“Yo soy nativo de aquí”: The Ambiguities of Race and Indigeneity in Oaxacan Craft Tourism

Abstract

R e s u m e n Este artículo examina los debates sobre raza e indigeneidad en el contexto del turismo artesanal de Oaxaca al sur de México. La región es muy apreciada por los turistas debido a la riqueza de sus ruinas arqueológicas y la producción local de artesanías, ambas profusamente comercializadas por el estado y la industria privada como expresiones materiales de la cultura indígena. Este estudio muestra que las comunidades de artesanos de Oaxaca no viven ni se expresan una identidad indígena de forma homogénea a pesar de que los discursos estatales y de turismo intentan racializarlos bajo el denominador genérico de ''lo indio.'' Los artesanos reproducen y rechazan estas categorías, poniendo en evidencia las ambigüedades y los problemas asociados a las clasificaciones etnoraciales en México. Al mismo tiempo, el que la producción artesanal y el ser indígena se utilicen como términos intercambiables en el mercado del turismo puede transformarse en un recurso para los artesanos tanto para la generación de nuevos polos de autoidentificación como de espacios de articulación con otros. This article examines theories of race and indigeneity in the context of craft tourism in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. The region is prized by tourists for its archaeological remains and locally produced handicrafts, both heavily marketed by the state and private industry as indigenous material culture. This study argues that Oaxacan artisan communities do not uniformly express or experience indigenous identities, despite state and tourist discourses that attempt to racialize them as ''Indian.'' That artisans both reproduce and refute such categorizations highlights the ambiguities and problems associated with ethnoracial classifications in Mexico. At the same time, the conflation of artisanry with indigeneity in the tourism market may prove a generative force in artisans' self-identifications and articulations with others.

Indigenous tourism research, past and present: where to from here?

“…In the United States, the focus of Indigenous tourism research grew considerably over this period with a concentration of papers focusing on Indigenous participation in ecotourism development (Cusack & Dixon, 2006;Garcia-Frapolli, Toledo, & Martinez-Alier, 2008;Hearne & Tuscherer, 2008;Ramos & Prideaux, 2014;Wilken-Robertson, 2006), gaming (Piner & Paradis, 2010), policy, planning and development (Barkin & Bouchez, 2002;Greathouse-Amador, 2005a, 2005bSpencer, 2010;Whitford, 2008;Zorn & Farthing, 2007), land-use management (Kent, 2006;McAvoy, 2002), economic and socio-cultural impacts (Cohen, 2001;Henshall & Momsen, 2002;Ingles, 2001;Ju arez, 2002;Nesper, 2003;Phipps, 2010;Snow & Wheeler, 2000;Wu, Wall, & Tsou, 2014), identity, ethnicity and indigeneity (Picard, Pocock, & Trigger, 2014;Stronza, 2008;van den Berghe & Ochoa, 2000) and authenticity and commodification (Brulotte, 2009;Coronado, 2004). This expanding literature appears to reflect the increase in activity that was being undertaken at the time in relation to the facilitation of socio-economic development for Native Americans (see The Harvard Project, 2008;Henry & Hood, 2012).…”

Inhabiting Identities: On the Elusive Quality of Indigenous Identity in Mexico

“…Individuals, always inside their circumstances, navigate among categories, inhabiting and leaving them without necessarily seeing any contradiction in these displacements 19 . In her detailed ethnography about woodcarvers and manufacturers of pre‐Hispanic replicas from the town of Arrazaola, next to the great archaeological site of Monte Albán, Oaxaca, Ronda Brulotte notes how the inhabitants of that town regularly traverse the fact of being “marked and unmarked as indigenous” (2009, 459). One of her informants, for example, claims to self‐identify as both a Zapotec and as mestizo.…”

“…One of her informants, for example, claims to self‐identify as both a Zapotec and as mestizo. Another narrates a situation in which the identification assigned to him as an indigenous person becomes a burden and a stigma that he rejects, even though at other times his self‐presentation as an indigenous woodcarver could be “a valuable asset” (2009, 470) 20…”

Rights, Inequality, and Afro-Descendant Heritage in Brazil

“…Though park inhabitants claim the quilombo site as their home and heritage, they are peasants who do not use categories such as quilombola . As such, they are rendered invisible because the ways in which they identify themselves, and thus claim for their rights, fall outside the official canons recognized by the state (see also Brulotte ). My assessment is not a blanket critique of multicultural policies, or a rejection of any sort of reparation efforts.…”