officers and distinguished members oí the militia oí chis period), as well as at least some oí che intellecrual funetions: local schoolteachers carne from chis group, as did che one or two Tepoztecan professionais who were trained during che porfiriato. Furthermore, although priests continued to come from outside rhe community, which was standard church policy, the church's policing and representative functions were much diminished by the Iatter half oí che nineteenth century, and we find the priest acting in consultation with che notables; he becomes one oí them.

In other words, in che ninteenth century we get for rhe first time a space for what could be legitimately called small-town intellectuals in Tepoztlán: the interna) dynamics oí distinction produced cultural values dar could be controlled and used to "usurp the representation oí che community." These values were by and large che inherited marks oí civilization from che colonial era (literacy, urbanity), but rhey were now included in an ideology oí progress that opened che way for a dialectic between commuoity developmenr and nation building. The maro intellectuals oí nineteenth-century Tepoztlán belonged to che same Rojas family that had sired Indian governors since che seventeenrh century. Shortly alter independence, a Rojas was involved in helping che village organize litigation against neighboring haciendas that had misappropriated village lands. Literacy, che Spanish language, and mcmbership in che local política] class allowed him to represent che village tu che outside in a move to protect its communal lands.

The second, and best-known, intellecrual oí the family was José Guadalupe Rojas, who was che village's main schoolteacher for about forty years, and who was centrally involved in giving shape to al¡ of rhe "progressive" social events and organizations oí che new positivist age, including educational church missions, cultural societies (usually named after nacional or state political figures oí che time), and the publication of severa¡ short-lived periodicals José Guadalupes brother, Vicente Rojas, was also a schoolteacher in che village's second school_ His nephew Mariano became a teacher oí

Prooi

= 276

Prooiaciol

Inlellectuals 277

Naiuad in Moteo (itvs .Nau..nal !rlcncun. in che 1920s and autiored a

nationalist mythology while it invoked urban values shared in the nacional

short Nahuatl wordbook tiat is snll in eirc til ati on Anuncer member oí[ che

public sphere) such as literacy and urbanity, hoth to redeem che community

lamily, Simón Rojas was said te haC u beca pioseni at thc signing of Zapatas

el its ignorante and to construct the intellectual's own social importance

flan de Avala It is signilica nt tu note thot Clic role ul niany oj these uolal,lrs centered

January 29, 1865- The schools board had collected money to pay for

This strategy is exem plificd in a little event that Rojas recorded oí]

on che defense ol dtc community aga,nst hacienda cncroachmcnt, as well

prizes that were to be distrihuted to the students and che teacher at the

❑ s the defense ot clic comnuinltys p,liti( al s:,ll and vote at the scate leve].

end-of-the-year celebration. These collections were a financial burden for

In chis regaré therc is a collapsinp ot clic intcrests ol local intellectuals

che members of the board. most of whom were poor leven when notable):

and local politianns that conn's a. ith indupenelenee.

the schoolteacher had pone severa] months wirhout pay The board met to discuss whar prizes to huy, and, alter careful delibcracion (these delibera-

This is owing Lo Clic tacs that Clic local nol,ala i, were by no means wealthy Irom a regional point uf viccr. being vasdy overshadowed by ha-

tions being, as they were, taken as signs oí instruction, morality, etc.), sent

cienda owners and rich nierchants Moreover, retaining control of the

Juan José Gómez on a sixteen-hour hike to Mexico City to huy twenty-

local political apparatus rema'med crucial for much of the local elite for,

nine bouquets oí artificial flowers.

like the Indian governors before them, perks ron control of the new

This event epitornizes che cultural relationship between the country and the city, at least as it was seen from che intellectual's point oí view. The prizes are flowers, which are very much a local product (Tepoztlán is full of flowers, all year round), made permanent through specialized work. Artificial flowers were, in Chis context, an urban commentary on flowers (and, metonymically, en Tepoztlán): they are worth re-creating, they are worth enshrining, they are worth cultivating. They are valuable. And this, more generally, is what local intellectuals set about trying to do to local traditions and culture. By taking a local productor value and elaborating it in che city, and by taking a local product that was so valued in the eity that it was the subject oí elaboration, Rojas was simultaneously building a link between the local and che nacional culture and constructing bis own role as representative and mediator. Like the villagers who authorize their speech by insisting en how much they are respected, Rojas too was preoccupied with being taken seriously. To say that an event had been solemn was, to him, the highest praise, and yet che fact that he persistently noted whenever solemnity had been attained suggests that bis capacity to represent was fragile, and that laughter could shatter all his efforts and expose him to public ridicule-a fact that reflects the limications oí the authority oí small-town intellectuals

municipal offices, including che pussibiliry ot appropriating communal resources, were a significant source of wealih and resources-as, indeed, they still are today. The case of che ceacher José Guadalupe Rojas helps to illustrate che dynamics of incellectual represencarlon in Chis era for, although his diaries span a short pcriod (1865-72), an imporcant transformation occurs in his outlook during chas period. In tic carly portion of che diaries, Rojas is continually redeeming the people He sees the 'vulgar class" as being composed basically of peace-loving people who wished co work in peace, and whose limications (what we today would cal] their culture') could be remedied through titanic efforts in education. This education was meant to pul] the lower class out of its lethargy and ignorante: the habits oí che vulgar class (including their language, which at chis tinte was still Nahuatl) were markers of ignorance In 1869, a visiting priest who was on a cultural mission publicly asked Rojas to make simultaneous translation into Nahuatl for him Rojas says that he was ashaned te have been put in Chis pusitiun, but that he complied. However, only one year lacer, Rojas decideci lo teach reading and writing in Nahuatl in his school, and generally bogan co emphasize che grandeur of

oí chis period. In Morelos, che revolutionary outbreak oí 1910 in come ways produced a temporary dissolution oí local communities, but it also intensified regional intercommunication between what we might cal] che popular public spheres. This was achieved through inedia such as the corrido ballads that

che native culture and its noble position at thc root oí Mexican nationality. This is an imporcant moment in Clic history o( local intellectuals for, until 1870, Rojas was still fu nda m en tal ly inspircd by che teachers and priests of che colonial period: representing che community to the outside, while trying to destroy its native culture. Stanine witli che movement for

circulated throughout che region, through the publication oí leaflets whose contents were shared in che same meetings where corridos were sung, and in

Nahuatl literacy, Rojas-and most local intellectuals who have followed him-hecame involved in a dialeetic that rooted che local community in P r o i i , .. I n i , - . i

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the installation oí a kind of peasant common law in Zapata's headquarters and camps that was then transmitted to the villages as common law2'

In the case of Tepoztlán, particlpation in Chis regional peasant public sphere was consolidated in the immediate aftermath of che revolution Agrarian reform laws enshrined communal )and tenure and led to the formation oí regional peasant confederations iAMoreover, the political legitimacy that Zapacismo attained in the 1920s and the flight to Mexico City of a significant portion oí the old cacique class, also strengthened peasant representation oí their communities However, ir was still certainly the case that the main tensions surroonding the intellectual representation oí the community were between a l action oí modernizers and che more humble "conservatives" who sought to retain communal independence from politics and from the outside world. In this region, the main novelties ol the period were (1) that the pos trevo luti o na ry progresistas were now niuch more persuaded oí Rojas's nativism than they had been in che past, because the idea of totally ignoring and depreciating the nativo culture was politically much less sound alter the revolution than it had been carlier and (2) that tire local peasant assemblies had more power than they had ever had in the past. 1 first encountered the local conservative perspective during field research in 1977. At that time, tire dominant view of politics among the local peasantry was that there were three tepes oí political actors: politicians (who were exploitative and lived off of other people's work and did not fully belong to che local commtmity), ci'npesinos (who lived in households, belonged co barrios and villages, and respected each other), and pendejos, or idiots, who took what politicians said at face value, and therefore lent themselves to their abuses In Chis view, the campesino was the only "clean" social persona available to a Tepozteco, for the campesino eats what he produces, minds his own business, and defends his communal rights_ On che other hand, the only honest politicians are necessarily risking eheir lives. Marryrdom is the only ultímate proof of cleanliness in politics. Because oí this, unless and antil martyrs such as Zapata returned, tire bcst forro oí political participa-

Tepoztecan schoolteachers and-beginning in the 1960s-professionals returned to the village and forged some links oí communication with the local peasantry, both because they belonged co that social group and by using the "artificial flowers" technique. Moreover, the decade of the 1930s was one in which peasant revolutionaries began to lose their grip en the Morelos state government, and increasing bureaucratization and professionalization set in. In this contexc, intellectual mediators were required to communicate between state bureaucratic agencies and local consticuencies. Beginning in the 1950s, the literati became aspirants to municipal power, and they effectively edged out peasants from the main municipal offices. This process was accomplished, no doubt, because universitytrained Tepoztecans had a much better chance oí knowing people in the governor's inner circle than peasants did, but it was also the result oí pressure exerted by people within government in favor of naming only officials who were professionals, preparados. Peasants were believed to be incapable oí managing the paperwork and the legalities oí public administration. As long as the position oí the educated Tepoztecans prospered, which was until about 1980, the split between correcto-like local intellectuals and the peasant public sphere was largely maintained, although coexistente was usually peaceful, and alliances were often made to defend common interesas. This vas largely because the power base of the local peasantryits control over communal lands and its privileged position in revolutionary nationalism-was maintained to a significant degree. The situation oí the local intelligentsia has changed since that time for several reasons. On the one hand, che peasantry has been in a trae state oí siege. Planting has become too expensive. Work options as wage laborers in Tepoztlán (in the construction industry, in gardening, and in housekeeping), or in Cuernavaca, Mexico City, the United States, and Canada, have become increasingly important, even to educated Tepoztecans. Land prices have skyrocketed along with tourism and with the suburbanization oí Tepoztlán, making selling very attractive and buying back almost impossible, and the legal framework for local communal tenure is now threatened.

non was believed to be collective icvolt and resistance around the defense of specific rights.2 Tepoztecans Nave revolted on many occasions against encroachrnent on communal )and. against tate management oí communal water, and against severa) urban development projects.23 Contrary to what occurred in most hamlets, the institutional basis for local Tepoztecan intellectuals grew signilicanc]y as carly as the 1940s .

Many peasants svere able te) educare thcir children, and a fair number oí

On the other hand, teachers salaries have plummeted and competition between local professionals has intensified, so that pressure en the local and state government from these sectors is increasingly unmet. As a result, in the 1980s, Tepoztlán got its first f ill-timejournalist, who began writing a biweekly column en Tepoztlán in a Cuernavaca paper, and who had a local weekly significantly called El Reto del Tepozteco (the challenge oí El Tepozteco). This name contrasts with the narres oí various previous, very

1'raoi^ : ci,iIr ielir-tuels 2HU

p ... .tia l L+tellectua ls 281 =

short - liveef periodicals such as Cl (, ramo dr Al, 11,1 or El T,pozleco , because whereas carlier leafleis stresscd rinly that Tpoztlán was a microcosm of the nation ( likc a grain ol sand i and that it could stand for the nativo roots
Analysis By looking at two different types of settlements in the municipio of Tepoztlán 1 have argued that the existente of small-town intellectuals, their nature, and their connections to both local politics and the national public sphere can be appreciated by inquiring finto the history of distinction in these localities, and by connecting the mechanisms of cultural distinetion lo the policies of the state.

The contrast between Tepoztlán and its surrounding hamlets unfolds in the following manner: Because of its position as the administrative center oí an indigenous jurisdiction, colonial Tepoztlán had a relatively powerful ¡odian nobility that was absent in the villages. Tepoztlán also had a resident priest, severa) Spanish families, andan occasional schoolteacher, all of whom promoted a complex system of interna) cultural difference, which nonetheless could produce no local intellectuals. This was because (1) community cultural values were easily accessible lo all adult men, (2) some cultivated values could not ser-ve as a basis for community representation because they were banned by the church, and (3) the niches that could be occupied by intellectuals-that of priest and that of teacher-were off-limits to Indians. The hamlets of the municipio had no such system of interna¡ cultural and class difference, and, owing lo that very fact, they had no way of generating intellectuals who could effectively articulate local opinion lo influence Spanish policy. In both cases, then, one found political mediation, which relied en state power, serving also as the main form of cultural mediation. After independence, the situation changed. Tepoztlán's cultural and politico-economic elite became unitied, and chis allowed for the emergence of the first truly local intellectuals. In the hamlets, the lack of an internal economic or cultural elite, as well as of local schoolteachers or Irovioeial l,i ieilrriuals

priests, meant a prolongation of the rift between local public opinion, which was in certain respects tormed quite democratically, arad the national or regional spheres ot diseussion, del iberatio n, and policy formationLiberal policies tried tu chango Chis simation by doing away with communal lands, and the institutron ot surnames and the registration of private property signal some degrce of success in [hese policies. However, in the municipio el Tepoztlán, the erosion of the communities was not successfully cotnpleted by the end ol the porfiriato, and the split described earlier was strongly reaffirmed with Zapatas revolution and its populist aftermath.

In the village of Tepoztlán, ora the other hand, the nineteenth century spurred a new development of forms of cultural mediation. Whereas in the colonial period the priest was the utmost intellectual authority, and whereas in that era collective religious ritual was the main forum of mediation, nineteenth -century schoolteachers used nationalism and progress as the tools for building ties between the locality and state and private institutions. This explains why José Guadalupe Rojas, whose acts were initially comparable lo those of a Spanish schoolteacher or priest, decided to take the nation's a nativistic turra and to identify the local popular culture with historical roots. His move has a family resemblance lo the one that insists en seeing Mexico as divided finto a "deep" and a "moderó' country: in both cases, cultural and political marginaliry is equated to historical antecedence. Rojas, however, used his outlook as a modernizing device: position in the nation would strengthen Tepoztecan social lile; Tepoztlán could claim such a position because of its pre-Hispanic roots, but the whose purpose of the claim was lo modernize. This dialectic guaranteed a position for local intellectuals , because they could stand between national opinion and the local community, as indeed they still do. There has been still one important change since the míd-1980s, though. The abundante of trained Tepoztecans combined with shrinking state resources and very significant transformations in the overall class composition of the locality led to factionalism within the professional classes. At that point, access to media became crucial, and Chis explains the revitalization of the local press.

Conclusion: Intellectuals and Political Mediation in tbe National Space The historical analysis of the spatial íragmentation of Mexicos public sphere can be achieved by studying the ways in which culture communities have created or failed to create spaces for local intellectuals who can speak in and lo the national public sphere and who are not themselves simply Provi=a cial In telteciuats 283 =

282 =

power brokers This history is a cor,plex one, bur 1 suggest that there is a lorm to it, and that Chis forro can bc discrvered if we look closely at the formation oí regional cultures and hack ofl from che homogenizing image oí one deep Mexican civilization The postindependence project of creating a national public sphere, that is, a "media-scape" whcre civic opinion could be expressed, involved creating a unified cultural con, niunity ^.-hcre norte existed. This is why Iturbide, who was Mexicos hrst national sovercign, complained that there was no Mexican public opinion, out rathr-r a handful of diverse prívate opinions that claimed che status oí bcing a national opinion. It is also why Iturbide felt that Mexican national sentiments were only truly expressed during popular uprisings. In othcr words, the channels for communicating hetween different local communities werc extremely limited and accessible only to a few. f sople could only express their opinions effectively by force. The image of a "deep" Mexico, oí a Mexico that finds no expression in either national political iorums or in che niass inedia, can thus be traced backtuindependence. In this chapter, 1 have developcd the nidimcnts of a historical sociology of the silente that has characteri zed thc relationship oí certain sectors oí che Mexican population and state institutions. The methodological premises ot my analysis can be summarized in three points.

1 For long periods, che hamlets could only produce intellectuals by a kind oí interna] consensos that was formulated around a language oí respect, whereas the municipal seat had a more sophisticated forro oí interna] differentiation that fostered an intelligentsia from the very ear]y colonial period on. 2 During the colonial period, the institutionalized positions for intellectuals in the village oí Tepoztlán were al] in the hands oí Spaniards, and off-limits to the local population. Because of chis, it is fair to say that a truly local intelligentsia with an institutional base did not emerge there uncí] che national period. 3 Identification oí local society with national culture became fundamental for the reproduction oí local intellectuals during the nineteenth century, and it has remained critica) to this day. The formula at which Tepoztecan schoolteachers arrived at was simple: local traditions are at the very root el Mexican nationality, but only the developed branches can instruct and extract the unpolished province from its sleepy backwardness. Local intellectuals were the needed mediators oí chis re]ationship: they rendered the image oí the "deep Mexicu" back to the urbanites, national intellectuals, and state officials who so esteemed it, and in return became effective brokers. The "deep" versus "artificial' imagery is therefore a favored trope oí

1 A geography oí mureness nceds to be developed to give well-

intellectual mediators and it is a tool that has been used both to de-

pondered content to the deep versos official" imagery. If such a

fend local culture and to argue for "progress" and modernization.

geography goes undeveloped the imagery neeessarily devolves

4 Despite the persistente of this formula oí mediation, it has always

finto che nationalisr miasma that Iturbide and all of his successors were inextricably caught in -

had limited local appeal. Tepoztecans have at times disidentified

2 Such a geography can be developcd by analyzing the emergente oí

both with che modernizing impulses oí some intellectuals and with therr insistent nationalist nativism. Don Ángel Zúñiga, a local intel-

intellectuals in various typcs of communities or localities. It in-

lectual who is devoting some efforts to teaching Nahuatl, has found

volves speelfying che systems ot iniernal cultural distinction that

more interest among middle-c]ass urbanites who have migrated to

exist in each localized community and then identifying the culture

Tepoztlán than he has among native Tepoztecos. Similarly, Don

values that can serve as the oasis for the forniation oí an intelll-

Felipe's ce]ebration oí Quetzalcoatl has received a range oí responses,

gentsia that can aspire to represcnt che community. 3 The analysis also involvcs ascertaining whether the culture values

including a fair amount oí apathy from many vil]agers. The fluctuations in the acceptance and fervor with which che projects oí these

in question articulare smoothhy with [hose that prevail among intel-

intellectuals are embraced are a necessary object for future study.

lectuals in che centers of national power as wcll as with the state's

5 The formula oí the intellectual as thc respected man is undoubted]y the one that has most interna] appeal in peasant communities. However, it is Chis very democratic appeal, combined with the class and cultural chasco that divides peasant communities from urban centers, that guarantees an unstable, contested, and ultimately unroutinizable intellectual leadership.

culturally constituied idioms of rcpresentation. When appbed to che case of the n onicipal seat of Tepoztlán and to the hamlets oí that wunicipio, [hese propositions yielded rich resu]ts 1 would like to cunclude by summarizing a few ol them

Y r o n i n ^ i a l 1,t 285 =

s

Signilieant portions ot thc pupiifition ul hoth Tepoztlán and its hamIcts still have no voicc as citizem. Instead, thev are representcd by poliGcal mediators :+nd interllectuals huye nrgnuations with the government occur in a dlfterent languape nu ,Ti, should hclieve what poIiticians say, according lo peasant consetvniscs Instead set conversing wlth diem, local constitueneies have litde choice hui to engage in very pragmatically calallated t ra n sacio ns wheie^ Ches retase ce rtam resourees or co ncessions in excbange for thcir voicc The preceding discussion suggesl, 1 thlnk ruar che ternt silent Mexico is more useful and precise rhan decp Hesito The silent Mexico has no historical priority over the ram bu nc ticas pa rtici panty in the public sphereNor is it a root oí nationality - It siniply comprases che various populations that lave beyond che fracturad fault lino of Mexico's nacional public sphere. This situation does not imply that [hese populations are marginalized

Notes

from participation in state instUtutions: it nicans that they have no public voice. The "silent Mexico" is organized around certain systemic principies that can be perceived in che organization ot cultural distinction in the naINTRODUCTION 1 José Limón , American Encounters : Grealer Mexico , tbe United States , and che Erolics of Culture,

tional space.

52-57. 2 A standard philosophical reference for this general point is Oilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari , A Tbousand Plateaus : Capitalism and Schizophrenia . A detailed anthropological study that develops this criticism closely around a specific case is Lisa Malkki, Purity and Exile Violente, Memory, and fltational Cosmology among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania. 3 Octavio Paz, El laberinto de la soledad, 13. 4 A nation-state is made up oí a sovereign people , its trate, and as territory. However, "a people" is not a stable entity, and neither are its connections to a state and territory. ldeally, che nation - state is a territory in which the inhabitants are communicated in such a way that they can concert opinions that give direction to government ( this is called "che public sphere "). Government , in turn, is organized in such a way that it can rationally administer the entire population . Both oí [hese imply spatial hierarchies that should, in theory, be isomorphic . Thus, the public should be smoothly integrated from local levels up tu che national leve¡, with no regard for class differences , while the national state should have an organized system of administration down to local levels requiring no additional mediation for che implementation oí its authority . Finally, this unit as a whole needs to shape its representation in an international arena In such a way that foreigners and foreign interests operating in the national territory can be managed , and that national interests that reach beyond territorial frontiers are protected. The national space is the intersection betureen che geography of che national public, the spatial organization of gooemment, and tbe nationstates situation in Je international arena. 5 See Dipesh Chakrabarty, " Provincializing Europe . Postcoloniality and the Critique oí History," 337-57; and Harry Harootunian , Hismry s Disquiet Modernity, Cultural Practice, and the Question of Everyday Lije.

P r o n i ','r''

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286

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287

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6 Javier C,arciadiegu summanzes rhe dnvin., arras of tire National University's foundci Justo Sierra, as lalloccr. "F^r dan Jtntu ihe arco of rhe new institution was thc integral education of ihe ¢udents a1,11 nos only die advanre oí ,trence, a fact thai distanccd hico from rhe posilir i,,, ,A1,ruovcr ihe university should devote much attention in rhe social rcal,(e of clic country" (Rudo, contra técnicos la Unroersided Nacional durante la rrooh,nd„ masrnn.,. - 1 1 my translation) The dehnltion of the "Great National Prohlems has varied solista ntial ly since the inauguratiou of chc National Univcrsiry i n 1 9 1 0 hui chc universuvt nc,corica¡ committnent to studying and to solving them is a enastan[. S'c Dzv.d Lorcy, The Unmersity System and rhe Eeormmic f),,,Icernent nf h1 exiro erra e rn o 7 Lawrerice Lcvi rae, 76e Openirtg of ti, Aniei iron ,bliud Estimas, Cu l tive and History, ehapter 8 Arjun Appa dura i, "Thcory in An[h ropology Centcr and Periphcry," 356-61. 9 For a useful eatalog si U 5 st,reo,iypes si¡ L aran America, see John Johnson, Lata America i i (-ancature 1o For chc significa nce nf ,trence a, a sigo in a parallel context (India), sec Gyan Prakash. Anotber Reinan Serence,nid ibr fic,Jlnat,oti of,N(odern Eedia, ehapter 1 11 Katherine Verdery. National IdeoleT y io,Jer So„altsrrr Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceauscscu4 kornania 167-68.

