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Where the River Ends: Contested Indigeneity in the Mexican Colorado Delta
- Author(s): Shaylih Muehlmann
- Published: 2013
- Pages: 240
- Illustrations: 11 photographs, 1 map
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- Illustrations and Maps ix
- Acknowledgments xi
- Introduction 1
- 1. "Listen for When Your Get There": Topologies of Invisibility on the Colorado River 25
- 2. The Fishing Conflict and the Making and Unmaking of Indigenous Authenticity 55
- 3. "What Else Can I Do with a Boat and No Nets?" Ideologies of Work and the Alternatives at Home 83
- 4. Mexican Machismo and a Woman's Worth 118
- 5. "Spread Your Ass Cheeks": And Other Things That Shouldn't Get Said in Indigenous Languages 146
- Conclusions 171
- Notes 181
- References 189
- Index 215
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"A vivid portrait of the double-bind that traps growing numbers of native people who are denied ancestral rights and legitimacy by outsiders' criteria for ethnic difference. In stories laced with humor and insight, this highly readable ethnography shows how identity coalesces in unexpected places as the Cucapá cope with narcotrafficking, celebrate women's leadership in contrast to Mexican machismo, and cultivate expert vocabularies of indigenous swear words."—Beth A. Conklin, Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University
"Shaylih Muehlmann's richly peopled, intimate ethnography explores matters of identity and recognition, structure and agency, resistance and complicity as they emerge through the events, predicaments, and dilemmas of daily life. The characters at the center of her account are neither victims nor heroes, but reflective and often flawed subjects, engaged in struggles over resources, meanings, and the pragmatic business of survival. Where the River Ends leads us into their world. It is a lively read. Highly recommended."—Tania Murray Li, author of The Will to Improve: Governmentality, Development, and the Practice of Politics
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Description
Living in the northwest of Mexico, the Cucapá people have relied on fishing as a means of subsistence for generations, but in the last several decades, that practice has been curtailed by water scarcity and government restrictions. The Colorado River once met the Gulf of California near the village where Shaylih Muehlmann conducted ethnographic research, but now, as a result of a treaty, 90 percent of the water from the Colorado is diverted before it reaches Mexico. The remaining water is increasingly directed to the manufacturing industry in Tijuana and Mexicali. Since 1993, the Mexican government has denied the Cucapá people fishing rights on environmental grounds. While the Cucapá have continued to fish in the Gulf of California, federal inspectors and the Mexican military are pressuring them to stop. The government maintains that the Cucapá are not sufficiently "indigenous" to warrant preferred fishing rights. Like many indigenous people in Mexico, most Cucapá people no longer speak their indigenous language; they are highly integrated into nonindigenous social networks. Where the River Ends is a moving look at how the Cucapá people have experienced and responded to the diversion of the Colorado River and the Mexican state's attempts to regulate the environmental crisis that followed.
About The Author(s)
Shaylih Muehlmann is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Canada Research Chair in Language, Culture and the Environment at the University of British Columbia.