Multiculturalism, Indigenism and New Universities in Mexico: a case of intercultural multilateralities

ABSTRACT

Explicitly multicultural programs and/or institutions are a growing, but still very recent phenomenon in Mexico in particular and in Latin America in general. However, the long-standing tradition of indigenismo is a kind of ‘multiculturalism avant la lettre’, a set of policies that still shape the institutions specifically designed for the country’s 68 indigenous peoples. In the following, the different phases of ‘Mexican style’ multiculturalism are sketched, before I analyze the contemporary emergence of so-called intercultural bilingual education, an institutional arena in which indigenous movements and organizations participate, but which is still state-led and state-dominated. An empirical example from so-called intercultural higher education in Veracruz highlights how intercultural multilateralities (Guilherme, in this issue) shape emerging discourses on culturally and linguistically pertinent educational programs through emerging, novel and rather hybrid academic institutions. As will be shown, however, pre-existing structural path-dependencies limit the scope and depth of the resulting intercultural multilateralities.

KEYWORDS:

• Neoliberal multiculturalism
• indigenism
• intercultural higher education
• intercultural multilateralities
• Mexico
• Veracruz

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Gunther Dietz holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. in anthropology from Hamburg University. He has been teaching at the Universities of Hamburg, Granada (Spain), Ghent (Belgium), Aalborg (Denmark), Veracruz (Mexico) and Deusto (Spain). Currently he is a research professor in Intercultural Studies at Universidad Veracruzana in Xalapa (Mexico), where he works on multiculturalism, ethnicity, interculturality and intercultural / inter-religious education. Some of his publications include: Multiculturalism, Interculturality and Diversity in Education (2009), Intercultural Universities in Mexico: empowering indigenous peoples or mainstreaming multiculturalism? (topic issue of the journal Intercultural Education, 2009), Winds of the South: Intercultural university models for the 21st century (co-editor, topic issue of the journal Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 2017),; email: [email protected]; web: www.uv.mx/personal/gdietz/

Notes

1 For syntheses of these comparative studies, cf. Dietz (2009), Guilherme and Dietz (2015) and Meer et al. (ed., 2016).

2 Cf. Oehmichen Bazán (1999), Saldívar (2008), Rockwell and Gomes (2009), Rockwell and González Apodaca (2010) and Dietz and Mateos Cortés (2013).

3 Cf. Basave Benítez (1992), Lomnitz Adler (2002), Dietz (2004) and Saldívar (2008).

4 For an overview of intercultural universities in Mexico, their geographical coverage and institutional structures, cf. Dietz (2012b).

5 The following empirical data stem from an collaborative ethnographic project carried out between 2007 and 2016 with key actors of the Intercultural University of Veracruz; on campus and outreach activities have been systematically observed, teaching staff, students, graduates and their families and community counterparts have been interviewed, and results have been shared with these key actors throughout several regional workshops co-analyzing and co-assessing the new university program; for more details, cf. Dietz (2012a), Mateos Cortés and Dietz (2016, 2017) and Mateos Cortés, Dietz, and Mendoza Zuany. (2016).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Madrid, under grant number CSO2014-56960-P, through the project ‘Emergent Processes and Agencies of the Commons: the practice of collaborative research an new forms of political subjectivation’.