<p>The dominant cartography of post-Revolutionary Mexico has relied upon strategic constructions of a unified and homogenized national and cultural consciousness (mexicanidad), in order to invent and map a coherent image of imagined community. These strategic boundaries of mexicanidad have also relied upon the mapping of specific codes of being and belonging onto the Mexican geo-body. I argue that these codes have been intimately linked to the discourse of mestizaje, which, in its articulation and operation, has been fashioned as a cosmic tool with which to dissolve and solve the ethno-racial and social divisions following the Revolution, and to usher a unified mestizo nation onto a trajectory towards modernity. </p><p>However, despite its rhetoric of salvation and seemingly race-less/positivistic articulation, the discourse of mestizaje has propagated an uneven configuration of mexicanidad in which the belonging of certain elements have been coded as inferior, primitive, problematic, and invisible. More precisely, in the case of Mexicans of African descent, this segment of the population has also been silenced and dis-placed from this dominant cartography.</p><p>This dissertation examines the coding of blackness and its relationship with mexicanidad in specific sites and spaces of knowledge production and cultural production in the contemporary era. I first present an analysis of this production immediately in the period following the Revolution, especially from the 1930's to the 1950's, a period labeled as the "cultural phase of the Mexican Revolution." This time period was strategic in manufacturing and disseminating a precise politics of culture that was used to reflect this dominant configuration and cartography of mexicanidad. That is, the knowledge and culture produced during this time imbedded and displayed codes of being and belonging, which resonated State projects and narratives that were used to define and secure the boundaries of a unified, mestizo imaginary of mexicanidad. And, it is within this context that I suggest that blackness has been framed as invisible, problematic, and foreign. For example, cultural texts such as film and comics have served as sites that have facilitated the production and reflection of this uneasy relationship between blackness and mexicanidad. Moreover, this strained and estranged relationship has been further sustained by the nationalization and institutionalization of knowledge and culture related to the black presence and history in Mexico. From the foundational text La raza cósmica, written in 1925 by José Vasconcelos, to highly influential corpuses produced by Mexican anthropologists during this post-Revolutionary period, the production of knowledge and the production of culture have been intimately tied together within an uneven structure of power that has formalized racialized frames of reference and operated on a logic of coloniality. As a result, today it is common to be met with the notion that "no hay negros en México (there are no blacks in Mexico). </p><p>Yet, on the contrary, contemporary Afro-Mexican artists and community organizations within the Costa Chica region have been engaging a different cultural politics that has been serving as a tool of place-making and as a decolonization of codes of being and belonging. In this regard, I present an analysis of contemporary Afro-Mexican cultural production, specifically visual arts and radio, that present a counter-cartography of the relationship between blackness and mexicanidad. More specifically, in their engagement of the discourse of cimarronaje (maroonage), I propose that these sites of cultural production also challenge, re-think, re-imagine, and re-configure this relationship. I also suggest that this is an alternative discourse of cimarronaje that functions as a decolonial project in terms of the reification and re-articulation of afromexicanidad (Afro-Mexican-ness) as a dynamic and pluri-versal construction of being and belonging. And, thus, in their link to community programs and social action initiatives, this contemporary cultural production also strives to combat the historical silence, dis-placement, and discrimination of the Afro-Mexican presence in and contributions to the nation. In turn, this dissertation offers an intervention in the making of and the relationships between race, space and place, and presents an interrogation of the geo-politics and bio-politics of being and belonging in contemporary Mexico.</p> / Dissertation

Être Noir au Mexique c’est avant tout ne pas exister. Ne pas exister pour la Nation : aucune reconnaissance officielle dans le cadre de la pluriculturalité de l’État-nation actée constitutionnellement depuis 2001. Ne pas exister aussi pour les Mexicains eux-mêmes qui ne savent pas qu’ils ont des compatriotes noirs. Et pourtant les Afro-mexicains sont bien présents, sur les côtes de Veracruz, mais surtout sur la côte pacifique, et plus précisément sur la Costa Chica entre les États de Guerrero et Oaxaca. Présents physiquement mais aussi culturellement. Ce qui caractérise la situation des Afro-mexicains est cette tension entre invisibilité et visibilité. L’objectif de cette thèse est de questionner cette tension à travers un corpus de chanson (cumbia et chilena) issu de la tradition populaire afro-mexicaine de la Costa Chica. Chansons qui s’accompagnent toujours de danse et d’une certaine pratique orale spécifique. Plus précisément, on se demandera en quoi la musique-danse-oralité peut-elle être considérée comme une forme de langage de la culture afro-mexicaine, c’est-à-dire dans quelle mesure la musique-danse-oralité des Afro-mexicains est-elle une représentation (une sorte de miroir) de leur identité culturelle ? Ou encore, peut-on analyser la musique-danse-oralité chez les Afro-mexicains comme un espace-temps d’épanouissement (conscient, inconscient ?) de leur culture dans un pays dominé par l’idéologie du métissage. Idéologie excluante, car construite comme un unique dialogue entre Blancs et Indigènes ? / In Mexico, Black people are deprived of a real existence. The Nation ignores their existence. They have no official status within the framework of the pluriculturality of the nation which was constitutionally enacted in 2001. Mexican people also ignore them because they do not know that they have black fellow citizens. Yet Afro-Mexican people do exist on the Coast of Veracruz, and mainly on the Pacific Coast, and more precisely on Costa Chica between the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca. Not only do they exist physically-speaking but they also do culturally-speaking. What characterizes the situation of Afro-Mexican people is this duality between invisibility and visibility. The aim of this doctorate is to deal with that duality through a corpus of songs (cumbia and chilena) from the Afro-Mexican popular songs of Costa Chica. These songs always include dances and a specific oral practice. The question is to know how music, dance and orality can be regarded as a form of language of Afro-Mexican culture, that is to say to what extent Afro-Mexican music, dance and orality is a representation –a kind of mirror –of their cultural identity. Or, in other words, can Afro-Mexican music, dance and orality be analysed as a pattern within space and time that enables the fulfillment –either conscious or unconscious- of their culture in a country dominated by the ideology of melting pot ? That ideology excludes some people because it is based upon a dialogue between White people and indigenous people only.

