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Transcript of Mestizaje, Hibridity, and Cultural Politics in Central America-C. Hale
-
7/25/2019 Mestizaje, Hibridity, and Cultural Politics in Central America-C. Hale
1/28
mestiz je hybridity and the
cultural politics of difference in
post-revolutionary central
america
i.
M y friend paused and leaned toward me across the dinner table Tenes
razon, cabron, el problema es que no sabemos quienes somos. He had
m isund erstoo d, I started to object. All I m eant to say was that Guatemalan
ladinos
]
are responding in interesting ways to the rise of Maya cultural
activism. Instead just nodded,
str ct
This paper explores the relationship be-
twee n post-revolutionary politics in Cen-
tral Am erica a nd the broader theoretical
claims m ad e
in
the nam e of the new
c u l -
tural politics of diffe rence. At issue are
the cr i t iques of pol i t ical visions that
do wnp lay cultural difference
in
the nam e
of unity, and correspondingly, the wide-
spread politicization of identities that p re-
viously would have been subsumed un-
de r broader po litical categories. Two set-
tings are exam ined : the Miskitu Indians in
post-Sandinista Nicaragua where hybrid-
ity is presently associated with powerless-
ness and fragm en tation, as well as with
the potential for creative renewal. And
Guatemala ,where discourses of hybrid-
ity and
mestizaje
are used by relatively
owerful
ladinos
to advance their own
agendas and delegit imate Maya act iv-
i s m . The varying material consequences
of the ne w pol i t ics a n d the ne w
theory, are raised in the conclusion of
this
paper
and added his remark to a grow-
ing collection of evidence that
shows how charged this issue has
beco me. A young, successful
la-
dino poet from Quetzaltenango
complained that the only creative
and energetic poetry in Guate-
mala these days is by people like
Humberto Ak'abal who draws
artistic inspiration from his na-
tive K'iche-M aya language and
cu ltur e. All the res t, he la-
men ted, is imitation. A
ladino
physician w ho serves mainly in-
digenous patients in Chimal-
tenango claimed that
ladino
identity is disappearing, because
it lacks a historical and spiritual
grounding. He then referred me
to the entry for ladino in the
j o u r n l o f l t in m e r i c n n t h r o p o l o g y 2 1 ) : 3 4 - 6 1 c o p y r i g h t 1 9 9 6 , a m e r ic a n a n t h r o p o l o g ic a l a s s o c i a ti o n
34 journal of latin am erican anthropology
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7/25/2019 Mestizaje, Hibridity, and Cultural Politics in Central America-C. Hale
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Charles r. hale
university of texas at austin
Enciclopedia
Universal
' astute, wise, rascal, sly(taimado), fox-like, sul-
len{cazurro),anti-social, perve rse, vice-ridden. In conclusion, he added,
a miserable human being. For this reason, we cannot talk of ladinization,
only of indigen ization... to return to the past, and affirm the valu e of M aya
culture. Though this do ctor's
posi t ion is extreme-perhaps
r e s u m e n
even slightly q uir ky -h is com-
B f e a r | f c u | o Q n a | j z a |Q r e | a d 6 n e n f r e | a s
mentis consistent withthefirst politicas post-revolucionarias en Centr
two,
and all three draw atten-
tion to a palpable anxiety in the
way Guatemalan ladinos are
talking about questions of iden-
tity. Asisthe case with the doc-
tor their thoughts often include
allusions to mestizaje. Listen,
for
example,
to the vice-dean of
a Guatemalan university, re-
flectingonthe quincentenary. I
think it is stupid or absurd to
praise the aborigines and con-
demn the conquistadors.... Gua-
temalans are neither indigenous
nor Spaniard. It should be ob-
vious,
that we all are
mestizos
1
Before beginning
to
unpack
the
complexity behind thesedec-
America, y problemas teoricos mas amplios
desarrollados desde la perspectiva de las
nuevaspoliticas culturalesde diferenciacion
social. Analizo tanto las crfticas de las
perspectives polfticas que, en nom bre d e la
unidad,
minimizan las diferencias cuiiurajes,
como el presente entasis en la politicizacion
de aqueltas identidades
pe
anteriormente
habrian sido subsumidas por categories
politicas mas amplias. Examino dos
contextos. Uno es el caso de los
Miskitus en la Nicaragua post-
sandinista,en el quelas identidades
hibr idas se asocian tanto con
debil idad polit ico y fragmen-tacion
social como con un creativo potencial
renovador. oiroes el casode Guatemala,
dondelos ladinos que detenten elpoderusan
discursos de hibridez y mestizaje para
propo ner sys ag en da s y deleg i t im ar el
activismo politico Maya.Enlas conclusiones
de este articulo discuto las diversas
consecuenc ias materiales de las nuevas
politicas y nuevas teon'as.
mestiz je hybridity and the cultural politics of difference 35
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7/25/2019 Mestizaje, Hibridity, and Cultural Politics in Central America-C. Hale
3/28
larations, allow meabrusk change of placeto theAtlantic Coast of Nicara-
gua. In December 1993, the Puerto Cabezas headquarters of the Liberal
Constitutionalist Party (or PLC) was a busy place, adorned with attractive
brightredcampaign posters writtenin theMiskitu Indian language, promis-
ing developm ent for our AtlanticCoast. Now a leading political force in
the region, the PLC is an updated version of Somoza's liberal party, the
same party that forcibly annexedthecoastal region in 1894, embarkedon a
vigorous (though ineffective) campaign of hispanicization, and later gave
Nicaragua
a
45-year dictatorship. Miskitu support for
the PLC in
one sense
is not surprising: Sandinista ideology always portrayed the Somoza era as
unidimensionally oppressive, which did not begin to capture the multiva-
lence of M iskitu experiencesthen,and collective memories afterward. Yet
given their recent history of militant struggle for autonomy, it is remarkable
that Miskitu people w ould
turn
in large numbers to a party whose platform
does not even mention Indian rights,
butrather,
insists
that the
resources of
the Atlantic Coast [where the Miskitu live] belong
to
all Nicaraguans.
It would be foolhardy now to lean very heavily at all on the narratives
that anchored most analyses o f Nicaraguan cultural politics
in the
1980s: of
revolutionary transformation, of standing firm against US imperialism, of
unified indigenous resistance to the Sandinista nation-state. Though these
narratives are always g losses on processes of great complexity,
there was a
time when these narratives were a reasonable place to start. In great con-
trast, politics
in
the mid-1990s have taken on
a
fluid
and
multiple character:
former allies are now at odds and previous arch-enemies find reason for
provisional solidarities. They occasionally draw on those old ideological
anchors, but more often reject
or
thoroughly confound them.
3
From the outset
I want to
dispel hopes for some grand synthetic analysis
of these two settings, by emphasizing the many significant differences be-
tween them. They belong
to
two distinct cultural geographies, two different
conquest traditions,
4
and patterns of interaction with the contemporary
nation-state. Mayas in Guatemala comprise between 50 and 75 percent of
the population, while Miskitu and other lowland Indians are less than five
percent of Nicaraguans. The Maya movement ison therise, afteranunsuc-
cessful revolutionary movementcrushed by a brutalcounter-insurgency cam-
paign; Miskitu ethnic militancy has been on the decline, especially since
1990 when the embattled Sandinista party lostatthe polls.
Despite these and other differences, the rationale for comparison
is that
both settings form
part
of Central Am erica's transition
to a
post-revolution-
ary moment. Post-war might be a preferable term, if
the
purpose were
merely to mark the disjuncture with the early
to
mid-1980s when the region
36 journal of latin am erican anthropology
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7/25/2019 Mestizaje, Hibridity, and Cultural Politics in Central America-C. Hale
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was engulfed
in a
political crisis characterized by intense military conflict.
