Becoming Autonomous: Indigeneity, Scale, and Schismogenesis in Multicultural Mexico

Abstract

Abstract Four towns in the state of Morelos, Mexico, are lobbying the state government for the right to become independent “indigenous municipalities” operating under local customary law. Focusing on one of those towns, Hueyapan, this article ethnographically and ethnohistorically examines the process that has led the people of Hueyapan to overwhelmingly favor the decision to opt for municipal independence. In doing so, it attends particularly to the ways that discourses of indigeneity and sovereignty have interacted with local political conflicts between the town of Hueyapan and the municipal seat, Tetela del Volcán. Using an analysis based on Bateson's concept of schismogenesis, I argue that today, for the first time, Hueyapan is in a position in which demanding independence is feasible, because it has successfully established itself as a competitor to the municipal cabecera (municipal seat) community of Tetela, rather than as a subordinate and marginalized community. Nevertheless, by framing the quest for independence within the narrative model of indigeneity, Hueyapan can represent its demands with a stronger ethical and historical force than it could otherwise.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 14 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.