12 Paul Krugman"Mexims New Dea1 .",A4-mYorkTnnrs Op-E,1 July 5, 2000 Kmgman somewhat disingenuously argues tliat che true purpose of free trade was ro bring democracy co Mexico. "now we knOW that. whaiever ihe slns of Mr Salinas, the reformen tic hroughi ro power were sincero--and the reform was real" 1 3 On clic icor la rities between rhe threc t andldares, sec Jorge Castañedas arguments in "Esta Ti, rs una elección de principios; es un referéndum para el cambio Proceso, 10- 13

searching for differences in che social organization oí communieation in various classes as a key to underscanding nationalism, he incorrectly assumes that some forms of community are "concrete" while others are "imaginary," Al[ communitarian relationshi ps are based en an idea of rhe social whole Chas is imaginary,- and "rhe nobility" oí bis example was much more reliant en systemic "replications" than Anderson imagines. So, for example, all legitimare descendanrs oí che conquistadora and early setders oí tire Indios were officially considered nobles (hilos dalgo) (Las Leyes de Indias, book 4, riclc 6, law 6). Likewise, it was poliey to reeognize and maintain the status oí chc Indian "nobility" (ibid., book 7, fide 7, law 1) In short, rhe nobility oí che Spanish colonial era played as systemic a role as the bourgeoisie, which mean[ that it burgeoned wherever it was needed to maintain a local hierarchy and state organization. The grandees of Spain were surely as ignorant oí rhe identities of the descendanes oí first sertlers or oí [odian nobles in Chile as the menibers of che bourgeoisie of Barcelona were of che identity oí their class counterparts in rhe Río de la Plata 4 Real Academia Española, Diccionario de la lengua castellana en que se explica el verdadero sentido de las voces . _ Madrid, 1726-39 (1737), 5 For an illuminating discussion of the relationship between anclen régime and modero, ideas regarding sovereignry in che Spanish and Spanish-American world, see Frangois-Xavier Guerra, "De la política antigua a la política moderna, la revolución de la soberanía," in Fran@ois-Xavier Guerra and Annick Lamperiére, eds., Los espacios públicos en Iberoamérica ambiquedades y problemas, siglos XVI11-XIX, 109-39. Guerra has shown that throughout tire nineteenth century, Spanish America combined elements oí an ancien régime and oí a modero polity. A similar point has been made by Fernando Escalante, Ciudadanos imaginarios. Contemporary Latín America is also

1 NATIONALISM AS A PRACTICAL SYSTEM

1 Anderson goes even htrther, and denlo, that racial Identity and racism are connected in any cesential way te nationalism ''1 t)hc lact oi che matter is that nationalism rhinks in tercos oí historical destinres whilc cism dreams oí eternal contaminatiene The dreams of racism ncrunlly havc their origin in ideologies oí class, rather tiran Ti, [hose of nanon" ( 1904 149-10 `E. 1 hall argue that Chis assertion is uncenable in clic Ihcrian world 2 "Out of che Americao welter came (hese imogmed reaGties _ nation - states , republi can instimGOns , eommon citizcnship , popular sovereignry, nacional flag , and anthems, etc and rhe Ilquidanon oi [lis Er Conn'ptual opposites, dynastie empires, monarchlcal institution, absrrluu-mi -1111,dnods Inherited neshilitics , serfdoms,

nos without examples of tensions between competing claims between ,rafe sovereignty and che traditional rights of corporations and communities 6 See Annick Lamperiére, "República y publicidad a fines del antiguo régimen," 55-60. 7 A good case in point is rhe use oí the cagle eating rhe serpear as rhe symbol for Mexico Ciry . Enrique Florescano (1996) has studied che evolution oí chis symbol in che colonial period, and he shows that rhe Aztec symbol was used preferentially oven rhe coas oí arras that has been assigned to che city lince che early seventeenth

century. The use of chis indigenous symbol as rhe local symbol also buttressed creole identity This symbol was eventually written into che flag oí Mexico in lieu oí Hidalgos Virgen oí Guadalupe, or oí Morelos's "Viva la Virgen María." 8 Rey works en chis master include Brading 1991, Lafaye 1977, and Lavallé 1993. ghertoes , and so forth In effen h, chc second datada of the nineteenth century, 9 ladead, rhe Spanish constitucion that was prometed in Cádiz in 1812 defined if role' T he' a'model ' of'the' independent natiunal tate was availahle for pira ting" Spanish citizenship in such as way as to include in equal tercos those borra in any (Ibid, 81) parí oí rhe Spanish dominion (article 18; in Tena Ramírez 1957, 62). Aljovín (1997, 3 At times Anderson appears to heLeve that [heme is such a thing as a "concrete" ver2-4) discusses rhe decline of Andean Curacas at rhe end of rhe eighteenth century sus an " imaginal'y " contmuni sy The relatively latan size of traditional aristucracies, in che context oí che Bourbon stare's goal oí eliminating rhe power oí all institutheir hxed political bases , and rhe person al iza uon of polrtical relatioos implied by tions that brokered che relationship between rhe date and its subjects. sexual i ntercou tse and inherita lee . meant ( hae their cohesions as classes were as 10 For example, in both che Constiturion of Cádiz (1812) and Mexicos Centralist much concrete as imaginad . An ill itenw nobiliro could still actas a nobility. But the Constitution (1836), servanes have nationaliry (Spanish and Mexican, respectively), bourgeoisie ? 1 ¡ere was a class whidt, hguratiyely speaking, come unto being as a bus in neither case were servants cirizens. class only in so mana' replications Ihid 7.. Althougli Anderson is shrewd lo 11 For che saliente oí individual communities as primary referents oí identity in che

Notes t o C h a p t e r , 288 =

= 289

wars nt mdcpcndenc.e set L0c Van 1ocng I 'iSO 11,1 thc ways in which communny or corpurate idcntitics orterlocked wich nauonalist chscourses. see Florencia Mallon. Pemm^l and t¿,1 -•n: Ti's \I ,in :l lrec md Prru chopters 5 and 7; alto 1sealantc ( I:dm!o: rr rtrr.v',': `'-- I I ' and 4n carly formulat:on of cite .. t) t ...romo uchu argucd that Benito luárcz's tra.. problum ras set t... 11, bv Ildn.. uniph ovar che 1 rench in 186, mtst ur 11 I nuulcred a seeond independencc,' e0t simply in lita rente that 91c.srr seas (real licor a torcign invades but, much more fundamontally, botarse it represen tcd che tnumph of liberal republi anism ovar a classical re pubhcnnlan VA c orino ras then, that d Miguel Hidalgo is the fuunder ol OUTJ natlonalrte Hl nio l maro e Es tito Inundar ni repubhean natronality. whreh in nota as we knu w. rt ,ll Ihe srm duo 19('11 , 86:. i2 See, ter Florencia,Nlallon cls. ussiunnt' popular Lberalrsm ronineteenth cenmry Mexleo and Peru (1995, 13w, and Gua¡ dintis discussion oí popular federalism between independence and 1850 i 1996. 179-94) 13 See Fleisher ( 1992) Clearly, early modero nat lona) tsm differed considerably in England, France, and tire Nethcrlands Stephen Pincus (1998) interprets the Glorious Revolution as che hrst nacionalist revolntion, rather [han as a religious war. Englands early separacion of natiunal asir' and rcligion reflects che fact chal it never hoped te achieve a universal monarchy. as Spain and che Otcomans did; thus, co a certain degree one could say that a religious nationalism is at che origins oí che Spanish imperial state, whercas a revolutaonary, secular form nl nationalism eleveloped in England. 14 "It ought tu be well pondered hoy, wathont any doubt, God chose the valiant Cortés as has instrumenc for opcning tito door and preparing che way leí che preachers oí che gospel in tire New World, where che Catholic church might be rescored and recompensed by che conversions ot many souls for che greac loss and damages which che accursed Luther was lo cause at che same time within established Chritianiry . Thus it is not without mystery chal in che same year in which Luther was boro in Eisleben, in Saxonv, Hernando Cortés saw che light oí day in Medellín, a village in Spain-the formar to upset thc world and bring beneath che banner of Sacan many oí che fanhful who had buen for generations Catholies, che latter lo hring oto che bid oí che church an infinita nember oí people who had for ages been under che dominion uf Sacan in idolatry, vice, and sin" (Mendieta 1876, 3.174-75, my cranslatiun) . 15 Laws distinguishing subjeca oí tire Spanish crown Irom foreigners were equally precise (e-g book 3, title 13, law 8)16 It should be noted, however that [hese pmcesses were by no means a simple constan:, and that che politics oí differentiacion between "Peninsulars" and "Creoles" responded to varying kinds oí interesa irnclud1ng, for instante, interesas in prolonging encomendero privilege aher che second generaron; interest in keeping Creoles out oí certain religious orders or away l rom cerrarn political posts). These interesas waxed and waxed at various times and places, in such a way thac there were places and times when a "Creolc" was simply a Spaniard, oaher moments when "Créele' was used pri nci pally as a discriminacury terco, and yet others when American-boro Spaniards criad m affirm che equalhv, and oven tito superiora ty, oí their land wich respect to Spain, Rome, or odres Furopean locatimrs (see Lavallé 1993). 17 The natura el American lands and ti therr intlucnce on che characcer oí che

halesro

Lhaprurr 290 =

Amerlcans was a po1emaca1 suhrect in scienti11 crre1us fronc che time of nitral conWarld tact to the carly twcntrcth c,ntury Sec Antoncllo (,,e(,,, Nano, in che 01,e, World: ()iriado, and Ti,, 1ispule of lb, New de From Christopher Columtus to (.ora:do Fenlández The Hintory of a Polem I o-rvnu 18 The literatura cxalrnt_ American lands at times alto refashions che connections between the American and ideo. 11... has beca scudied ,, detall for Mexico hv Lafaye ( 1977, chapter 1I and hy David drading (1991, chapters 14 and 16). In che Andean world, Lavallé ( 1993 1221 notes chal "Many Crtoles believed thac their patria could be con,pared to tire Flysian 1 ields. wich che Brbles paradise. There was in chis for sume a mere lirerarv style - Fur othcrs. thcre could be no douht. to paradise it roes the earthly paradise ol che Amcnca should not he ,, rnp,rred Sc,,ptwcs(emphasis in che onglnal'..

19 Raphael Semmes, a soldier in ti re U e, army, described che reception thac was given co US. troops by Mexico City's elites in che following tercos "The Calle de Plateros, through which we marched to the grand plaza, is che street in which all che principal shops are found, and although [hese were closed, che gay curtains chat fluttered froto che balconies aboye ... (almost every house had prepared and hung out a neutral flag-English, French, Spanish, etc-as a means of protection), and che fashionably dressed women, who showed chemselves without the leas[ reserve at doorways and windows gave one che idea rather oí a grand nacional festival, [han oí the entry oí a conquering army finto an enemy capital" (cited in Luis Fernando Granados, "Sueñan las piedras: alzamiento ocurrido en la ciudad de México, 14, 15 y 16 de septiembre, 1847,") The "neutral flags" were meant co signal co LI.S. soldiers chal che families in question were alto foreign nacionals, usually by virtue oí descent20 Charles V famously claimed thac whereas German was appropriate for speaking co horses, and Italian was ideal for courting wornen, Spanish was for speaking co GodThe term ladino alto provides a clue co che sacralization ti Spanish, because it was used co refer co Jews, Moors, African slaves, or, laces, Indians, who spoke (neo)Latin, that is, Spanish (Lavallé 1993, 19). A discussion oí che history oí che citle'Rey Católico" and oí its significante for Spain in its competition wich France can be found in Pablo Fernández Abadalejo, "Rey Católico: gestación y metamorfosis de un título." Jaime Contreras argues chal Spain's persecution oí heresy under che Reyes Católicos can be understood as a política] appropriation oí the church: "Concerns with'heresy,' which were initially oí little consequence, became a fundamental butiress co roya' law' ("Los primeros años de la inquisición: guerra civil, identification between Christianity monarquía , mesianismo y herejía," 703). On che and Spanish civilization in che so-called spiritual conquest oí Mexico, see Peggy K. Liss, Mexico tender Spain, 1521-1556 Society and the Origins of Nationality, chapter 5, especially pp. 77-82. 21 Antonello Gerbi (1985 267-68) remarks chal Fernandez de Oviedo contrasted che grandeur oí Spain wich thar of ancient Rome, noting thai Spanish Goths were Christians and were martyred while resiscing Roman paganism. Thus, in che sixteenth century, Spains nacional identification with the Christianity was made co rank higher even [han Rome's 22 Anthony Pagden has shown chal talle of a universal nionarchy was never universally accepted in Spain itself, and chal it war extinguished as an impracticable ideal by che end oí che seventeenth cenwry. However, he alto argues that Spain's ideological

Notes t o C h a p t e r a 291 =

role as guardias o( universal Chnsrendom Formeci an importan[ part of rhe ideo logical armacure of what has some Llanos in hong che hrst European nation state' (Spanish Imperialism and the Political lmagnn,tion 5; 23 The Laos of ¡be Indios provide an i nteresong example of how Spain reconciled the simultaneous development between enipires though time with a Catholic universal ism Much of the legistature that was promoved by Philip IV (at a time oí imperial decay) shows punctilious conecto with public oration and repentence for public sins, as mechanisms to reanimare ihe empire and, perhaps, also as potencial explanations oí its po1irical shortcomings For example, book 1, titie 1, law 23 (passed originally in 1626) orders viceroys and church authoddes to celebrate oí November 21 every year with a Mass to che Holy Sacrament, in which priests call on everyone no reform rheir "vices and public si," in order ro thank God for his clemeney in allowing Spanish ships to rcach che Indies unharmed. 24 More thorough and convincing iban Andersonc emphasis on che populari zation oí

Spanish America was that it should nor fall out oí Spanish hands too quickly. The fact that Spain would eventually lose those territorios was, for Jeffersoo, a foregooe conclusion The United States needed time to gain strength in order to annex as many Spanish-American ten'irories as possible (cited in Fuentes Mares 1983, 34-35). 27 For a descripbon that Ilustrares sume similariries between [hese ideas and those expressed in indigenous messianic revolts oí chis period, seo Eric Van Young 1986, 402. 28 Silvia Arrom, "Popular Polis es in Mexico City The Parián Riot, 1828," is an illuminating discussion of popular politics and anti - Spanish sentiment in this period. 29 Masons appear to be present in Spanish America since the 1780s, though in the Mexican case it appears that rhe deputies who were sent ro rhe Cortes oí Cádiz in 1812 were critial in rho (onnation of Mexico's lodges of che Scottish rito

"emprytime through rhe newspaper and rhe novel is Moishe Posrones discussion of the vise of "a bstract tose,' a hisrory, that is telated in parí to the development of tech-

30 Joel Poinsett to Henry Clay, June 4, 1825- Dispatches from US. Miniscers to Mexico National Archives, Washington, D.C.)-

nology, in pare to the Newton ian sc ient itic revol cnon, and ul ti mately to the history

31 The lodges had achieved such a status, that at che news of the death oí the Duke of York, Presiden[ Guadalupe Victoria, who was a yorquino, published an edict ordering

of contmodihcarion, and especially to rhe rice ot abstraer labor." At the most general leve], Postone suggests rhat che emergence ot rime as an "independent variable"

the presiden[, the vice presiden[, rhe members oí rhe Supreme Court, state gover-

"was related co che commodity torna ni social relacioní" (1996, 211). If we apply

nors, district officers, and army ofhcials from the rank oí colonel up to wear a black

these ideas to Spanish America, we eonclude ihat rhe consolidarnos of "abstraer rime" has been a long process, thac has only beca unevenly achieved The process

hand of mourning (Primera secretaría de Estado Departamento esterior Sección 2, May 19, 1827).

began with devices such as administrativa relorms, was strengehened in various waves oí modernizing relorms with che rice of a bourgeois public sphere in the late eighteenth century, and eventually w,th rhe conwltdacion of industrialtsm SpanishAmerican independence oecurred somewhere ii. che middle of this process 25 Antonio Domínguez Ortiz i flumi naces chis siwatiom "The social thoughr oí en1ightened Spaniards was flor radical It did not ]aim rhe total suppression of barriers between the estafes, because riese wene cruntbling of rheir own accord bastead, it seemed more urgen[ to struggle againsr economic differences chal condemned a great portion oí the population to misery This loes flor mean that pride in nobility had disappeared but thcy no longer used nohiliry Cides as excuses ro refuse common charges, privileges could nnfy be justihed if rhey were employed for the good of che naciun'' (Carlos 111 y la España dr I„ llustraoón, 120-21). Domínguez discusses the significante oí stace projects and knowledge producrion in chis period in chapter 5 See alto Sranley Stein and Barhara Stein, "Concepts and Realities oí Spanish Economic Growth, 1759-1789." 26 The fact that a nazi onalism and a nar]ona1 prograna were nor a conimon denominator even among Mexican insurgencs has been demonstrated by Edc Van Young, who has shows rhe central,ry hoth of local indigenous revolts whose claims with regará co state building were in fact the oppositc ol rhose of che crcole directorate (1986 386, 412), and of an ti nidcological criminal ur brigand element whose participacion was entircly opportunnoc 11989, 36-37) The role oí opportunlstic rogues and the criminal elenaent in indcpcodeoce is also pungently demonstrated by Archer (1989). On rhe other hand Spanish American independenee was pro dictable oven hefore indigenous social miwements gor srarred and hefore narionallsts really heated up As early as 1786, Fhooas Jelfe noo's ,nain preoccupation regarding

2. COMMUNITARIAN IDEOLOGIES AND NATIONALISM This chapter has been translated from Spanish by Paul Liffman.

1 Max Weber, Economy and Society, vol. 1, 40, 41-432 Annette Weiner, Inalienable Possessions; Marcel Mauss, The Gifiu Forros and Funrtions of Exchange in Archaic Societies. 3 Alfredo López Austin (TI, Human Body and Ideology, Concepls of rhe Ancient Nahuas, vol 1, 74, 79, and generally 68-83) summarizes the tensions between rhe communirarien ideology oí the calpulli and che imperial ideology oí rhe Aztecs. 4 Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Coloquios y doctrina cristiana, 151 5 López Austin, Tbe Human Rody arad Ideology, vol. 1, 207 López Austin also mentions that "the han oí prisoners taken in battle could also be kept as relics for che purpose oí giving Che captive's powers co Che captors" (221). 6 In chis connecrion, it is interesting to note the determination with which Spanish missionaries combated polygamy. without polygamy, rhe possibility oí constructing supracommunitarian alliances in the indigenous world was reduced. Perhaps it was not accidental, chen, that che first play presented in New Spain was an ejemplo againsr che sin oí higamy and any infringement oí rhe seventh commandment. For a discussion oí the conrents of chis play, as well as oí its production and impressive Ceehnical effects, see Othón Arróniz. Teatro de la evangelización en Nueva España, 23-30. Ross Hassig (Aztec Warfare Imperial Expansion and Political Control) offers a number oí examples of the use oí rearriage as a strategy oí alliance among the Aztecs Following Chis logic, Mocrezuma hiniself tried to marry one oí his daughters to Cortés, but rhe latter declined che offer on account oí the fact that "he was already married" (244).

No.,s Iv .ba 292 =

Notes t o C h a p t e r z 293 =

7 In Chis ,,ad thc Aztrc unpirc umtr-nts wM1h huth thc classic .hayan k,ngdoms, sehere ssar seas can exiles v ac tisis el thc tmtouacy. and a-ith che luotihuaeán model se e alntmt thc s5) hule s.st i appeals u, bave hico meritoeratlc. Pora coro Prehe nvcc trcatnAlt ol ssar in IP 1 lislsanic pceod. suc Ross Hassig. ,A lesos ni eu..w 11'vfar 6 However. O,nly nwdcm Spanish u„ s i roca ,ruin dillerute bus, curten[ notions. Although za was related ti, heredite. che tiro- ,ti,,, had a negadvc slart, hecause raza seas somcnmes understoud ne a s;vhle dilas t in physlcal appearanee that was a mark Ilt spietual 111t enontr. Thus th terno siete 111 1 1 readily used co meter co leves, Meo,, hlzcks u.Indians (1, TI o¡ l nd C.Inn;i,rs sebo had ,.sla. On the other hand had bluod cnuld he ir:,pci, d s,.mc s'ce by m favorable cnvironmcnt.

9 Sec. sor e,,antple. Edgar Lo ve on m.. lag,, hits: can blaeks and other Gastes Ti, Mexico Coy: Marnage Patierne ol Pers<sns of (\rfican Descent in a Colonial Mexico Ciry Parish," 79-91. 10 For examples of che latter, sea David .A Bradings discussion ol the ways in which the Spanish merchanc bequcathed tl:er businesses tu theu daughters' [borran husbands, while their creole sons besa,, can tdle aristocracy (Minera and Mercbants in Bourbon Mexico , 1763 - 1 9 10) . 11 Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán , La pobla,tm: negra de tVléxicu

1519-isnr, 157, 160-61; che

semi bozal is che same as che word lor hridle oc muzzle in Spanish and has the connotation of inexperience whcn app]ied to a horse or mole It also may be that che term referred to the tact that Atrican speech sounded Itke gibbertsh (voz or hoz referred to vosee, speech, shouting. ntouth, muzzle, etc.).

12 Ibtd., 157. 13 Ibtd_, 280-92. See also Coln Palmer, Slunes of tbe Wbita Gol. Blacks in Mexico, ts7o-a65014 Jaeques Lafaye Ouetzalceatl y Cuad,a6ipc la formación de la conciencia nacional en México, and David A. Brading, Piral Amneric,s Ti, Spanish ,'sIonarcby, Creole Patdots and che Liberal SIate, 1192-1867, chapter 16.

15 José María Luis Mora, Obras sueltas, vol. 1 152-53. 16 For a discussion oí race issucs in Mexico, Almo Knight, " Racism , Revolution and Indigenismo. Mexico, 1910-1940," in Tbe 11, of Race in Latín Amurica, 1870-1940, ed. Richard Graham, 71-114. 17 Andrés Molina Enríquez, Los guindes problunas nacionales, 344 18 They were more Indican chao Spanish for several reasons, hrst, hecause che number oí Spaniards in colonial Mexico was ahvays smal lar [han che number of Indians; secund, hecause che Spanish componen [ ot the mestizo roce was transmttced almost exclusively by orales, whcreas che indigenous clamen[ was reproduced by both females and males ; and third, hecause 'mdigenous mees survived in large p erts oí che country that wh lte caces had heen inca pable ot t nhabi ring In th is latter argumenc, Molina Enríquez formulares quite explicidy che idea that Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán developed ondee the ntle of "regions ot rchige ¡bid i 19 "The mestizos will finally absorh the Indians and they wtll conrpletely tuse the Créeles and che loreigners residing hiere wirh thcir oven race_ As a consequence, che mestzo race shall develop wirh liherty ( )nee this oso, nos only will ir: tesis[ che inevitable clash wirh the North American ras-e, hut tn chis elash, It wtll win" (ibid.,

3. MODES OF MEXICAN CITIZENSHIP

1 Roberto DaMatta. Cnrio,ds. Rognes and Heroes, 137-97, and, lor a lato and more elaborated version, A casa e u ruu Espi o, cidadania, rnulher e morse no Brasil. 2 The lame saytng exisrs to Me,,,,, aod has heen attributed to non, oth e2- [han Benito Juárez Mexico's must tamous liberal Fernando Escalante (Ciudadanos imaginarios , 293) discusses what come ti) be known o Juárezs day as "La Ley del Caso. shas is, che dtserettonaty application ol the law as che law 3 Thus che relationship hctween che government and die press is most often descdhed as une ot "colluson." rathcr chao of simple represslon (though repression has a)ways exisced,i A guod summary el che relationshmp hctween che press and che government o provided m Raynumdo Rrva Palacio. "A Cultura of Collusion- The Tics That Bind che Presa atol rhe PRI," 21-32 4 "Bando de Hidalgo, Decemher 10, 1810, in Leyes) undamnotales de México, 1808-15)57, ed. Felipe Tena Ramírez, 225 These strictures are repeaced by Morelos in his Sentimientos de la nación (18 1 3) "Arride 9. AII [public) jobs shall only be obcained by Amedcans" 6 Rayón's constitution can be found in Tena Ramírez, Leyes fundamentales , 24-27. 7 Ibid, 127. 8 Fran4ois -Xavier Guerra, "The Spanish-American Tradition oí Represencacion and Its European Roots," 7. 9 Florencia Mallon, Peasant and Nation: The Making of Post-Colonial Mexico and Peru, 129-33. 10 Lorenzo de Zavala, 'Viaje a los Estados Unidos del Norte de América, 1834," 1561 1 In Pantaleón Tovar, Historia parlamentaria del cuarto congreso constitucional, vol. 1, 400-401. 12 Ibid., 306-8. 13 The discussion occurs on December 28, 1867 (ibid., 122 ). In a related discussion a few days later, Depury Zarco justifies che war in Yucatán by explaining shas "From che days oí Maximilian, it is well known shas there were designs to creare - a viceroyalry in Yucatán, an asyluni for reactionaries . These traitors toil to separare that tenitory from the republic and to instare it as a principaliry so that they can sell the Indians off as slaves" (¡bid., 137). Ironically, in order to comba[ [hese reactionaries and che Maya rebels, Juárez and his liberals provisionally legalized corvée labor and/or slavery in che peninsula. 14 AII citations oí discussions oí the First Constimtional Congress are from che facsimile edition cided Actas constitucionales mexicanas ( 1821-1824 ). Dates of discussions will be cited rather [ han pagination , which is nos entirely sequential. 15 Lic. Jesús Arellano, "Oración cívica que en el aniversario del grito de independencia se pronunció en el palacio de govierno de Durango el 16 de septiembre de 1841." 16 Ibid., 11. Curiously, che scorpion would later go tan co become emblematic oí che state oí Durango.

