TY - JOUR
T1 - Topographies of citizenship
T2 - Purhépechan Mexican women claiming political subjectives
AU - Nelson, Lise
N1 - Funding Information:
Fieldwork in 1998–99 was supported by a National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant and a Dissertation Fieldwork Grant from the Inter-American Foundation. My institutional affiliation with El Colegio de Michoacán, Zamora was invaluable, as was the mentorship of Sergio Zendejas, Professor of Rural Studies at the same institution. I would also like to thank Amy Freeman, Heather Merrill, Laura Liu and Ruthie Gilmore, all of whom participated in an AAG session (Los Angeles, 2002) entitled ‘Global and transnational feminisms in the context of neoliberal globalization’. Their feedback was invaluable during the initial development of this article. Alec Murphy, Shaul Cohen, Susan Hardwick, Peter Walker and Cindi Katz also provided insightful comments along the way. All errors or unconvincing interpretations are my own.
PY - 2004/6
Y1 - 2004/6
N2 - A variety of politics are waged through recourse to the language of 'citizenship' and 'democracy': from George W. Bush's selling of free trade for the Americas by invoking freedom and democracy, to the calls for citizenship and equality by popular movements throughout Latin America and other regions. This article links these paradoxical and transnational constructions of 'citizenship' to the daily economic and political struggles of indigenous women in rural Mexico. A transnational and what Cindi Katz calls a 'topographical' analysis of local processes deepens and complicates our understanding of local changes as they articulate with global dynamics, and it transforms how we conceptualize the global. Drawing on an ethnography of local gendered political transformation in Cherán, Mexico, I map processes visible locally onto spatialities of power and meaning across scales, weaving together various symbolic and material processes-the intentional actions and negotiations of individual women; the history of Cherán as a place and community; neoliberal economic globalization; and the effects of profoundly gendered and racialized nationalisms-in order to produce a situated knowledge of global citizenship politics. This approach highlights how women in Cherán, situated within global political economic relations and the symbolic horizons of 'modernity', transform the meaning and practice of citizenship and political subjectivity.
AB - A variety of politics are waged through recourse to the language of 'citizenship' and 'democracy': from George W. Bush's selling of free trade for the Americas by invoking freedom and democracy, to the calls for citizenship and equality by popular movements throughout Latin America and other regions. This article links these paradoxical and transnational constructions of 'citizenship' to the daily economic and political struggles of indigenous women in rural Mexico. A transnational and what Cindi Katz calls a 'topographical' analysis of local processes deepens and complicates our understanding of local changes as they articulate with global dynamics, and it transforms how we conceptualize the global. Drawing on an ethnography of local gendered political transformation in Cherán, Mexico, I map processes visible locally onto spatialities of power and meaning across scales, weaving together various symbolic and material processes-the intentional actions and negotiations of individual women; the history of Cherán as a place and community; neoliberal economic globalization; and the effects of profoundly gendered and racialized nationalisms-in order to produce a situated knowledge of global citizenship politics. This approach highlights how women in Cherán, situated within global political economic relations and the symbolic horizons of 'modernity', transform the meaning and practice of citizenship and political subjectivity.
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U2 - 10.1080/0966369042000218437
DO - 10.1080/0966369042000218437
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:3142765609
SN - 0966-369X
VL - 11
SP - 163
EP - 187
JO - Gender, Place and Culture
JF - Gender, Place and Culture
IS - 2
ER -