I
opt instead for post-revolutionary because
it has
greater resonance, refer-
ring to
a specific mode of political thought
and
action, which was pervasive
during the 1980s and is no longer so. This transition has two prominent
features. The first is a proliferation of the subjects of political action: that
is,
groups o f people
who
develop affinities based
on
common experiences of
inequity, oppression, or rights
denied;
who have organized to pursue com -
mon
defensive or affirmative goals;
and
who prefer autonomous mobiliza-
tion (or at most provisional coalitions with others) over grand projects of
popular unity and social transformation. The second feature is a rising
acknowledgment that these subjects themselves are multiply constituted-
cross-cut by internal divisions
and
inequities,
held
together
by
discourses of
collective identitythat aremanifestly partial, constructed,andcontingent.
Both features-the proliferation of subjects
and the
multiple constitution
of these subjects-seem to coincide
with the
global shift toward what Cornell
West (1990)and othershavecalled the newcultural politics o f difference.
5
The keywordsarem ultiplicity, hybridity,andm estizaje,and thecentral im-
age is of individuals and groups composed of irreducibly plural parts, of
many registers that change according to context, of identities that are al-
ways
in
the making, o f internal contradictions that
are
not the exception, but
the rule. From a distance these keywords resonate, simply because the
politicization of culture is so evident in Central Am erica today, and in par-
ticular, because indigenous movements have come so clearly into the lime-
light. Yet on closer inspection, one finds elements that complicate the fit
between progressive-sounding theoryandon-the-ground politics.
6
InGuate-
mala, I associate these keywords not with the Maya movement
itself,
but
with
ladino
responses to it. Maya intellectuals and leaders are at most very
selectively interested
in
the insights of hybridity theory, receptive w hen the
object of analysis is dominant discourses
and
institutions, dism issive when
the lens is turned back on their own identities, movements, and vision s for
the future.
Ladino
intellectuals,
in
contrast,
are
finding notions o f hybridity,
mestizajeand
m ultiplicity increasingly useful to think through their current
predicament. Regarding the Miskitu, these keywords fit less well with the
near-unanimous discourse of indigenous identity and rights that guided
Miskitu mobilization during the Sandinista era, yet seem aptly to
characterize the present moment of multivalent, factionalized consciousness
and
political sensibilities.
These unexpected associations
mean
that
the
ostensible fit between theory
and
observed practice ends
up
raising many more questions
than
it answers.
Are the
existing theoretical accounts of these new politics broad and flex-
mestiz je
hybridity and the cultural politics of difference 37
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7/25/2019 Mestizaje, Hibridity, and Cultural Politics in Central America-C. Hale
5/28
ible enough to encompass contexts with consequences thatareambiguous,
or even hostile, in relationtoone's own list of preferred subaltern subjects?
How, in any case, do we rigorouslymapthese consequences,andthen make
this empirical complexity speak effectivelyto thetheoryat hand? For along
period, effortsto addressanalogous questions elsewherehavecomeinsharply
polarized cam ps,and tosome extentthispolarization remains. To simplify
somewhat, on one side are those who argue that new cultural politics of
difference have ushered in a great potential for critique of non-class in-
equalities, generating exciting alternatives to exhausted models of social
change. A second group of theorists seeks to reinscribe the shift within the
logic of capitalism, emphasizing convergences with evolving interests of the
bourgeoisie , portraying the abandonment of historical materialism as both
an ideological product of the momentand aserious analytical impediment.
7
More recently, a number of writers have argued that this polar, either-or
fram ing of the debateism isleadingandsterile, have called for critical eclec-
ticism as a means to move beyond the material/discursive, class/culture,
essential/constructed binaries.
8
Icertainlyammost sympatheticwith this thirdposition, affirmingmany
ofthecritical insights that the new politics have ushered in, while vigor-
ously questioning the sanguine, at times even celebratory, prognoses for
their impact and consequences. My analysis therefore tacks back and forth
between two lines o f critical inquiry: one that joinsthemoveto abandon the
premise of
a
unified subject, which has dulled culture theory, suppressed
diversity and accentuated inequities within resistance movements;andan-
other that specifies the ideological facets of this very move,itstendency to
sever the link between culture and material inequities, to cement the post
in place, making what used to be called revolutionary change in Central
Am erica all but impossible to imagine.
Yet w hile this dual critique is a crucial first step, I am discontent with
the theoretical indeterminacy that it tends to yield , a problem that also re-
flects the broader political predicament of Central Americainthe 1990s. To
some extent, of course, indeterminacy signalsavaluable movetowardgreater
com plexity. The forms of oppositional politics thatIaddress below , for ex-
ample, are not amenable to the reductive binaries that have driven much
analysis of such topics, and in this sense I endorse recent calls for a fun-
damental rethinking ofourapproaches to the study of consciousness and
resistance.
9
But to leave it there will not do. If we legitimately recoil from
both polesthe search for a unified insurrectionary subject and the de-
scent into anything goes postm odernism -we must alsobetroubledby the
increasingly common stance that remains situatedinthe highly ambiguous,
38 journal of latin am erican anthropology
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7/25/2019 Mestizaje, Hibridity, and Cultural Politics in Central America-C. Hale
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ill-defined space that lies
in
between.
10
In
hopes of moving beyond
this
inde-
terminacy,Icall for sharpened empirical attention to the specific local con-
texts and consequences ofthenew cultural politics. If we can rigorously
documentandaccount for the wide range of these material c on sequ en ces-
from empowerment and renewal, to entrapment in neworpersisting forms
of oppressionthis may at least help us to specifythetheoretical tasks that
remain incomplete, thereby hasteningthemove
from
critique toconstructive
alternative.
Emblematic of the post-revolutionary momentinCentral Americaisthe
assertion that new social subjects areat theforefront of political change.
This,
in turn, entails a two-fold critique. The first, and more straight-for-
ward, is the insistence that subjects remain in the plural, which means
abandoning hopes for forging a grand subject-in-the-singular. The second
goes further, to explore how each of these subjectsareconstituted, question-
ing the premise of internal coherence that has been foundational to most
thinking about consciousness
and
action at every level, from individuals to
communities, social classes and racial or ethnic groups, to nations. In an-
thropological guise this latter critique focuses on inherited understandings
of cultures and identities as bounded units of analysis. Gupta and Ferguson
(1992), for exam ple, challenge the unproblematic link between identity and
place ; Handler (198 5) makes a plea for deconstruction of the discourse
of leaders who have a stake in making their cultures appear unified; Abu-
Lughod (199 2) finds herself writing against culture. All these arguments
draw inspiration from alternative approachestorepresentation and identity
politics developed outside anthropology:infeministand literary
theory,
phi-
losophy and cultural studies.
A number of Chicana scholars have reformulated
the term
mestizaje,as
a means to fuse both lines of argument into
one.M estizaje
clearly evokes the
plurality of subjects, because it refers to an encounter o f two or more dis-
tinct cultural/racial groups. At the same time, to bem estizoin this revised
sense istoclaimaconsciousness shapedbymultiple influences, reducible to
none. The deeply embedded dominant culture meanings ofm estizajede-
facement arising
from
biological mixture,awoman's betrayal of her race as
original sin, an assimilationist ideo logy of cultural hom ogenization-m ake
this reformulation risky, but also charged and powerful.
mestiz je
hybridity and the cultural politics of difference
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7/25/2019 Mestizaje, Hibridity, and Cultural Politics in Central America-C. Hale
7/28
Gloria Anzaldua (1987:22) writes:
...fDJon'tgive me your tenets and your laws. Don 't give m e
yourlukewarmgods. W hat I wantis an accounting withallthree
cultureswhite,
M exican, Indian. I want the freedom to carve
and chisel myownface... to fashion my own gods out ofmy
entrails. And if going home is denied me then I will have to
stand and claim my space, making a new culture-una cultura
mestiza with my own lum ber, my ow n bricks and mortar and
my ow n feminist architecture.