17 Ibid., 6. I8 Ibtd., 16. 19 Francisco Santoyo, "Opúsculo patriótico, que pronunció el ciudadano teniente coronel graduado Francisco Santoyo, como miembro de la junta patriótica de esta ciudad [de Orizaba) el día 11 de septiembre de 1842." 20 Escalante, Ciudadanos imaginarios, 290 21 Andrés Reséndez shows how, in che case of Texas and New Mexico, alnuistic appeals

352). 20 Ibid 343 my emphasis.

N o l e.

1'1

294 =

Notes t o

C h et p t e r 3 295

to national identity and shared rcllgion seere die principal resouices used by Mexico te, ti, to keep [hose terrhones in che lpublic ("Caught between Profi[s and Ritual; Nacional Contestation in Texas and New Mexico, 1821-1848" 22 On February 7, 1868, Just a lea monchs arar che execurion oí Maxlmillan vol, Hapsbarg, che project for a lag tryi u, to ritially ensheine che 1357 constitution was presented ro Congress Tire u tific,oon h,r this proposal is significan[ "it is unquestionablc that Chis talisrnan i che consntution sil 18571 that Is so loved by the .Mexican people, was the cause of che prodigi(ms valor that disti ngui shed us in che bloody war that has just passed" in locar, H;;larva parlamentaria vol 1, 398). 23 Descriptions of Porfirian ;tate theater are plenniul. lar [he boulevards, see Barbara Tcnen baum, ',treehvise History The I'aserc de la Reforma and the PorÑri an State 1876 1910," 127- 0 for che i ,r_, scc Paul 1 Vanderwood, Disorder and Progress Rundir, Pole, and ilrxican Devalol r,, lora general appreeianon oí Porfirian state rheatcr, see Mauricio Tennno-lrillo. Alexicc,d thr Worldb Pairo Crafting a Modero No dan. 24 Samuel Ramos, "El perfil del hombre y la culwia en México," 131-35. 25 Sec, for example, Larissa Lomnlre. Netmork's m,d \larginalily: Llfe in a Mexican Sbantytown, Carlos Vélez-Ibáñez. Ritual, ol h1,, ryinnÍ, ry. Potra s Process, and Gdlure Change in Central Urban Maxica, Ovan-4 1174; Antonio .Azuda, ed La urbanización populary el orden jurídico en América La l inri. 26 For a fui description oí [hese c-amira,gn nuca];, see Larissa Lomnitz, Claudio Lommitz, and Ilya Acfler, "Punctions ol clic f-orm Power Play and Ritual in che 1988 Mexican Presidential Campaign, 357-402. 27 Teday ;his version is common w,,d,,m, but lar a succinct synthesis of chis perspective, see Lorenzo Mcyer, libero bsn,o entoril,iria. las carrtmdiccimres del sistema político mexicano

4. PASSION AND BANALITY IN MEXICAN HISTORY 1 Fran4ois-Xavier Guerra, México del rmóq,m régimr.. n la revolución

2 José María Luis Mora, Obras suelta, vol 2, 523 Ibid, So 4 Fernando Escalante, Ciudadanos imayir,arios . 97-109. 5 'Decreto de excomunión de los insurgentes dado por el obispo Abad y Queipo, 1810, in ¡listoria documen tal de Mexico, ed. Ernesto de la Torre Villar, Moisés González Navarro and S[anley Ross, vol 2 30 10

Ibid, 37 7 "Maní hesm que cl señor O. Nligucl Hidalgo y Costilla, Generalísimo de las armas americanas , y electo por la mayor parte de los pueblos del reino para defender sus derechos y los de sus conde dada nos hace al pueblo (18l0)," in Torre Villar et al, Historia doctimenlal de México, vol. 2. 111- 1 3.

8 Ibid., 42. 9 Ibid 43, my cmphasis 10 José María .Morelos, 'Bando de Mordus suprimiendo las castas y aboliendo la esclavitud, 17 de noviembre de 1817 162563. 11 Luis Cahrcra, "Los dos patdolism; x556. 12 See Angel Delgado España y Alee a -l siglo

vol. 2 192, for che views of che Spanish ambassador Angel Caldcrdn de la Barca ora [hese matcers- Ambassador

Poinsett, che first US. diplomar in Mexico, arrived in che country saluting its independence and hailing che republic that was "founded on the sovereignty of che people and en che inalienable righrs oí man" (cited in ibid., vol. 1, 303), which it arguably was not. 13 Francisco Bulnes, El verdadero Juárez la verdad sobre la intervención y elimperio, 8 19. 14 This occurred to Father Mariano Balleza, a kinsman oí Hidalgo; see Alejandro Villaseñor y Villaseñor, Biografías de los héroes y caudillos de la independencia, vol 1, 5815 Antonio López de Santa Anna, The Eagle: An Autobiograpby of Santa Anna, 68-69. 16 Villaseñor y Villaseñor, Biografías de los héroes, vol. 2, 267-68. 17 Friedrich Katz, The Life and Times of Pancho Villa, 789 18 Thus, aceording to Molina Enríquez (1978, 425), "che notion oí patriotism will be determined and reduced [o the following simple terms, al] will be like brothers in a family, free [o carry out their own actions, but united by [he fraterni[y oí a common ideal, and obligated by virtue of that fraternity, on che one hand, co distribute their common inheritance equally, and, on che other, to [olerate each othet's differences 19 Bulnes, El verdadero Juárez, 856-57. 20 Juárez's lndianness was not trumpeted by Juárez himsclf, who only wrote oí chis matter in a letter dedicated to his children; however, Juárez was identified by others as [odian. 1 am grateful to Paul Ross for pointing this out to me. 21 Agustín Sánchez González, Los mejores chistes sobre presidentes, 64 22 Edmundo O'Gorman, Escalante notes that che pervasive belief in Juárez as a lawabiding presiden[ can be traced back to che porfiriato, and forward to historiaras such as Daniel Cosío Villegas and Enrique Krauze. He then demonstrates that che representation oí Juárez and oí che restored republic as an era governed by the law and the ideals oí liberal ci[izenship is a false representation (Ciudadanos imaginarios, 233; 254¡259-86) . 23 O'Gorman, México, el trauma de su historia, 33. 24 See Mayer-Celis 1995. For a superficial overview oí che history oí Mexican censures, see Claudio Lomnitz, Modernidad indiana: nación y mediación en México, chapter 5. 5. FISSURES IN CONTEMPORARY MEXICAN NATIONALISM 1 Carlos Fuentes, Where tie Air ls Clear, 21 2 For an analysis of che work oí Carlos María Bustamante, see David A. Brading, Los orígenes del nacionalismo mexicano, for a synthesis oí che nature of postrevolutionary state intervention in shaping a modero citizenry, see Alan Knight, "Popular Culture and che Revolu[ionary State in Mexico," 395-444, and for the specific case oí Michoacán, see Christopher Boyer, "The Cultural Politics oí Agrarismo: Agrarian Revolt, Village Revolu[ionaries, and State-Formation in Michoacán, Mexico." 3 Studies oí che historical relationships between in[elleetuals, poó[ical ritual, and che public sphere in Mexico are the focus oí chapters 7, 9, and 10. 4 Claudio Lomnitz, Exits from the Lahyrinth_ Culture and Ideology in Mexican National Space, chapter I. 5 During the 1980s, Mexieo's intelligen[sia experienced two contradictory tendencies: growth in the number oí institucional contexts for intellectual production, on [he one hand ("decentralization"), and, en [he other, a concenrration oí cultural power in tuco allegedly stellar and mutually antagonistic "intellectual groups," represented by che journals Vuelta and Nexos During the Salinas years (1988-94), both

N^les i baplr, a 296 rs

Nates to Chaptee s 297

Poma and Fernando de Alea Istlilxochitl argued for a kind of "protoehronistñ' with

grtxtps hall Glose relatiuns ss-nh -hc p,crrnnunt. hut Nusos's people received more concess,ons Irom thc tate. reh,le reieieed more h,s lulevisa. 6 Interestingly tisis imago -cs,tnater ti) che uan,lurmatians that Roger Rouse deserihes for U.sí . wcict, in tim 1u„1111 ,,LVU ol r:i b; •,a no. w hereby the U S. alas,

regard to Christiani ry. ciar ti ng that che Ir ancestors recognized the trae God before che arriva1 of che Spaniards Th,s tactic underlles much of Latin Americas Ind,genista thinking unce at leas[ che nmctc-euth century, and was given playfully ironic treatment in earIe 19005 by thc 13,asdian writem 1 sosa Barreo) through che cragieomie na-

structure s1 ' l1t111 aseae t -u m, a i' 1 1T 1 L,- 1 11 1 c anJ tuseard a dise ributlon that he ikens to thc chape ol a rnck,t. The,mu lata, es ame not mere eomeidence, teleeting

tionalist hero Policarp,o k Jaresnta 3 Benedict Anderson, lmagrned Cmnmunrties, 5

Instead a tundamental shifr in che c. t,s stn uure ot both countries as well as changas in thc wavs tate, i in ma1'e ul citizensh,p One signtfieantcon -

4 For example, Roger Bartras most recent book (La sangre y lo Lista Ensayos sobre la condición postmexicanaj is a colleeIr00 ol essays en "che post-Mexican condition"

trasc ber reen che teso cases . hoyes cris thar in che United States the dominan[ ima.lr ul tire class and poseer stntsturc has 11(11 liceo that of cho pyram,d. The alas,

s Dipesh Chakrabarry ( 1992' has argued for che peed co "provi nci alize" Europe in che realm el rheory and history h his rail to arras succeeds rimen perhaps the sor[ ot "grounded theory" that 1 espouse herc will in somc respeecs he more universal and

struccuru in che United States ,s ,,, dly poctrayed isumewhat appropriately) as diamond -sIbap,d, with a hroad mmddle and narro,, points at che top and che bottom Thus, whereas in che United States tiro cuncnt tos nslonnation of che iass structure is decried in mainstream newspapers as rellecting both " corporate greed" and che

social thought may go through a pisase risa[ is parallel te cho one that religion was raid to have had in antiquity: "Thc various modes of worship, which prevailed in che Roman world, were a11 considered by che people, as equally tete , by che philosopher, as equally false ; and by che magistrate , as equally useful " (Edward Gibbon,

"formation of an underclass " (that ir. che tramlonnatnon of a diamond into a pyramiel), in Mexico che dorninant imagos are simply of pillage , of taking the jewels

Tbe History oí the Decline and Fall of che Roman Empine, 35)6 European travelers te Mexico usually collected pre -Columbian objects. Contemporary producís that attracted their attention were generally seco as curious exemplars oí crafts that were distinctly European in origin , made quaint because of their

from che temple on top of che pyramid and depositing them in Switzerland. See Roger Rouse , "Thinking through Transnationalism . Notes en che Cultural Politics of Class Relations in che Contemporary United States ,° 353-403. 7 1 have developed chis point in connection ter che varying implications oí multiculturalism in Mexico versus che United States and Europe in " Decadente in Times

indigenous twist. Thus, in che 1 850s, a Mexican spur was sent to Britain by Henry Christy and Edward B. Tylor where , because of in, extravagance and size, ir was exhibited in the medieval section of che museum . See Edward B. Tylor, Anabuac, or

oí Globalizatioo ," 257-67.

gies in a number of literary forms and gentes , en architecture , en urbanism, and on che history of transnational scienrihc and artistic networks Perhaps che finest methodological exemplar of [ his ine of rescarch is Daniel Rogers , Atlantic Crossings:

Meneo and tbe Mexicans , Ancient and Modern, 295-96. 7 In an earlier work ( 1992a ), 1 developed sume elements oí [his cultural geography, aboye al] [hose having to do with che construction oí cultural regions within a national space . To that end, 1 proposed a series oí concepts ncluding "intimare cultures" ( cultural zones forged by social classes in specific interactive contexts) and "culture oí social relations" ( culture generated in the framework oí interactions between different social clases and identiry groups within che national space). The

Social Politics in a Progressive Age, huí Chis tradition has also produced a number oí more general and theoredcally inclinad works , such as Arjun Appadurai , Modeniity

topography oí zones of contact , which 1 did not develop in Exits from che Labyrinth, is an important part of the task of producing a geography of national identiry . This is

6. NATIONALISM ' S DIRTY LINEN

1 This interest in che international networks of national identiry production has produced an exciting corpus of works en che hlstory of mapping , of censuses , oí standardization of sc,entific measurements , of world expositions , oí nationalist srrate-

because national space is ie itself an aspect oí an international system, so trames oí contact with the foreign have to be understood as a feature oí production oí national

at Larga Cultural Dimensions of Globaláation , Homi K . Bhabha , " DissemiNation: Time, Narracive , and che Margins ol che Modero Nation ," 291-322 , Néstor García Canclini, Hybrid Cultures= Sirategirs for Entering and Leaving Modernity, Gyan Prakash, Another Reason, Science and tbe Imagrsacron of Modero India, Doris Sommers , Foundational

culture and identiry and not as an element external co nationaliry. 8 For che case oí che censorship commissions , see Anne Rubenstein, Bad Language, Naked Ladies, and Other Threats to che Nation: A Political History of Comic Baoka in Mexico, chapter 4. For anti - Semitisen in che movements against itinerant salesmen during the Great Depression , see Gary Gordon , Peddlers, Pesos and Power , The Political Economy

Fictions , Tbe Nacional Romances of Lain Anrerica , and Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism, to name a few prominent examples 2 In che recen [ anglophone literatura Edward Said ' s Culture and Imperialism is a wideranging exploration of che ways in whlch che colonial world was both critically important to che developmenr of "Western civilizatiorí ' and systematically diminished or denied by it. The peor nations ' reaction te these practices is oudined by

of Street Vending in Mexico City, 47, and Moisés González Navarro, Los extranjeros en México y los mexicanos en el extrae ¡ aro, 1821-1970 , vol. 2, 133-34. For the case oí che Chinese, see Juan Puig , Entre el río Perla y el Nazas, la China decimonónica y sus braceros emi-

Katherine Verdery ( 1991), who explores what sise calls "protochronism" among Romanian nationalist intellectuals , whicii es a tendency co assert that key inventions

grantes, la colonia china de Teorreón y la matanza de sea 1, 173-228; for the sacking oí che Parián Market , see Romeo Flores Caballero, Counterrevolution: The Role of tbe Spaniards

of civilization were i nvented ches r country r i both of [hese aspects oí nationalism have long been recognized hy waters and poliucians in che colonial and postcolonial

in che Independence of Mexico, 1804-3E, 119-21. 9 For che case of dmgs in che 1 930s, see Luis Astorga, "Trahcanres de drogas , políticos y policías en el siglo veinte mexicano" The Díaz Ordaz regime 's hostility to the

world- As early as che seventeenth ccnu,ry 1 ndigenous Intel leetuals such as Guaman

Notes to Cbapter e

( -L,tL lar ,; 298

=

i

=

299

=

disorder oí Mexican pop tinture is succinctly addressed in Carlos Monsiváis, Mexican Post-Cardo, 23-27 For a more detailed and wide- ranging discussion , see Eric Zulov, Refried Elvls: Tbe Rise oí che Mexican Cmmterculture The discussion of Beavis and Buttbead appeared io the nacional press in 1993 10 This is also the argument that unos rhrougb inc iHobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds., The lnvention of Tradition- Any Herderian view of nationality involves a dialectic between rradirion and moderniry .

21 Pratt coros che term contad zona "to refer no the space of colonial encounters, the space in which peoples geographically and historically separated come roto contact with each other and establish ongoing relations, usually involving conditions oí coercion, radical inequality, and intractable conflict ...'contact zone' in my discussion is often synonymous with 'colonial frontier- (Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation, 6). My own usage leaves the question oí domination and oí che nature oí inequalities in transnacional contact zones open, because the relationships oí contact are oí multiple sorts.

11 Liberals honored Hidalgo and celebratcd indcpendence on Seprember 15; conservatives honored Iturbide and celebiaccd indcpendence on Seprember 27. A detailed catalog oí ideas represenri ng both sities of ibis rift can be found in La dominación española en México.

22 The case oí architectural modernism's decrepitude in Brazil has been analyzed by

12 This relar,onship between tradition and moderniry is not exclusively Mexican. In nineteenth-century England, Matthew Arnold argued that the British national spirit was composed oí three elemento rhe Saxon, which lent it 'rs seriousness and tenaciry;

James Holston, "Alternativa Modernities: Statecraft and Religious Imagination in che Val ley oí che Dawn"

the Roman, which lent it as energy; and rhe Celric, which lent ir lis spirit and senti• mena, "[The English genios] is characierized, 1 Nave repearedly said, byenergywitbbonesty Take away some of che energy which comes te us, 1 believe, in pan from Celtic and Roman sources, instead oí energy soy rather steadiness. and you have the Gennanic genius steadinrss witb bonesty . - che danger tor a national spirit thus composed is the hunidrum, the plain and ugly, che innoble in a word, das Gemeine, die gemeinbeit, that curse of Germany, against which Goethe was all bis lile fighting" (Marrhew Arnold, "On che Study of Celtic Ltterarurc," 341)- In this some essay, Arnoldargues for che full assimilarion of rhe (_eltic peoples oto British society and for rhe annihilation oí Celric as a living language . The assimilarion oí (hese defeared peoples roto the national genius is rhus an identical move co che orle made by Mexican indigenistas. 13 Zolov, Refried Elvis, 145. 14 Examples oí how government indigenistas sought to reconfigure Chis relationship can be found in Alexander Dawson, Indigotismo and the Paradox of che Nation in PostRevolurionary Mexico." 15 "And it was quite singular that (hose Americans who so guarded the privilege oí their whire cante, when it carne to Mexico always symparhized with the Indians, and never with rhe Spantards' (José Vasconcelos, Ulises criollo, 34). 16 Arjun Appadurat, "The Culture of rhe Srate," lecture notes, University oí Chicago, 1997 17 Arturo Eseobads Encounteriug Developmunl Tbe Muking and Unmaking of che Third World, is a critique oí development as tt has breo organized since World War II. The role of development discourse (not only at rhe genera I ideological leve], bur, more importandy, asa set oí categories and tneasurements) is central ro Chis story 18 Erving Goffman, The Presenlation oí Self in Everyduy Life, 106-3419 "We don't think iris necessary to unde,In e che disastrous impression that che arrivng rourist wtll form upon seeing che spectacle of immoraltry thar the brothels, in upen air and established in an importan[ city arrery an obligatory path, offer" (cired in Kathcrinc Bliss, "Prostituí ion. Revolu(ion and Social Reform in Mexico Gry, 1918-1940"196)20 Alexandra Srern, "Eugenlcs beyond Bordees- Science and Medicalizarion in Mexico and che U.S. West, 1900-1950," and'Buildings, Boundaries, and Blood. Medicalizarion and Nation-Building on che U5 -Mexico Bordee, 1910-1930," 41-81-

Beatriz Jaguaribe, "Modernist Ruin;." The challenges that Brasília's poor suburbs pose for che nationalist utopia that the city was meant to embody are treated in

7. RITUAL, RUMOR, AND CORRUPTION IN THE FORMATION OF MEXICAN POLITIES

1 The role oí ritual in che consnuction of a national poliry is a venerable line oí inquiry, with Eric Wolf,'The Virgin oí Guadalupe A Mexican National Symbol," and Victor Turner, Dramas, Fields and Metaphars the most prominent founding ancestors. The role oí ritual in the consolidation of local communities has received much more attention , notably in arguments over Wolf's typology of peasant communities, as well as in debates ovar che "cargo system" ( for example , Frank Cancian, Economics and Preshge in a Maya Community, Tbe Decline of Community in Zinacaneán; and Waldemar Smith, The Fiesta System and Economic Change and in studies on che connections berween ritual and local politics (for example, Guillermo de la Peña, Herederos de promesas , and Claudio Lomnitz, Evolución de una sociedad rural . Interest in political ritual has also emerged in ethnographies oí various dimensions oí Mexican urban lile (for example , Carlos Vélez-Ibafiez, Rituals of Marginality Politics, Proceso, and Cultural Change in Central Urban Mexico, 1969-1974; Larissa Lomnitz and Marisol Pérez Lizaur, A Mexican Elite Family) and in che anthropology oí social movements (for example , Jorge Alonso, Los movimientos sociales en el Valle de México, and Carlos Monsiváis, Entrada libre. Finally, there is also work en politics as spectacle and on che role oí myth and ritual in bureaucracy (Alberto Ruy Sánchez, Mitalogia de un cine en crisis, Larissa Lomnitz, Claudio Lomnitz, and ¡ya Adler, "Functions of che Forro: Power Play and Ritual in the 1988 Mexican Presidencial Campaign") In che past decade or so, interest in these fields has also gatned prominente among historians , who have attended similar themes in various periodo and regions. See, for example, Juan Pedro Viqueira Albán, ¿Relajados o reprimidos Diversiones públicas y vida social en la Ciudad de México durante el Siglo de las Luces; William Beezley , Cheryl Martin, and William French, eds., Rituals of Rule. Rituals of Resistance: Public Celebrations and Popular Cultura in Mexico; Serge Gruzinski, La Guerre des imanes De Chriseophe Colomb a ' Blade Runner', and Gilbert Joseph and Daniel Nugent, eds., Everyday Fanos of State Formation. These tules are only a sample oí che literature 2 Fran4ois-Xavier Guerra, México del antiguo régimen a la revolución, 2 vols 3 Viqueira Albán's, ¿Relajados o reprimidos is a description and discussion oí che transformations oí collective participation in public ritual during the eighteenth century. 4 For example, che legislation promoted by Charles III devoted a chapter to che

Note S t o C 1, a p t e r 6 = 300 =

Notes to

Cha p ter 7 301 =

reguladora ul sisee and IrerH bisele .rlr.;.hm Javier Malagón Barecló, C ódigo negro cerolr '. chaptcr I0. 188-R`r 5 Lunvrnz and Pérez l iza; . ^^ 53..... 1 17-91 describe huso Imnily ritual is a Inrum lur intraiamll.al c .mnnon c a euro _td dcus.un rr.ak.ing n che twen[ieth

with a pedantic exhibition oí classical and scholast,c Icarning. Obscurity was a virtue and a vacuous jumbling o1 allusions a merit With che copie ni no way disputable, exaggerated panegvrics and bombas[ were thc marks oí esthetic excellence' (Baroque Times m 1 3d Mexico 1371. 15 Gmzinski. La Guerrr des imagen. 169-71, 175

cuinu.rv

This is whv 1-anssa Lomm.u. sah.. h s su .1, el Alexicao ramilles ot various social strata nvsts on ti,, significa nce ,.I .. rural" ocs .n that social organ,zational lona "I-as re laceres horr-onmles r've n. c.'o cn li estn.ctnra social urbana de México{ 7 The bes[ historical treann^ et u' thn quawon s Steve Sretn, Tire Seoel H;story oJ iAIn:. ar 1 } , t, n...,, `ale o. Ruroncia Nlallon (Peasanl and Go.der Ll r Nmiorr 'Or n 1Al,.kn.g o( i'o 1 t -t , . 1 i'nrn -t %6; explores che polit.es ofgender in relation tu citizrnsha and p..ót.cal mohilizaiion in nineteenth-century agravian conrmunities8 Paul Friedrich malees the porot that women are able to publicly articulare opinions chas would gel their men killed (Primer of Namr.ja) This argument would seem to be borne out by the historical work on rebellion in Mexico. In the most comprehensive study oí colonial rebellions no date, Williana Taylor notes that "[t]he place oí women [in village rebellions) is especially striking" (Drinking, Homicide and Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages, 1 16) Alrhough Taylor speculates rhat chis may be owing m che absence oí men from the villages during agricultura) seasens, Paul Friedrieh's explanation would sccm to account lee thcir behavior more fully, because "[1]n at least

16 Sec Guerra, México dei anl.guo regonen a la reooluaón, vol 1 18201 loe Che forfnato See also the significante ot lila service lo democracy in che PRI's 1988 presidencial campaign, in Lomnitz, Lomnitz, and Adler, "Functions oí che Form." Fernando Escalante dcals squarely watn chis inste in Ciudadanos inmginarios.

