Reading Coloniality in Mexico through a Transhistoric, Transgeographic Lens

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Based on a multi-authored monograph-in-progress, this panel examines how the structures of colonialism particular to Mexico have created cultural discourses of racial, ethnic, and social exclusion that have roots not only in Mexico’s colonial past with imperial Spain but also the U.S. Conquest of Mexican territory and its continued cultural and economic imperialism. Moving beyond traditional approaches that focus on themes of conquest in Mexico’s literary production, we examine cultural paradigms that reveal how patterns of domination (mis)guide, (mis)shape, make (in)coherent ways of interpreting concepts such as empire, race, religion, citizenship, culture, and history. Studying a variety of cultural texts through a trans-historic and trans-geographic lens, we reveal a broad reaching coloniality that continues to contribute to colonial iterations of power/dominance in Mexico. This panel will showcase sample readings from and discussions about the three main areas explored in our monograph: Establishing Coloniality (conquest, religion, empire); Colonial Subjects (race, citizenship, spatiality); Coloniality Reconfigured (state formation, history, memory, globalization). We have limited the session to three papers in order to maximize audience discussion. We hope to offer a lens that opens our perspective to new ways of understanding colonial practices across time and space, and within the academy itself, and thus allow for more inclusive cultural and social practices. Finally, we hope our panel will serve as a spring board for discussion that will bridge to LASA’s 2020 meeting in Mexico.

Sub Track

• Literature and Culture: Interdisciplinary Approaches

Session Organizer

• Kathleen Ann Myers, Indiana University

Chair

• Pablo García Loaeza, West Virginia University

Individual Presentations

• Holy Reproductions: Resurgence of Sacred Art Debates in 21st Century Mexico - Beth Boyd

• "Batallas en el Desierto': Racialization and Colonization(s) in the Creation of Modern Mexico - Kathleen Ann Myers, Indiana University

• Rethinking coloniality and empire in popular culture: Pérez Reverte’s Mexico - Alejandro Mejías-López, Indiana University