As a sociocultural anthropologist, I am interested in the relationship between identity, power, and political economy. My research analyzes the intersections of Indigeneity, race, colonialism, and capitalism in the Americas and crosses the fields of Latin American and Latinx studies; Native American and Indigenous studies; political and legal anthropology; and human geography. My current project examines Indigenous dispossession, cultural heritage, and settler colonialism in Latin America. My next project will explore Latinx migrations, tribal sovereignty, and the environment in the United States.
Current Project
Reversing Indigenous elimination:
Originario dispossession and the politics of cultural heritage in El Salvador
Originario dispossession and the politics of cultural heritage in El Salvador
My current project investigates the relationship between the ongoing dispossession of the pueblos originarios and the politics of cultural heritage in El Salvador. By the late 20th century, a long succession of settler colonial national governments had established a capitalist socioeconomic system within the national territory by abolishing the communal status of the pueblos originarios, privatizing their collective landholdings, enabling the violent dispossession of their land and exploitation of their labor, and erasing their social existence through mestizo nation-building. In recent decades, a transnational Indigenous movement has intervened in this history of originario elimination and demanded state recognition of the originarios as Indigenous peoples with access to legal rights, political voice, and economic development as citizens of the Salvadoran nation. At the same time, postwar national governments have begun to institutionalize national multiculturalism based on cultural heritage as a form of neoliberal governance that can balance capitalist development schemes and calls for Indigenous empowerment without reparations for stolen land and labor, the re-establishment of collective landholdings, or the restoration of communal status.
El Salvador is a neglected case in interdisciplinary and critical scholarship on Indigenous identities and politics in Latin America. My project analyzes how pueblos originarios, Indigenous organizations, anthropologists, national authorities, and international agencies have articulated and mobilized Indigenous rights discourses against the state formation of Salvadoran cultural heritage to contest the elimination of the pueblos originarios from the national territory. I situate these political practices of transnational Indigenous organizing at the intersection of emerging actor-networks of Indigenous knowledge formations and dynamic assemblages of Indigenous law- and policymaking. I argue that such practices have exposed the settler colonial power structures, relations, and logics at the center of the modern nation-state and (post)neoliberal capitalist development in El Salvador, and they have revealed limits and possibilities for Indigenous activism to disrupt and even reverse key socio-historical and multi-scalar processes of elimination: land privatization, political exclusion, historical injustice, and local domination. In doing so, I shift scholarly attention to Indigenous peoples in Latin America who continue to maintain their distinctive socio-historical presence in non-Indigenous socio-territorial formations as recognized and organized by the state despite being subjected to long histories of dispossession, exploitation, and erasure--histories that are often marginalized and concealed, but never fully erased or forgotten, through the state-centered formation of cultural heritage. This original contribution reworks the boundaries between Latin American and Latinx studies; Native American and Indigenous studies; sociocultural anthropology; and human geography. It also creates new lines of inquiry for emerging and interdisciplinary debates on Indigeneity, settler colonialism, racial capitalism, neoliberal multiculturalism, the state, human rights, place-making, and the production of space in the Americas.
Following a decolonial methodology that centers Indigenous experiences and perspectives, my project draws from (1) ethnographic analysis of Indigenous policy consultations, welfare projects, and tourism development; (2) visual cultural analysis of museum exhibits, ethnographic photography, and Indigenous social media (photography, film); and (3) discourse analysis of historical and ethnographic studies; international, national, and municipal legislation, policies, and programs; and Indigenous social media (statements). I conducted this multi-sited research in El Salvador (January 2019-March 2020); Mexico City (March 2020); New York City (May 2016); and online.
This study is presented in four chapters. Chapter One ("Land") explains how the Consejo Coordinador Nacional de Indígenas Salvadoreños (CCNIS) network's proposal to add collective land rights to the 2014 national constitutional reform that established multicultural state recognition of Indigenous peoples unsettled the 20th century history of agrarian reform based on private property that has enabled and perpetuated originario dispossession into the present. Chapter Two ("Voice") shows how CCNIS and its rival network, the Red Nacional del Jaguar Sonriente, struggled to overcome dominant ideas of cultural authenticity and political legitimacy within national policymaking in order to place originario interests on land beyond cultural heritage at the center of national development agendas on multiculturalism during the 2014-2019 FMLN and 2019-2024 Bukele administrations. Chapter Three ("Justice") demonstrates how the Jaguar Sonriente has mobilized counter histories and memories of the 1932 massacre of originario peasants in order to challenge the state marginalization of dispossession as a past event and demand justice for the descendants of massacre victims from the national Supreme Court of Justice. Chapter Four ("Domination") reveals how, despite Indigenous activism at the national and local levels, the pueblos originarios abstain from positioning themselves as Indigenous peoples on activist, state, or alternative terms due to their ongoing marginalization and powerlessness in relation to their settler Ladino neighbors as equal and individual citizen-residents of municipality-based communities.