17 Most prom'mently in Friedrich, Pm;ces of Naranja, and in Fernando Escalante, El ponerpilo 18 Mary Kay Vaughn, "The Construction oí che Patriotic Festival in Teeamaehaleo. Puebla. 1900-1946," 213-46. 19 Vaughn mentions that [hese processes of negociaron between teachers and local communities also led teachers lo avoid imposing che most anticlerical educational themes of che "socialist educatiod' oí che 1930s . At che nacional leve) "socialist cducation" was in no small parí a crusade lo finish off che key role oí the church as cultural integrator; some aspects oí chis initiative found local support and civic festivals thrived along with a transformation in popular culture (che introduction oí sports). However, chis same success also gave local constituencies che strength co avoid the most draconian antireligious measures taken by che government. 20 llya Adler's discussion oí che uses oí che press in Mexicos bureaucracy is significant

ore fourth of che cases examined, women lcd the attacks and were visibly more ag-

in chis respect. He describes how bureaucrats conscancly present information that

gressive, insulting and rebellions m thcir behavior toward outside authorines [[han

they have read from che newspapers either as their own personal interpretation or as coming from a personal source. The backstage has greater claim lo truth than

men]" (bid )9 Ricardo Pozas Horcas itas, La draotrasia en blancor el movimiento médico en México, 9964-19(5.

lo Manuel Castells, The City aud tbe Gmre;oots. 1 I Stephen Greenblatt argues that che discoursc of che marvelous was used co avoid transcultural communication in the contad period (Manrelous Possessions, 135-36). Gruzinski (La Guerre des imagen, 169-71) argucs that attempcs te foster true dialogue

offfcial, public renderings in Mexico. See Ilya Adler, "Media Uses and Effects in a Largo Bureaucracy- A Case Study in Mexico" 21 Nuestro País is che first journal devoted te public opinion in Mexico, and polis only began finding their way into newspapers since che 1988 presidencial campaign. For accounts oí che rase oí poliing in Mexico, see Federico Reyes Heroles, Sondeara México, and Roder,c Ai Camp, ed., Polling for Democracy. Public Opinion and Political

popular classes lies at che hcart ol thc hisrory oí Mexican anthropology (Claudio

Liberalization in Mexico. 22 A fui) study oí chis phenomenon would have to focus on che press and its management of public manifestations, a work that is yet to be done. However, examples

Lomnitz, Modernidad indiana, ehapter 4)12 Julie Greer Johnson, The fjoak in Ore Ame ricas. 15 13 See, for example, John Elliott , "Spain and Amcrica in che Sixceenth and Seventeenth

and illustrations are easily available lo any reader of che Mexican press. Crucial instances of [hese processes have occurred in che aftermath of che 1985 earchquake (what was "che meaning " of the popular and che governmental reactions to che dis-

Centurles," 303. The tradition oí pragmatic aceommodations that coexist with a dis-

aster?), during che Consejo Estudiantil Universitario (CEU) student movement,

cursive orthodoxy has been promi nene since thac early period, and its force could be

during che 1988 eleccions, alter che imprisonment oí oil workers' union leader "La

witncssed in the censorship that was meted out to Fray Bernardino de Sahagún's

Quina," after che assassinations oí Cardinal Posada, Luis Donaldo Colosio, and José

ethnographic smdies of sixteenrh-century native society en the grounds that m name that sociery was m preserve ir- Instead uf favoring dialogue, comprehension,

Francisco Ruiz Massieu, during che Zapatista rebellion, and alter che devaluation of che peso in 1995. Al] [hese events (and an infinite number oí smaller unes ) are rhe

and conversion through racional convictions, Testeras attitude toward conversion,

foci of poiitical contention through che interpretation oí their "true" nature and

which emphasized ritual compliance r ecr nuellectual conviction, triumphed.

meaning. An ethnographic description oí che dynamics oí political interpretation

between priescs and Indians were more ar less abandoned in Mexico around 1570. 1 have argued chal ambivalente toward conununication between urban elites and

14 So, in descr,l ing che contents ol a poetry contest during the era known as "the long siesta oí che ses,enteer th centuq',' Irving I.eonard states that '[c]he aun [oí che contesti was adulation and glorificaron oI che subject matter and it was bes[ achieved by ingenious conceits, by hold jugghng ot phrases and excessive artífice, together

N o I e+

1 c ( b .. p i e

302

during Mexican campaigns can be found in Claudio Lomnitz, "Usage poütique de Fambigúité: Le cas mexicain" 23 Guillermo de la Peña, A Legary of Promises, Agricullure, Politics and Ritual in che Morelos Highlands, 58,

NoIrsto

Chapter7 303 =

24 Caneran, The Decline of Cornrsun ty in Zinaratttán, 151-70. 25 The Mixe of Oaxaca discriminare becwecn good and evil merchants, whose money is, respectively good and ovil depending on whether they organize a series oí preseribed esto al s and on whether or flor thcy are veto che needs of community members . Set James B Greenberg. Capital, Ritual and Boundaries oí che Closed Corporate Communiry."

wood-carrying peasant who appeared in che mountains and warned his countrymen against a road , a fas[ train , a cable car , and a golf course, 5 Joaquín Gallo, Tepoztlán personajes, descripciones y sucedidos, 15r translation and adaptaron are mine. 6 Silvio Zavala, ed., El servicio personal de los indios en la Nueva España, vol. 1, 294-97. 7 Ross Hassig, Aztec Warfere. Imperial Expansion and Political Control, 249. 8 Gallo, Tepoztlán, 163.

8 C E N T E R , PERJPHERY A N D THE CON N E C T ION5 BETW EEN NATIONALISM AND LOCAL DISCOURSES OF DISTINCTION

1 Lotus Dumont. Essays en Indrvrdualisrrc: Modem Idaoiogy in Asithropological Perspecesve, 279 2 The main an thropological works un Tepozrhn are Robert Redheld, Tepoztlán A Mexican Village. Oscar Lewis L fe in a Licyean VilLigr and Pedro Martínez, and Claudio Lomnrtz , Evolución de una sociedad rural , but [hect a number of shorter pieces san che place, niel.mng Pedro Carrasco, 'The Family Strucmre of XVlth Century Tepozdán," and Phillip K Boek, "Tepozdán Remn,idered María Rosas, Tepoztlán, crónica de de-

9 "The indígenas of Tepozdán present themselves before Maxirnilian and Carlota to offer personally their complete support , and simultaneously thank them for allow rng'some poor indígenas' to be worthy oí seeing their faces " ( in Periódico Oficial del Imperio Mexicano , 28 de junio de 1864, reprinted in Teresa Rojas Rabiela, El indio en la prensa nacional del siglo diecinueve, vol. 1, 22). 10 La Jornada, October 1, 1995-

sacatos y resistencia is a journalistie aeeount ot re, ene politieal eonflict in the village.

11 Ismael Díaz Cadena , trans ., Libro de tributos del Marquesado del Valle ( 1540). These consus materias have been analyzed by Pedro Carrasco in "The Family Structure oí

3 Por discussro ns of che h istory of the re lar iomhip benveen lowlands and highlands in Morelos, see Arturo Warman, "We (bine ta Ubjecl" Tbe Peasano of Morelos and the Nacional Si,¡,, 33-41, and Guillermo de la Peña, 4 Legrey of Promises.. Agricultura Politics and Ritual in tbrLlorelos Htghlands, 20--37.

12 Peter Gerhard discusses che chape oí tire pre -Columbran kingdoms in present-day Morelos in "A Method for Reeonstruccing Precolumbran Política) Boundaries

4 It rs difficult co discern what che hutoncal bases of che Tepoztécatl myth may Nave heen Local and regional inrell ectua ls, such as Pedro'. Pho. ) Rojas, El Tepoztécatl legendario , and Juan Dubernard, Apuntes para la bistona de 7poztlán, unequivoeally identify El Tepozcécad as che reigning tlatoani (i ndigenous ruler ) oí che time oí Spanish Conquesr and as che first Tepoztecan co take baptismal rices - Others , including Redficld and Lewis have assumed chal El Tepozcécad was a mychical , and not a historical figure The interpretation is, in any case difficult. Several early sources refer to lepuzcdead Fray Juan de Torquemada names him as one ot che lords cha[ Moccezmna dispatched to che Golf Coast with gifcs for Cortés (Monarquía indiana , vol 2, 59, Fray Diego Durán (Historia de las Indias de Nueva España e islas de la Tierra Firrne , vol. 2 292) mentiuns Tepuzréead as one oí the gods rhar priests rmpersonated, along wi th Quetzalcoatl Huiczilopochdi, Tlaloc, and others These god-priescs were charged with the sacrifice oí numerous victms. In the instante named by Durán , saenfices were imnated by King Axayacatl ( reigned 1468-81 ), who, after having had his lill of slaughceri ng, passed che knife over to General Tlacaelel, who in turra was succeeded in chis honor by che various godpriests . Fray Berardino de Sahagdn mentions Tepuztécad as one of che men involved in che discovery oí pulque alter the Mexica departed from Temoanchan in their pilgrimage co México -Tenoch cidán IFlorentine (e,ex, book 10, 193). It is possible , cherefore , chal Tepuzrecatl seas simultaneously che name oía god and che tide taken by che datoani - priest ot Tepozdán who was charged with che tare oí che temple to che pulque god Ome Tochtli- It is also possible that a single tlatoani appropriated chis narre , under the rnodel oí che high priest Ce Acad Quetzalcoatl Finally, Tepoztécatl may have referred generically to nobles from Tepoztlán- In any case , Tepozcécad appears in several historia mylhical periods, beginning with che migration froni Azdán , to a god of che Azcec pantheon under King Axayacatl, to a lord who met Cortés , ro numerous modo rm day ap pan cions in che figure oí an oíd, NaIrs

lo ('uaptrr e 304 =

XVlth Century Tepozdán " and "Estratificación social indígena en Morelos durante el siglo XVI"

in Central México." Lewis (Lfe in a Mexican Village, 21) shows the cites oí preColumbian habitation in Tepoztlán in contras [ with modern- day settlement patrerns - Before che Conquesr, and in al¡ probability at che time oí chis census, Tepoztecans lived in a number oí scattered settlements at che feet oí che Sierra de Tepoztlán and were not concentrated in a village . This is consonant with James Loekhart's diseussion oí che altepeel (The Nabuas alter che Conquesr, 15-20)13 See Fray Agustín Dávila Padilla, Historia de la fundación y discurso de la provincia de Santiago de México. 14 Serge Gruzinski provides an accnunt oí che ways in which secularization was understood and resisted in che Altos de Morelos in Man-Codo in the Mexican Highlands, India,, Pomer and Colonial Society, 1 520-f 800, 105-72 . 15 See Robert Haskett, Indtgenous Rulers: An Ethnohistory of Town Government rn Colonial Cuernavaca , 153-60 for che colonial history oí chis family. 16 In fact, in Five Frenlies , Oscar Lewis contrasts che mediation oí local eommuniry cuh cure en Tepoztecan family life with the unmediated effects oí capitalism on che Mexico City poor. Lewis felt chat che "culture oí poverty" was an urban phenomenon flor because material conditions in che city were worse [han in Tepoztlánthey were not-bui rather because che urban experience of poverty was not mediaced by a tradicional collectivity17 Fiar a more detailed diseussion oí chis strategy and its deployment in modern Tepoztecan history, see Lomnitz, Evolución de una sociedad rural, 292-307. 18 Although 1 have not had the opportunity oí verifying chis in Tepoztlán , 1 believe that these ideas regarding peasant production are easily transferred to some oí the other activities that Tepoztecans now engage in, particularly artisanal work (masonry, self-employed mechanics, bakers, etc.) and petty commerce . Greenberg (1994) provides an example oí chis kind oí transference in his discussion oí distinctions berween "clean " and "dirty" money that are drawn among Oaxacan Mixe merchants . His material suggests che capacity oí chis peasant ideology co expand

Notes t o C h a p t e r e 305 =

beyond agneulture and rolo utb,, h :., ot work II ssentially , a merchants money is citan" :t he ur shc redist,dnues prohn Into shc local mntmunicy and ti prices and loans to con: munity ntembcr, are lose. 19 for an expllc ation oi track nona ] ]ti( 1 un hc.dth 1:1 ibis regios, see John Ingham, "On .Mrxuan Folk Medicine Mn t cl liusap s svell-knuwn tudy oí capitalism In Colombia : T. U'oiI end (: omn:odif y Frl n i Soutj. 1 rica, develops an analysis with many parallels co thls Tepozteean idenlogy

3 Theorics of admmist ratios such as Gennan camcralisni . applied by che Baron von Humboldt to New Spain in 1803. arc classical instruments of governntentality. be cause they arc oricuced tn treating cine whole of che poliry as it it were a business See Albion W. Small TI, (:nn, nl li,IS, ibe Pionccrs of Gemmu'socral Polity4 Por a dch d3cussion of shc relationship hetween gente sci,sari and baroque ritual. see Pamela Voekel, "Scent and Sc nsi kifity Pungency and Picry in che Making of che

20 Lewis Lifi Hexicrm Vi11 a9t 231

Veracruz Gente Sensata." Hugo Nutini provides che only general overview of che history of Mexicos aristoeracv He argues chal che Mexican aristocracy underwent

21 Lewis, Pedro AOarl(:ez, 119-20

three periods of expansion each ol which asas relaced to significanr economie

22 Por more Inlnrmation un ibis penco,,. s^ o Lunv.nz Eoohuión de una sociedad rural.

transtormatron s, une ot diese che mining boom ot che eighceenth eentury (Wages of

157-74, and Lewa. I.i)e rl:.1 :31,x:..m i.h. 235 -40. 23 Lewis, L:fe:n a Mexinu: ViLLigr, 26. 1 19-23.

(2ogn,,t TheMex:c.lr A nstoo, ny in fine (.,rtexi of Western Arrsfocraciesl 5 For a statistical analysis ot che contents oí che Gazeta de Lima see Tatuar Herzog, "La

24 See , lar instante , post of the arneLes signed hy Alexis" in El Tepozteco during che 19205, in AHT Alexis was che pscudunym of tuther Pedro Rojas.

6 For che use oí che discurse of che marvelous as a propagandistic device, see

gaceta de Lima (1756-1761 i, la restrucmración de la realidad y sus funciones "

25 In a revcaling admonicion , the sane wrirer calls on municipal authorities to consult with che litemte municipal secretary . " If our ignorante blocks the good intentions

Greenblatt 1992. For eonneecions between colonial discourses oí che marvelous

chal inspire us, if our unfamil iarity with rulcs and such interferes with our aims, let us approach our enlightened municipal secretarias , which, in al] goodness , will remove

7 For contrasting accounts of che origins oí underdevelopment in the nineteenth century, see John Coatsworth, "Ohstacles to Economic Growth in 19th Century

che veil of ignorante thac overpowers and annihilates us' (El Tepozteco , February 1, 1921, 3)-

and che literary movement devoted to the real maravilloso, see Giucci 1992.

Mexico," and Jaime O. Rodríguez, Down from Colonialism. 8 In her thesis on scatistics in che early postindependent period, Laura Leticia Mayor

26 Redficld , Trpozllmn, 220; Lewis, Lifr in a Maxican Village 26.

Celis (1995) shows that nacional independence generated a flurry oí scatistics, as

27 Redfield, Tepozllán, 68

well as an interest in comparative nacional statstics, buc that che scientific basis oí

28 Claudio Lomnitz , Exiis from si,, LabyrmtG Gdturc and ldeology in Mexican Nacional Space, 130-32.

rhese scatistics lacked credibiliry even in their own time. 9 For an account oí che emergente of polling written by an arden[ proponen[ oí chis

29 El Tepozteco , April 1, 1922, 4 30 Poet Carlos Pellicer donated his privare collection oí pre-Columbian artifacts for a new archaeological ntuseum in Tepozdán -che villagés carlrer collection had been destroyed during che revolution - Oscar Lewiss research project brought medical assistance to che village in che 1940s , and help from prominent visitors was enlisted for getting clectricrty and a junior hrgh school ( see Lomnitz , Evolución de una sociedad rural, chapter 2). 31 Bock, "Tepoztlán Recansrdered

method, see Federico Reyes Heroles, Sondeara México 10 This point is carefully argued in Fernando Escalante, Ciudadanos imaginamos, and in Frangois Xavier Guerra, México del antiguo régimen a la revolución 11 Maya Indians were also sold luto slavery in Cuba during the second half of che nineteenth century. 12 For the image of the rurales , see Paul J. Vanderwood, Disorder and Progress : Bandits, Police, and Mexican Development. On Porfirian urban intervention, see Barbara Tenenbaum, "Screetwise History: The Paseo de la Reforma and che Porfirian State, 1876-1910"

9. I NTERPRETI NG THE SENTI ME NTS OF THE NATION 1 A governmental state will "set up economy at che leve] oí che entire state, which means exercising towards lis iohabhants. and che wealth and behavror oí al], a form

The most comprehensive discussion oí che strategies and politics oí nacional presentation in che internacional arena during Chis period is Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo, Mexico at tbe World's Fairs, Crafting a Modem Nation. 13 Carlos Monsiváis, Los rituales del caos, 141.

of surverllance and control as attentive as that of che head of che family over his

14 See Larissa Lomnitz, Claudio Lomnitz, and Ilya Adler, "Functions oí che Form:

household and his good" (Michel Foucault, "Governmentalicy," in The Foucault Effect,

Power Play and Ritual in the 1988 Mexican Presidencial Campaign." 15 Francisco 1. Madero, "Manifiesto de Madero al Pueblo, a los capitalistas , a los gobernantes , al ejército libertador, al ejército nacional y a la prensa, México DF, 24 de

Studies o: Govrrmnentality, 92. The "populacion," which is measured through a variety oí scatistics and with the hele of a number oí seiences, is thus the central concern oí administraGOn-

junio de 191 I," 237.

2 On che ways in which "public" and "republie' acere understood in che Spanish colo-

16 For a fascinating ficcional account oí Madero as a spiritualisc leader, see Ignacio

nial world, and on their tramformabon with independence, see Frangois-Xavier

Solares, Madero, el otro. Solareis description oí Maderos spiritualist sessions is based

Guerra and Annick Lamperlére, "I ntroducciúnin Los espacios públicos en Iberoamérica-

on Maderos diary. Other revolutíonary leaders and presidents, such as Alvaro

ambigüedades y problemas, siglos XVIII-XIX, 5-26. For a sketch oí che historv oí

Obregón and Plutarco Elías Calles, were also spiritualists- Also pertinent to this

Mexican censures, see Claudio I ounitz, aiodern piad indiana: nación y mediación en

question is che phrlosopher Antonio Caso's appeal to che powers oí intuition via

México, chapier5-

Bergson against che Porfirian científicos' faieh in positivism.

N o l e n t u a p 306

Notes t e C b a p t e r v 307 =

17 For a useful discussion of this cono ept, sce Slavoj Zizek, "Cyberspace, or, How to Traverse rhe Fantasy in the Age of the Retreat of t h e B i g Othec" 18 On che nature of government Involvcment nnd subsidy oí the press, see Raymundo Riva Palacio, "A Culture oí Collusion The Tics That Bind che Press and the PRI " The best-paid collahorators 01 the Mexican press are political columnists and wellknown ntellectuals who have regular columns. 19 José Ortega y Gasset, España invertehrada hosquew di algunos pensamientos históricos, 86. 20 On the politice oí antipolitics as a strategy and historical phenomenon , see Ferguson 1994, for the relatnonship between technocracy and democracy in Mexico, see Miguel Angel Centeno, Democracy wtth,n Reasom lrchnocratir Reoolution in Mexico10. AN INTELLECTUAL'S STOCK IN THE FACTORY OF MEXICO'S RUINS

1 Enrique Krauze, "El mártir de Chicago', Claudio Lomnitz, "Respuesta del Krauzificado de Chicago ; Enrique Krauze, "Adiós Mfster Lomnitz" An interesting antiSemitic coda co the debate occurred in a letter to the editor oí che Mexican daily Excelsio,' Augusto Hugo Peña, Acerca de la fábrica de mentiras de Enrique Krauze," and my reply, "Respuesta al señor Augusto Hugo Peña" 2 Lorenzo Meyer, "En ,México nunca se hizo una historia oficial," interview with Arturo Mendoza Monciño. 3 Ricardo Pozas Horcasitas, La dn,,ocras nt en bLmco: el movimiento médico en México, 1964-1965. 4 The Centro Cultural Arte Contemporáneo was in fact closed down in 1998. 5 Enrique Krauze,Mexico,BiographyofPomer,797

6 Ibid., xv. 7 Ibid.

by contrast, gets discussed thirty-three times in the body oí the text, and then is frequently cited in the notes for factual information14 See Enrique Krauze, Por una democracia sin adjetivos (1986). Not surprisingly, the phrase "democracy without adjectives" does not belong to Krauze, but is instead Rafael Segovia's, "La decadencia de la democracia," Razones 24 (March-April 1980). 15 Krauze, Mexico, Biography of Power, 243-44. 16 See Barbara Mundy, The Mapping of New Spain, Indigenous Cartograpby and tbe Maps of tbe Relaciones Geográficas, chapter 1 17 See, for instance, my own book Exits from the Labyrintb Culture and Ideology in Mexican Nacional Space, part 2, chapter 2. For Argentina, see Jorge Myers, Orden yoirtud: el discurso republicano en el régimen roslsta. Other Latin American illustrations can be found in John Lynch, Caudillos in Spanish America, 1800-1850. 18 ABer Octavio Paz's death (and the initial publication oí this essay, which appeared in print three months prior), Enrique Krauze purchased the shares oí Vuelta and launched a new magazine, Letras libres, of which he is editor. 11. BORDERINO ON ANTHROPOLOGY 1 Sherry Ortner reviews recent books on che crisis in anthropology in "Some Futures oí Anthropology" 2 Notably, Ethnos devored a special issue to peripheral anthropological traditions in 1983. 3 Arjun Appadurai, "Is Horno Hierarchicus2" 759. 4 Arjun Appadurai, 'Theory in Anthropology: Center and Periphery," 358. This critique echoes Johannes Fabian's discussion oí the practice oí constructing anthropological sites as if they were "culture gardens" that were unconnected to the ethnographer's own society (Time and Ihe Otber: How Anthropology Makes Its Object). Similarly,

8 Ibid., 9 In fact, che central thesis oí Mexico: 13io ir,i,by of'Power (i e., the preponderance oí the president's Biography over Mexican history) n derived from an essay by Costo

Jonathan Friedman characterizes Geertzian cultural relativism in the following

Villegas that was written against Luis Echeverría--a president who had an especially strong delusion of omnipoteneetitled El estilo personal de gobernar (1975). The

terms: "Each arbitrary anthropoplogical construction becomes a unique artifact to be cherished by its discoverer, a work of art in a gallery oí distinct human species" ("Out Time, Their Time, World Time. The Transformation oí Temporal Modes," 170).

theme oí that essay, which was that in Mexico che president's personal whims had becorne a kind oí raison d'étal, is niagmfied by Krauze finto che key to the whole of Mexican history.

