Abstract

UZETA, Jorge. The water as a culture: Disputes around a scarce resource in the north-east areas of Guanajuato. Nueva antropol [online]. 2005, vol.19, n.64, pp.31-51. ISSN 0185-0636.

The author analyzes the role, the symbols and myths of an Otomi congregation located at San Ildefonso de Cieneguilla (Guanajuato) are currently playing in relation to the Indigenous people access to the scanty water sources. He proposes that it is in the ideological definition and constitution process of its local history where those symbols gain importance as mediators between the indigenous memory and the power relations of the community. In this relationship, in which agents are constructed in the conflict arenas, different communities use their organization capabilities in counter-hegemonic responses, resorting to popular ideologies in order to accomplish their own projects, withstanding processes and initiatives coming from the Government and conferring them new meanings. However, these responses are not only given within the Government domination, as stressed by the hegemony construction-focused perspective, but also as part of the internal cultural dynamics that allow agents to bring a personal sense to dispositions and actions given inside the communities, as well as facing the "external" agents. Therefore, the community attitudes can be understood as part of the process in which their myths and history, as well as their symbols polyvalence, respond to power; instead of seeing these only as results of the imposition of national discourses and initiatives.

Keywords : water shortage; symbols; myths; ideological constitution; power; conflict.

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