Gazes from the United States: Current Research on P’urhépecha Communities, their Colonial History and Ongoing Activism

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

The P’urhépecha community is the largest indigenous group in the state of Michoacán in México. Prior to the Conquest and Colonization, the P’urhépechas had a large empire that spanned most of the state of Michoacán and parts of Jalisco and Guerrero, but the P’urhépecha empire fell two years after the fall of Tenochtitlán, in 1523. Missionaries quickly followed, and by the early 17th century Michoacán was already an important center for intellectual production of indigenous, specially P’urhépecha, scholarship. By the mid-20th century, the P’urhépecha community was one of the most researched communities in Michoacán, both by Mexican and United States scholars. However, by the 1970s while research in México focusing on the P’urhépecha community flourished, in the United States it declined. Coming together from different disciplines and approaches, such as Education, Literature, History, Anthropology and Cultural Studies, this panel will highlight the work of current United States scholars conducting research focusing on different P’urhépecha communities. One of the main guiding threads is the issue of identity formation, be it gendered, racial, sexual or ethnic, and how those identities are created, negotiated, framed and/or performed in relation to a hegemonic power. By engaging with historical texts, the first two presentations analyze the way in which gendered and racialized subjects were articulated by the colonial imaginary. The remaining three presentations focus on current ways in which P’urhépecha individuals or communities participate, challenge, and transform conceptualizations of what it means to be Indigenous/Indian in the 21st century.

Sub Track

• Afro-Latin/Indigenous Peoples

Session Organizer

• Mintzi A Martínez-Rivera, Providence College

Chair

• Pavel Shlossberg, Gonzaga University

Discussant

• Pavel Shlossberg, Gonzaga University

Individual Presentations

• Women, Masculinities, and Power in Sixteenth-Century Michoacán - Daniel Santana, University of Texas at El Paso

• Segregation and Mestizaje in Michoacán’s Early Congregaciones - Olimpia E Rosenthal, Indiana University

• «No sabia que era indígena hasta que fui a la ciudad»: formación de identidades indígenas en una comunidad P’urhépecha - Mintzi A Martínez-Rivera, Providence College

• Nueva Creación: Indígena Cultural Production and Comunalidad through Education - Luis Urrieta, University of Texas at Austin

• Tourism as Reification or Autonomy: Reflections of P'urhepecha Artisans at the Days of the Dead Marketplace in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán - Gabriela Spears-Rico, University of Minnesota