Norma Alarcon (1990) has placed Anzaldua's treatise in the broader
theoretical register of multiply-constructed
or decentered
subjects, who
believe that knowledge of one's subjectivity cannot
be
arrived
at through a
sing le discursive theme, who conduct politics through provisional soli-
darities. Chela Sandoval (1991:15) offers
a
fuller account of these politics,
depicting
an
oppositional consciousness that depends upon ...the ability
to read the current situation of power and... self-consciously choosing and
adopting the ideological form best suited
to
push against its configurations,
a survival skill well known to oppressed peoples. The new
mestiza
is
emblem atic of creative renewalas an expression of identity and a call to
militancywhich affirms plurality and avoids the traps of the unified sub-
ject.
Both lines of argumentthat subjects are plural and multiply consti-
tutedare prominent in Central Am erica today. At som e level the first has
been acknowledged for some time, typically in reference to the structural
heterogeneity of Central American soc ieties . Theorists
and
activists previ-
ously sought
to
reconcile this daunting heterogeneity with the unitary goals
of revolutionary change, by drawing on formulations parallel to Ernesto
Laclau's (19 77 ) influential essay on populism. Laclau argued that popu-
list rhetoric was
the
essential glue
that
could meld
the
demands
and
precepts
of each constituent
group
into
a
single, socialist collective will.
12
In
the con-
text of the Nicaraguan revolution, for exam ple, this m eant that barrio resi-
dents, semi-proletarians, artisans, petty merchants, women, youth, ethnic
groups, intellectuals, petty bourgeoisiethe list kept growing longer
as
lead-
ers developed
a
deeper
grasp
of the project's complexityall had
their
place
in
the revolutionary process.
13
At some
point,
however, each
group was
expected to relinquish autonomy
and difference
in
return for power gained by forging
a
national-popular
sub-
jec t in the singular. This obligatory allegiance to a single revolutionary
40 journal of latin am erican anthropology
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7/25/2019 Mestizaje, Hibridity, and Cultural Politics in Central America-C. Hale
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subject is now the focus of intense criticism. It required people to g ive up
too much of their particular identities, interests and demands; and it rested
on a premature call to unity, which privileged the voices of some, before
allowing everyone
a
chance
to
speak.
Gathering Rage
is Margaret Randall's
(1992) memorable title o f
a
recent book
that
analyzes the Sandinistas' fail-
ure to confront sexism and to develop a feminist agenda.
14
Substitute any
groupinthat list of constituent groups for
women,
and the parallel argu-
mentcaneasily be found. Indigenous peoples,in thissense, were prescient:
they advanced the critique well before
the era had
ended.
l5
An awareness of the fractured subject is equally palpable in post-
revolutionary Central America, though less explicitly theorized as such. At
every
turn
one hears, for example, that participants
in an
indigenous move-
ment
cannot agree
on the
meaning of being Indian,
that
politicized gender
or
ethnic divides have made class unity more difficult to sustain, that work
toward
wom en's rights does not adequately address cultural difference, that
indigenous organizations neglect wom en's rights,
and
that nearly everyone
is skeptical about the nation as a basis for shared identity. These political
experiences have a growing complement of theoretical formulations: one
thinks of Nestor Garcia Canclini's
Culturas Hibridas
(1989), Rowe and
Schelling'sM emory and Modernity(1991) and at least two recent antholo-
gies (Beverley and Oviedo 1995; Chanady 1994), all of which link hybrid
identities in Latin America to promising new forms o f oppositional poli-
tics.
16
While broadly affirming this fit between the empirical conditions in
Central America and the new theories of identity politics, I also want the
empirical settings to confront
the
theories with challenges that clarify. The
first challenge arises where dominant actors appropriate the discourse of
multiplicity, but then smuggle
the
unified subject back
in.
Indigenous intel-
lectuals
in
Latin Am erica, for example, have long associatedm estizajewith
the assimilationist orind igenistapolicies of the nation-statewith M exico
as the
prime exampleand condemn
it as
an indirect form of ethnocide. As
used by Spaniards, by white ruling cliques and by social scientists, writes
Native Am erican ethno-historian Jack Forbes, the
m estizo
concept can be
an
anti-Indian, psycho logica lly paralyzing tool o f colonialism.
17
It would
be
misleading, how ever, to settle
the
matter by pointing
to a
radical disjunc-
rure betweenm estizajeas nation-state ideology in Latin America, and as
oppositional banner of oppressed peoples in the North. Both usages can be
found in both p laces; moreover, there are usages of the
term
that fall some-
where between neo-colonial oppression
and
creative renewal,
or
whose con-
tent fluctuates between the
two.
By considering this range of meanings and
mestiz ie
hybridity and the cultural politics of difference 41
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7/25/2019 Mestizaje, Hibridity, and Cultural Politics in Central America-C. Hale
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their consequences, I contend, we can best gauge the com plexities of any
effort
to
subvert
the
colonial legacy
oim estizaje,and
realize
its
emancipatory
potential.
A second challenge focuseson thecomplicity of hybrid political sensi-
bilities with dominant sectors' efforts to deflect, defeat
or
delegitimate sub-
altern resistance. This outcome,Iwill argue, is dramatically evident among
the M iskitu o f Nicaragua today. If there is indeed a subversive potential in
the firm refusal to be pinned down, there is an equally great potential for
atrophy, factionalism and disarray whentheadjective provisional comes
paired with every political move. If theories of ethnic mobilization do indeed
buckle under the critique of the bounded subject, there is something trou-
bling and unpersuasive about the weightlessness that hybridity often con-
notes.
M iskitu politics highlight the need to focus attention on this gap be-
tween the sanguine claims for hybridity as an alternative to the flaws of
essentialist reasoning,andthe material consequences of the discursive shift
away from indigenous militancy; that is, to distinguish between creative
renewal and the desperate, desultory anti-politics of survival.
Inthe following two sectionsI make theethnographic caseforthese two
sets of hesitations, which together focus our attention on the slippage be-
tween hybridityandhegemony.Ithenstepbackagain tooffer some prelimi-
nary conclusions.
Chimaltenango was hard hit by the violence, as the eerily anesthe-
tized phrase goes ,and theubiquity of this phrase is one o f many indications
that the real political impact of the violence persists.
18
Itbegan in earnest
around 1978. Indian mayors won biginthe municipal elections ofthatyear,
and by 1981 most of these local officials had been killedor driveninto exile.
The same occurred with cooperatives, unions, health programs, and pro-
gressive religious workers. Guerrilla activity accelerated, and the armyre-
spondedwith acounter-insurgencycampaignof unfathomable brutality. When
Guatemala formally returned to democratic rule in 1985, the armyhadwon
the war in all but a few jungle areas far from Chimaltenango; and Maya
civilians had borne the brunt of the army's victory.
Even veteran analysts of Guatemalan Indian politics have been hard
pressedtoexplain howamovement of Maya cultural activism could emerge
in such a short time, with such great vibrancy, from the ashes of this state-
4 2 journal of latin am erican anthropology
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sponsored reign of terror.
19
The term
movement must not be taken to im-
ply
homogeneity. Activism revolves around
a
decentralized network of liter-
ally dozens of Maya-controlled NGOs, each with separate internal charac-
ters, objectives, and sources of funding, which are in varying degrees of
communication with one another. They have important areas of common
ground, and multiple lines of division, which, combined with
a
volatile na-
tional political scene, make for constantly shifting terrains of alliance and
tension.
20
Internal complexities notwithstanding,
the Maya
movement sends
a
pow-
erful message to
ladinos,
beginning with a searing critique of
ladino
iden-
tity
itself.
In one sense such criticism is not new. Euro-Guatemalan elites
have long been deprecatory
towardladinos,
condemning
them
for the indel-
ible
stain of Indian ancestry.
