The discourse of interculturality and its transnational migration: towards a comparative analysis of its appropriation by academic and political actors in the state of Veracruz

Abstract

This paper analyses the ways in which social and educational networks are being configured around the actors participating in the increasingly transnational field of intercultural education both at the Universidad Veracruzana Intercultural and the Veracruz State Ministry of Education. It starts by defining the notion of discursive migration as conceptual transformations that occur when particular discourses cross certain national as well as disciplinary frontiers, such as the constant exchange of the heterogeneous notions of multi‐ and interculturality in the case of the field of ‘intercultural studies’, which stem from different Anglo‐Saxon as well as continental European and Latin American origins, but which are currently applied to the post‐indigenista situation of ‘indigenous education’ in Mexico. On the basis of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in two different institutions in the state of Veracruz, the appropriation and reinterpretation of, as well as the resistance against, the discourse of interculturality are studied by comparing the training of ‘intercultural and bilingual’ teachers through the state educational authorities and the notion of intercultural education, as applied within the so‐called ‘Intercultural University of Veracruz’. En este trabajo se analiza la forma en que se compone y transforma la noción de interculturalidad, lo cual es analizado a través del trabajo etnográfico realizado en dos instituciones educativas del estado mexicano de Veracruz: en la Secretaría de Educación estatal, por un lado, y en la Universidad Veracruzana Intercultural, por otro. El estudio cobra importancia debido a que en la actualidad la interculturalidad se ha convertido en el eje central de diversos procesos formativos. Las interrogantes que guían el trabajo son: ¿Cuál es el significado que adquiere en los diferentes contextos la interculturalidad? ¿Cómo se significa o resignifica la interculturalidad en los actores académicos y políticos? ¿Y qué sucede con el discurso sobre la interculturalidad cuando ‘migra’? Para responder a lo anterior, en un primer momento mostramos la problemática a estudiar, la forma en la que los discursos cambian de sentido. Posteriormente, presentamos la manera en que el discurso intercultural es transferido a través de la adaptación de categorías relacionadas con el análisis de transferencia de conocimientos. Finalmente, distinguimos el carácter ‘migratorio’ de este.

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