Patrimonialization as Resistance: Fitting Wixarika Territory into UNESCO's categories
By Martina Bilancioni
What is this story about?
Wixarika people are indigenous societies that inhabit the Western region of Mexico. Their culture is uniquely connected with their territory, which extends far beyond their residence.
However, in 2005 and 2011 the Mexican government sold several concessions to foreign companies for extractive projects, most of which are located within indigenous borders. Mestizo and indigenous populations' reaction was to seek international support exhibiting the cultural relevance of those territories for the indigenous communities.
This short article wishes to highlight the controversies related to the process of patrimonialization of Wixarika claims.
Wixarika territory
Huichol, or Wixarika people, as they use to call themselves, are Mesoamerican indigenous societies that have been able to reproduce their culture with great vitality over the centuries. The population inhabits the Western region of Mexico, in the mountain ranges of Sierra Madre Occidental, covering the states of Jalisco, Nayarìt, Zacatecas, and Durango. Approximately 18,000 Huicholes live in settlements along a territory of more than 400,000 square hectares.
However, their territoriality expands to include Wirikuta (or Huirikuta), a region located approximately 800 kilometers far from their place of residence in the State of San Luis Potosì. Wixarika culture prescribes an annual pilgrimage towards Wirikuta, traveling along the “Route to Huirikuta”, an assortment of paths that stretches from their homes to the sacred place, where they engage in the sacred peyote hunt.
The route crosses the Sierra Madre Occidental and the Chihuahua Desert, two regions acknowledged at a global level for their contribution to biodiversity.
Huichols’ cultural identity has a unique connection with their territory, which is part of their cosmological system: it is the origin of their spiritual and material life and holds a primary role in the cultural reproduction sphere.
The entire knowledge system relies on the performative relation with natural elements and various deities that inhabit those lands. For this reason, the pilgrimage assumes the function of an “itinerant Mesoamerican university” and the territory becomes an essential component of Huichols’ education and cultural reproduction sphere.
Extractive threat
In 2005, the Mexican State sold 22 concessions to the Canadian company First Majestic Silver, for a total of 63 square kilometers, 70% of which are within the reserve of Wirikuta. An even greater environmental threat was posed in 2011, when the Calderon government approved the Proyecto Universo, which counts 590 square kilometers of concessions for the benefit of the company Revolution Resources, endangering 42% of the total surface of the area.
The joint licenses of the two companies amounted to 640 sqkm of land, which would devolve into mega-mining projects. These projects represent a great factor of environmental hazard, considering the number of pollutants that they release, and the immense quantities of water needed, which would lead to the exploitation of the aquifers, vegetation removal, and soil contamination.
Agreements and laws to protect Wirikuta
This is the list of agreements and laws issued for protecting Wirikuta:
In 2000 the State of San Luis Potosì declared the area as a Natural and Cultural Protected Reserve.
In 2010 the Ley de Consulta Indìgena was also approved, which established mandatory indigenous consultation for any contract, concession, or other legal instruments that would affect their land and resources.
Articles 6 and 7 of Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization on the Rights of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, valid on a national level, impose that governments consult with Indigenous people for any legislative or administrative measure that affects them directly.
In 2008 the Pact of Huaxa Manaka for the Preservation and Development of the Wixarika Culture was signed by five governors and by the Mexican president Felipe Calderon. The agreement should have provided the enhancement of the historical continuity of the sacred places and pilgrimage routes and environmental preservation. It appeared to be a turning point but was disregarded just three years after the approval of Project Universe.
Finally, the Management Plan for the Reserve of Wirikuta was developed in conjunction with the Wixaritari, establishing the protection of the environmental component of the Wirikuta Reserve and imposing restrictions on toxic mining.
Wixárika community members in Mezquitic, Jalisco meeting the president Obrador, 2022. https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/amlo-promises-security-plan-for-wixarika/.
Patrimonialization for Resistance
The environmental hazard that the extractive industry represents is a direct threat to cultural reproduction and therefore to the identity of the Wixarika population. Given that the legislative system of the Mexican State has failed to provide for the preservation of this important biocultural site, the prospect of employing a patrimonial strategy has appeared as a reasonable approach.
