Abstract

REA ANGELES, Patricia. Genealogies, migration, higher education and gender in the Isthmus the Tehuantepec, Oaxaca. Relac. Estud. hist. soc. [online]. 2024, vol.45, n.179, pp.217-241.  Epub Aug 26, 2024. ISSN 2448-7554.  https://doi.org/10.24901/rehs.v45i179.1040.

This article analyzes the social, family, and country relations between a Zapotec community on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and the main cities where they emigrate to pursue higher education. At the same time, it shows the transformations in gender relations that have arisen because of these migratory processes for educational purposes.

This work is part of a long-term investigation on the topic, carried out initially for my bachelor's and master's thesis and later as part of the development of my doctoral thesis from 2009 to 2013. Likewise, in the intermittent research that I have carried out to date, the results are expressed in various articles and book chapters.

It is part of the studies of the anthropology of education and is based on the analytical perspective proposed by María Bertely (1997, 1998, 2004, 2019) on schooling processes, ethnogenesis, de facto autonomy, and synchronic/diachronic approach to understanding how micro and community processes, apparently isolated in time, are connected to structural, macro-social, global, and long-term processes, such as school, in its broadest sense. The methodology is based on the use of genealogy, ethnography, interviews, and participant observation as classic tools of anthropology.

Among the results, we find that access to the school system, and specifically to higher education, serves as a tool for obtaining, manipulating, and preserving ethnic citizenship; for the transformation of ethnic and gender identities; and the formation of strategic alliances with the nation-state and its government policies. In that sense, the work represents an original study, analyzing the cases of Zapotec literate families of the middle and upper class, rare in Mexican anthropology. However, we will see that having class privileges does not exempt Zapotecs from experiencing racism, discrimination, and gender inequalities in the context of migration.

Keywords : Genealogies; Migration; Higher education; Gender; Zapotecs.

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