Paper Short Abstract:

Drawing on a study of Mexican Indigenous Wixárika communities, this paper will consider archives as sites for the reproduction of knowledge, and as a resource to conduct an ethnography of the State (Stoler, 2010) and its production of gendered modern culture.

Paper Abstract:

Drawing on a study of Mexican Indigenous Wixárika communities, this paper will consider archives as sites for the reproduction of knowledge, and as a resource to conduct an ethnography of the State (Stoler, 2010) and its production of gendered modern culture.

Centering our search on women’s voices and documentation of their lives, we carried out an extensive review of sources dating from approximately 1602 to 1970 in colonial, state, federal, and ecclesiastical archives, for the project “Gender, health, and the afterlife of colonialism”. We found that women are practically absent, in their place were the voices of men, who speak, dialogue and negotiate on behalf of the community. However, Wixárika men appear little and our knowledge about them must be accessed through the lenses of colonizers, evangelizers, soldiers and state agents, among others.

An initial question is what does state policy and power indicate about the relationship of Wixárika communities with their territory during the colonial period. Who speaks on behalf of the Wixaritari, how many mediations exist or are visible (for instance, institutions, the discourses of those who make the story, politics, among others). How can we elaborate subject positions that do not fall plainly and simply into those of victim or savior? (LaCapra, 2005). The colonial state centered its relations through a patriarchal order, neglecting women’s presence, at least, in the public space.