The Topology of Autonomy

Abstract

Policy debates are still too polarized between those who expect too much of ‘indigenous autonomy’ and those who expect too little. This article examines the local meaning of, and proposals toward, self-determination in a Totonac coffee-growing population in the Sierra Norte de Puebla, Mexico. The article argues for the complexity and context-dependency of ‘autonomy’. Several factors shape visions of autonomy/self-determination in the Sierra. First, the Zapatistas in Chiapas have inspired Totonac organizations toward antiglobalization discourses and new approaches to relations among culture, cosmology and agriculture. But, second, the inertia built up over three decades of state-assisted coffee production keeps development thinking trained on a major, if crisis-ridden, global market. Third, resource deterioration renders doubtful any full conversion to the ‘traditional’ subsistence farming called for by some Totonac rights organizations. Autonomy initiatives emerging in the Sierra are uneasy combinations of ethnic-purist, market-led and state-sponsored development models. The article suggests that in regions marked by global markets, state intervention and serious environmental constraints, ‘selfdetermination’ is about local design and control of heterogeneous, worldworthy economies.

Altepet / Chuchutsipi: Cosmopolítica territorial totonaca-nahua y patrimonio biocultural en la Sierra Nororiental de Puebla / Altepet /Chuchutsipi: Nahua-Totonaca Territorial Cosmopolitics and Biocultural Heritage in the Sierra Nororiental of Puebla, Mexico

“…Basándose en los escritos de Latour (2002Latour ( y 2004 y Stengers (1996Stengers ( -1997Stengers ( y 2005, el concepto se ha ido aplicando al análisis de casos etnográficos de las luchas indígenas por el territorio (para ejemplos etnográficos mexicanos véanse Liffmann 2012; Benciolini 2019; para los Andes, Cadena 2010). La idea no es completamente nueva y abarca ideas similares que ya se planteaban autores, filósofos y antropólogos en particular, bajo otra terminología: así, por ejemplo, algunos antropólogos hablan de topología, retomando el término en la usanza que le dieron los filósofos Deleuze y Guattari (Smith 2004;Gloczewski 2008). Sin embargo, el concepto de cosmopolítica tiene la ventaja de insistir en las relaciones de poder y en que estas no se desenvuelven únicamente entre grupos humanos, sino -en el caso mesoamericano, esto es particularmente pertinente-entre diferentes seres y colectivos del cosmos.…”