I am currently working on an article that draws from Chapter 4 for submission to Native American and Indigenous Studies as part of the journal’s Mentoring & Writing Fellowship. I am preparing another article based on Chapter 1 for submission to Political and Legal Anthropology. Finally, I am drafting an article on environmental justice based on materials that I collected during my dissertation research that I will not include in the dissertation.
To learn more about how I developed the project and conducted research, listen to my recent podcast interview with the Social Science Matrix at U.C. Berkeley here.
El Salvador is a neglected case in interdisciplinary and critical scholarship on Indigenous identities and politics in Latin America. My project analyzes how pueblos originarios, Indigenous organizations, anthropologists, national authorities, and international agencies have articulated and mobilized Indigenous rights discourses against the state formation of Salvadoran cultural heritage to contest the elimination of the pueblos originarios from the national territory. I situate these political practices of transnational Indigenous organizing at the intersection of emerging actor-networks of Indigenous knowledge formations and dynamic assemblages of Indigenous law- and policymaking. I argue that such practices have exposed the settler colonial power structures, relations, and logics at the center of the modern nation-state and (post)neoliberal capitalist development in El Salvador, and they have revealed limits and possibilities for Indigenous activism to disrupt and even reverse key socio-historical and multi-scalar processes of elimination: land privatization, political exclusion, historical injustice, and local domination. In doing so, I shift scholarly attention to Indigenous peoples in Latin America who continue to maintain their distinctive socio-historical presence in non-Indigenous socio-territorial formations as recognized and organized by the state despite being subjected to long histories of dispossession, exploitation, and erasure--histories that are often marginalized and concealed, but never fully erased or forgotten, through the state-centered formation of cultural heritage. This original contribution reworks the boundaries between Latin American and Latinx studies; Native American and Indigenous studies; sociocultural anthropology; and human geography. It also creates new lines of inquiry for emerging and interdisciplinary debates on Indigeneity, settler colonialism, racial capitalism, neoliberal multiculturalism, the state, human rights, place-making, and the production of space in the Americas.
Following a decolonial methodology that centers Indigenous experiences and perspectives, my project draws from (1) ethnographic analysis of Indigenous policy consultations, welfare projects, and tourism development; (2) visual cultural analysis of museum exhibits, ethnographic photography, and Indigenous social media (photography, film); and (3) discourse analysis of historical and ethnographic studies; international, national, and municipal legislation, policies, and programs; and Indigenous social media (statements). I conducted this multi-sited research in El Salvador (January 2019-March 2020); Mexico City (March 2020); New York City (May 2016); and online.
This study is presented in four chapters. Chapter One ("Land") explains how the Consejo Coordinador Nacional de Indígenas Salvadoreños (CCNIS) network's proposal to add collective land rights to the 2014 national constitutional reform that established multicultural state recognition of Indigenous peoples unsettled the 20th century history of agrarian reform based on private property that has enabled and perpetuated originario dispossession into the present. Chapter Two ("Voice") shows how CCNIS and its rival network, the Red Nacional del Jaguar Sonriente, struggled to overcome dominant ideas of cultural authenticity and political legitimacy within national policymaking in order to place originario interests on land beyond cultural heritage at the center of national development agendas on multiculturalism during the 2014-2019 FMLN and 2019-2024 Bukele administrations. Chapter Three ("Justice") demonstrates how the Jaguar Sonriente has mobilized counter histories and memories of the 1932 massacre of originario peasants in order to challenge the state marginalization of dispossession as a past event and demand justice for the descendants of massacre victims from the national Supreme Court of Justice. Chapter Four ("Domination") reveals how, despite Indigenous activism at the national and local levels, the pueblos originarios abstain from positioning themselves as Indigenous peoples on activist, state, or alternative terms due to their ongoing marginalization and powerlessness in relation to their settler Ladino neighbors as equal and individual citizen-residents of municipality-based communities.