21
Ladinosociologist
Carlos
Guzman-Bockler
reinforced this condemnationfrom
a
different perspective
in the
early 1970s,
coining the term ningunidad'( nobody-ness )to disparage ladino and
Guatemalan national identities
in
contrast
to
his Indianist-revolutionary al-
ternative.
22
But only
with the
rise of
a more
vocal and powerful Maya move-
ment since 1985
has
the critique really
begun to
sting.
It
decouples the a sso-
ciation of
' ladino
with Guatemalan, reinscribes
ladinos
as one people
among many, and contrasts self-assured Maya identity w ith theningunidad
of beingladino.Further, it insists that Maya culture deserves respect
in
the
form of specific laws and state policies , and makes the still-pervasive overt
practices ofladino racism fair game for constant, militantand often at
least partially successfulcontestation. Rigoberta Menchu's Nobel Peace
prize awarded in 1992 became emblematic of
this
new-found indigenous
affirmation, which gave rise to anxiety-ridden public debate. The cover of
Cronica
(Guatemala's
TimeM agazine)
for October 16 ,19 92 inadvertently
reveals this anxiety, announcing the lead story with
the
jolting bold letter
title: Indianpower. The accompanying photo of Menchu is
framed
within
an undersized space that seems hardly able to contain the political energy
that her
expression conveys. The subtitle asks,
What do
they want? With-
out intending to imply a simple causal relationship, I want to suggest that
one important facetof ladinos'response to this multi-faceted challenge is
the increasingly prominent discourse of
mestizajeP
Once an identity category throughout Central America, the term la-
dino
has given way to mestizo in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and most of
Honduras.
In
Guatemala, by contrast, use
of ladino
is still standard,
a
testi-
mony
to the
degree of polarization
and
perceived rigidity of the ethnic bound-
ary.
24
Because use of the identity term
m estizo
in Guatemala is recent and
incipient, let me begin with an anecdote that helps to specify and illustrate
mestiz je hybridity and the cultural politics of difference 4 3
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7/25/2019 Mestizaje, Hibridity, and Cultural Politics in Central America-C. Hale
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this
transition.
Marriage
data
for
the
municipio(administrative unit roughly
equivalent to a U.S. county) of Chimaltenango between 1986 and 1990 are
perplexing. For the m iddle three years, about 80% of
the
marriages each
year are reported to be between two Indian spouses, in keeping with the
reported percentage of Indians in the population. But in 1986 the vast ma-
jority involved people of
unknown
identity
and
in 1990 fully half
the
mar-
riages were between two
ladinos.
Since these fluctuations in the first and
last years could not possibly correspond to actual demographic shifts, the
only conclusion
to
draw
is that the
civil registry w as having trouble figuring
out who is who.
In
hopes of resolving
this
puzzle,
I
visited
the
civil registry
in Chimaltenango. The young woman who records this data barely looked
up from her desk as she responded to my question. We don't keep that
information any more. We don't even try to determine who is
ladino, m es-
tizo
and Indian. We just send the forms back with the questions left blank.
I also visited the National Statistics Institute (INE) in Guatemala City, to
find out how
the
Chimaltenango experience fit
with
national trends,
and
was
directed to the desk of
a
light-skinnedladinajefa. She did all the talking,
while her assistant sat silently at her side. It's a big problem, thejefa
explained:
People don't want to admit they are indios.Many would now
take it as aninsult.Inmy city [M azatenango] the youngwomen
who [wear traditional dress] are leaving it behind andmaking
like they'renot Indians... [Th en,ina spontaneous expression of
colonial nostalgia,
25
she added]... the next thing you know
they w on't work for you
either.
It's hard to find good dom estic
help these days.
She
paused.
But even if
they
don't
dress intraje,
we still
know.
She laughed
out loud wh ile explaining w hy: porque tienen cara de indioTHer assis-
tant,
with black
hair and
considerably
darker
skin, smiled
andnodded,
though
I was sure
I
sensed a hint of discomfort.
This national-\QVQ\jefasummarized succinctly, if quite unconsciously,
the once-predominant ideology o f ethnic relations
in
Guatemala. Deeply
in-
fluenced by the precepts of Euro-Guatemalan e lites,
ladinos
tended to un-
derstand and portray identity categories as starkly dichotom ous,
and
vigor-
ously
to
enforce
the
divide between themselves
and
Indians. Now these once-
rigid boundaries have grown more porous and increasingly difficult to po-
lice, as the experience of the Chimaltenango civil registry suggests. There is
no mono-causal explanation for this transition: a number o f factors quite
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independent o f the Maya m ovement surely play
an
important role, from the
upward mobility o f
a
small but constantly grow ing M aya middle c lass , to
the deep and violent intrusion of
the
state in Maya community life, that
came about as part o f the counter-insurgency campaign o f the early 1980s.
Similarly, the
ladino
embrace of
m estizaje
in response
to
this emergent state
of affairs has no single, stable political meaning.
The most comm only deployedladinodiscourse ofmestizajeentails what
I call appropriation from above:
a
tactical shift by the relatively powerful,
that
may ameliorate but ultimately serves to reproduce existing racism and
power inequity. This is the classic formula for mestizo nation-building,
whereby
an
inert Indian past provides
the
raw material for
a
resolutelymes-
tizo
future.
It
becomes especially charged when promoted
as a
counter-point
to the
challenge of Maya activism,
a
rationale that some proponents exp lic-
itly
endorse.
Listen, for example, to Mario Roberto M orales,
a
sharp-witted
and
out-spoken Guatemalan
ladino
columnist:
It is obvious, then, that the cultura l policies of a multicultural
country,
and especially a culturally hybrid
country,
should have
as their central theme, not cultural purisms but
rather,
mestizaje.A t the same time, these policies should provide the
impulse for a deepening of this mestizaje, such that in this
country's future there w ill be no Indians nor ladinos,but only
Guatemalans.
26
Statements of this sortwhich generally ignore or down play unequal
relations betweenladinosand Mayaplace M orales squarely in the com -
pany of the Guatemalan power elite. It could just as w ell have been uttered
by
a
spokesperson of the Guatemalan Army, which regularly appropriates
Maya
cultural sym bols-m ost notably
the
Maya
hero
Tecun Umanand puts
them
to the service o f counter-insurgency.
Yet there
are
other facets of this same discourse
that
have a less noxious
political valence. In the case of Morales, one signal of this com plexity is
that his eulogies tomestizaje have come paired with the suggestion that
Garcia Canclini's
CulturasHibridasa
text directly associated with pro-
gressive cultural polit ics-be required reading for all Guatemalans. An-
other rendering of M orales' line of argument is that it portraysm estizajeas
a means to acknow ledge the constant cross-over
and
increasing mutual en-
tanglement of Indians andladinos,which helps to dismantle Guatemala's
colonial legacy of rigid, dichotomous identity categories. This anti-essen-
tialist critique cuts both ways: against the exclusionary pretensions of the
mestiz je hybridity and the cultural politics of difference 45
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Guatemalan power elite,
and
against rigidity
and
exclusion em anating from
Maya cultural activists them selves. Shorn of theoretical baggage, the same
message is echoed by middle class
ladinosin
Chimaltenango. The director
of a local community development organization, for example, became exas-
perated with me for what he view ed
as the
typical North American intellec-
tuals'
tendency to exaggerate inter-ethnic antagonisms.
It
depends
on
the
specific
conditions,
he insisted, citing many exam ples o f inter-ethnic
coop-
eration, and of deep c lass d ivisions that cross-cut ethnicity. This brought to
mind the
Mayas
only stance
of som e Maya organizations
in
Chimaltenango,
which he characterized
as racist
and added heatedly,
I
have Indian blood
too.
I have spent much time in Indian communities. It
is
just that now my
culture has become more
m estizo. In a
workshop
on
autonomy attended
by
mainly
ladino
activists, one participant offered
a
poignant account of a long
encounter with a group of Maya priests. I arrived at the conclusion that
I
am not
ladino.
