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  • Singing for the Dead: The Politics of Indigenous Revival in Mexico

    Author(s): Paja Faudree
    Published: 2013
    Pages: 328
    Illustrations: 23 photographs, 4 tables, 3 maps
  • Paperback: $24.95 - In Stock
    978-0-8223-5431-4
  • Cloth: $89.95 - In Stock
    978-0-8223-5416-1
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  • Acknowledgments  ix
    Note on Orthographic and Linguistic Conventions  xiii
    Introduction. Leaving the Pueblo  1
    1. From Revolution to Renaissance: A Political Geography and History of "Deep Mexico"  30
    2. Revival in the "Land of the Magic Mushroom": A Recent History of Ethnic Relations in the Sierra Mazateca  75
    3. Singing for the Spirits: The Annual Day of the Dead Song Contest  105
    4. Scenes from a Nativist Reformation: The Mazatec Indigenous Church  141
    5. Meeting at the Family Crypt: Social Fault Lines and the Fragility of Community  174
    6. Seeing Double: Indigenous Authors, Readers, and the Paradox of Revival  197
    Conclusion. Singing for the Dead and the Living: Revival, Indigenous Publics, and the National Afterlife  236
    Notes  251
    References  277
    Index  297
  • "Singing for the Dead makes major theoretical and ethnographic contributions to studies of indigenous literacy, ethnic revival movements, and the ways in which politics functions through cultural forms. The book is historically and theoretically rich, situating the different examples of ethnic revival—the Day of the Dead song contest, the Mazatec Indigenous Church, and the work of indigenous Mazatec writers—in a wonderfully vibrant context."—Lynn Stephen, author of We Are the Face of Oaxaca: Testimony and Social Movements

    "Singing for the Dead is an unusual work that brings a sophisticated analysis of language and song into dialogue with the contemporary history of factions and the politics of identification in the Mazatec region of Oaxaca. Paja Faudree deftly unpacks the intellectual and institutional infrastructure that has made a culturally innovative process of native revivalism possible."—Claudio Lomnitz, author of Death and the Idea of Mexico

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  • Description

    Singing for the Dead chronicles ethnic revival in Oaxaca, Mexico, where new forms of singing and writing in the local Mazatec indigenous language are producing powerful, transformative political effects. Paja Faudree argues for the inclusion of singing as a necessary component in the polarized debates about indigenous orality and literacy, and she considers how the coupling of literacy and song has allowed people from the region to create texts of enduring social resonance. She examines how local young people are learning to read and write in Mazatec as a result of the region's new Day of the Dead song contest. Faudree also studies how tourist interest in local psychedelic mushrooms has led to their commodification, producing both opportunities and challenges for songwriters and others who represent Mazatec culture. She situates these revival movements within the contexts of Mexico and Latin America, as well as the broad, hemisphere-wide movement to create indigenous literatures. Singing for the Dead provides a new way to think about the politics of ethnicity, the success of social movements, and the limits of national belonging.

    About The Author(s)

    Paja Faudree is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Brown University.
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