Patrimonialization is particularly suitable for this specific case because the Wixarika people do not inhabit the territory they claim as theirs. The Mexican legislation system is based on a positivist- European model, as a result, the definition of proprieties does not give account to the indigenous ownership system, where territoriality is rather traditionally and performatively defined.
World Heritage or Intangible Cultural Heritage?
The decision to apply for UNESCO to obtain international resonance and support is a divisive matter. Since 2004, the Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) petitioned for the nomination of Wirikuta to UNESCO’s List of World Heritage, but the proposal was rejected, probably because the Mexican state has no interest in the process, which would imply a limitation on the extractive front.
The nomination to the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding, purposed by the Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas (CDI) in 2012, was even more contested. Three of the five Huichols communities actively countered the nomination, stating that they were not consulted nor informed of the decision in a communication they sent to the UNESCO Committee.
In 2013 the Consejo Regional Wixárika y la Unión Wixárika de Centros Ceremoniales de Jalisco, Durango y Nayarit, A.C. (CRW) officially demanded the Mexican State for the application to the World Heritage Convention, but the protection criteria of the Intangible Heritage that UNESCO adopts does not apply to Wixarika entity of hazard. The protection resolutions are designed to address the material, or tangible, features of certain practices, as is the case of a dance or a ritual, a market… However, Huichols’ culture today is not little participated, quite the opposite: their capacity to actively preserve and reproduce their culture makes them one of the most vital groups among the Mesoamerican societies. The action of this specific Convention frames the question within a narrowly defined cultural and sociological perspective, rather than creating a political discourse.
For this reason, CRW claims for the nomination to the World Heritage Convention, which would better describe the identity of the place and has better fitting protection strategies.
Secretary of CONALMEX (Comisión Mexicana de Cooperación con la UNESCO) César Guerrero Arellano, considers the nomination to Intangible Cultural Heritage the most reasonable way to obtain UNESCO’s validation. He argues that the World Heritage Convention was originally designed on European models to account for the preservation of monuments and buildings, it would therefore require a longer and more difficult bureaucratic process to acquire any success. The Convention of Intangible Cultural Heritage, oppositely, is a younger and more flexible institution and the process of application might be easier to manage.
In 2013, the intergovernmental Committee of UNESCO rejected the inscription of the “Route to Huirikuta” to the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding because of lacking information on the degree of involvement and consent of the indigenous groups to the process of nomination.
Conclusions
Controversies related to the patrimonialization of Wixarika culture are not merely an epistemological issue but have consequences that need to be addressed in order to define strategies able to negotiate meanings between the indigenous, national, and international discourses.
- A shift of discourse
The legitimacy of Wixarika claims was grounded in the indigenous tradition and configured as a matter of propriety right. This perspective is maintained in the Hauxa Manaka pact of 2008, but the Mexican government did not comply with it.
Patrimonialization operates a significant shift of perspectives: the question of propriety legitimacy, therefore the fight for indigenous rights against expropriation, comes to be signified within a cultural preservation framework.
In this process, Huichols actively appropriates Western language and categories in order to obtain international resonance and support.
We should ask ourselves to which degree the need to conform to European-founded institutions of global domain standards harms cultural diversity and local perspectives.
- Standardization and Spectacularization
The touristification of culture is a common risk associated with patrimonialization practices, entailing the standardization and spectacularization of cultural traits in order to meet expectations and the enjoyment of masses of tourists.
In the area of Real de Catorce a phenomenon known as psychedelic tourism flourished from the 60s, attracting every year great numbers of preponderantly western people, who join the peyote hunt and engage in spiritual, New Age rituals.
In 2011 Project Universe seriously endangered the sacred site, therefore, Consejo Regional Wixárika themselves actively decided to open their cultural knowledge and rituals to the mestizo population to spread awareness among a bigger audience over their case and to find the political and material resources to defend their territory.
At the present moment, the extractive projects have been suspended, but the concessions were not revoked, suggesting that, even though indigenous and mestizo efforts have had a major impact on a national level, they still have far to go in order to secure the territory permanently.
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