A
ladino
is an exploiter, a
capatdz,
the one who wields the
whip.
The term
mestizo,
he argued, would help convey a commitment to
distance h imself from this oppressive past meaning of
ladino.
Finally, there is yet another set of responses which simply affirm the
space of m ultiplicity, without drawing conclusions that
are
so clearly posi-
tioned. Aladinateacher and activist puzzled over my question as to the
identity of
a
com mon acquaintance,
and
then
responded:
Demetrio Cojti [a
leading Maya intellectual] tells
us that
it is racist to determine people's iden-
tity simply by looking
at
them. These days, she continued, we just don't
know who
is
who.
That
statement,
in
turn,
brings to mind the
Chimaltenango
marriage data. Significant sectors of people of
Maya
descent are moving
into a realm of multiple identity, an implicit affirmation of hybridity or
mestizaje
because
it
entails
the
absence of strong affinity with either Indian
orladino.No one can quantify this change because census data comes in
dichotom ous categories. But evidence of the multiplicity is everywhere
to be
found
in
Chimaltenango,
and
especially persuasive when confirmed by Maya
cultural activists, who find
it
deeply
troubling.
When asked about the ethnic
composition of
the
city of Chimaltenango, for example, the director of
a
Maya organization
responded: the great
majority is indigenous, but
in terms
of identity, it is minimal, perhaps five percent. Such leaders point to a
series of factorsproximity to the capital, rapid economic change, persist-
ing institutionalized racismand they worry especia lly about the youth. A
young man of about 18 who works as an assistant in his father's construc-
tion business, exem plifies precisely these concerns. In
a
matter-of-fact tone
he told me that Indian identity meant something to his parents, who had
migrated from a rural community, but not to him. With the conquest the
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Spanish culture was imposed, and now that's pretty much what we know.
The indigenous is disappearing. A medical history of an older man, taken
at the Clinica Berhorst in Chimaltenango, yielded this exchange when the
doctor tried to check
a
box next to the form's first question:
P: iComo se identifica Ud, como ladino o indigena?
R:Bueno, unpoco de los dos. Soy ladino... y
tambien
indigena.
Pues, soy m estizo.
P: Pero no existe esa categoria, solo ladino e indigena.
R:Entonces mejor ponga indigena iporque lo voy a negar?
r
This last exam ple brings
us
to the edge of
a
quagmire
that
cannot not be
treated exhaustively here, but at least demands preliminary attention: the
relationship betweenmestizajeandidentity shift from Indiantoladino,what
used to
be called
ladinoization.
According
to
periodic census docum ents,
since 1893 Chimaltenango's departmental population
has
increased
ten
fold,
while
the
percentage of Indians
and
ladinos
has
remained remarkably stable
at 80-20. This appearance of stability, however, is an illusion. The criteria
that census takers use to create these categories have changed over time;
from one historical moment to the next there has been variation in what it
means to be indigenous or
ladino;
and most important, the dichotomous
ladino-lndianmodel preemptively (and at times arbitrarily) places peop le
intoone categoryor the
other,
whenthey fitinneither. Astoundingas itmay
seem given the abundance of anthropological research on ethnicity in Gua-
temala, the last person to systematically confront this problem of culture
change and identity shift with original field data was Richard N . Adam s in
the 1950s. He created a typology of ladinoization that provoked an ava-
lanche of criticism, some of which continues to this day.
28
It
is high time
to
m ove beyond
the
intellectual paralysis
that has
resulted
from this controversy, whereby
the
demonization of
adamscismo
has made
it difficult to address basic empirical issues. To move the discussion for-
ward, we much first clearly specify the flawed premises of Adams' typol-
ogy, which have been invalidated byacombination of historical change and
theoretical
critique,
including
a good
measure of
his own
self-criticism. These
were,
inbrief:
1) uni-directionality: culture and identity change, but only in
one direction, from Indian toladino;2) irreversibility: once Indians have
shifted towardladinoculture and identity, there is no turning back; and 3 )
reification: the premise
that
identity-or
degree
of identity-could
be
deduced
from outwardly observable cultural traits (footwear, clothing, etc.).
29
A c-
knowledgment of these flaws,
inturn,
should clear the way for affirming one
mestiz je hybridity and the cultural politics of difference 47
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crucial and near indisputably valid element
in
Adams' original framework.
He placed culture change
in
the context of broader political-econom ic con-
ditions, and drew attention
to the
fact that,
in
response
to
structural inequity
and institutionalized racism, one survival tactic that Indians have followed
was to act like, and in some cases to becom e,
ladinos.
The parallel analytical problem that I have posed for Chimaltenango
today is to document
the
current relations of power inequality between Indi-
ans and
ladinos,
to situate the
ladino
discourse of
m estizaje
within these
relations, and to assess the consequences of this discourse for all those af-
fected. One crucial difference between this process now and its analogue
forty years ago is the vibrant and growing m ovement o f M aya cultural ac-
tivism, which offers
a
well-elaborated
and
increasingly viable alternative to
assim ilation. Emblematic of this change is the man's final resting place in
the m edical history cited above. In the absence of M aya cultural activism,
he might well have persisted in naming himself
ladino.
Maya movement
leaders privilege cultural struggle
in
the Gramscian sense, making cultural
rights the center-piece of efforts
to
forge
a
loosely unified oppositional bloc,
which gradually can be expected to shift
the
balance of political-economic
power in their favor. The movement focuses on educational and language
policy, radio and mass communication, the revalorization
and
promotion of
Maya religion , the imbuing of old practices with new contestatory cultural
meanings. As one leader
put
it, our process of social change here advances
to the beat of the marimba.
The consequences of these efforts, however, reach
beyond those
intended
or
anticipated by movement leaders. Considerable achievements
in the areas
of cultural rights have opened new space for many people, allowing
them
to
deepen their identity
and
pride
as
Maya, often by applying their professional
skills to the benefit of the movem ent. Yet these same achievements also
have broadened the space of multiple identity making
it more
acceptable for
people o f Maya descent
to
follow paths of upward mobility in what
used
to
be exclusively ladinow orlds, and less likely that they w ould confront an
obligatory public choice between
the two
dichotomous identity categories of
identity.
Here lies
the
real complexity of any effort
to
assess the consequences of
ladinodiscoursesof mestizaje.When they clearly involve a case o f appro-
priation from above, conclusionsareeasy enough to reach. When the intent
is to engage in an anti-colonial critique of the inherited category ladino
the consequencesaremore complexbut atleast arguably salutary.Butwhen
the termm estizois applied specificallytoMaya identity and politicseven
shorn of assimilationist intentthe consequences become deeply am bigu-
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ous. They entail both an important constructive critique of M aya essen tial-
ism,
and a thinly veiled threat o f delegitimation. The unintended con sequence s
of Ma ya cultural activism add to this ambiguity. In com parison to a deca de
ago, M aya pe ople, especially when they acquire money and education, m ov e
with much greater ease b etwe en the Indian and
ladino
wor lds. The discourse
ofmestizaje, by reinforcing this broadened space of ethnic indeterm inacy,
threatens to blur the m essa ge of M aya cultural activism , and to underm ine
the m ov em en t's a bility to forge a unified front of support.
V
Before drawing conclusion s about these varying m eanings and con se-
quences of mestizaje in Guatemala, let m e consider a related set of que s-
tions regarding the M iskitu of Nicaragua. If in Guatemala today w e find a
unifying d iscourse o f indigen ous identity juxtap osed toathreatening ladino
discourse o f mu ltiplicity, in Nicarag ua it is the reverse. Since the m om en -
tous electio ns o f 199 0, wh en the Sandinista party ceded po wer to a center-
right electoral coalition, the state has down played cultural difference, at-
tempted to undermine or simply ignore Miskitu pe op le's new ly achiev ed
rights to autonomy, and revived well-worn hom ogen izing political formulae
that invoke the interests o f all Nicara gua ns. The div isive ne ss of the past
decade alon g both class and ethnic lines , the ne w leaders argue, w as largely
a result o f Sandinista political mac hinations. In the contex t of this do m inant
discourse and practice, Miskitu politics are awash in multiplicity.
