Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2008. Graduate Programme in Social and Political Thought. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 228-246). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:NR51688

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 408-416). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

archives@tulane.edu / 1 / Erika Pettersen

Over the past decade, well-organized mobilizations have brought groups of Bolivian miners, urban workers, farmers, and especially indigenous peoples together in identification with and response to the rhetoric of indigenous self-recognition. These events culminated in the election of Evo Morales in 2005 as the country's first indigenous president. The contemporary resurgence of indigeneity has been perceived by many as either revolutionary or apocalyptic. My thesis examines why a country with an indigenous population of some 80%, has now decided to politically voice their indigeneity after years of silence. My paper begins with an analysis of the history of indigenous peoples in Latin America and shows that since colonization, Bolivia, like other countries in the region, has struggled with the question of how to "incorporate" indigeneity into the project of national identity formation. I argue that there is no one concept to identify clearly or unequivocally what being "indigenous" means. Indigeneity is therefore not something set; its meaning changes according to personal identification, the perceptions of others, and the social, cultural, political, and economic circumstances at hand. This conceptual problem makes it difficult to determine who is authentically indigenous, or what the demands of indigenous people really are. Within this complex scenario, Evo Morales has laid out a political strategy and agenda organized around the concepts of ethnicity and identity. To analyze Morales' platform and examine its relative success among indigenous Bolivians, I compare and contrast his work with that of another indigenous leader, Felipe Quispe. Quispe, who is a well-known figure across Bolivia, became involved with the indigenous cause in 1978, when he joined Indianist Movimiento Indio Tupak Katari. Quispe is not only an activist but also a prolific scholar who has written several works on issues related to indigenous oppression. Since beginning his career as an activist, Quispe has put forth a well-defined ideological project to form a separate indigenous nation and identity. However, the comparatively radical understanding of indigenous identity and the exclusiveness of his project (which only included self-identifying indigenous peoples and aimed to "indianize" non-Indians) limited his support among the general Bolivian electorate. In contrast, Morales' agenda as President of Bolivia has drawn on a diverse and pluri-cultural national identity in which "Indian element" can be incorporated and represented alongside whites, mestizos, blacks, and other historically marginalized groups. Morales' model breaks with previous understandings of Bolivian and indigenous identities as mutually exclusive and recognizes that these identities can be inclusive and in fact complementary. I argue that the project proposed and developed by Morales is compatible with the project of building a democratic society in Bolivia and consider the viability of that project in light of the many social, political, and economic challenges now being faced by his administration.

This dissertation investigates the pernicious effects of neoliberalism in postcolonial, ostensibly post-racial Mexico. I analyze and thickly describe the daily negotiations of race in neoliberal Mexico, as they play out between indigenous Totonacs and Mestizos, or dominant, non-indigenous, non-Black identity, in a small town in central Mexico. I focus specifically on the discursive and material life of indigenous “traditions and customs,” or usos y costumbres that reverberate within and around an Indigenous Court in Huehuetla, Puebla. Usos y costumbres is the core concept around which indigenous rights revolve and the legal justification of the indigenous courts. As such it becomes the arena of struggle and a key site to investigate power relations and social transformations. First, I analyze and chart how Mestizo authorities, Indigenous Court officials, and Totonac community members struggle to fix, define, and redefine the meaning of usos y costumbres, and consequently shift local racial sensibilities and perceptions of self and others. Second, I analyze how the success of indigenous mobilizations, crystallized in this case in the courthouse, incites potent decolonial imaginaries, knowledge productions, and practices that in previous moments were likely unimaginable. The central aim of this dissertation is to demonstrate how the multicultural logics of governance and related languages of rights and cultural difference are lived through, incorporated in, and complexly contested in Huehuetlan social life. I will argue that the formative effects of state-sponsored multiculturalism in Huehuetla repositioned the Totonacs as subjects with power, crystallized in the institutionalization of “cultural knowledge” as jurisprudence in the Indigenous Court, that reverberates in daily confrontations with the legacy of hegemonic Mestizaje. / text

Honors project (B.A.) -- Carson-Newman College, 2009. / Project advisor: Dr. Maria Clark. Includes bibliographical references (p. 36-37).

abstract: This thesis discusses the significance of the casta naming process depicted in pinturas de casta or casta paintings created in eighteenth-century colonial New Spain. These paintings depicted family units, each member named by a racial label designated by the sistema de castas, the Imperial Spanish code of law associated with these paintings. In the genre, the labeled subjects were hierarchically ordered by racial lineage with pure Spanish genealogies ranked highest and all other racial categories following on a sliding scale of racial subjectivity. This study focuses on casta paintings' label coyote, which referred to colonial subjects of mestizo and indigenous heritage. Policies of the casta system, when matched with casta paintings' animal label created a framing of indigenous colonial subjectivity; those labeled coyote were visually positioned as one of the lowest members of the casta and of questionable quality as humans, given their comparison to wild canines. Beyond the general discussion of racial hegemony at work in these paintings this thesis exploration individually questions the meaning of the casta label coyote by analyzing how the colonial namer and the named colonial subject related to this word and title. Deep-seated beliefs about the undomesticated canine were at work in the imaginations of both the Imperial Spanish namer and the named colonial subject, evidenced in European/Spanish renderings of wolves and indigenous art depicting coyotes in Mesoamerica. To uncover the imaginations that informed the creation and reception of the coyote label this study examines the visual development of wolf as a symbol of wildness, evil, and racial impurity used to hail the human Other in both peninsular and New Spanish colonial arts. Additionally, images of coyotes will be considered from the position of the colonial named, vis à vis indigenous arts and beliefs that coyote acted as a sacred symbol of power through centuries of human development in the Mesoamerican world. Varied understandings of coyote were at work in the New Spanish colony, evidenced in eighteenth-century paintings of mestizo artist Miguel Cabrera. Analysis of his paintings of the La Divina Pastora and of his casta painting De mestizo y india nace coyote reveal the instability of coyote as symbol and human label amid the mestizaje mechanisms of New Spain. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Art History 2014