5 The cense that Mexican anthropology is undergoing a difficult transition is reflected in different ways in a number of works, for example, Luis Vázquez León, "La

10 See Enrique Krauze, Textos heréticos ( 1992).

1 1 These are Margarita de Orellana and Aurelio de los Reyes 12 In Che debate that followed the publication of chis article, Krauze pointed out that he does in fact cite John Coatsworth once He cuuld not, however, dispute the fact that neither Coatsworth nor any oí the others' ideas had any impact en his work. They did not. The Coatsworth citation in question is for factual information, and makes no direct or indirecr rcference to cha audtor's ideas, many oí which are incompatible wíth Krauzes. 13 Enrique Krauze misinterpreted chis lino to mean that tic had not cited O'Gorman in his notes 1 purposely counred only discusslons in che body oí the text, which is where Mr. Krauze deals with ideas ti we turn to the notes oí Mexico: Biography of Power, O'Gorman is cited rhree times On cacé occadon, the citation is for narrowly factual evidence and not a discussion ol any of Ati O'Gormans ideas; Mr- Cosío,

Notes

to Cbapte, 308

to

historiografía antropológica contemporánea en México," and Claudio Lomnitz, Modernidad indiana: nación y mediación en México, chapter 4. Roger Bartra offers Mexicans a choice between four "intellectual deaths," one oí which can be summarized as "death by academy" ( La sangre y la tinta- ensayos sobre la condición postmexicana, 43-48). 6 In 1973, Ralph Beals reviewed the field oí Mexican anthropology and concluded that although it had had a relatively minor impact en anthropological theory, Mexican anthropology had played a critica) role in the formation oí a national con science, and that the country had the third-largest number oí anthropology professionals, after Japan and the United States (cited in Vázquez León, "La historiografía antropológica contemporánea en México," 139). In fact, however, a number oí national anthropologies, especially in Latin America, but also elsewhere, have turned tu Mexico for inspiration during the past century. It should be noted, nevertheless, that Mexico has never been a "pure model" but, as in che case of Mexico itself, Mexican-inspired nacional anthropologies shaped networks oí national institutions

Notesto

Ch ap ter f 1 309 =

that sucre thcn conoce ted especialle tu LI S. ui ue eas....... 1-.uropean , misione. Corncll, Haivatd . C.hlcag, Bcrkelav Seintunl. LIIsl SC O and hienda cultural misS,11:11 hace heen some al t1 e 11 ,11 t 1 p a :t... ul i hese national institunons- For

17 The laxity of pnestly mores is a theme that was well knuwn tu English readers sincc thc pubhcation ol Fhomas Cages travcls in seventecnth-century Mexieo 18 Tylor, Anahuac, 222- On che subject oí ihe governm en fs tare for its a n ti qui tics, Tylor tella how he and Hcnry Christy literally created markets fue antiquities. "At

1 1,, i n l l u o , , e ul ysiesicar . . .1 1,> i, ,1 n 1h. ; nd.n,poluec oi the United Sta(,,

che top of the pyramid ot (,holula' wc held a market. and got some curious things.

receives stlbtle treatmcnt In AIau11111 . Ienuti::-Tn110. 'Stereophonie Scienühc

all ol small size however' li bid 275)- Hcnry Christys ethnographic collection be carne che most important of its time, and more [han half of its registered pitees were Mexican cace British Museum, Henry (-hrisly, 1 1 )

Modernistas Social Sacnce heiwcot Mexico and thc United States, 1880,-1930s

Immial o l Ar r 1 n. ,L 1' 1-11 1 F, 1 11 11111111 r1 , Disto-y. nnd i n I :s c1 1111 Lirulcd] la t, , 1 I bx Erol2r )( llu rc, ltapiel2

reater:blexieo Ibe

7 The reterenee' i s ti) Arturo Warman 1 lux santa todos dilu,r,, "Critieism had lacen rep1ac.ed 'he an ulfiCin 1, appoimm 1, 1 ul n.an emo' ,Ant hropology had been rewarded widt lifelong benehts m che Instituto de Seguridad Social y Servicios a los Trabajadores del Estado (34) 8 Guillermo Bonfi1, 'Del indigenismo de la revolución ala antropología critica,' in Dr eso que llaman antropología mexicana, 42. 9 Sciencihe research and critica] discourse were subsequcntly (and erroneously, 1 think) counterposed co che practico of iid,q,.,isnm "Che arate doeso t tare about the development of anthropology as a sdcnce chas Is capable oí analyzing reality and modi fying ir deeply At most it is in teres red in it as a techo i que to train restorers of

19 Por a standard reeapitulatlon of chis vision, seo Warman, "Todos santos, todos difuntos," and Lomnitz, Modernidad indiana, ehapter 4 20 Mary Louise Pratt has tracked che con nections becween travel writing and anthropology in Imperial Eyes, Traoel Wri ting and Transeulturalion 21 Tenorio-Trilles Mermo et che World's Fairs- Crafting a Modem Nation as che pathbreaking book en chis subject. Mexican 22 Stacie G. Widdifield, The Embodiment of che Nacional in Late Nineteenth-Century Fairs, 30World"s Painting, 61-64; Tenorio-Trillo, Mexico at che 23 Juan Estrada, "Estado Libre y Soberano de Guerrero; Datos estadísticos de la prefectura del Centro," Boletín de la Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadística (hereafter,

ruins and raxidermists of languages and customs. However, it hnds that che schools

BSMCE), vol. 3, 74. 24 Asamblea del Departamento de Querétaro, "Notas estadísticas del Departamento

of anthropology . are centers whc-re snldents gather and smdy reality in order to

de Querétaro, formadas por la asamblea constitucional del mismo, y remitidas al

transform i[, chal thev hght for democrndc libertes, and that ríes, maintain a mili-

supremo gobierno .. ," 13SMGE, vol. 3, 232. In a footnote, che Congress oí

tani attitude on the sirle o1 the oppresscd" (Andrés Medina and Carlos García

Querétaro contrasts its enlightened view of race with che "horrible anomaly" oí

Mora, ciad in Guadalupe Méndez Laeielle,'La quiebra política [1965-1976],' 362).

slavery in the United States. 25 (bid. 26 Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadística, "Estadística de Yucatán, publicase

lo Proceso, March 13, 1995 11 Foreign negative images of New Spain were the catalyst for some of che most dis-

por acuerdo de la R. Sociedad de Geografía y Estadística, de 27 de enero de 1853,"

tinguished eighteenth-century historical and anthropological writings by Mexican

BMSGE 294. 27 Emilio Pineda, "Descripción geográfica del departamento de Chiapas y Soconusco,"

Creoles. For a diseussion, set Antoncllo Cerbi, The Dispute of che New World: The History of a Polemic, 1 9sn-1 900.

12 The British Museum also calls che eolleccor Henry Chrlsty, who led Tylor to Mexico, che godfather oí anthropology (l lenry (biesty_ A Pioneer of Anthropolegy, 1). 13 Unveiling these connections is che painslaking subject of much of che scholarship of recen[ decades, from Latin American "dependency theory" to Edward Said's Culture and Impenalism, bus it has alto hecn a constant concern since che late nine-

BMSGE 341. 28 Alfredo Chavero, México a través de los siglos, vol, 1, iv, 29 "Language as of great value for explaining ethnographic relations. Otomi is a language of an essentially primitive character. The Mexicans cal) it otomitl, but its trae name is biá-hué. AII of che circumstances of chis language reflect che poverty of expression of a people chat is concemporaneous co humanity's infancy" (ibid., 65).

14 Edward B- Tylor, Anahuac, or Mexico and lbr AMexicans, Ancient and Modem, 16-17.

In his views of indigenous linguistica, Chavero follows the work of Francisco Pimentel, ("Discurso sobre la importancia de la lengüística .. . . 370), who argues

15 It as worth noting that Tylor's vicwpoint here coincides with that of Marx and

that monosyllabic languages, such as Chinese and Otomi, have no grammar and are

Engels, boch of whom saw the incorpontion of iPexico roto che United States as a

che most primitive. Pimentel was also looking for even carlier evolutionary forms

desirahle thing Thus, during une lblexican-Aniencan War, Marx wrote, "We must

within Mexico, such as languages that combined mtmicry and speech ("Lengua Pantomímica de Oaxaca .. ," 473) In their disdain for Otomi and Chinese,

teenth century-

hope that [the Anaeocans] appropriate most ol Aiexims terrüory and that they use México en la obra de Marx y Engels, 28 i Engcls. in his turn, wrote on January 23, 1848:

Pimentel and Chavero were following racist trends in European romantic linguistics. See Martin Bernal, Black Atheno- The Afrocentric Roots of Classical Civilization, vol. 1,

"Ve have wltnessed che defeat of hlexrao by the United States with que satisfac-

237-38. For a diseussion of scientific stereotypes of Mexican Indians, see Robert

che country berrer than che Mexicans have" i 1847, in Domingo P de Toledo y J-,

cion . when a country is forcibly dragged ro historical progress, ice cannot bus consider chis as a stop tnrward" (ibie1 16 Tylor, Anahuac 329-30.

Buffington , Criminal and Cruzo, in Modem Mexico, 149-5530 Chavero, México a través de los siglos, 69. 3 1 Ibid., 67 -

3d o t r, l o

( I' ,,

31(7 =

Notes

te C h a p t e r 1 1 = 311

32 Huberc Bancroft, "Observacions ora .Mexicd' (manuscript), 18-19 33 Thus, Bancroft writes that " 1 am, really astonished at che great number of pamphlets and books for the young relating co the history of this country, almanacs oí history, catechisms of history rreatises on history , ese Thcse together with the numerous historical holydays and celebrara ons show as dcep and demonscrative a love oí country as may be found , 1 venere co assert , anywhere elle en che globe There is certamly nothing ¡¡lee it in the literaturc of che United States Today, rhe 27th, one hundred years alter che evenr , in chis com pararively isolated capital [ San Luis Potosí] there are two iactions ora che plaza almost coming to hlows over an lmrbide celebratlon , the priesrs insisting thar they wliI do honor to his memory, and Che government party swearing thac rhey shall no [' ( ¡bid., 40-41 ) In this instante, the date oí che commemoracion of Mexicd independence becomes the focal point for con frontati ons between liherals and con serva ti ves It is possible that Mexican obsessions with history had their esois in (he ovil wars , although there is certainly much influence Irom Spanish ideas of lincage and Inheritance 34 Guillermo de la Peña. "Nationals and Furcigners in che History oí Mexican Anthropology," 279 Imporrant sourc es on Camio indude Ángeles González Gamio, Manuel Gamio. una lucha sin fn,. Marrido Tenorio Trillo, "Scereophonic Scientific Modernisms= Social Science between Mexicd and che United States, 1880s-1930s"; Alexandra Stern, "Eugenies beyond Rorders Sdence and Mediealization in Mexieo and che U.S West, 1900- 1950Aur'elio de los Reyes, Manuel Garujo y el cine, Bufkngron , Crirarnal ama Citizen ni Modent Mexicd, and José Limón , American Encounters, Greater Mexieo, tire United Sta res, and the Erolies of Cultive, ehapter 2 35 For example, for a wedding banquet in honor ol che Gamio marriage , che Departamento de Antropología offered clic ir huno red mitosis di shes with cides such as "arroz a la tolteca , mole de guajolote ccutr h unen no ," ' liebres de las pirám idcs," and "frijoles a la indiana." Invi cation te) che banquet is reproduced in González Gamio, Manuel Gatno, otra lucha sin fn36 See the debate in Ignacio Manuel Altam i rano , Uierlos 108-45 37 Manuel Gamio, Opiniones yjuicios sobre la obra La p,'blanón del valle de Teotihuacán, 2 3a Ibid 51. 39 Gamio was elecred vate presiden[ of rhe Seeond Ineernational Eugenies Congress in Washington , DC, in 1 920 ( óuffi ngt un . (rrn,innl nnd Cnizen inModern Mexieo, 154). For a full discussion oí Mexican eugenics, see Alesandra Stern, 'Buildings, Boundaries, and Blood, Mediealization and Nacion - Buildings on che USMexieo Border, 1910-1930 ' and Eugenio, beyond Ronde,, chapters ' 1 and 5 40 Gamio, Opinevi,s yjuicios sobre la obra La pohlaeión del valle de Teolibuacán,

49; my emphasis 1 1 The losest antecedenc co Gamio's synth,,v may Nave hcen the short-lived agrarian experiment carried out by Maxi milian . See Jean Meyer, " La junta protectora de las clases menesterosas. indigenismo y agrarismo en e1 segundo imperio"

42 The differenee between [hese two approaches veas felc co be so sharp at che time that, in che 1917 constitutional conven tino Porlirian eientífees were seco as dubious Mexicans , as can be witnessed from ti,, tollom9ng speech by congressman José Natividad Matías ov the proposed law oi narionolity. "Would any oí you admit Mr. José Yves Limanrour [Díaz's finance lninister borra in Mexico oí French descent] as a Mexican tatuen by birch- Answer h'ankly and with your hand o0 your heart (Voices, No! No!) Would you rake as a Mexican hv batch Oscar Braniff , Alterco Nolrs

loCbtp1e 312

Braniff, or Tomás Braniff ? ( Voices . No! No, We wouldn 't Cake any cient tos !)" ( in 50 Discursos doctrinales en el congreso constituyente de la Revolución Mexicana , 1916-1917, edRaul Noriega , 255; my emphasis). 43 Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán, Obra polémica, 104. 44 The impact of che Cold War ora Mexican anthropology has not yet been studied. The recent revelation that a former director oí the Nacional School oí Anthropology, Gilberto López y Rivas , spied for the Soviet Union in the United States suggests that this is a significant topie The effects oí Plan Cameloc en che intellectual climate in che region are better known ( see Irving Louis Horowitz , The Rise and Fati of Project Camela). Paul Sullrvan's Urtnished Conversations. Mayas and Forelgners between Two Wats is a sensitive book ora the relacionship between anthropology and diplomacy in che first half oí the twencieth century . On López y Rivas, see David Wise, Cassidy's Run, The Seeret Spy War ooer Nerve Gas, ehapter 12; Oswaldo Zavala, "Los pasos de López y Rivas como ' espía soviético' en Estados Unidos," Procesa, April 16, 2000; and Hornero Campa , "' Asumo mi responsabilidad y no me arrepiento' , dice el ahora diputado ," Proceso , April 16, 2000 45 See , for example , Javier Téllez Ortega, "La época de oro (1940 - 1968)" 46 Oscar Lewis to Arnaldo Orfila , October 26 , 1961, in Susan Rigdon, The Culture Facade: Art, Science, and Politics in tire Work of Oscar Lewis, 288-89

47 Mexican smdies oí Mexicans in che United States have a cradition , dating back to Gamio ( 1931). For a discussion of the ways in which [hese smdies were subordinated to Mexican nacional ieterests, often at che expense oí che Mexican - American perspeccive , see Limón, American Encounters, ehapter 2. 48 Oscar Lewis to Vera Rubio . November 12, 1965 , in Rigdon, Tire Culture Facade, 289. 49 Warman , " Todos santos , todos difuntos," 37. 12. PROVINCIAL INTELLECTUALS AND THE SOCIOLOGY OF THE SO-CALLED

DEEP MEXICO

1 In Chis respect , this ehapter is a prolongation oí che Work that I initiated in Exitsfrom che Labyrintb, 221-412 Geoff Eley , "Nations , Publies and Pohrical Cultures- Plaeing Habermas in che 19ch Century," 289. 3 Max Weber, From Max Weber, 176. 4 Gramsei's definition of intelleceuals is more habitually used by anthropologists today ( lee Secano s from che Prison Notrbooks . 5). It is, in many ways , a useful definition, espeeially because it forces analysts co search for conneetions between processes oí elass formation and political discourse, 1 relied no Gramsd' s definition in my earlier work on provincial intellectuals . However, Gramsci's fantous definition says little about the nature oí the work of intellectuals and, probably because oí chis, his followers can all roo casily end up labeling anyone who makes an utterance that fomento class awareness an "intellectual ," thereby diminishing the utility oí the category - For a more recent example of chis, see Stephen Feierman , Peasant Intellectuals, Anthropology and History in Tanzania- 1 use Gramsci implicitly here as a useful supplement co Weber. 5 This description is based on a smdy oí the documencation rhat is available en Tepoztlán in the Archivo General de la Nación (AGN), ramos de Tributos, Tierras, General de Parte , Hospital de Jesús, Indios and Criminal, as well as on local parish Notes

1o Chapter i2 313 =

record,, and on ethnogmphle rescards dono bv niysell in 1977-78 and 1992-93. and hy othcrs. Horacio Crespo and I.nntlw Vega published time 1909 Public Property Register o1 che whole ul Morelos ut Tierra y propiedad en el Jin del porfiriato, vols. 2 and 3 from tima[ censos me can aseenain that in time hamlet of Santo Domingo w hich svdl conecrr us 1, . cspei 1 .111 . che largest landowner owned a

conlirms time con tinueel valcnce of these trends, and Sara Verazaluce, a'Tepoxteca o physical anthropologist working on [his subject. has orally conlirtned that there is still a very high leve) o1 villagc and municipal endogamy today (personal eommunication, tMarch 1993). 1 I In 1992. a Cuernavaca real-esiaie urmpany manad to parchase a sizable amount ol

mere eight hectares and 93 perccnl i , l che village, regisrered prívate agricultura¡

Iand hora peasants from San Andrés and Santa Catarina It ,cut ahout Chis in a se-

plots were smaller timan one heetnre 1 he villal;es largest holding was 5 9 hectares

cretive way, hiring invders to parchase lands individual ly Irom farmers whom they

There is no reason ti, suppose chal thc Iand-mnure sutuation of Santo Domingo was

knew The ame tactie had beca taken earlier, in 1962, by che Montecastillo golf

any difterent in che colonial period.

club developnient company [Claudio Lomnitz, Evolución de una sociedad rural, 201-4)-

6 AGN Criminal, vol. 302, cxp. 4. I 20rv-205

When villagers woke up to [hese [odies, they rebelled and stopped the companys

7 In 1775, th aieolde ol San ;Anchís etc la Cal ssas selected by twenty-one elector,.

effons In 1995. attempts to resuscitare che golf-eourse prolect led to intense am-

See AGN, I'lospical de Jesús, vol. y b 1728. 8 The vast majoriry ni time rnunieipio' lantls remained coinmunal even to che end oí the porfirato- During that time, conununal lantls were classitied finto three rypes- forests,

frontatiuna becween che villagc and rimes tate government, te factional strife within the village, and even to assassination12 Ethnographic inlormation on canto Domingo derives to a large degree from Pedro

terral (lava helds), and agostadero (grazing lands) Al] arable land was registered as

Antonio Velázquez Juárez, "Etnozoología y cosmogonía en los Altos de Morelos."

private property. Texcal lands were used in a system oí rorating, slash-and-burn

13 Ibid., 209. 14 See Roberto Vareta, Expansión de sistemas y relaciones de poder, 1 11-54. The debates on Mexican democracy would do well to take such examples oí local democracy into

agriculture that has beca described in the detall by Oscar Lewis (Ltfe in a Mexican Village, 148-54). Crespo and Vega (Tierra y propiedad en el fin del porfiriato, vol. 2, 212) reproduce tire legal registration of [hese lantls in 1909- Tepoztlán's retention of

account. Authoritarianism must be understood as a regional system, and not simply

9 Womack's view was that most of che appropriauon of pueblo lands by haciendas oc-

as a mentaliry. 15 Records oí Spaniards in che village extend back to tire mid-sixteenth century.

curred aher 1857 and, especially, during time early years of the sugar boom in che

Martín Cortés built himself a house there (Silvio Zavala, ed., El servicio personal de los

1880s (Z(jpa[.¡ and tire Mexican RevoluGmt). This position was hrst eonrested by Horacio Crespo and Herbert Frey ("La diferenciación social del campesinado como

indios in Nueva España, vol. 2, 377-78), and there are other documented cases oí Spaniards in che village even in Chis early period.

problema en la teoría de la historia"), who argoed that Morelos's haciendas had ex-

16 There were some periods in which there were mulattos in Tepoztlán. However, che

panded to thcur fui] extent as early as time seventeenth century. Crespo and Vega (Tierra y propiedad en el fin del porfiriato) reproduce time raw data from che 1909 property

parish records almost exclusively break the population down into Indian and

registrar that fostered these concluso.,- Unlortunately, volume 1 oí [his work,

whereas 93 percent oí landholdings in Santo Domingo were plots of less [han one

which was to provide a full interpretation oí chis history, has not come to light.

hectare (and 78 percent were smaller than half a hectare), the corresponding figures

Florencia Millon (Peasant and Nation Tbe Making of Post-Colonial Mexico and Peru,

for che cabecera are 62 percent and 37 percent. Whereas the three largest landowners

communal lands makes the village unusual in che Morelos region-

Spanish, with a few mestizos and castizos. The 1909 property records show that

137-41) shows that rhe títulos primordiales oí severa¡ Morelos communities, including

in Santo Domingo owned between six and eight hectares, Tepoztlán had a number

both Tepoztlán and Anenecuilco, were stolen during or immediately after che Wars

oí proprietors who owned becween twenty and forty hectares, 17 This was che case even roto che porfiriato. One elderly Tepoztecan acquaintance who had worked on a hacienda before che revolution described the bad working condi-

of Independence, and that haciendas profited from this by invading village lands during che whole first hall oí the nineteench century. A full synthesis oí the relative importante of these three waves of Iand concentraoon has yet to be written. In ad-

tions and culminated his story by saying, "And they called -as Tepoztecan Indiansl"

dition, se need to know more about che history oí changes in other forms oí access

18 Lewis righdy criticized Redficld's reification oí chis distinction, and bis identifica-

co land, such as renting and sharecropping, although Womack's thesis regarding the

tion of [hese categories with social elass, but he was wrong in eschewing Redfield's

pernicious role timar capitalist intensification oí sirgar production had for traditional

observation altogether 19 Translators for Spanish ofucials in the colonial period were also regularly from

renting arrangeme nts is still helpful in chis regard l0 Regarding endogamy, a few samples from the parochial archives are illustrative, oí

[hese principales.

and 1686, oníy one was hetween a Tepoztecan and someone from outside time

20 AGN, Criminal, vol. 203, exp. 4, f. 159-66. 21 For che use oí corridos in regional communication, see Robert Redfield, Tepoztlán. A

municipio. Between 1792 and 1807, there were 694 marriages in che parish. Oí these