To find the M iskitu analogue to the present m ove m ent o f M aya cultural
activism in Guatemala, w e wo uld hav e to go back in time, to the Nicar agu a
of the early 19 80s . Beca use this history has been written man y tim es ov er,
suffice it to say that the discourse o f ethnic m ilitanc y w as the prism through
which nearly all Miskitu people understood the revolution. It did not
seam lessly represent peo ple 's con sciou sness: from the outset, rival M iskitu
leaders fought w ith one another over m on ey , pow er, and matters o f political
principle; leaders and followers understood the mobilization in divergent
ways .
30
Desp ite these and other com plex ities , when asked what they w ere
fighting for, the vast majority of Miskitu people-between say 1981 and
1985would have given a remarkably similar answer: for freedom from
Sandinista state repression; for our rights to territory, natural resources,
political control, and cultural ascendancy.
In late 1984, San dinista leaders announced they wou ld respond to M iskitu
mestiz je
hybridity and the cultural politics of difference 4 9
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17/28
(and other Coa st peop le's) dem ands by recog nizing their rights to au tonom y.
A ltho ug h so m e leaders held out for continued armed struggle, most p eople
in the com m un ities where I w or ke d- an d throughout the regionopted for
dia log ue . Th ey fashioned a pragma tic, dual response to the Sandinista pro-
posa l: see kin g to take from the govern men t what they could get, wh ile re-
ser vin g their de ep loya lties for leaders in the bush w h o carried on the
struggle and represented the ideals of ethnic m ilitancy . Through the elec-
tion s of 19 90 , this dual response w as remarkably effectiv e. M iskitu people
ach ieve d legal r ecogn ition of their rights to autonom y from the Sandinista-
controlledAsemblea Nacional
in
1987 , and then delivered a ma ssive ly anti-
San dinista vo te in 199 0, bringing their ow n representatives to power in the
newly constituted autonomous government.
31
After 1990, by contrast, it has become increasingly difficult to see be-
yo nd the sob ering first imp ression of political atrophy and disarray. Don't
ev en talk to m e about auton om y, is no w a co m m on refrain, we're hungry.
W e wan t work. Un em ploy m ent in the coastal region has reached 70% and
prices o f consu m er go od s are absurdly high compared with local wag e rates.
The only gl immers of economic vital ity come from the booming drug
economy, and from shady venture capitalists there to make quick profits
through the export o f seafood. In the recently held autonom y elec tions M iskitu
pe op le took a bewilde ring array o f political p osition s, including as alluded
to at the outset strong support for the PL C, despite that party's ideological
roots antithetical to auton om y (see T able 1).
Table 1
Results of 1994Elect ions inP redom inant ly Misk itu P rec inc ts
FSLN P L C Y AT AM A
C i r c u n s c r i p c i o n
R io G r a n d e ( c u e n c a )
R io C O C O Ar r iba
R io
C O C O
A b a j o
R io C O C O L lano
Yu lu
Li tora l Norte-Sur
161
994
538
1001
918
347
56
3185
1690
2109
362
469
648
480
864
415
683
2488
TOT ALS 3 9 5 9 (2 3 % ) 7 8 4 4 (4 5 % ) 5 5 7 8 (38 % )
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What
happened
to the
once pervasive discourse of indigenous militancy?
For
many it has simply dissolved, pushed aside by more pressing concerns,
or
dulled beyond recognition
by the
disbelief that
it
could ever come to any-
thing. The settings where the discourse persists
are
even more telling.
In
the
empty shell of an office of theConsejo de Ancianos,
a
Miskitu sociologist
and I held a long conversation with an angry group of five elderly men.
During the
previous era thisConsejoepitomized
the
discourse of indigenous
militancy at its most powerful:C onsejomembers were the font of cultural
knowledge passed downfromtime immemorial; they gave
the
Miskitu com -
batants advice, spiritual guidance,
and
moralsupport;they knew the history
of Miskitu people's rights, which provided the rationale for the more able-
bodied men and women to carry on the struggle.
In
three hours of animated
exchange, we heardafull rendition ofthisemotionally charged history. Then
the register changed abruptlyasthey detailed the unscrupulous actions and
bad decisions their own leaders had taken since 1990. But what really had
them angrywassomething even more basic:noone paid attention any more.
Forweeks they had been trying in vain to meet the new ly appointed gover-
nor of the autonom ous regiona formercomandantein the M iskitu resis-
tanceto give him some of their once so highly valued counsel. He had not
evenlet theminside the door.
In great contrast to the 1980s, M iskitu politics today have no center o f
gravity, no unified discourse of identity and common values that orients
collective action. People fashion m ultiple responses to desperate economic
hardship and a shifting field of meageropportunities;they use, discard and
partly use again discourses previously imbued with grave, essential mean-
ings.
Miskitu politics in the post-revolutionary period are most certainly
not ethnic
in
the conventional sense: they
are
quintessential^ hybrid.
It does not necessarily follow that these hybrid sensibilities are mere
reflections of the dominant neo-liberal ideology of atomization; nor do they
necessarily signal inexorable descent into
a
politics of desperation. Miskitu
people, after
all,are
preeminent survivors. By g iving
a
positive reception to
parties like the PLC, they hedge their bets, feign loyalty, and make use of
resources that flow from the alliance. Further, it is plausible that this new
stance contains e lements of resistance, or at least critique o f the hierarchy,
authoritarianism, and ineptitude that plagued the previous experience of
mobilization. The
C onsejo de An cianos,
after all, does epitom ize the patri-
archal values and practices that movements of indigenous militancy (like
other types o f nationalist m ovem ents) often reinforce; perhaps
the
ancianos'
relegation to irrelevance now is the precursor to a new moment in M iskitu
politics, characterized by
a
more explicit commitment to gender equality.
mestiz je hybridity and the cultural politics of difference 51
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M iskitu pe op le's strategic essentialism in a prior m om ent, one might
argue, has shifted n ow toa strategic mu ltiplicity. Th is wo uld take som e of
the sting out o f what appears to be a time o f great disillusionm ent and de-
moralization; and it would certainly place the Miskitu in good theoretical
com pa ny , am ong those w ho have m ade hybridity and mu ltiplicity their ral-
lying cries. More concr etely, a decided ly m ultiple political subjectivity could
ev en help to open a path toward resolv ing a uton om y's greatest problem: to
forge a multi-ethnic consciousness, which unifies members of six distinct
ethnic groups behind the goals of regional self-government, and creates a
spac e for the egalitarian participation o f each in the resulting ben efits. H ow-
eve r effectiv e as a ve hic le of mo bilization, Miskitu ethnic militancy never
did com pletely overcom e the baggage o f accompan ying chauvinism, which
m argina lized the tw o smaller and less powerful indigen ous peo ples (the Sumu
and Rama), and down played African Nicaraguan (Creole) and Garifuna
rights altogether. Strategic multiplicity could encourage a fluidity o f bound-
aries, thereby a cting a s a deterrent to ethnic chau vinism.