The connection between the visual arts and revolutionary social change is the inspiration for this dissertation. In a 1953 interview, Aurora Reyes, Mexico's first female muralist, declared, 'Art is the medium with the greatest potential to penetrate human emotions, and therefore functions as a powerful weapon in the fight for the rights of the common man.' In the following chapters, I identify the ways in which the officially sanctioned visual narrative of Mexican history evolved during the transition from the Porfirian to the Revolutionary State. By tracing the artistic precursors of the revolution, I attempt to illuminate the role of cultural mestizaje and material culture in achieving sustainable social change in early twentieth century Mexico. The transition from Porfirian to revolutionary Mexico did not happen overnight. It required the committed efforts of several generations of artists and intellectuals. This creative cohort worked diligently to construct an alternative form of cultural nationalism that valued the nation's indigenous legacy. By simultaneously tracing the artistic and familial provenance of revolutionary artist Aurora Reyes, I provide a glimpse of the social balancing that defines revolutionary change. In addition to traditional archival sources, this interdisciplinary investigation required an analysis of 'alternative documents.' I consulted photographs, works of art, song lyrics, and poetry in an attempt to describe and explain the effects of cultural mestizaje as a formative influence on Reyes and her cohort. Their attraction to indigenous culture was not cultivated via written communications; therefore, my analysis of the process required a broad range of sources. I hope this work will inspire more historians to look to visual elements of the historic record to help explain social change. / acase@tulane.edu / 1 / Sarah K Borealis

Antropólogo Físico

Investigaciones acerca de la identidad nacional y etnicidad muestran, que a nivel estadístico, el grado de identificación con la categoría social mestizo está asociada a la identificación con la categoría social peruano. Sin embargo, a nivel discursivo, lo mestizo no cuenta con claridad en su definición. Se investigan las representaciones sociales del mestizaje, y del mestizo, en relación con la construcción de la identidad nacional bajo un enfoque cualitativo. Se realizaron 20 entrevistas a estudiantes y egresados de carreras universitarias de entre 22 y 26 años, conformando dos grupos: (1) estudiantes de Ciencias Sociales y (2) estudiantes de otras carreras. A nivel general, se obtuvo que el mestizo y el mestizaje son términos que aluden a una mezcla racial y cultural, y que al estar asociados a la diversidad, no cuentan con una delimitación clara en su definición. Entonces, la identificación con la categoría se sustenta por motivos de autoestima y pertenencia a un grupo social. Asimismo, se reconoce que el mestizo es parte de la categoría social peruano. Sin embargo, su falta de uso en las dinámicas sociales actuales genera actitudes de indiferencia, y le resta relevancia en la definición de identidad nacional actualmente. El mestizaje resulta un discurso identitario pasado, siendo el discurso del emprendedurismo el vigente. Por otro lado, se evidencia mayor complejidad discursiva en el grupo de Ciencias Sociales. Finalmente, se reconoce que la resignificación del mestizaje en su dimensión cultural podría ayudar a generar una identidad cohesionada en base al respeto a la diversidad. / Research on national identity and ethnicity show that, statistically, the degree of identification with the social category of mestizo is associated with identification with the social category of Peruvian. However, at a discursive level, it is a category that has no clear definition or delimitation. Thus, by a qualitative methodology approach, this work explores the social representations of mestizaje, and mestizo, in relation to the construction of national identity. Twenty interviews were conducted with undergraduate students and graduates of university degrees, with ages between 22 and 26 years old, forming two groups: Social science careers and other careers. Overall, it was found that the mestizo and mestizaje are terms that refer to racial and cultural mix, and their association with diversity makes them not have a clear delimitation in the definition. Then, identification with the category is based on the motivations of self-esteem and membership in a social group. It is also recognized that the mestizo is part of the social category of Peruvian. However, its lack of use in current social dynamics generates attitudes of indifference, and subtracts relevance in the current definition of national identity. Thus, mestizaje is recognized as a past identity discourse. Nowadays, it is the discourse of entrepreneurship which is current. On the other hand, greater complexity is evident in the speech of the group with education in Social Sciences. Finally, it is recognized that the redefinition of mestizaje in its cultural dimension could help generate a cohesive identity based on respect for diversity. / Tesis