Grounding the Past: the Praxis of Participatory Archaeology in the Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca, Mexico

Recent Advances in Mixtec Archaeology

“…Recent work in the Mixteca has begun to emphasize the political complexities and the socioeconomic impact of archaeological research, heritage management projects, and the discourse surrounding this work. These issues are at the intersection of federal and state government interests, academic objectives and ambitions, national and state-sponsored discourses on heritage management, and the socioeconomic realities of disenfranchised and marginalized indigenous and campesino communities (Corbett and Robles García 1994;Geurds 2007;Johnson 2009;Pérez Rodríguez 2002;Robles García and Corbett 2001;Santos Pérez 2008). In Oaxaca and the Mixteca, researchers are struggling with questions of how their work impacts local communities and how to design truly collaborative projects (Geurds 2007).…”

1 Past is Present: The Production and Consumption of Archaeological Legacies in Mexico

“…Cultural anthropology recognizes the inherently social and political nature of archaeological practice (Castañeda and Matthews ; Edgeworth ; Mortensen and Hollowel ). Mexico has been at the forefront of the development of the ethnographic study of archaeology, analyzing the positions of researchers, descendant communities, and other stakeholders vis‐à‐vis material culture (Breglia ; Castañeda 1996; Geurds ; Pyburn 2008; Robles García and Corbett 2006). The authors of these four chapters utilize ethnographic and ethnohistorical approaches to analyze the relationship between Mesoamerican traditions and collective identity at the local level, which in many ways is more tangible in a globalized context than any national identity affiliation.…”

“…The growing dialogue between archaeologists and public stakeholders elucidates the multiple roles the archaeological process and interpretations play in local communities with regard to economic development, land tenure issues, identity politics, and ownership claims, along with archaeologists’ responsibilities to these communities (Ardren ; Geurds ; Magnoni et al ; Morehart ; Pérez Rodríguez ; Stephen ). In Chapter 10, J. H. Anderson discusses the seven decade tradition of collaboration between local residents living near the archaeological site of Tula, Hidalgo, emphasizing the early cooperative relationship between the archaeological project under Mexican archaeologist Jorge Acosta and the multigenerational continuity in participation by several local families.…”

The Politics and Practice of Archaeology in Conflict

“…Archaeologists trained in the western and modernist tradition are, as Bernbeck and Pollock (2007b, 336) explain, 'generally working in an imperialist tradition which treats archaeology as a global endeavour'. The way in which our work is conducted has negative connotations if we fail to recognise the confl icting interests of local and non-local parties, or recognise the ways in which our projects contribute to confl icting agendas that create and transform power relations (Geurds 2007).…”