Yet this line of argument stretches only so far. Hybrid consciousness
and practice also h as left M iskitu peo ple d ivided , and ill-equipp ed to carry
on the strugg le to defend their rights to autono m y, wh ich are in serious dan-
ger o f be ing denied by an intransigent central govern men t. I certainlyamnot
su gg est ing that som ethin g w e might want to call M iskitu culture and iden-
tity has disappeared. I do wan t to em ph asize the sharp distinction between
tw o ph ases o f M iskitu political sen sibilities, and to note the material conse-
qu en ces that follo w from each . Strategic essentialism o f the early 1980 s was
associated with exuberant mobilization, great hopefulness about the future,
and the ach ievem ent of an auton om y law w hich , for all its l im itations, will
be o f lasting h istorical im portance. A s for strategic multiplicity, though it is
too soo n to draw firm con clusio ns, the material con seq ue nc es appear to be
exceedingly bleak.
v.
It does not follow from this critique of the sanguine claims for hybrid
cultural po litics that renew ed c alls for mob ilization around a unified subject
are a viable or appropriate response. Such calls remain ridden with prob-
lem s, wh ether the subject in question is national-popular or ethnic, mes-
tizo
or Indian, wh ether dep loye d to defend an established order, or to rally
support behind a mov em ent of revolutionary ch ange. It isatestimo ny to the
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tenacity of the precepts underlying this political alternative that people so
often begin with critiques of essentialism,
and
end
up
smuggling
the
unified
subject back
in.
To cite one example
in
the realm of indigenous po litics, the
late Bonfil Batalla o f M exico, in his recent work
Pensar Nuestra Cu ltura
(1991) pursues the decolonization
of mestizo
identity by reinforcing the In-
dian-mestizodichotomy, assigning value
to a
pure, resistant, creative Indian
matriz,while homogenizinganddevaluingtheother side.
YetIam also discontent with the theoretical indeterminacy that results
when we reiterate the dual critiqueof
both
essential and hybrid identity
politicswithout an effort
to
specify the theory and practice that lies in be-
tween (or better yet, beyond). The best way to move beyond this indetermi-
nacy, I argue here, is with experience rooted analysis that comes from
engaged ethnographic research.
32
My analysis here has demonstrated that,
far
froma
homogeneous category, discourses that invoke
m estizaje,
hybrid-
ity and difference have a great diversity of political motivations, contents
andconsequences.It thenbecom es crucial to exam ine the varying material
contexts of these new political interventions,andrelate them systematically
to the
varying consequences that follow.
In Guatemala, I argued that the rising
ladino
discourse
ofm estizaje
is
often deployed as a familiar act of appropriation from above, but at times
can express a critique of the colonial legacy in
M aya-ladino
relations, and
at still other times can contain some combination o f these two. This com -
bined effect is especially evident in relation to the (rapidly growing) cat-
egory of people whose identities are neither clearlyladinonorIndian. That
people occupy
this
space of m ultiplicity
is,
to some extent,
an
expression of
empowerment,
a
reflection of real achievem ents
in
Maya civil and political
rights; yet
at
the same time
it
threatens to undermine the M aya movem ent's
ability
to
mobilize a loyal constituency, to gain the power necessary
to
con-
tinue its impressive record of cultural political change. This,
in
turn, implies
a complex political-analytical balancing act. On the one hand, it implies a
critique of potentially authoritarian tendencies w ithin the Maya m ovem ent
(indeed any such m ovement o f ethnic militancy), especially in relation to
people w ho for some reason do not fit prevailing public representations of
what it means to be Maya. On the other hand, it affirms that the space of
multiplicity
is,
to some extent,
an
expression of neo-colonial power inequi-
ties,
and consequently,
that to
reject such multiplicity
can
be
an
affirmation
of pride, an act of decolonization. If theory is to be helpful in this case, it
must guide self-reflective, critical and informed analysis that affirms the
range of (at times contradictory) political consequences, and makes some
effort
to
distinguish among them.
mestiz je hybridity and the cultural politics of difference 53
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In regard to the Miskitu, I argued that a self-destructive underside of
hybrid iden tity politic s has com e to the fore. Th is M iskitu turn to mu ltiplic-
ity is contra dictory as w ell , with certain strategic facets that m ay serve
more p ositive en ds, such as contesting previously under-exam ined forms of
inequity (e spe cial ly along gender l ines), and perhaps even sugge sting new
m od els o f political co ns cio us ne ss better adapted to the mu lti-ethnic realities
of the Atlantic Coast. Yet these facets do not begin to outweigh the most
prom inent feature o f the present scene : dissipation o f
a
once impressively
center ed d iscou rse o f collec tive history, identity and rights; insufficient po-
litical unity or powe r to defend the auton om ous go vernm ent for wh ich they
fou gh t so hard. W hen decentered sub jects and provisional solidarities
can be directly linked to the failure of struggles to contest or gain power,
such failures must serve as the point of departure for the conclusions we
draw.
Systematic consideration of these varying consequences also has the
adva ntage o f kee ping our attention fo cused on the critical underlying ques-
tions that the new cultural politics have ushered in: How to talk or write
about m ultiply constituted subjects, without allow ing the crushing weigh t of
op pre ssion and structural inequity to fade from vie w ? H ow to create pow-
erful, persuasiveeven revolutionarycollective voices, while resolutely
ke ep ing the subjects o f political cha ng e in the plural? Rece nt work on the
cultural politics of difference has made it abundantly clear that previous
an sw ers to these que stions w ill no longer do , presenting a critique that activ-
ists and intellectua ls alike w ill ignore at great peril. Yet
I
have also ob served
that the move from valuable critique to practical alternative has too often
been absent, and especially for US-based intellectuals, that the resulting
indeterm inacy has beco m e to o comfortable a resting place . By contrast, the
Central Americans who confront these conditions, out of sheer necessity,
are hard at work in search o f less equ ivoca l a nsw ers. If U S-b ase d theorists
are to learn from these efforts, it is only fair that we have something more
than theoretical indeterminacy to offer in return. At stake is whether the
culture theory we produce would be of any use, if they asked us to lend a
hand.
54 journal of latin am erican anthropology
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notes
Acknowledgments. A previous version of this paper was given to seminars at the Anthro pology
Department at the University of
Texas,
Austin, and at the Jackson School of International Studies, U niver-
sity of W ashington.Ireceived helpful comments in both places. It was also presentedto thesession, Mes-
tizoIdentity and Processes ofMestizaje of the XVIII International Congress of the Latin Am erican Stud-
iesAssociation, March 10-14 ,1994, organized by Marc Edelman.Iam also grateful for critical read ings
from Don Moore, Joanne Rappaport, Orin Starn, Carol A. Smith, and Richard
N.
Adams and two anony-
mous readers for JLAA .
1. In contemporary G uatema la the termladinorefers, most broadly,topeople of mixed Indian and
European descent
who,
at leastsince the19th century, have em phasizedtheHispanicrootsof their iden tity,
insisting on a rigid, absolute divide between themselves and indigenous peop les. The com plete history of
theladinocategory
is,
however, considerably more complex. Used in medieval SpaintorefertoMoors and
Jews whoconvertedtoCatholicism and Spanish culture, this meaning
first
prevailed in colonial Am erica.
Ladinoscould be either of either indigenous or African heritage, but had in common having adopted (or
having been forced to adopt) the Spanish language and culture (Stephens 1989:138-9). The transition
between this colonial meaning, and the one developed later during the liberal period rem ains (at leasttomy
knowledge) uncharted analytical
terrain.
For a start towardthisanalysis in Guatemala,seeTaracena (1982).
2. Cr6nica (4/10/92).
3.
Take, for examp le, Lumberto Cam pbell, the highest-ranking San dinista leader from the Coast
who told me in a matter of fact way in late 1993 that Steadman Fagoth is the only M iskitu leader who
really understands autonomy. Inearly 1981 Fagoth turned anti-Sandinista zealot, w ent on the payroll of
theCIA, espoused an anti-Comm unism so vehement that it sometimes made Indian rights appear as an
afterthought. Nowhe isatleast accordingtothis sou rce -the Sandinistas' closest ally.
4.
The term conquest traditions comes
from
Richard
N.
