ANT 324L • Indigenous Rights & Autonomy in Mexico
9:30 AM-11:00 AM
This course will examine the historical experience and current struggles of indigenous people in Mexico. We will address the relationship of indigenous people to colonial powers and the post-Independence and post-Revolutionary State, highlighting Indian resistances. We will examine the varying constructions of "the Indian," especially anthropological constructions, and the collaboration of anthropology and the State through the assimilationist doctrine of indiginismo. We will then explore the emergence of a broad movement for indigenous rights and autonomy in the later part of the twentieth century, as Mexico entered the neo-liberal global order through the North American Free Trade Agreement. In this section, we consider legislation on indigenous autonomy in the state of Oaxaca, the armed Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, and the emergence of the National Indigenous Movement. A series of issues will be raised, including the significance and problematics of cultural rights, the intersections of gender and indigenous rights, and the meanings of rights-based resistances in globalization.