El espacio étnico. Expresiones espaciales de la identidad étnica entre colectivos teenek veracruzanos, México.

Abstract

The examination of boundary processes is a central issue in the study of ethnicity but this approach often favors external, socio-political boundaries that stem from historical process at the expense of indigenous accounts about cultural differences. In this paper, I propose that the Veracruzan Teenek  symbolic spatial organization enables us to examine ethnicity as simultaneously a set of social relations and a structure of meaning. The analysis stresses the significance and contents of the dialogical relationships between extroverted social boundaries and introverted symbolic ones. Analyzing the interrelation of both types of boundaries reveals how historical forces have shaped the cultural idiom in which Teenek people metaphorically apprehend their social interethnic configuration.