Paper short abstract:

An analysis is given of how futurities of the Mexican past are engineered and mediated by means of the pre-colonial material heritage (in this case the archaeological site Teotihuacán) in the context of the establishment of a subsidiary of the retailing giant Wal-Mart.

Paper long abstract:

In Latin American nations, pre-colonial monumental architecture often forms the context of struggles related to land property issues as well as identity-driven discourse on the supra-local national and international level. This paper examines discourses related to the construction in 2005 of a supermarket owned by the Wal-Mart Corporation in the direct vicinity of the pre-colonial archaeological site of Teotihuacán, Mexico. A large urban conglomerate occupied between 100 BC and AD 650 and covering 22 km², contemporary Teotihuacan can be seen as an architectural nexus of traditional regulated by supra-local mediators such as the national government and the UN, al of which impose a futurity of heritage on the site. Today, it is the quintessential materialization of Mexico's indigenous past, and 100,000s of national and international tourists visit this locality each year. Against the backdrop of heightening integration with the US, the location chosen for Wal-Mart subsidiary Bodega Aurrera generated a conflict, much-publicized on online, between the numerous stakeholder groups in Mexico's material past These include locally affected communities; the national archaeological institute (INAH); the national government; UN, as well as Mexican immigrants in the United States and the Mexican population at large. An analysis is given of how meanings regarding this pre-colonial material heritage are engineered and mediated in this context.