Histories and Stories from Chiapas: Border Identities in Southern Mexico - Softcover

Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0292731493 ISBN 13: 9780292731493

Publisher: University of Texas Press, 2001

Synopsis

The 1994 Zapatista uprising of Chiapas' Maya peoples against the Mexican government shattered the state myth that indigenous groups have been successfully assimilated into the nation. In this wide-ranging study of identity formation in Chiapas, Aída Hernández delves into the experience of a Maya group, the Mam, to analyze how Chiapas' indigenous peoples have in fact rejected, accepted, or negotiated the official discourse on "being Mexican" and participating in the construction of a Mexican national identity.

Hernández traces the complex relations between the Mam and the national government from 1934 to the Zapatista rebellion. She investigates the many policies and modernization projects through which the state has attempted to impose a Mexican identity on the Mam and shows how this Maya group has resisted or accommodated these efforts. In particular, she explores how changing religious affiliation, women's and ecological movements, economic globalization, state policies, and the Zapatista movement have all given rise to various ways of "being Mam" and considers what these indigenous identities may mean for the future of the Mexican nation. The Spanish version of this book won the 1997 Fray Bernardino de Sahagún national prize for the best social anthropology research in Mexico.

About this title

About the Author

Born in Ensenada, Baja California, on the northern Mexican border, R. Aída Hernández Castillo has worked and lived among Guatemalan refugees and Chiapas’s indigenous peoples on the southern Mexican border since 1986. She is now a researcher-professor with CIESAS (Center for Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology) in Mexico City.

From Library Journal

Along the border between Mexico and Guatemala in the state of Chiapas live the Mam, descendants of the ancient Mayan people. In this exhaustive ethnographic study, Hern ndez Castillo (Ctr. for Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology, Mexico City) expands her 1996 Stanford dissertation on Mam society, practices, rituals, and history, beginning in 1933. She recounts influences of Presbyterian missionaries and the Jehovah's Witnesses; the spread of the "purple disease," or onchocercosis, so prevalent in the coffee plantations; and the period of cultural rescue, or national emphasis on a multicultural society. She also dwells on the rise of women and their role in Mam society, closing with the1994 Zapatista rebellion. Using interviews and firsthand observation, Hern ndez Castillo produces an excellent study of cultural identity despite the burden of excessive acronyms. At the same time, she makes a solid contribution to the historiography of anthropological and ethnological research of the region. Recommended for academic libraries and collections with an emphasis on Hispanic studies. Boyd Childress, Auburn Univ. Lib., AL
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0292731493
• ISBN 13: 9780292731493
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320