I am currently working on an article that draws from Chapter 4 for submission to Native American and Indigenous Studies as part of the journal’s Mentoring & Writing Fellowship. I am preparing another article based on Chapter 1 for submission to Political and Legal Anthropology. Finally, I am drafting an article on environmental justice based on materials that I collected during my dissertation research that I will not include in the dissertation.
To learn more about how I developed the project and conducted research, listen to my recent podcast interview with the Social Science Matrix at U.C. Berkeley here.
Next project
My next project emerges from the transnational formation, circulation, and mobilization of ideas of Indigeneity, race, and coloniality across the U.S.-Mexico border that I encountered over the course of my current project. Whereas my current project examined the relationship between Indigenous dispossession, cultural heritage, and settler colonialism in Latin America, my next project will investigate the intersections of tribal sovereignty, Latinx migrations, and the environment in the United States, with a focus on California. How have colonial power structures and hierarchical social relations emerged to shape the relationship between migrant Latinx communities, California Indian tribes, and the environment? How do environmental regulations shape and are shaped by situated, spatialized, and socio-historical practices and processes of place-making, kinship, and community formation among communities and tribes? How do communities and tribes articulate and mobilize around ideas of belonging, rights, and place against processes of environmental change that dispossess, displace, and force migration? What are the limits and possibilities to form political coalitions across communities and tribes to advance state action on environmental issues from their own perspectives? This project will contribute a transnational and comparative analysis to emerging interdisciplinary and critical debates on the relationship between settler colonialism, racial capitalism, and the environment in the Americas.
In order to explore these questions, I will examine the relationship between the state formation of air quality as an environmental problem; the revitalization of cultural burning among California Indian tribes as a solution to annual catastrophic wildfires in Northern California; and growing environmental justice activism against poor air quality in migrant Latinx communities in the Sacramento region. I will begin with a decolonial approach that compares and contrasts official, Latinx, and California Indian perspectives on environmental change. To get at official perspective, I will conduct discursive analysis of recent legislation, policies, programs, and reports. In order to uncover community perspectives, I will carry out visual cultural and discourse analysis of social media and other online materials and ethnographic research on community infrastructure, programs, and events. To get at the Latinx community, I will focus on community organizations such as Latinos Unidos, the Environmental Justice Coalition, Latino Outdoors, and the Roman Catholic diocese of Sacramento. To get at California Indian perspectives, I will focus on the Sacramento Native American Health Center, Rancheria of California; The Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, Shingle Springs Rancheria (Verona Tract); Wilton Rancheria, Jackson Band of Miwuk Indians, Buena Vista Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians of California) and community leaders (the Sacramento Native American Health Center). I will conduct interviews with key government officials and community leaders and members as needed. I will also look for archival materials historicize my analysis on the contemporary politics of environmental justice.
In order to explore these questions, I will examine the relationship between the state formation of air quality as an environmental problem; the revitalization of cultural burning among California Indian tribes as a solution to annual catastrophic wildfires in Northern California; and growing environmental justice activism against poor air quality in migrant Latinx communities in the Sacramento region. I will begin with a decolonial approach that compares and contrasts official, Latinx, and California Indian perspectives on environmental change. To get at official perspective, I will conduct discursive analysis of recent legislation, policies, programs, and reports. In order to uncover community perspectives, I will carry out visual cultural and discourse analysis of social media and other online materials and ethnographic research on community infrastructure, programs, and events. To get at the Latinx community, I will focus on community organizations such as Latinos Unidos, the Environmental Justice Coalition, Latino Outdoors, and the Roman Catholic diocese of Sacramento. To get at California Indian perspectives, I will focus on the Sacramento Native American Health Center, Rancheria of California; The Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, Shingle Springs Rancheria (Verona Tract); Wilton Rancheria, Jackson Band of Miwuk Indians, Buena Vista Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians of California) and community leaders (the Sacramento Native American Health Center). I will conduct interviews with key government officials and community leaders and members as needed. I will also look for archival materials historicize my analysis on the contemporary politics of environmental justice.