Adams (1989). His analysis refers, among
other
things,
to the contrast between subjugation of MesoA merican indigenous peoples for tribute and
labor, and the more indirectly oppressive colonial relations am ongtheCentral American lowland peoples
of Chibchan origins.
5.
Thisisthe title to his chapter, which appearsinthe edited collection,Out There: Marginalization
and Contemporary C ultures,
Cam bridge: MIT Press (1990). One indication o f the importance of this
perspectiveis the newtextCulturalPolitics(Jordan and W eedon 1995),clearly intendedtobeasuccessor
to
existing introductory anthropology textbooks.
6. This strained fit goes unnoticed in much scholarship, especially literary criticism, that reads Cen-
tral American politics at arms leng th, through the lens ofafew supposedly indicativetexts.A prime ex-
ample is de laCa m pa( 19 95 ). He offersa closereading of Eduardo Galeano (who last visited Gua temala
in the 1960s) on Guatemala, Joan D ideon (who visited El Salvador for a couple of weeks and wrote a
book and Julio Cortazar, which brings him to the conclusionthat: ...when viewed fromacultural rather
than a purely political perspective, the multilayered text of Central American revolution becomes espe-
cially pertinent to postmodern configurations....[This]cultural history has leftalegacy rich in aesthetics as
much as politics, in oral tradition, in ethnic and religious transcu lturation, as well as in elite and popu lar
cultural hybrid ization (1995 :131). I'm not sure I would consider such attemp ts to make the Central
American revolutionary experience grist forthe postmodern theory mill to be wrong; but they do run the
serious risk of being irrelevant, outside the narrow confines of academic self-referentiality.
7. A good gauge of this debate at its most vitriolic can be found in the exchange between Aijaz
Ahmad and his criticsinPublic ulture(1993). The original text thatgaverise to the exchange is Ahmad
(1992). Dirlik (19 94), following closely the logic of Jameson (1 984), levels a blistering critique of the
class bases of post-colonia l theory, which in turn has general affinities w ith the more celebratory stance
toward hybrid sensibilities. Ano ther illustrative debate is between O Hanlon and Washbrook (1992) on
the one hand, and Prakash (19 92) on the other. Specifically in relation to Latin Am erica, work s more
associated withthe creative
renewal
position include Escobar and Alvarez (1992), and Row e and Schelling
(1991). The Latin Am erican literature, in my view , lacks a sophisticated political economic critique of the
turn to cultural politics, parallel to, for exam ple, Harvey 's (1993) essay on the U nited States.
8. From different perspectives, Mallon (1994), M cRobbie (1991 ), and Starn (1995) all articulate a
mestiz je hybridity and the cultural politics of difference 55
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position of this kind.
9. See Lila Abu-Lughod (1990) for a recent call along these lines.
10.These two term s are borrowed from Orin Starn (1995) and Paul Gilroy (19 90), respec tively.
AlthoughIgreatly admire Gilroy's analytical acuityon this
topic,
hisproposed resting point, encapsulated
with the term anti-anti-essentialism, seems symptomatic of the ill-definition. See also Gilroy (1993).
11.
W hether or not one could trace a direct intellectual influence of Laclauisa separate question,on
which I lack the basis to com ment.
12.
The re is no socialism without populism, he concludes, and the highest form of populism can
only be soc ialist. See Laclau (1977:196). He wrote this before his definitive break with the Gramscian
fram ew ork , as articulated in a later work on new social subjects, co-authored with Chantal Mouffe (1985).
13. The classic statement of this position by aNicaraguan theoristisOrlando Nuflez Soto (1981).
14.
Even more eloquentarethe retrospective testimonies of leading Sandinista women, collected as
a series of interviews by Margaret Randall (1994). See also, Criquill6n (1995).
15.
For details on the indigenous critique arising from deep inadequacies of the Guatemalan Left's
analys is of cultural politics, see C.A. Smith (1990, especially the conclusion). For an analysis of Miskitu
people 's conflict with the Nicaraguan state, see C.R. H ale (1994a).
16.
How ever, the slippage between claims being made for thesetwodistinctive facets of multiplicity
is considerab le and cries ou t formoresystematic analytical attention.
17.
Jack Forbes
1
TheMestizoConcept: A Basis for Identity oraProduct of Colonialism? (n.d.p.
25).
For a critique ofindigenismo,see also the docu ments com piled in Bonfil Batalla (1981).
18.
This section is based on research conducted over roughly six months in 1993 and 1994inthe
departm ent of Chim altenango. Unfortunately,in thisessayIcould not incorporate the results of interviews
and participant observation after 1994.
19.
Principal US-based sources on the Maya mov ement in Gua temala include Warren (1992),
Wantanabe (1994), Smith (1991), and Nelson (1995). Guatemalan sources include Bastos and Camus
(1992),
Cojtf (1 991) and COCA DI (1989).
20.
Formoreon this question of internal dynamics of M aya politics, see Bastos and Camus (1992).
21. For recently published material that dramatically confirms this Euro-Guatemalan deprecationof
ladinos,
see Casau s Arzii (1992).
22.
See Guzm an-Bockler and Jean-Loup Hebert (1970), and Guzm an-Bockler (1975).
23. I have identified four inter-connected facets of these responses:1 adiscourse of equality com-
bined with a critique of classic (biological) racism; 2) an assertion that Mayas are (or soon will be) initiat-
ing conflict withladinos,3 arecognition that Guatemalan national identityisbankrupt andthesearch for
a nuevoproyecto de naciori and a reformulation ofladinoidentity often in the guise ofm estizaje.Only
the fourth receives systematic attention here.Amore complete analysis will relate each facettoaseriesof
factorsclass position, gender, generation, location
in
the regional system, political ideology, among oth-
ers-that further differentiateladinoChimaltecos.
24. For the pioneering historical research that has deepened our und erstanding of this process in
Nicarag ua, see the work of Jeffrey Gould (e.g., in this collection and 1993). Significantly, the only other
place in M esoAmerica where ethnic relations are still predominantly represented in the polarized Indian-
ladinodichotom y is in southern states of Mexico, especially Chiapas.
25.
Ihave borrowed this term, inaslightly different form but with a similar meaning,
from
Rosaldo
(1991).
26.
Prensa Libre (1992). My translation.
27 .
I am grateful to
Dr.
M elissaC.Smith for providing m e with this information.
28. See R.N. Adam s (1959). Humberto Flores Alvarado leveled an early blistering critique, coining
the phrase adamscismo and associating it withanantropologiade ocupacion.For a recent restatement
of this position, see e.g., Zelaya Azurd ia( 1989). Guzman-Bock ler (1975) puts forth a somewhat different
critique, which has been echoed more recently by some M aya intellectuals.
29.
See, e.g., R.N. Adam s (1994) for an explicitly self-critical statement on the ladinoization
typology. Adams himself contends thatthetypology was intendedtofocus exclusively on culture, and that
he was agnostic on the question of its implications for identity change (personal co mm unication). This
complicates the m atter considerably, since the w idespread perceptionisotherwise. A more sustained and
systema tic study of this whole set of issues would be important
to
undertake , given its weighty legacy in
56 journal of latin am erican anthropology
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contemporary G uatemalan cultural politics.
30 . I've ma de these arguments at length elsewhe re in general (1994 a), and specifically in relation to
questions o f land rights (199 4b).
31 . The tactic did have serious unintended con sequ ences, w ith detrimental repercussions in the post-
Sandinista era. The m ost important of these was an abdication o f internal struggle over the content of
autonomy, yielding a law with seriously deficient wording on m any key issue s. The Chamorro gov ernm ent
has put these deficien cies to good use in their subsequent opposition to autonomy. For details, see H ale
(1994a, es p. Chapter 6).
32 . This phrase com es from L avie and Swedenburg (1 99 6), wh o use it inacogent critical assessm ent
of the relationship betw een anthropo logy and cultural studies.
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