abstract: The worldviews and associated healing traditions of West and West Central sub-Saharan Africans and their Afro-Mexican descendants influenced the development of curanderismo, the traditional healing system of Mexico and the Southwest United States. Previous research on curanderismo, e.g. Colson (1976), Foster (1987), Ortiz de Montellano (1990), and Treviño (2001), generally emphasizes the cultural contributions of Spanish and Mesoamerican peoples to curanderismo; however, little research focuses on the cultural contributions of blacks in colonial Mexico. Mexico had the second-largest enslaved African population and the largest free black population in the Western Hemisphere until the early nineteenth century (Bennett 2003:1). Afro-Mexican curanderos were regularly consulted by members of every level of Spanish colonial society (ibid:150, 165, 254–55; Restall 2009:144–45, 275), often more commonly than indigenous healers (Bristol and Restall 2009:174), placing Afro-Mexican curanderos “squarely in the mainstream of colonial curing practices” (Bristol 2007:168). Through analysis of literature on African medicine, enslaved Africans in colonial Mexico, and Afro-Mexican healing practices, I suggest that the ideas and practices of colonial blacks played a more important role in the formation and practice of curanderismo than previously acknowledged. The black population plummeted after Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821 CE; however, through analysis of African-American, Afro-Caribbean, and Afro-Latino religious and healing traditions, La Santa Muerte, and yerberías and their products in twentieth and twenty first century Mexico, I suggest that black healing traditions continued to influence curanderismo throughout Mexico’s history. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Religious Studies 2016

Ce travail porte sur le son jarocho, un genre musical métis de Veracruz au Mexique et ses éventuelles similitudes avec un genre musical de Tunisie, le stambeli. L’idée en est venue à la suite de situations d’écoutes spontanées du son jarocho présentant un air de ressemblance avec le stambeli. Ces écoutes se sont reproduites à plusieurs reprises et dans différents lieux et contextes avec des amis ou des étudiants en Tunisie. J’ai effectué cinq séjours de terrain, entre 2010 et 2013, dans l’État de Veracruz, entre les villes de Veracruz, Jalapa et la région des Tuxtlas au sud de l’État de Veracruz, afin d’étudier de plus près cette question d’éventuels liens entre les deux genres et comment ils sont perçus au Mexique. Lors de mon dernier séjour de terrain au Mexique (juillet-septembre 2013), j’ai fait l’expérience de ces écoutes spontanées dans le sens inverse, et la majorité des gens pensaient écouter le début du son El Toro Zacamandu alors qu’ils écoutaient la nuba de Sidi Marzug du répertoire de stambeli. En 2014, j’ai pu réaliser une rencontre à Tunis entre le groupe Mono Blanco de son jarocho et les musiciens de stambeli. La question d’une éventuelle identité « afro-mexicaine » est également abordée. Comment les musiciens de son jarocho se situent-ils par rapport à cette question déjà largement débattue ? Ce travail est centré sur une étude comparative entre le son jarocho et le stambeli par la transcription et l’analyse de trois sones jarochos et deux nubas de stambeli. De fait, l’analyse du rapport entre le chant avec la leona dans le son jarocho et du chant avec le gumbri dans le stambeli montrent des modes de fonctionnement comparables. / This work concerns the son jarocho, a mestizo musical genre from Veracruz, Mexico, and its possible similarities with a musical genre of Tunisia, the stambeli. This project came following situations of spontaneous listening to the Son jarocho reminding an air of ressemblance with the stambeli. The same impression was reproduced repeatedly and in various places and contexts with friends or students in Tunisia. Five fieldwork stays, between 2010 and 2013, in the state of Veracruz, in the cities of Veracruz, Jalapa, and the region of Tuxtlas led me to closer study this question of possible links between both genres and how the are perceived in Mexico. During my last fieldwork stay in Mexico (July-September 2013), I experienced this spontaneous listening in the reverse sense, and the majority of people thought they were listening to the begining of the son El Toro Zacamandu while they were listening to Sidi Marzug nuba from the stambeli repertoire. In 2014, I organized a meeting in Tunis between a group of son jarocho and stambeli musicians. The question of ‘Afro-Mexican’ identity is also approached on this work. How are the son jarocho musicians situated regarding this widely approached question? The whole work is centred around a comparative study between son jarocho and Stambeli through transcription and analysis of three sones jarochos and two nubas of stambeli. I analyze the relation between the singing and the leona parts in the son jarocho and the singing and gumbri parts in the stambeli. Ways of functioning in these two different musical genres appear to be similar.