Whispers of Silenced Voices: The Survival of Indigenous Linguistic Distinctiveness in Mexico City

By Professor Alberto Diaz-Cayeros  

The talk explores the survival of indigenous peoples in the most unlikely of places, downtown Mexico City. The research findings suggest that the retention of linguistic distinctiveness is more likely in spaces of political empowerment. In order to trace the territorial loci of political power among indigenous communities in Mexico City, Diaz-Cayeros uses a source from the 16th century usually referred to as the Uppsala or Santa Cruz map. This map provides the exact location of indigenous palaces, or Tecpan, which represents locations of autonomous political authority. Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS),  Diaz-Cayeros links these palaces in the 16th century to the concentration of indigenous Nahua speakers in 2010. Indigenous speakers are a very small minority in Mexico City, only perceptible when analyzing city block and individual level census data. The statistical evidence shows that Nahuatl and Otomi speakers are concentrated precisely within close proximity to the indigenous palaces, even though the Tecpans no longer exist. The study is part of a larger project on indigenous survival, historical cartography and stateness in Mexico.

Senior Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and Rule of Law (CDDRL) and Director of the Center for Latin American Studies at Stanford University. His research interests include federalism, poverty relief, indigenous governance, political economy of health, violence and citizen security in Mexico and Latin America. He is author of Federalism, Fiscal Authority and Centralization in Latin America (Cambridge, reedited 2016) and coauthor with Federico Estévez and Beatriz Magaloni of The Political Logic of Poverty Relief (Cambridge, 2016), as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters. He is currently working on a project on the developmental legacies of colonial rule and governance in indigenous communities in Mexico and is the co-PI (with Beatriz Magaloni) of the project Citizen Trust and Evidence-Based Police Accountability and Professionalization in Mexico.

Light lunch will be provided.