Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grants: Relocating Indigenous Identity: Transnational Advocacy, Knowledge and Video in Oaxaca, Mexico

在墨西哥南部，土著组织通过与关注环境问题、资源使用、人权和社会经济不平等的跨国非政府组织合作，争取自治。新的信息和通信技术对这些宣传网络至关重要。更多地利用NICT为土著组织提供了自我代表的手段，从而改变了土著知识和身份的产生。本论文项目研究了一个这样的网络在瓦哈卡，墨西哥与检查的基层支持组织，Ojo de Agua Comunicacion，努力把新的信息和通信技术，特别是视频设备，在土著社区的处置。本研究探讨以视讯为媒介的原住民知识生产的组织实践是什麽？谁在使用视频技术，这种使用是如何通过宣传网络进行的？这种录像技术是如何被用来制作土著人的自我表现和挑战主流的文化认同结构的？有两个具体的研究任务支持这项拨款：1。Ojo de Agua Comunicacion的组织人种志，旨在了解其在协助土著自我代表过程中获得和使用新信息和通信技术的情况; 2.对本组织支持的以视频为媒介的土著知识自我表述进行解释性分析。对于第一项任务，通过参与者观察和深度访谈来研究Ojo de Agua的日常行动策略。第二项任务利用地理学方法分析文化政治和知识生产方面的代表性空间，对Ojo de Agua协助下制作的土著视频进行解释性分析。本论文的研究之所以重要，有三个原因。首先，有一个爆炸性的跨国非政府组织的活动，这项研究提供了民族志的洞察力的做法，宣传。第二，新的信息和通信技术的使用大大改变了土著知识的产生方式，这项调查揭示了这些变化在墨西哥瓦哈卡的影响。虽然这是一个案例研究凭借的方法和研究问题，这些搬迁在作者机构正在发生在整个拉丁美洲和整个全球南部，它是至关重要的，以了解技术科学如何有助于他们。该项目以视频为媒介的土著知识为重点，将展示技术科学如何赋予土著身份的权威性自我表述。

In southern Mexico, indigenous organizations struggle for autonomy by working with transnational non-governmental organizations (NGOs) concerned with environmental problems, resource use, human rights, and socioeconomic inequalities. New information and communication technologies (NICTs) are essential to these networks of advocacy. Greater access to NICTs provides indigenous organizations withthe means for self-representation, and thus changes the production of indigenous knowledge and identity. This dissertation project studies one such network in Oaxaca, Mexico with an examination of a grassroots support organization, Ojo de Agua Comunicacion, that endeavors to put new information and communication technology,especially video equipment, at the disposal of indigenous communities. This research asks what are the organizational practices of video-mediated indigenous knowledge production? Who is accessing video technology and how is this access mediated by networks of advocacy? How is this video technology used to produce indigenous self-representations and challenge dominant constructions of cultural identity?There are two specific research tasks supported by this grant: 1. an organizational ethnography of Ojo de Agua Comunicacion aimed at understanding its acquisition and use of NICTs in the process of assisting indigenous self-representation; and 2. an interpretive analysis of video-mediated self-representations of indigenous knowledge that this organization enables. For the first task, the everyday strategies of action of Ojo de Agua are studiedthrough participant-observation and in-depth interviews. The second task draws upon geographic methods of analyzing the spaces of representation in terms of cultural politics and the production of knowledge to provide an interpretive analysis of indigenous videos made possible with the assistance of Ojo de Agua. This dissertation research is important for three reasons. First, there is an explosion of transnational NGO activity and this study provides ethnographic insight into the practices of advocacy. Second, the use of NICTs drastically alters the ways that indigenous knowledge is produced and this investigation reveals the impact of these changes in Oaxaca, Mexico. Although this is a case study by virtue of method and research questions, these relocations in authorial agency are happening all over Latin America and throughout the global south, and it is crucial to understand how technoscience contributes to them. Focusing on video-mediated indigenous knowledge, this project will demonstrate how technoscience empowers authoritative self-representations of indigenous identity.