Rethinking Mexican Indigenismo The INI's Coordinating Center in Highland Chiapas and the Fate of a Utopian Project
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Stephen E. Lewis is a professor of history at California State University, Chico. He is the author of The Ambivalent Revolution: Forging State and Nation in Chiapas, 1910-1945 and the coeditor of The Eagle and the Virgin: Nation and Cultural Revolution in Mexico, 1920-1940.Well written and clearly argued, this book analyzes the outcomes of a generation of government policy vis-à-vis indigenous peoples in Chiapas. . . . It is a superior contribution to the field in part because of its scope and in part because of its detail." - Alexander S. Dawson, author of <em>Indian and Nation in Revolutionary Mexico</em><br /><br />"Steve Lewis expertly provides us with a magnificent tour-de-force of indigenista policy initiatives designed to improve the life of the Maya in Chiapas, Mexico's most backward state. This book is required reading to understand the potential and contradictions of government-centered development programs, as well as the personalities of those who design such policies." - Marc Becker, author of <em>Pachakutik: Indigenous Movements and Electoral Politics in Ecuador</em>
Mexico's National Indigenist Institute (INI) was at the vanguard of hemispheric indigenismo from 1951 through the mid-1970s, thanks to the innovative development projects that were first introduced at its pilot Tseltal-Tsotsil Coordinating Center in highland Chiapas. This book traces how indigenista innovation gave way to stagnation as local opposition, shifting national priorities, and waning financial support took their toll. After 1970 indigenismo may have served the populist aims of President Luis Echeverría, but Mexican anthropologists, indigenistas, and indigenous people themselves increasingly challenged INI theory and practice and rendered them obsolete.