Mexican Village, 180-93, and Catherine Heau, "Trova popular e identidad cultural en

oníy 3.5 percent were becween a Tepoztecan andan outsider, usually someone from

Morelos" For peasant common lavo in Zapata's camps, see Salvador Rueda, "La

a neighboring hacienda or village- Endogamy in che hamlets and che cabecera was

dinámica interna del zapatismo consideración para el estudio de la cotidianeidad

also high, although che smaller hamíers cifren tended co marry villagers from another

campesina en el área zapatista' 22 Lomnitz, Evolución de una sociedad rural. 299-307 James B. Greenberg, "Capital,

the 133 marriages that were celebrated in time church oí Tepoztlán becween 1684

hamlet widun the municipio Oscar Lewis carried out a census in 1943 in which he

Notes lo Cbapti e 12 314 =

Notes

ro

Cbapter12 315 =

Ritual , and BoundaAes of thc Closed ( orporale Communlty," san inreresting discussion oí the way contemporary Mixes huyo developed mechanisms for distingti ishing hetween " good " and 'evil " nicrchams on the oasis ol the sature of the,r tics tu local communitarian uersrorks This parallcls good and evil politicians in Topoztán_ 23 See Loro"itz , Evolución de una socicdnJ rural. chapter 3, for an account of these con fre'nratIOni

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Rr f e r e o c es

1 R efe ve nces

= 332 =

333 =

Index Abad Y Quiepo, Manuel, 84-85 Acapulco, 148 Agravian reform, 268 Aguascalientes Convention, 98 Aguilar Camín, Héctor, xi; and Carlos Salinas, 219; use oí state patronage, 226 Aguirre Beltran , Gonzalo, 254, 260 Alcalde, 267 Alemán, Miguel, 104, 223, 227, 255, 256; construction oí National University's modernist campus, 104, 133; development oí Acapulco, 104, 133

horizontal comradery;' 11; definition of community, 7, definition oí nation, 11, definition oí nationalism , 5-7, 9, 11, 33; definition of nationhood, 9; 'Eden;' 15, 21, 32; European expansion and creation oí nations, 4; fraternity and nationalism, 12 ; Imagíned Communities, 3; and language, S i and Latin Americanists, 4; modification oí Anderson' s definition, 33, national identity exploration, 11; nationalism as kinship , or religion, 11; "nation ' as imaginary , 6-7; objection to definitions , 11, and print capitalism, 5-6, prohlem with conceptualization, 32; rise oí nationalism , 6; sacrifice, 7,

Alhóndiga de Granaditas, 89 Altamirano, Ignacio Manuel, xi, 100 Altepetl, 41 Altos de Jalisco, 159

10, 12, secularization, 14-15, 18; theory of nationalism , 3, 4, 200; view oí Ameri-

Alvarado, Pedro de, 241 Alzate, FatherJ. Antonio, 8 Amatlán, 226, 272-73 American Civil War, 239 Ancien Régime , 82, 164, 198, description oí, 82; persistente oí, 82 Anderson, Benedict. amendment to theory, 12; analysis oí "empty time;' 22; birth oí nationalism , 3, 5; critical appraisal of, xi, 9; critique oí nationalism, 7; culturalist reading oí nationalism , 30; "deep

can independence, 4 Anthropology, 254; connection with imperialism, 228 ; crisis oí, 233 , critique oí, 228; formation of national teleology, 233; historical role of, xxiii ; history of, xxii; national anthropologies, 228, 229; and national image, 233 , national modernization project , 254;1968 generation, 254; peripheral anthropologies, 229; Porfirian, 250; role in shaping

= 335 =

narionabsm, xxiii; reaction ro Benedict

137; as suhversive and feminized,

Anderson, 4; revol uti o nary, 250 252 ,hapi ng of colonial discourses, 228 rasks ol, 261

Backwardness, 203, 207, growing concern ol '04

Anti-Spanish senriment, 29, 87 131, 133; emergente of afrer independence, 87,

Bancruft, Hubert desedption of Mexico, 240-47249

expulsion oí Spaniards, 131; sacking of Parián Murker, 131

Barba ,e, Alexico 255 Baroquc era, 154, 157 163; and ole f

Antrello y Bermúdez Ángel de, 201

rito,¡. 156

Apatzingán Constitution, 64

Barrio,, 166, 173, 174, 185, 186; and ani-

Appadurai, Arjun, xvii, 136, 262; detini-

cion of ethnographic orate, 130, hobsm 228-29, self-images of che Wesr, xvil Are of Trlunrph Ern-led in Honor of Por/lelo Utaz Archa no, Jesús. civic oration uf, 68-69;

nition of, 103; ma nl testations of, 103

Betdc of C_elaya, 104 13attle of Puebla, 1 55 Beavi, and Butthcad, 131-32

"Artificial flowers" technique, 281

Biogr,phy and political znalysis, 223 llieapov el definition of, 14

Asunción, Fray Domingo de la, 173

Block, 16, 42, 44, 46, 147, 246, commu-

Arenco, 173

mtirs of, 45; comparison with Indians, 45, maroon societies, 45; women, 17;

Avila Camacho, Manuel, 223 Azcapotzalco, 37

restrictions against associations, 45, in Veracruz, 245

Azcárraga, Emilio. 224 Aztecs, 21, 32; afhliation with Toltec I,neagc, 37; Azcapotzalco, 37, battlctield,

43, genealogical concept oí the nation,

37, 38, 39, 40; cnpulteod, 37, 38; chico r4, 37, communitarlan ideology of, 36, 37,

42 and honor, 43, 1deo1ogical role of, 42

Boas, 1ranz, 230, 257, 258; and

expansion of empire, 39; ideology of

1 nterna tional School of American

sacrifice, 38; ideology oí sIavery, 38; ini.

"Backsrage,' 136; border ci ties, 138.; den' nition of, 157, maintenance ot public

Pliso, Kathcrine, 137 Blood basic for Spanish idea of nation,

39; calpulli, 37, 38, 39 40, 41; calpullin-

sense of human life, 38, slaves, 37, Tenochtitlán, 37, Texcoco, 37

Caste wars, 49, 199; Chan Santa Cruz,

Bribes, 61, 62

50; Chiapas Highlands, 50; Huasteca oí San Luis, Potosí, 50; Mixteca region, 50, as nacional movements, 49, Yaquis oí Sonora, 50; oí Yucatán, 50 Casnlle, 8

Brujos, 270

Castizo, 50

Bullfighting, 66, 71, 147, 162; as cause oí

Carholicism, 23, 47, 63, 85, 86, 133 Catrines, 180

inciviliry, 66, as spectacle that dulls reason, 66-67 Bulnes , Francisco, 95, 96; portrayal of

Caupolicán, xiii Censos, 3; oí 1895, 205; and Viceroy

Benito Juárez, 95

Juan Güemes Pacheco, 198-99; in Tepozrlán, 172, 173 Center-periphery, 177, change to che dialectic , 185; eoexistence of, 165, conflation of scheme , 167; decline in the dialectic, 190, discourses of, 165-66, paradox of, 166; and political language, 165, problems with, 191-93; shifts in, 186, and Tepozrlán, 165; transformation of, 187-88

215-16

Asociaciones de padres de Jamilia, 149

nacional ist thought, 37, priesrs, 38,

fearmist movement, 25; asa response te backwardness, 25, threat to American

Bureaucratic procedure, as mechanism oí exclusion, 61 Bustamante , Carlos María, xi, 114

B,oymJíus del poder- eompositions of,

nisms oí assimilation, 39; and modero

260, founding director of ENAH, 260 Casrells, Manuel, 152

Vernal Ignacio, 232 Besen Mario Ramón, 255

marriage between nobles, 39, mecha

enlightened despotism, Si and independence, 25, as modernizing, 82; as re-

Bulstos, Hermenegildo, 101

Aristotlc. definiGOn of natural lave, 172

portante ol kinship networks, 37, 39;

Caso, Alfonso, founding director of INAH,

Benjamín, Walter, 22

Ario revuelto, ganancia de pescadores, 170 Art under protecti onisc 'tate, 115

Carrillo, Alejandro, 255

Humboldt, 8; decentralization, 25, as

Brading, David, 16

Ha roa. Roger, 110

critique of Mexican vices, 69-70 Arte, 103 Arielioro' eosn,opolitanism of, 103-9, i, ,a defense against US. society, 103; deli-

trative ideas, 21; and Alexander von

18'9, during colonial period, 41; fiestas,

40

Carranza, Venustiano, 98 Carrasco, Pedro, 73

mal nick,lan,es, 188, barrio symbolism,

188 pero istente of communi tarjan spirlt,

Carnival, 188, 189, 190, 192

Bourbon reforms, 21, 23, 82; adminis-

Revolution, 25, threat to British Navy, 25 Bozales, 44

4b: i twal plano of, 40; sane as calpullin,

108

hvin cities, 138, and U.S economic mterests, 139

Archeology and Ethnology, 238 Bock Philip, 188, 189 Boleliv .le la Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Eslmi ls tica, 242, 258 Pon ti] Guillermo critique of, xxiii; definition of México profundo, 263, expulsion from Nacional School oí Anrhropology, 232 n000n of "deep Mexico," xxiii Borda cities "border zone," 138; asa cultural impurity, 138; prosperiny of, 138;

Caballero Águila' sculpture of, 102 Caballero Español: sculpture of, 102 Cabecita de Teotihuacán, 249 Cabeza gigantesca de Hueyapan, 247 Cabrera, Luis, 53, critique oí the centenary of independence, 86, "Los dos patriotismos ," 138; as pro-mestizo nationalist, 53 Calderón de la Barca , Fanny, 233 Calles, Plutarco Ellas, 94, 104; building of che state , 74; development oí Cuernava-

Central power, 88, 105 Centralization, 165 CEPES (Centro de Estudios Políticos y Sociales), 76 Certificares oí blood purity, 16, 42 Charles 111, 9, 24, 25; subject eategory of, 9

ca, 104; residente in Cuernavaca, 137 Charles V, 15

Calpulli, 38, 40, 51, 173, 174, calpulteotl, Chavero, Alfredo, 230, 252; creation oí 37; communitarlan ideology of, 37; as racial narrative, 245-50; México a través cornerstone oí communiry, 37, and kin- de los siglos, 245; Otomis, 245, 246; porship relations, 37, and lineage, 37; pri- trayal oí Negro, Otomi, and Nahoa mordial unir of, 39 rases, 246; similariry with foreign deCancian, Frank, 161-62 scriptions, 246 Cantina, 149 Chiapas: neo-Zapatistas, 158 Cárdenas, Lázaro, 104, 105, 133, 137, 219; Chicago School oí Eeonomics, 140 construction oí Pan American Highway, Chinelas, 188, 190 104; formula for modernization, 114; Christiam. patriarchs, 68, Tepoztlán cennafionalization oí oil industry, 74, 104 sus, 173

lndex 336 =

= 337 =

Christianrty. 131 Christy. I lunry 5 C^hurch, 15o, Ion, 172. 17 authnn nos. 147 153: and i urru ptum 101: and

C 0rreclos, 192

n!c„lopy. 35 h>mis, xvi-xx; identifica-

Corrido. 279

power, 270-7 1, professional healers and

cor. ut 35. i ndigenous , 40, mestizo, 40.

Corruption, 120-22.145213.214

witches 271 ; Yautepec, 270

,11,d mtdupartisanship, 119; relations, xv,

appropnation ofstate machinery.

psnlsh 40

haeobo de lc rera. 153 loas o1 ritual

and Tepoztlán, 173 (_irnlíf, , 1-14, 21(1, 241, 246

application for Mexico, 59; "discourse

1, rt.l,lendozn. El, 113 ....

function of, 1 19, as a market mccho

ot the honre," 58; "discourse ot the

o,¡anr 1) 161, 188, 189

nism, 60; and politieal control, 119,

(.nnur Augusto, 230, 241

and public opinion, xxir asid public

163, 204 censornhgt nl che pres.

( npres 150,1553

ritual, 146, 155, 162, and redislnbu-

debates durmg Indepeadencc. 62: dv-

t,on, 119;sas ,,Ti indivldualistic 1211.

cGning importante al, s8, dclinunon

(1 1rroµlistadores. 21 Com. rvauves. 10 , 133, 268, 269, 280;

of, 70-71, as degraded haseline 58-62. discourscs of, xx; dynamlcs of, 59; and

pragmal e accord w,th 1iberals, 72 Consf,tutional Assembly oí the Depart-

Citi zenship 11.27, 60. 61 62. G0.

ment ol Quéretaro, 243

carly constitutions, 63, carly legal code,, 62, 70, historieal diseusslon of, 59, ideal

Constitution of Cádiz, 27, 63, 64, 88; artiele 25, 64, definition oí "Spaniards,"

oí citizenship rights, 72; importante oí political discourse, 79; Indians under Benito Juárez, 51; invoked after indcpendence, 79,- and nationalism, I1, 48 politics in modero Mexico, 79; rejection

27 Constitution oí Mexico ( 1811), 62-63 Constitution oí Mexico ( 1824), 48, 62, 63, 64; abolition oí slavery , 204; article 9,63, and eitizenship, 62

oí corporate forms, 78, social critics ol.

Constituir n oí Mexico ( 1857), 48, 51,

80; social pact, 60; tied so weakness oí the state, 74; transformatton of, xx

66 70, 71, 98, 164, citizenship and

under postrevolutionary governments,

nationality, 71, and denationalization

80 Civilizing horizon, 139

of religion , 48, female suffrage, 71;

Civil society, 57

for citizenship, 71

Cockfights, 71, 162 Cofradías, 147, 149, 150 Colegio de México, FI, xii; and Daniel

264, nationalism of, 264 De eso que llaman antropología mexicana, 231,

Cortés, Martín, 218 Cosío Villegas , Daniel , 218, 219, 221; criticism oí Luis Echeverría , 222, "fac-

232, 261 Democracy, xiv, 156, costs of, 78 ; history of, xx; lack of, 156, representation of,

tory oí Mexican history , " 218, 220, as "intelleetual caudillo ," 224; mentor to

203-4 Department of Anthropology oí the Secretaría de Agricultura y Fomento,

Enrique Krauze, 222 Cosmopolitanism , 103, and Enlightenment thinkers, 23

250, 251, 252; mission of, 252; as national symbol , 251; promotion oí civi-

Counter- Reformation, 154 Creole, 5, 6, 9, 17, 44, 275, discrimina-

47; as propios , Si in Quéretaro , 243-44,

Desmadre, 110

from the word criar, 43

Díaz, Por6rio , xii, 51, 223, 241 ; birthday en Mexican Independence Day, 104; centralization oí che state , 205-6, concessions to foreign capital , 52; consolida-

134

Contact zones, 125, 132, 136, 143; definition of , 130; emergente oí national identity , xxii , first type, 140; fourth type, 141; history oí anthropology, 135; and nationalism, 1411 second type , 141, third rype, 141; and transnational process , 142, types

blamed for economic backwardness, 114; Catholic fanatieism blamed for lack of colonists, 69

of, 130

Communitarian ideologies, xx, 35, 36, 56,

Corporate forms of property . as obstarles

and Aztecs, 36-37; considerations for

reise oí opposition parties, 77-78 Deep Mexico, 122, 286, versus invented,

Tepoztlán, 169

rights , 74; protection against foreign

entitic study, 134, 139-40; and tourism,

letarian , 151, in rural arcas, 147 Colonia Tepozteca, 179, 181 Colonization, xx, 14, 15, 184, 185, 186.

national devclopment, 111, reise o1 nongovernmental organizations , 77-78,

shared with Martín Luther, 15, Martín Cortés, 218; Moctezuma , 218, and

73, 89, 98; description of, 54; land

Contact trames. concept of , 129, and sei-

nition of, 147, discussion of agrarian. 149, historical overview, 147-53, pro-

sin educational sv,tem, 219; elfeets on

in Tepoztlán. 267; three leve;; 160 Cortés, Hernán, 15, 153, 167 birthday

Constitution oí Mexico (1917), 54, 71,

capitallsts , 74; workers rights, 74

Collége de France, 197 Collective actors and cofradías, 147: defi-

1,10

Deht crisis (1982`. 105, 116, 215, effect

lization, 251 Department oí Soconusco in Chiapas: races of , 244, statistics, 244

Consumptiore fashion industry and "dumping ," 118; piracy, 118

Cosío Villegas, 218; inspired by

street," 58, usefulness of analysis, 78 Darwin, Charles. and Mexican education,

tion of, 17 , 45, emergente oí term, 9, national identity of, 5, and nationalism, 45, patriotism and philosophy , 28, 45,

Madero s use of , 96, 98, requirements

Clio, 220 Coatsworth, John, 220

DaMatta Roberto xx 58, 59, 61, 67, 80:

160 asa "cargo systen;.' 161: and cho church, 160-61, and liesra 162-63

C.omnntorl. Ignacio. 241

funaio m. 151, and «preso nta uon it;

Curandero . 270, 273, 275, and politieal

muno ot, 36; In torntation of national

to citizenship, 75

che future, 56; construction uf, 36 tacll,

Critique of tbe Pyramid, The, 226 CROM (Confederación Regional de Obreros Mexicanos), 151, 179, 180, and Zapa-

tren oí political representation , 206, correspondence of, 146; creation oí rurales, 205; embodiment oí three presidencial

tistas, 179 CTM (Confederación de Trabajadores Mexicanos ), 119, 151 Cuahtémoc , xiii, 239 Cuautla, 266 Cuernavaca , 167, 175, 178, 184 , 187, as a

personas , 104; interpretation oí Frantiois Xavier Guerra, 221; labor repression, 206, legacy oí regime, 206 , portrait of, 106; rehabilirarion of, 220; trains, 133

tourist destination, 137 Cuerpo unido de nación, 25

Díaz Cadena, Ismael , 172-73

Cult oí the Virgin oí Guadalupe, 47 Cultural modernity , 82; challenge to state

Díaz Ordaz, Gustavo, 104, 135, 138, 223,

Cultural production, 215; production of image, 136

attempt to censor hippies , 131; construction oí Mexico City subway, 104,

institutions , 82, and corruption, 214

133, diary of, 220; and foreign influences, 138, maintenance oí national

In 3 ex

1r,dex

338

= 339 =

image , 138; Olympics , 133, 135 138,

Lsrrada, Agustín, 97

ugliness of, 226

I-strasia luan, 242

Discourse of the homo , 58, 59 , 61, according to DaMatta , 58; applied lo the good pueblo , 67; familial idioms, 59

Ethnographic state definition of, 136

Goffman, Erving, 136, 157

Eurnpeans, 50 Evans, Colonel Albert, 234

González Casanova, Pablo, 232

Friedlander, Judith, 192-93

Governmental institutions, 197

Front state: maintenance oí public image, 137

Governmental intervention: dependence on, 75

Fuentes, Carlos, xi, 56, 218, 227, descrip-

Governmentality, xxii, 198, 202, 203; im-

Exposición Iberoamericana de Sevilla, 102 Expropr,at,on: failurc lo create propertied cinzcnry, 75

Dolcefar mente ( 1880), 239 Dumont , Louis, 166 Durazo, Arturo, 1 12

Ex-,rola giving thank, lo che Virgen of Guadalupe Jora a,¢essful med,cal operador, 26

Earthquake of1985, xi Echeverría, Luis, 104, 222, 227; and

FamiLal idioms, 59

Cosío Villegas, 222; electr,hcat,on of

Felipe Don, 272, 273, 285, Fiesta de

thc counrryside, 104; highways, 133 Education, 60, 205 Ejidos; failurc to create propertied citizen-

Querzaleoatl, 273, and national Mexican anthem, 273 Fernando VIL portrait of, 92

ry, 75

Fieras 150, 156, 161, 190, and campaign

Election of July 2, 2000, xxi

cuero, 162, and conuption, 162; Fiesta

Electiori, as souices of revenue 78 Eley, Geoff. definition oí public sphere, 265-66

de Quetzaleoatl, 273, 285; and patriotisni, !Si, and use of sports, 155 Filipinas, 15

Elites, 143, 200, construction of public opinion, 147 , corruption of, 213, Creolc

Film,. 118, 126, dismbution of, 1 18 Flore, Joachim de, 15

30, discourse oí messianism , 70; forros

Five Fe rr,il;es. reviews of, 258

ot discussion, 148, lack oí public torum,

Flores Magón, Ricardo, 151

148; Masonie lodge membership, 30,

Fondo de Cultura Economica, 219, 259 Foucault, Michel, xxii, 202, 210; defini-

portrayed as foreign , 144; and public opinion , 147, Tepoztecan, 174; v;rtuous

tion ol hiopower, 14; definition oí gov-

and vieious, 70

ernmentaliry, 198, governmentality,

El pueblo, 155

xxii, history from rhe presenta' 2 13

El que se enoja , pierde. 60, 78, meaning ,l,

anthropology, 229, and nacional anthropology, 229

Freud, Sigmund. and Mexican education, 140

Exansi&, al puente de Mrtlac, 105

Dismodernity , 110 122

Globalization. effects on "metropolitari'

French intervention, 133, 241, increased polarization, 72

Eugen,cs: and postrevolutionary government, 139

Discourse of the street , 58, according tu DaMatta , 58, as discourse of liberal en; zenship. 58

30-31, as secret societies, 31-32; Scottish rite, 30, 31

Foreigncrs, 16, 134, 140-41, attraction

60

to indigenous peoples, 135; business,

ENAH (Naconal School oí Anthro-

1 31 -32, 140, challenge to nationalists,

pology and History), 231, 254, expulsien oí G. Bonhl, 232

140-42, destabilization of, 135, European.134,- investments, 140, 252;

Encomendar, 16

nadowlisr reactions to, 135; North

England, 15. 21

A mcrica n. 134

Enlightenment, 4, 154

Francl,can,nissionaries, 15

Escalante, Fernando, 84, 249; arguments

Freemasonry, 29, 30, 31, 146, masons,

Gómez, Juan José, 279

tion oí nacos counterpart, 1 11 Fueras, 8, 9

portance of idea, 210-11; instrumenta of, 211; and nongovernmental intellectuals, 211; state culture of, 204 Gran España, 25, 27, 33

Gage , Thomas, 239 Gallo, Joaquín, 169, 171 Gamboa , Manuel, 276 Gamio , Manuel , 53, 253 , 254, 257, 258, 262; art oí governing , 252, and Franz Boas, 53 , 250, building oí facilities, 252,

Grano de Arena, El, 282 Great Nacional Problems, xvi, xviii, xix, and civilizational horizon, xviii, definition of, xviii, fetishism of, xvi, for public interese, xix

and Chavero, 252, construction oí revolutionary narionalism , 53; development oí indigenismo , 53; differences with Porfirians, 252 , 254; director oí INI, 260,

Grounded theory, xix, definition of, 127 Gruzinski, Serge. attack on Indian learning, 154 Guamán Poma de Ayala, Felipe, 16 Guardino, Peter, 29

doctoral work at Columbia University, 250, and eugenics movement , 252, as "father" oí Mexican anthropology, 53,

Güemes Pacheco y Padilla, Viceroy don Juan Vicente, 91, 198-99

250, founder oí Departamento de Asuntos Indígenas , 260; Indigenismo , 53; in-

Guerra, Fran4ois Xavier, 64, 82, 221, argument oí Porhrio Díaz, 221; descrip-

digenous aesthetic , 250; instructions to researchers, 251-52, and ISAAE, 238, land distribution lo peasants , 252; L. población del valle de Teotihuacán , 251, and

tion oí "collective actora," 147, description oí postindependence Mexico, 146; discussion oí che Mexican Revolution, 82 Guerrero, Vicente, 29; murdered by fractious Mexicans, 69

Pimentel , 252, as pro - mestizo nationalist, 53 ; and pseudoscientific racism, 52-53, role in local society , 25; role oí anrhropology, 251, shaping uf national

Haber, Stephen, 221 Habennas, Jürgen, 10; definition oí repre-

image , 252; support from Venustiano Carranza , 250; undersecre t ary oí edu-

sentativa publicity, 148

Hacendados, 146, 147, 155

caron , 260, vision of anthropology, 251

Heifetz, Hank, 222 Hernández, Deputy Chico, 68

García , General Alejandro, 94 GATT ( General Agreement en Tariffs and

Hidalgo, Miguel, 29, 47, 48, 62, 84, 241; accusations against Spaniards, 29, appropriation of the Virgen de

on cidzensh,p, 71-72^ hctitious charco-

31; Masonic lodges as networks, 30,

ter of che ci lizcn, 84; oppositiun lo

Masonic organizations, 31; and Mexi-

Daniel Cavo Villegas, 72

Gazeta de Lima, 200

can narionalism 31, Joel Poinsett, 31;

Guadalupe, 48, Catholic faith as national

Gazeta de México , La, 7, 8 , 23, 25, 148, 200, 206, discussion oí "rhe public ," 201, and

sovereignty 85, counterexcommunica-

Español, 17 18, 33, 44, 50, 154; dominan[ Gaste , 21,-as "Old Christians," 18

as pulitical parties, 31, rite oí York, 30, 31, 32; role following independence,

Trade), xxi

tion oí European imperialists, 85-86;

the'scientifically marvelous ," 201-2

counterexcommunication oí Spanish

1,, ,rx

dex 340

= 341

clcrgy. 86; destruciiun ol towns. .84, emancipador ul claves, 62; end u,

political organizaton of, 40, purpose oí

nd musu_o. 50 , monarch,sts, 87; naII,,,u' comauusncss, xiv: national,za-

]SI (Impon Substitution Industrializacion 1,

40, subordination ro Baste, 41, trbute,

103, 264; Arirlismo as an ideology, 103,

40

corn;pti on, 120; crisis of national ism,

tribute, 62 ess,q' by VIUVr Ttll nar,

56,n,t thu chuteh. 47 notions si caste,

104 cxcommun¢aUOn endotscd h3

+a p ar 1 1 nmcerns ol nationalism,

Indio, 192; as"forcedidennty, 192-93

1 14, cultural rcgions durtng, 1 17, ex-

Archbishop ul A1cx,co. 8S. crcornmm1s

41, tv,u e.. ol. 62. and public sphcre.

