Sie befinden Sich nicht im Netzwerk der Universität Paderborn. Der Zugriff auf elektronische Ressourcen ist gegebenenfalls nur via VPN oder Shibboleth (DFN-AAI) möglich. mehr Informationen...
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the anthropological field became one of the main means of integrating indigenous populations utilized by the Mexican State in its enduring objective to integrate and assimilate the country’s native populations into the nation-state. However, far from achieving full integration, the envisioned national project that sought to assimilate them, resulted in the subjugation and progressive proletarianization of a large part of Mexico’s rural indigenous population in practice. Although this notorious transformation was common throughout the country, particularly in major cities after the 1950s, the proletarian remained overlooked as an ethnographic subject for Mexican anthropologist. In this context, this essay asks the following critical questions: what became of the proletariat in Mexican anthropology? What are the reasons for its long absence as an ethnographic subject for the discipline? This essay articulates a critique that accounts for the marginal place that the proletarian and the lumpen proletarian have had as ethnographic subjects in Mexican anthropology today. It calls for, on the one hand, the centering of the proletariat and its counterpart concept, the lumpen proletarian, and, on the other, for reflections on the possible theoretical and political possibilities a critical approach to these can open for the discipline in Mexico.