Ethnography on the Edge (AAA, 2011)

Los Tres Amigos: 40 Years with Michael Higgins In Oaxaca De Juarez. Arthur D Murphy (University of North Carolina Greensboro) and Alex Stepick (Florida International University). For 40 years engaged in a conversation with Michael Higgins over community, ethnicity, change, gender, family, households, politics and economics in and around Oaxaca de Juarez. In this paper we explore the city as we found it in the late 1960s and the changes we along with Michael witnessed in the ensuing years. We will specifically discuss how his views on family structure and roles, class, community and identity influenced our thinking about the city and its inhabitants. We will pay particular attention to changes in community life after the presidential elections of 1988 and the changed relationship between the people, the city, the state and the nation.


The Extraordinariness of the Ordinary: An Ethnographer At the Seams and Edges of Urban Mexican Life. Kristin Norget (McGill University). This paper uses the work of Michael James Higgins as a platform for exploring the changing landscape of urban anthropology in Oaxaca, Mexico and its recent extensions into some of the most innovative fields of research and theorizing of transculturalism and globalism, “from the margins”. Departing from a consideration of the “ordinariness of diversity”, in Michael's coinage, I trace the legacy of Michael Higgins's ethnography both in terms of the substantive contribution of his writings, and of Michael's singular praxis as ethnographer, and “colleague”-friend and mentor.


Las Ondas De Atzompa: the Politics of Peri-Urban Growth, Identity, and Representation. Ramona L Perez (San Diego State University). Invoking Higgins' call for a depth of responsibility in ethnography that “pushes applied anthropology into more direct political concerns”, this research discusses the current political tensions between the colonias and the cabecera in Atzompa. Beginning with the land reforms triggered by changes to Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution in 1993, the community of 5279 people re-imagined their future as one physically touching the capitol of Oaxaca while remaining rural at the center. The idea was to provide a space for their youth that allowed them to integrate with the economic opportunities of the city while remaining within the community. Dry ejido lands were converted but were not purchased by Atzompa youth; rather, disenchanted urbanites moved to the area who sought “country living in the city.” Since 1993 the community has grown to 30,000 and demands from the colonias for voice and participation have overwhelmed the main pueblo. The research provides insight into how the colonias of Atzompa, once the imagined future of the community, are now considered “un cancer del hueso” in response to their demands for representation. Invoking more than ten years of research in both locations, I provide insight into how these spaces were initially perceived and how they have evolved into contested and separate areas replete with borders, boundaries, and social rules of inclusion and exclusion


Cambios En El Teatro Urbano: Women’s Schooling and Social Change In Oaxaca. Jayne Howell (CSULB). Neoliberal discourse promotes education as a route to national progress and individual social mobility. In Mexico, schooling is widely touted as leading to gender role change even as statistics indicate that women – and particularly poorer women in rural areas – are those least likely to attend schools and universities. Michael Higgins' pioneering research regarding the complexities of daily life of gente humilde (humble people) in Oaxaca City underscores residents' desire for schooling as a way to “get ahead” in a state marked by low schooling levels, limited opportunities for gainful professional employment, and widespread poverty. Higgins acknowledged women's idealized household roles while emphasizing the critical economic responsibilities of women vendors, domestic servants and prostitutes – many of whom are cityward migrants lacking schooling – who struggled to support themselves and provide their children with greater opportunities in the urban milieu. Relying on ethnographic data collected over the past two decades, this discussion builds on these themes to explore ways that schooling has changed the lives of women migrants who prioritized schooling and the better life it promises. Although patriarchy and poverty continue, the compelling narratives of women including Imelda (a mother who financed her daughters' university education while working as a domestic servant), Erica (a psychologist who works with battered women) and Monserrat (a teacher and entrepreneur) speak to the aspirations and realities of individual Oaxaqueñas who reject the false consciousness that underpins class and gender oppression.


The Ordinariness of Violence: Central American Migration and the Struggle for Human Rights In Oaxaca. Wendy A Vogt (University of Arizona). In recent years, the state of Oaxaca has become one of the most feared regions for Central American migrants in transit to the United States. During the journey north, they are targeted by organized criminals, gangs, corrupt authorities, local residents and even other migrants who abuse, extort, exploit, kidnap, rape and murder. Such violence is not random but rather closely bound up with local industries that profit off vulnerability and the interpenetration of human and drug smuggling in Mexico. As the train route through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to Veracruz has become the heart of much of this violence, increasing numbers of migrants choose to abandon the train and go through Oaxaca City on their way north. A network of migrant shelters has been critical to creating safer passage for migrants, offering humanitarian aid and working to expose the violations against them. Inspired by the work of Michael Higgins who sought to make visible the ordinariness of marginalized groups and their struggles for social justice, this paper examines the lived experiences of undocumented migrants and shelter workers. I explore how violence operates and is reproduced at the local level, the complex social dynamics within migrant shelters and the social movement that has emerged in defense of migrant rights. In parallel with Higgins' earlier work, migrants and everyday Oaxacans currently struggle to create social spaces of civility and tolerance to combat what has become ordinary violence in people's lives.

Discussant
Martha W Rees (Agnes Scott College)

November 2011

As I'm pulling together the events of the last year in order to prepare my comments for the ETHNOGRAPHY ON THE EDGE session at the AAAs in Montreal next week, I have reviewed the blog, the Welte symposium FORO and my thoughts for Michael's family.

I continue to have conversations with Michael--the last one was in the Carroll Street Cafe in Cabbagetown when Michael, Angeles, Siobhan and Rebecca came through. I pulled him aside and said, 'I have this situation, what do you think?' He said, 'do whatever makes you feel comfortable.'