Individual rights, 146

baustion of, 105, and nationalism, 121,

canon ol. Ievel dltfcrenres he

1Su. endica! ,nsurge nts, 87, rehance on

tween Gastes . 62, martyred bs

Spanlsh legal thought, 87, role of eom-

tr

period of urban growth, 115, teachings

Informal eeonomy ethnoglaphies ol,

of the revolution, 121

75, negotiation with state institunons,

Spaniards, 69. tASexico: Biogrnhby ol Pmi,

numwcs, 10, role ot Frcemasonry, 30;

224; response u, rxeommumeaaan n

Spnln a4a,nsr French nvaders. 27;

75 INI (Instituto Nacional 1rá,,i vista', 231. 232,

tate

Inquisition, 241, and census. 198 as svni-

ippie muvcnuu Ii4--75, CI. 16 H ispanicized, 171 1 üstorians Latir Amcrica visto, 4, reac-

adoption of Aztec eagle, 47, creation oí

254

as scicntihcalh ;ndincd. 202 parriot-

ism56 vicw ol Anderson 4 Indian 5 16 33,36.37,44,46.48,50,

Isla Juana, 15 Imrbide Agustín, 29, 47, 68, 241, 284, Order ol Guadalupe, 47, murdered hy fractious Mexicano, 69, Plan de Iguala,

bol oí state vigilance, 115 Intellectuals, xii, 146, 158, 199, 206, 218,

29, 64

52. 55, 63. 153, 191, 263, 267; and citi-

272, 281, and autonomy, 199-200; as

Holisen: definition nf, 228-29

zenship,5l;collectiveidentity of, 42,

beneficiarles oí decentralization, 117,

Jaguaribe, Beatriz, 213

]la,, - William Setvard Traveling in Adexlco, 238 1 forre and Ibe Zapilotes, Tbe, 234

communities, 267, conversion of, 153;

curanderos, 275; debates in the Gazeta de

Jalisco, secessionist movements in, 68

descrihed as rencos, 11 I-112, 114; dis-

huerta, Victoriano, 98

location of, 42; governors, 274-75;

México, 202, dependence en corporate investors, 116; differences with U.S.,

Huitzilopochdi, 39 Human rights , 56 57; recodification ot, 56

ladinolzation, 45, 275; legal category

197; and European model, 197, Ricardo

ol. 41; as les, likely m commit crimes,

Flores Magón, 151, geography oí muteness, 284; and governmentality, 202;

James, Edward, 214 Jefes Politices , 147, 155 Jordán, Fernando : Miguel Alemán, 256; explanation oí Robert Redfield, 255-56;

tion to Bencdiet Anderson, 4

244; and niarriage, 42, massacres of, 52,

Iberians, 46 Identity producron, 128 TEPES (Instituto de Estudios Políticas y JocinlrsJ. 76 Illegal immigrants, 139 Imagen de Jura con retrato de Fernando VII,

Nacional School oí Anthropology, 256

40; in Querétaro, 243; racial category

government subsidies, 208-9, and interpassivity, 208-9; interpreters of national

of, 41, republics, 8, rulers, 168; and

sentiment, 114, Enrique Krauze, 215,

Joseph, Gilbert, 220 Journalists : as middle daos, 59

thcft. 244; tribute, 85; women, 17- See

language oí respect, 285, and Oscar

Juan, Jorge, 7, 8

also Aztees, Inca, Mazabuas, Otomt

Lewis, 259, list oí, xi; local level, 266,

Juárez, Benito , 5 1, 52, 55, 56, 95, 129, 206, 241, biblical imagery, 96; Bulnes,

mortalty o1, 40, population movements,

Indianness, 112, 170, 172, 192

275; and Mexican Americans, xii, and national space, 266; as nation builders,

description oí, 95, as civil servant, 225,

anos of, 232; as atomizing, 262; a de-

xxii; and patronage, 116; Porfirian intel-

consolidation oí national econoeny, 79;

fense against U.S society, 103; deserip-

lectuals, 249; José Guadalupe Posada,

construction oí presidential persona, 95;

IMF (Internacional Monetary Fund ), 129

tion uf, 231, distinct from liberalism,

151; postcolonial critics, 126; priests,

embodiment between nation and law,

immigratiom. as critica) perspectiva xni INAH (Instituto Nacional de Antropología

51; against foreign aggression, 54; incorporation oí the Indian, 232; mainte-

276; and public sphere, 283; representation oí national sentiment, 197-98, 269,

95-96; with green eyes, 101, identification with che )and , 96, image oí the presi-

nance oí indigenous communities, 49; against neocolonial exploitation, 54;

sources oí legitimation, 197; as spiritualisto, 207; and state formation, 198; oí

dency, 95, impact tan national history, 55, and Indian citizenship , 51, Indian-

and Tepoztán, 170, 179

Tepoztlán, 277, 280, 282, Max Webers

ness oí, 95; liberalism oí, 51; mestizaje oí,

92 Imagined Communities and Anderson, 3; critique of, 3. Ser also Benedict Anderson

Historia), 231, 254 Inca, 16,21 Independence, xiv, 5, 1 3 , 1 4 , 2 9 , 33, 86 149, 202; and American War of Independence, 27; and Bourbon refonns. 25: and Cathol,cism, 47, and citizenship. 62, Constitution ol Cádiz, 27, Creole

b;digeni;nm, 49, 51, 53, 103, 109, 231, 232,

7ndigerazta, 97, 134, art, 97, expon oí national anthropology, 254; Rodríguez Puebla, 48, 51 Indigenous communities, 40, 146, adop'

101, Mexico: Biography of Power, 222; mili-

definition of, 266

tary campaign against Hapsburg imperi-

Interna) colonialism, 128, 140, 191-92,

alists, 67, mythology oí Aztec past, 95;

232, 264

portrait oí, 99, 101, presidency as an institution oí power, 95 , railroads, 72; re-

International system, 128 Interpassivity, definition of, 208; and in-

symbols, 47, cuerpo unido de nación, 25;

non uf saints, 41, Christian worship, 40;

European influences of, 4, 83-84, failure

as corporate structures, 204, dislocated

to centralize, 87; and governmentality,

Indiano, 41-42; and Benito Juárez, 51;

Intimate cultures: definition oí, 116

oí individual guarantees in Yucatán, 67;

198, 203, and governmental state, 198,

links with lamily, 40, links with gods,

Intruder, The: asan allegory, 168-71, story

triumph over Maximilian , 72, universal-

199, hlsroriography of, 4, and indige-

40, link, wirh land, 40, loso oí legal

nous communities, 48, lack of Creole

protection, 150; organization of labor

bourgeoi sic, 30, lack oi stability, 233-3-1

groups. 40; organized by race, 41;

ligiosity and purity oí , 226; suspension

tellectual production, 208

ist liberalism of, 55

oí, 169-71 ISAAE (International School of American Archeology and Ethnology), 250

Junta Instituyente : and citizenship, 62 Juntas de mejoras, 149

1 n d rx

342 =

343 -

Kahlo, Frida, 55

Laves oi Castille, 18

Kaiser, Wilhelm - compared with Porfina Díaz, 104

constitution, 96-97, messianic image of, Mexican anthropology: challenges to

I.aves of che Indies encomendar, 16, justih-

98; as a spiritualist, 207, toppling oí foreigners, 255, eontemporary crisis

caiion of Spanish expansion, 16

Knight, Alan, 220

Díaz, 206-7 oí, 230; final phase of, 262; and Great Madrid, Miguel de la , 55, 223, and educaNational Problems, 260; historical detional system , 215; election of, 222, velopment of, 230, 233, indigenismo, 231; Mexico: Btograpby of Power, 222, nationalinstitucional infrastructure, 230; modern ist reaction to, 55; refornis of , 55; subsiaesrhetics, 231, and nationalism, 231; dies to inrellectual groups , 219; as welland 1968 student movement, 231, 261, meaning democrat, xxi process uf, 230-31; romanticization oí Magníficos ("Magnificent Severa "), 231, Indians, 259, Bernardino de Sahagún, 232, 261 238; stabilization of national image, 242, Mallon, Florencia, 65 220-21 state absorption of, 232, 260, strategies Maps, 3, 199 of government, 242 Maquiladoras, 139 Mexican democrats critique oí corporate Maroons, 45 state, 77, rise of democracy Martyrdom, 89, 95, 109, degradation of Mexican history: and public sphere, 157; insurgent priests, 89, images used by astheories of, 81

I-egal code of 1836 and citizenship, 64 Leonard, Irving, 154

Krauze , E nrique , xi, 215; career of 21 a and cha risma tic power , 225; com panson

Lerda de Tejada, Sebastián, 129

with Cosío Villegas and Oetavio Paz

1e1¢ 05e11 , 166, 175, 180, 257, 258, 260 270, 275; Cbildrea ofSánchez, 258, 259 260 critique of Sociedad Mexicana de

219, co - awnerul Cho , 220; critique of, xxii , critique oí p-esidenrialum 213; "democracy without adjectives' 222.

Groy,, fía y Estadística, 258; descri ption of

exceptionallsn ; of Mexico , 217-I8,

barrios, 180, as FBI spy, 259, Five Families,

"factory of h;stmy ' 220and Fran4ois Xavier Guerra , 22 1, as a historian ot na-

25s 259, letter tu Vera Rubín, 258-59; and Mexican intelligentsia, 259; Ricardo Pozas, 259

tion building , xxii; and histoncal soap operas , 220, 223 ; interpretarion ol

Liberal,sm, 4, 10, 49, 50, 133, 150, prag-

Mexican history , 216, 223 ; Juárez as authenric , 226,- Krauzometcr , 222-23

nRüic accord w,th conservatives, 72, and tacist ideas, 50

and Miguel de la Madrid, 219; mcnrors

Libro kajo El- history oí civil violente,

of, 222 , and national history , 217; as nationalist i niel lectual , xxii; and 1968 5tu-

piring presidents, 109, linked te ideal of

239, as shared history of suffering, 241

dent movement, 212-1 3, 218-19, and

Limón José, xii

presidencial biograph i es , 2 17, Antonio López de Santa Atina , 226; and lclevisa, 219-20 ; and Tlateloleo massacre 216,

1.ockharr James, 4 1

Lion's Club, 149

López, Jesús. proposal to ban bullkghting, 66-u7

and use oí sources, 221 ; use of state patronage, 226 ; and Vuelta, 218

95, amputated leg, 90; illustration of,

Pastrv Wat, 90, as preserver of order,

Ladino , 43, 44, 275; Jews, 44; Muslim,, 44,

90. pmblems with political parties, 90,

as pardy civilized, 44; Spanishspeaking

1 33: n Texas, 90, theatrieality of, 226, uses of sacrl fiee, 89-90

Land- importante of for i dentiry, 43 La Paz , Bolivia, 113, 129

127; and antipolitical discourse, 210,

Luther Martín, 15

Western ," xvii; polities and an tipo B tics,

Lynch John, 90

Lavallé, Bernard, 17

Macfi iavellianism, 154

tia

344

democracy, 216, goals of, 216, ideologues oí, 86, indigenista anthropology, 231, indigenistas, 231; and indigenous world, 134, "intellectual caudillos," 218,, Mexico: l3iograpby of Power, 223-24, and

,

x

_

dence, 51, masculine arguments for,

peasant organizations, 151, popular

53-54; nationalization of, 54, as nation-

public spheres, 279-80; projectforna-

al yace, 52, protagonist oí national history, 53, revaluation of, 52

"aposde ol democracy," 98; and 1857

I

139,178,183,199,205,216,218; degradation oí citizenship, 79, and

ments for, 53-54, as fortified version oí

Madero, Francisco 1., 96, 216, 224, as

1aw oí 1608, 17

Mexican proverbs, 60, 78, 118, 176 Mexican Revolution, xi, xxi, 52, 75, 86,

che indigenous yace, 53, and indepen-

Mecebu.;les, 173, 174

anthropology, 229

52, during pre-Hispanic period, 35 Mexicanness, 224

Mestizo, 16, 50, 53, 263, feminine argu-

210, portrayed as backward , 127 sovereignty and citizenship , 10, tradition ol

tizaje, 51, after independence, 46; and liberals, 51; and Mexican Revolution,

Mestizaje, 51

tion o l 181 1, 62

left and imperialism , 129, as "non-

ideologies, 35, historical product oí Mexican peoples, 35, importante of mes-

Merchants, 146, 147, 168, 200

1_ópcz Rayón, Ignacio, 62, 63; constitu-

clama ru Europe , xvii, Latin American

Mexican nationality, and communitarian

Medical doctora' movement, 151-52, 214 Mendieta, Gerónimo, 15

López Portillo, José inauguration of research facility, 213

Latín America , xviii, amhiguiry off status,

Enríquez, 53, principal ideologists, 53, as protectionist, 53-54; as revolutionary nationalism, 53

Media, 117, 152, 157, 158, 284, and social persona, 159

López Marcos, Adolfo, National Museum of Anthropology, 133

Lara, Agustín, 206

Manuel Gamio, 53, and mestizo, 54, as modernizing, 53-54; Andrés Molina

killing of, 87-88, and Tepoztlán, 176 Mayas: sold as claves, 235 Mazabuas, 37

canc( of eg, 90; Teatro Santa Atina, 90,

1afaye, Jacques, 16 La .Malinche, 218

persona, 94, proof oí cleanliness, 280, Guadalupe Victoria, 94, Pancho Villa, 94

Maximilian, 87, 241, boulevards of, 133,

as scrvant of the nation, 225, signih-

Africans, 44

55, under current regime, 55, formulacien of, 53; foundational strain, 86;

Masses: as obstacles to progress, 65; insufficiently civilized, 65 Más vale cabeza de ratón que cola de león, 1 18

93 iVlexieo Biograpby ofPawer, 226, in

Labor Day parado, 1 19

Cabrera, 53, contemporary discourse of,

ers, 89, martyrs oí independence, 89, Alvaro Obregón, 94, and presidencial

Marx, Karl: and Mexican education, 140

López de Santa Arma, Antonio, 89, 93,

Krugman , Paul, xxi

Mexican nationalism, 53, 86, 87; Luis

sovereignty, 94, marryred national lead-

Mexican Americana, xü

tionality and modernity, 114, and proletarian organizations, 151, rapid modernization, 79; and role oí intellectuals,

1

j

Index = 345 =

114 and role.¡ intellcctuals, 210; teachings nl 121 and Tepuztld .o spherc , 46, and 52 14: seat ut viceroyalty . 178, watershed lor natinnal,ty :Alexicoo-. ambigwty ol smms , 127: um- frpu,: tlán 167. 186 , 241, 243, 244, sciousness ol backward coodiuun. xc,i AI.x!:o It, b adal Evolut," desrc ol nanunahry , .XIS Imellectual 24 ;Vlfxim i'rofio;do. 263 and artistic production . 210, labe1cd "developing narco." xvül , narrat;ves ul Meycr Lorenzo, 213 Mezican pcrople . xv;i; nationalism ol 4. ,Abur.... .,', 129 ALgants. 9,. 142, 143 , 188, 190, 192, source of nat;o nalnv . xlv: serte paN17 I fl. ,O ( anuda . 187, irom Guerrero, 75 usage of s mb Is cuino. 1811, migiatory proeess , xii; nationalist Méx co a Irave , .ir pos , 245 50

121; to Tepoztlán, tionary scheme of, 245, interpretation hacklash against , 186; to the United States, 187 of pre Columbian past , 245, Nahoa , 246, Otomis , 245-46 Milenio. 212, 213 146, 147 Mexico at tbe World', Falo , 241 Mllitary leaders , 146, 147, 149 , absence of citaMinera Biograpby of Powee Mexico . Moctezuma , 218, 241 tions, 221 ; Alemán , 223; Ávila Camacho , ;\4odemidad indiana . Nación y mediación en 223; Emilio Azcárraga , 224; comparison México, xix, xx to National Museum oí Anthropology , 214, 215, and 226; composition of, 215-16 ; Cosío Modernist ruins, 213 , 223, Tlatelolco massacre, 214 Villegas , 221, 224 ; Porfirio Díaz , xv, xx, 57 , 82, 111, 122, , election ol de Modernization 222, 223 , Díaz Ordaz , , 131; critila Madrid, 222- 23; Hidalgo , 224; and 163 , and corruption of morals indigenized, ; 222, intellectual cal m national state, 136 historical evidence , , 138, and production , 215; Krauzometer , 222, xxi, and nationalist reactions postrevolutionary government, 214; , 222; de la Madrid Solilude , of Labyrinth 223; metaphors for power, 224 , Mexi- principies oí, 128; relationship with the brote, 82, reproduction oí social dasses, can history as a ztruggle for democracy , 118-19; threats tu nation states , 82, use 216-17, Mezican Revolubon , 223-24 ; asa mirror oí presidencial power , 220, of nationality, 114 Andres, xvi, 53, 54, °acnationalist myth , 226, O' Gorman , 221, Molina Enríquez , argument opinions stated as historical facts . 222, [ion ' and "resístante ;' 53-54 , 53, mestizo ideology of, 223, Paz , 221, readings of, 218; sources for mestizos ,

Morelos (atare), 167, 266. 267 271. 273 279, constmction, 18 industr,al,zavon 183, migration to the United Stales 183 postrevoluti onary eco nom ic organiza-

National culture as dismodernity, 1 14 National history 81. 139 failure to deliver, 81 National identiry, xx, xxi, 14, 128, 132,

tion 183; regional space 182 siate

adoption of foreign techniques, 130;

governor, 182, tourism, 183

changing aspecrs of, 1 I I, formation ol. 141, formed in transnational networks,

Morenos, 45 t`lorrow, Dwight. 1 37

126- Trames of contact, 130, interna[

Mularros, 16 17

business

132, narratives oí identity,

125; and neo),beral ism. 129, production

Nación, 7, 9 13, and lienedict Anderson. 8, distinguished from puma, 9; extension of national identity , 8, and panimperial identiry , 8, and sovereignty , 8; usage of, 7, 8

of, 125, production oí "Mexico," 126; sociology oí, 127, topography of, 130, women and children, 10

National image , 143, implementation of, 126, management of, 141

Naco, 120, Art-Naqueau , 11 3; categorical

Nationalism, xxiii , xv, 5, 10, 11, 13, 54, 55,

transformation of, 114, changing con-

120, 122, 191 , alternatives for Mezican, 56, 83 ; and Benedict Anderson, xx, 3, 30, 200, bonds oí dependence, 12; citi-

notaGOns of, 111, closet nacos , 113; as colonial imagery, 112; definition oí nacos kitsch , 112, description of, 1 1f, foreign-sounding names, 1 12-13; as

zenship, 10 , 11; and communitarianism,

lack oí distinction , 113, lumpenpolitics of, 113; as mark oí Indian , 114; and

sumption , 121, connected to work, 121;

modernization , 113; Nac -Art, 113,

tionalism, 6 , crisis of, xxi, 114; defini-

naquismo, 112 , 113; as sigo oí provincial

tion of , 6-7, 33, development of, 27;

backwardness , 111, similar process in

discourse of, 13i evolution of, 27, exclu-

Latin America , 112; threat to tradicional political forms , 113; as urban aesthetic,

sion oí Spaniards, 29; failure to refor-

112

xvi, xx, 3, 33, 34; connected to concontradictory claims of, 126; Creole na-

mulate, 122 ; formation of, 30; and fraternity, 12, freemasonry , 31, ideological

NAFTA ( North American Free Trade

construction , 132, as invented nature,

Agreement), xxi, 108; backlash of,

4, 7, under ISI, 121, and language, 14,

121

229, and linguistic identification, 5; and

Nahoa, 246

Mezican anthropology, xxiii, mytholo-

53; as pro mestizo nationalist, 53 of, 220, Spanish versus English transla , Carlos , xi, 55, 205 treatment of 1968 student Monsiváis nion, 222 ; , 49, 83 , 84, crimovement , 221, José Vasconcelos , 224, Mora , José María Luis, 48 , 49, and indi223. Se, als,, tique oí Rodríguez Puebla Zapata , 224, Zedillo , Enrique Krauze ger;ismo, 49, interpretation oí the consti-

Nahuad, 37 , 172, 173, 192 , 272, 273,

gy, 151, 279; myths of, xüi, origins (anthropolog.cal stories), 233, polemical

Mexico Ciry , xii, 158, 171 , 175, 178 ; as tution, 83 85, 227; "baicony of the republic ,' xii; crowds , ,Morelos, José María , 29, 47 , 85; accusations , 184; abolshment oí slavery , 60; drivers , 60; earthquake of 1985 29, Apatzingán con, 184; growth of, against Spaniards , freeway to Tepozdán stitution , 64, edict oí 1810, 85-86; mar152; lack oí services , 60; mediated move 205, tyred by Spaniards , 69, national ideal ments , 59, and national sat'atics , uf, 8o; persistente oí política) spirit, 86, , periodicals , 200, politeness of, 59-60 senuments oí the nation ;' 158, 227; , " 206, prosti ruti un during Che Porfiriato , 137, and public opinion , xii; and pubis servant, of thc nation, 225

ship, 48 , as community, 13, 35, 146,

ary nationalism , 56, sacrifice , 7, 11; as a

identification with homeland , 47; ini-

sigo oí modernity , 128; and sovereignty,

portance oí blood, 43 ; importante of

xiv; standardization of, 125; and subject-

274, 278 , 285, national anthem, 177; speakers, 174 Nation, xiii; 48; appeals to nationhood, 11, as Christian utopia , 86, and citizen-

nature oí che national question, 47; politics of, 122, power of , 12-13, and racism, 14 ; and religion , 14; revolution-

land, 43 , intellectuals and nation build-

formation, 3; substitute for religious

ing, 212 ; local proeess oí state forma-

community, 7; successor to religion, 3,

cien, xv, myths of, xiii; nationalization

thick description, 32, and transnational

oí the church, 47; and race , 27, redefini-

relations , 125; uniry and the intelli-

[ion of, 46; and sacrifice , 1 1, symbols

gentsia , 209; violente of, 30; oí weak

of, xiii, transformation oí semantics, 7

nations, 126

l r, :l e x 1 e d ex = 346 = ea 347 =

Narionalist ideology, 48, alternatives ol, 56, social hierarchies, 48

74; Ioss ol arm, 94; monument built co honor lost arm, 94, martyrdom of, 94;

Narionalist movenients: adoption oí ancient political forros, 36; caste wars, 49 Nationalists, 13, adoption oí ancient political forros, 36; bardes of, l0, discoursc of, 12, and nationalistic scienGsts, 202, and ven Humboldt, 199 Narionality, xiv-xv, 286

overlap ol presidential personas, 104-5, and Zapatistas, 179 Ocampo, Melchor 214 O'Corman Edmundo, xviii, disapproval of K;auze's biographies oí power, 221, ídem ahout che invention oí America, xvui

National Museum oí Anthropology 226. 231,242,254

Oil indusery, 104, nationalization under Cárdenas, 104

National Polytechnlc Instituto, 214 National Preparalory School, The, 243

Olympie Carnes in 1968, 108, 259 Opposition parties. PRD, 117

Nacional sentimenr, 197, 207, census

Ortega Y Gasset, José, 209

198; concentrated in Mexico City, xii

Ortiz, Luis 2 I, 22

and Agustín Iturbide, 284; and opinions,

Oswald, Felix L, 239

158; and ritual, 156, 158, and starislin,

Otnm,, 245, 246

198, techniques for interpreting,208; use oí quesrion naires, 198

Oteoman Empire, 15

National sovereignty, 83, 88, secular process of, 83 National space, xv, xxiü, 265, conceptual challenge of, 264; cultural gcography of, xxi, developmenr of, xv; histodcal sociology of, xix Neocolonial exploitation, 54

Ouweneel, Arij, 275

Pagden, Anthony, 28, 172, 220 Parda 45 Parián Market, 131 París World's Fair oí 1889, 250 Paseo de la Reforma, 206 Pastrv War, 90 Patience, 61

Neoliberalism, foreignization of, 129; intplementau,an of, 129

Patria, 5, 9, 43

Nerherlands, 15, 21

Pa triotic deaths, 3

New Lawsof 1542, 174

Parriotic sacrifice, 13

New Spain, 8; as cante society, 40, hierarchical relationships, 40, as a kingdoni ot Spain, 8

Payno, Manuel, 239

Newspapers, 5, 6, 156; and "empry time," 22-23, limits of public discussion, 148, as pdvileged inedia, 159. Seealso Print capitalisno

Neu, York Times, xxi Nexos, 219, 226 Nolahles, Los 276, 277, 278, 279 Novo, Salvador, xi Nuestra señora de Guadalupe, palro,w dr la Nueva España, 19 O, Genovevo de la, 179 Obregón, Alvaro, 94, 104, Barde ol Celaya, 104-5; building oí the state,

Paz, ( ctavio, xi, 53, 55, 218, 219, 221, 222 227, critique of National Museum of Authropology, 226; The Critique of tbe Pyruruid, 226, mentor to Krauze, 222, en xlesican nacional culture, xiv, Mexico: Riog¢iphy of Pou,er, 222 Pcasant communiti es, 152; forums for discisson, 149, gendered forms for discussion 149; and public sphere, 149 Peasants,52,151,191,232,266,281; claims of citizenship, 76, exchange oí votes 76; parfieipation in national discoune, 76 Peña Guillermo de la, xix, 161 Poimseln res, 5, 8, 17, 45, 199 Peo¡les Cuide to Mexico, 134

Phelan, John Leddy, 15

Postmodernity, 110

Pietschmann, Horst, 21, 22, 23, 25

Pozas Horcasitas, Ricardo, 151; medical students strike, 214

Pimentel, Francisco, 53, 252; high official in Maximilian's court, 260 Plan de Ayala, 278

Pratt, Mary Louise, 141 PRD (Partido de la Revolución Democrática) use oí celebrities, 117

Plan de Iguala, 29, 64 población del valle de Teotihuacán, La, 253, national dimensinns of, 251 Pocho, 139

Prefectura del Ceniro 242 Prensa Graffca, La, 255

Presidency, 84, 96, construction oí nacional image , 88, identification with

Poinsett, Joel, 31, 88, effort to build proAmerican parry, 31, establishment of

modernization, 104; Juárez as strong image , 95, messianic imagery, 89, dur-

Masonie lodges, 88, organizarion of Masonic lodges, 31

ing the nineteenth century, 104, presidenttalism, 213; sacrifice as ideology, 89, 225, statistics, 104

Political elites, developmenr oí distinct forms, 118; parasitism, 120-22, portrayed as out oí touch, 120; as predators, 120

President, 83, 99; development oí image, xxi; figure of, 106, 108, 115; inaugurations of, 213, Mexico.. Biography of Power,

Political rallies, 177, as expression of public sentiment, 160; theatrical element, 159

216; since 1982, 105; as servant, 225, shaping of public persona, 83 Presidential authority, 98: nationalization oí the law, 98

Political ritual, 146, 159; appropriarion of corruption, 146, and corruption 162, substitution for discussion, 164

Presidential candidate: relationship with che suit, 77, use of costumes, 77

Politics: connections with ritual, 145 Polis, 204 Poniatowska, Elena, xi, 55 Population, oí 1950, 54, of 1990, 54 Porfirian elite: and European immigration, 140 Porfirians: and internacional arena, 252

Presidential persona, 81, 96; importante oí technological innovations, 104, shaped by 83, 98-99, uses oí martyrdom, 94 Presidential power, 88; and política) parties, 88

Presidential repertoires, 89

Porfiriato, xx, 180, 206, 218, 250; consoli-

Press, 59, 146, 150; censorship of, 59,

dation oí nacional economy, 79, elite,

during colonial period, 115; eritieism

140, 180, 210; evolution oí citizenship,

oí the government , 78; and government

72, economic growth, 72, futuros for subsidies, 209, and narcotice trade, 131; discussion, 149, government institutons, and self-clnsorship, 59 197; "order" and "progress" superseded PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional), 82, citizenship, 72, and Political ritual, 73, 111, asan Ancien Régime, 82; and de and positive seienee, 210,, progress as la Madrid, 222; and democracy , 216 ; fetish, 73; and public education, 73, and idiom oí village uniry, 1 19; institutionalpublic opinion, 147; schools and festi- ized heir of che revolution, 98; and vals, 155, 156; state theater, 205, and local villages, 119, monument for Alvaro Tepoztlán, 170, 178 Obregón, 94, 1988 campaign, 76, poPosada, José Guadalupe, 151 litical campaigns, 222; as a refashioning Posrcolonial, 142; challenges ro nacional- of colonial system, 115, use oí public ism, 128, elements of postcolonial theo- rallies, 76, use of relevision stars, 114 ry, 125, identity production 128 Pues,, 168, 241, as inrellectuals, 275-76

IuJr^ 348 =

Indrx 349 =

Prieto . Gmllern;u,. xi 25U-51 Prlmordiahst nacional lsm. 265 Primordial loy albas, 36. 49 Primordial tules. ti

Kan;o, Samuel . 53. 74 78; on ^tilexiean pan==nal charactcr , 73; pelado as enemy

Pr ; pales. 174 I'nnc capitalism

Ra;ln,ads . en;raliza tion of thc goverm roen; 72. under Juárez 72; and public ,pi,', 295

3.5.6, 14.22..43

Private sphere 268 Progrerisfw , 268. 169. 280

Guy. 73; pelado as massihed

.n good

,,trzen , 70; use of thc pelado, 73 Ranchos 155

14, 15, importance af blood.

Progress, 54

Praletar;an ; zanun. 1

1 r;pi )e ni;;re , 16, nationalization

Pranundam ;m;tm 299 Protochronisnt xix; definition of nx

oi ;ha church, 42

Puebla , Rodríguez, 48, 51

Puebla (state), 155 Pueblo , El, 78, 79, 80, bad pueblo as todder for politicians , 71, discourse oí good and bad pueblo , 70; portrayals of, 65 positive and negative , 65; substiituted by progress, 79 Public opinion , xxii, 146 , 156, 157, 159, 206, 208 , 210, 266; concentrated in Mexico Ciry, xü; and intel lectuals, 197; lack of, 284, mechantsms of, xxii; and social movements , 152, subsidized hy Che state, 233 Public rallies as corporate organisin, 76; divided by sectors , 76; increase in participation , 78; 1988 PRI campaign, 76; use oí dress , 76, 77, use oí television stars, 117 Public sphere , xv, xxii , 10, 25, 82, 102, 145, 147 , 149, 153, 159, 233 ; and collective actors , 150; definition of, 265; development of, 149; geography of, 146, and independence , 150; and local imelleetuals , 283; media of , 266, obstarles

Rccyclmg. detinuion ol, I I8 Rcdticld Robert 166, 175 , 182, 270; correcto,, 192 , 275; and orientalize, 166; radio interview , 255-56; tontos, 275 ture of , 115; dependence en commodities, 117; and telephone , 117; and tele1 Religious fesrivittes : and collective actors, 147, 150 ; slave and black, 147 Represertlante de bienes communales, 268 Republica de indios, 44

Respeta 270-71, when doing ethnographie work , 270-71 Restorcd Republie, xx Reto del Tepozteeo , El, 281, 282 Revolutionary nationalism , 55-57; model o¡, 55; reanimation of, 56 Revolutionary state : and the church, 156; creation oí corporate groups , 74-75; differences between Porfirian state, 74; forros of cltizenship, 80 Revol utions , 207, 208 Reyes Los, 189 Ritual. 151 , 153, 159 ; appropriation

for creation ol, 163, and popular will 156; preferente for gossip , 158; and proletariat , 151; scgmented quality of, 83

constitution oí polity, 159-60 ; and cor-

ture , 155, connection with politics, 145;

ruption , 155; domination and subordination , 153; expansion oí state institution. 157 ; importance during colonial

Race , 27, 33, 48, 55; 'Old Christians 32 Racial identity ; manipulation of, 51 Racial ideolugies - during colonial pe; i ;d. 50, and Indians , 50, and procreauon 50; Spanish forros ol, 50

Rivera, Diego, 53. 55

change of carnival signs, 189, and intel-

Rodó, Enrique. Ariel. 103, ideology ol

lectuals, 269, political factions, 260; symbolism of names, 189-90, tecolotes,

103 Rojas, José Guadalupe, 277. 279 289,

269 ertunes, 269

dlaries of, 278; and Nahuad, 278, and

Secretary of Agravian Reform, 232

nationalist mythology, 278-79

Seed, Patricia, 42 Schools, 155, 156. 177; festivals, 155; fol-

Rojas, Mariano, 277-78 Rojas, Simón, 278

lowing che Mexican Revolution, 155;

Rojas, Vicente, 277

and i nstitution oí discipline, 155, and ritual, 155; schoolteachers, 155. 168

Rojas (family), 174. 274. 280 Rumor, 157, 159, as chisme de viejas, 157, as

Science, under protectionist state, 1 15

cowardly, 157; as feminized, 157; and

Scientifically marvclous, 201, 202; exaniples of, 201-2, as propaganda, 201

public opinion, xxii; and public sphcre,

Scientific socialism, 140

155, 158; and ritual, 155

Scott, James, 178 Scottish rite, 88. See also Freemasonry

Regional cultures composed of, 116, cul-

ot corruption , 146; and common cul-

Quetzalcoatl , 47, 272

Santo Domingo 15, 173, 174, 266, 270,

Riva Palacio, Vicente, 53, 239

Sacrifice , 5, 10, 1 I, 12, 42, association with nationalism , 7; Aztec ideology of,

Sahlins, Marshall, 166 Salinas , Carlos, 223 , 227; and Héctor Aguilar Camín , 219, campaign of, 206;

Slavery, 38-45, 50, 63, 64, 85, 147, 218; abolition of, 62, 85, African, 45, 241 ;

subsidies to intellectual groups, 219; use

Aztec ideology of, 38; captives oí "just

oí television stars during campaign, 117;

wats," 45; constitution oí 1824, 204; indigenous, 52, as liberation oí human

and Anuro Warman, 232 , 233; as a well-

energy, 38; prohibition against ¡odian

meaning democrat, xxi Salve Reina de la América (atina, 28

nobles, 174; prohibition of, 204 Social Darwinism, 52, 53, Mexican view

San Andrés , 173, 266 San José, 189 ; change oí carnival signs,

oí Indians, 52 Social democracy, 56

189; symbolism oí names, 189-90 San Juan Teotihuacán , 250; description

Socialization: oí children, 59-60; as mechanism oí courtesy, 60; and per-

of, 250

sonal relations, 61

San juanico, 173

Social movements, 27, 50, 80, 149, 171,

San Martín, 9 San Miguel, 173

199, 208, challenge to nacional image,

San Salvador, 15

143, and conditions oí reproduction, 152, and fiscal crisis oí 1982, 77; as ges-

San Sebastián , 189; change oí carnival signs, 189; symbolism oí names,

tures oí revolt, 159, incorporation of

189-90

the state, 77, and national media, 159;

154; production of, 146; and public

Santa Cruz Teypaca ; change oí carnival

,ehools , 155-56

evolution, 245 Sigüenza y Góngora, Carlos de, 16

Sahagún, Bernardino de, 38, 238

period , 153; and political discourse,

145. 160 ; and ruptor , 154-55; and

gion, 48 Sierra, Justo, 243, 244, vision oí national

13; and nationalism, 7, 12

Santa Catalina, 173

opinion , xxii, 160 ; and public sphere,

Serdán, Aquiles, 206 Seven Laws (1835); and Catholic reli-

38, 39, coercive pressures of, 11, ideological appeals te, 1 I, and misconstrued,

and public opinion, 158-59; violente against, 143

signs, 189 , symbolism oí names , 189-90

Social sciences, xvi, xvü; part oí inter-

Santa María, 173

national horizon, xvi; tied to national

Santísima Trinidad , La, 173

development, xvi

In dex 351 =

Sonora, 52

254 and Mexican anthropology, 231, 232

Sovereignry, xiv, 81, dynamic of cultural produerion, 81; and fueros, 9, as paler

Supc;hnrrio, 158

potestas. 9; as poini of referente, xv Spain, 14, 1 5 , Bourbon reforms, 21, 23. 82

Tacuhaya, 179

8 pan i ards, i ntellcctua l represen tati ,,n, 27[

laxco, 266

Spanish cOncept ot, 17, legal category of, 16, legal notion of, 17

Tatro S.tnla Anua, 90

Spanish America, 5 administrativo colonial practicas, 5 enlightened munarchs, 200; following independence, 199,- ,larle ,ensota, 200, 202 and nauonalism, xx 4, nacional symbols ol, xiii; presidencial power, 225; revolutions, 27; upper cIases, 200; and Alexander van Hwnholdt. 199

lecoloto 269

l elephone, 116 117 Televisa and high culture, 1161 and Enrique Krauze, 200, Iinks to intellectual groups, 1 16, and ' transition to democracv' 220 TclevIsion 116, 117 122 156, 219 Tenorio= Trillo, Mauricio, 241, 249

tional race 53, as a "war of imagos," s3 Spanish Cortes, 64

Tcpoztccan mythology, 168;centerpcripltery ntythology, 168-69, story of El Fepoztecátl, 168-69

Spanish Enlightenmenc. and patrcotism. 23

Tepozrecád El, 168-69.181 Rpozteco. 6l, 181, 282; pseudonym oí El

Spanish invason of 1829, 70

Tepo'ztecát1, 181

Spanish language, 21, 32, 172, language of, 18; as modero fono of Latín, 32 notionalizabon of the church, 18

lepoztlán, xxii, 159, 161, 188, 189, 265, 266. 279, 285; antiprogressive disconOC . 184, artificial flowers st,ategy,

Spanish lasr names, 174, 274

170, 181, 192; brujos, 270 ; calpuflis of,

Spanish nationalism, 18, 21; built un religious militancy, 21; developmeni of, 27

173 ampesinos, 280; carnival , 188-91; and (áth,he church, 169; and cidzem

Spanishness, 9, 18; and civil izarion. 18

286; Colonio Tepozteca, 179; and

and connection with church, 18-19;

colonization , 184, consdmtion of, 167;

and language, 18, nacional consrruction

cunsuuacd as peri pheral , xxü; con-

of, 18-and eelig;on, 18; and territory, 18

struuion uf che center, 169, and corrup-

Spencei, Herbert, 50, 52

in,n 207; and cultural mediation, 283;

Sports; and fiestas, 156

uva n,ieros , 270-71; education, 186,

State formatiom. and,ntellectuals 198,

elites. 174, 180; employment, 186, fies-

and population information , 198,- ro[, in

tas 148 -90;1540 censos ,173;foreign-

crcating nacional ci tizcnry, 1 17

ers 185; as " I ndian ," 170; intellectuals,

Sratistics, 136, 204; in Chiapas, 244, as

169, 272, 277, 280, 282, The intruder,

a mcasu,, of common good, 198, and

169-71, lack ol cominunal voice, 276;

mystique of modernity 205, in Yucatán,

land ;,,cc, 184, 185; location of, 167,

244

mokanp oí jurisd iction, 173, Mexican

Slatue of Ibe ;blrxtsan Goddess of War í or of dealh] Teoyaomiqui, 240

Ihevaluriun, 178; migrants , 171-72,

Stavenhagen, Rodolfo, 232

col rural 1511'

Stern, Alexandra, 139.252

Ccnovevo de la O, 179; Orne Tochdi,

St ident movenient ( 1968), x1, 77, 214.

173; and orientalizatfon, 166; peasants,

216, 221, 226, 259; and indlgcnistas, 232,

oí Mexico, 239; and Mexican intellectu-

Tepoztecátl, 181; rebellion, 276-80;

als, 238; types oí Mexican lndians, 245

pology, 238-39; and French occupation

Robert Redfield, 175; Relación de Tepoztldn, 173; road to Cuernavaca, 184; Rojas Family, 174, 277, El Tepozteco, 181, 282;

UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México), xviii, 210, 214, 215, 231; pre-

Tepoztizos, 185; tourism , 170-72, 281, -

Columbian urban design, xviii; scientific output, 115

tribute, 167; Unión de Campesinos Te-

Te ancho ti ln, 37

Spanish eonquesr, 250; as origin of na-

41

groups, 269, 274, 282; principales, 277; and progress , 184, pseudonym of El

1 85 186, 187, 190, 192-93; rnulti186; los notables , 276, 277;

167, perlpheral status of, 167; politieal

poztecos (UCT) 179, 180, 182; Valley of Arongo, 184; Villa de Tepoztlán,

Universal Catholic Monarchy, 15 United States of America, 87, 131, 138, 171; alliance with Juárez, 96, fetishism

173, 267; Che vulgar class , 276, Zapatismo, 280, Zapatistas, 178, 179

with "Rationality," xvi; fetishism with

Tertulias, 146

"Western tradition," xvi, immigration

Testera Jacobo, 153, conversion oí lndians , 153; use oí icons, 153

control, 122, migration from Morelos,

Texcocans, 16 Texcoco, 37

183; opposition to Mexican monarchy, 87; Tepoztecan migrants, 190; and universal rationality, xvii; universities,

Textile workers, 149 Tlahuica Nahua, 173 Tlabuieole, 97

xvi-xvii, 198; and U.S-Mexico border, 122 University system, xvi, architecture

Tlanepanda, 173

of, xvi, xviii; based on French models, 197-98 based en U.S . models , 197-98;

Tlatelolco massacre, 214; and Enrique Krauze, 216 Tlaxcalans, 16

under Echeverría, 214-15; emulation oí English universities , xvi, expansion of, 214-15 Untitled photograpb of a Maya Woman, 257

Tonalli, 38, 39 Tourism,142,183,184,185, 186,188, 252, 273, 281; excursionistas, 184; and

Urbanity. equated with civilization, 172, signs of, 172

land prices, 186; patterns of urbanization, 186

Urban rabble, 74-75

Trade unions, 152; and public sphcre, 151

U,S.-Mexican War: and backwardness, 204

Transition to democracy, xxi. 152, 164 Transnational capital impact of xxi Túpac Amaru, ton

Usos y costumbres, 150

Valley oí Teotihuacán, 250 Van Young, Eric, 220

Tornee, John Kenneth, 255 Turner, Víctor, 11, 108, 224; essay en Hidalgos revolt, 108 Tutino, John, 220

Vasconcelos, José; building oí schools, 74; and contact zone, 135; as "intellectual caudillo," 224

Tylor, E. B . , 234-35, 236, 239, 241,

Vásquez, Genaro, 140

242, 254; Juan Alvarez, 245, Anahuac, orMexrco and tbe Mexicans, Ancient and

Vaughan, Mary K., 73, 155, 156 Velásquez, Fidel, 119

Modere, 235, classihcation of Mexican races , 244-45, contrast w,th Justo Sierra,

Velásquez de León, Don Joaquín; debate

242; description of Mexico, 235, 237-39, description of Mexico' s national muse-

Veracruz, 15, 147, 200, 206; 1915 renters' strike, 152

with FatherJ. Antonio Alzate, 8

um, 237-38; description of Yucatán,

Verdery, Kathleen, xix

235, development oí Mexican anthro-

Viceroys, 198

índe x 352 =

353 =

Victoria, Guadalupe, 31, 94, rem.nns placed in Merco C nv. e4: violauon

\V'snrack, lohn 267 \Fndd Bank. 129

ot tomb hy Panrrican s:ddiers c,+

Vilar, Manuel. 97

Sc.... hubia. xl

Villa, Pancho 9.1 98 descc ratlon

Xc 11ol1h'111ic

tomb 94; as ol,cct ot scient,hc'utcr-

47, 48, and losó María Morelos -47 painting ot . 19. 20 217, 28 Virgen de Guadalupe escudo dr sah;d em:nn la epidemia de M,lllam6unti de vie-1735. 20 Virgin oí the Nativiry, 168, 169 Von Humboldt, Alexander, 26, 30, 234; and Bourbon rcforms, 26; portrayal of Spanish America , 199, publications of, 26; roya) mmmission of, 26 Vuelta, 218 , 219, 226

ante-Chinese

131, anti-Spanish

4

nti n;ent 131 : Arabs 131; identifica-

es 94

Violente < ,f 1-13 Virgen de C,undalule and Miguel Hidalgo

; n1Velrlents:

n roa u m Sonora

flor, w ,t1, Ioreign businessmen, 131; us.. 131 X eu te ncatl. 239 Xo:1[In. 26'i

Yautepec. 178,271 Yucatán, 52, 67, 244 Zapata, Emiliano, 98, 178, 280, 283, Mrxieo: Biograpby of Pomo, 224; Zapatismo, 180, 280 Zárate, Julio, description of conditions oí Indians, 66, prohibition of jails in haciendas, 66

Waire, C. B 105 Wallerstein, Immanuel, 191 Ward, George, 30 Warman, Arturo, 183; director oí INI,

Zavaln, Lorenzo de- chronicle of voyage to America, 65, comparisons between the United States and Mexico, 65-66 Zedillo, Ernesto, 223; as well-meaning democrat, xxi

232; minister oí Agravian Reforni, 232, 260; and Carlos Salinas, 232-33; and

Zineantán, 161

Ernesto Zedillo, 233

Zizek. Slavoj, 208

Weber, Max, 35, 266 Weiner, Annette: discussion of exchange, 36; focus un inalienable goods, 36

Zolov, Frie, 134; description oí the hippie movement, 134

Zúñiga, Ángel, 285

edex 354 =

CLAUDIO LOMNITZ is professor oí history and anthropology at the University oí Chicago. His arcas oí interest include politics, culture, and history. He is author oí Exits from tbe Labyrintb, Culture and Ideology in the Mexican National Space, Evolución de una sociedad rural, and Modernidad indiana: nueve ensayos sobre nación y mediación en México.