Diversity Regimes Beyond Multiculturalism? A Reflexive Ethnography of Intercultural Higher Education in Mexico

Author(s):

Gunther Dietz(presenting / submitting)Laura Selene Mateos Cortés(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2012

Network:

07. Social Justice and Intercultural Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

07 SES 07 A, Intercultural Casestudies

Parallel Paper Session

Time:

2012-09-19

17:15-18:45

Room:

ESI 3 - Aula 4

Chair:

Yvonne Leeman

Contribution

How are different kinds of diversities included in so-called intercultural higher education? What arrangements of knowledge transfer occur between academia and community when a supposedly culturally pertinent curriculum is developed which aims at going beyond the dichotomy of minority ethnic empowerment and majority cultural sensitivity mainstreaming? For almost a decade, the emergence of intercultural higher education as a university subsystem has been a feature of the Mexican educational system. Intercultural higher education aims to provide a culturally sensitive academic formation for students defined and differentiated as ethnically, linguistically and culturally diverse. In practice, this new educational offer focuses on students in indigenous areas, who, historically, have been excluded from formal education and only in recent decades have had access to basic education with sporadic access to secondary education.

The ethnographic research project InterSaberes collects, compares and systemizes the diversity of knowledges and skills being generated in both the teaching and nonteaching contexts of such a new “intercultural university” program, the Universidad Veracruzana Intercultural (UVI). In these pilot programs of intercultural higher education, the knowledges (saberes), which are both formal and informal, are generated both in urban and rural areas, are being articulated both by indigenous actors as well as mestizo participants. While this kind of knowledge exchange is structured by the academic framework informing curricular and methodological issues within the UVI, it also has a close relationship with extra-curricular actors.

As such, a new kind of highly complex and flexible diversity regime is emerging: on the one hand, these new institutions are still rooted in traditional indigenismo policies, which are evident through their focus on indigenous regions, languages and ethnicities, but, on the other hand, they are starting to transcend the indigenismo legacy as they are targeting diversity in a much more dynamic and complex way. This involves strategies of mainstreaming diversity, of recognizing difference and of countering historically rooted inequalities and asymmetries, as will be illustrated in this paper.

As a point of departure, and given the pioneering role played by the UVI in the Mexican context, we will briefly sketch the theoretical and conceptual results of this research, which is now also being transferred to analyze other institutional contexts within the sphere of intercultural higher education. InterSaberes at this stage aims to elucidate the underlying patterns, the “grammar” (Gingrich) of the emerging networks and institutions that articulate cultural, ethnic, linguistic, gender and generational issues in the context of contemporary higher education. This engagement will contribute further to the definition and concretization of the dialogical potential of the diverse, intertwined and entangled knowledges, which are interrelated through these novel programs, and of possibilities of translating among each of these knowledges.

Method

Our ethnographic accompaniment of these novel teaching and training processes has allowed the identification of spaces and areas of knowledge that are actively participating in an often claimed "dialogues of knowledges" (Leff). Accordingly, local identity processes are integrated into preservation, development and cultural revival strategies, as reflected in the B.A. curriculum. We are studying these knowledge dialogues and exchanges with a hybrid, exploratory, qualitative methodology, that combines institutional ethnography, designed for empirical research within institutions, especially educational, with reflexive ethnography developed for the participative and dialogical study of social movements, and collaborative and co-authored research between academic actors and local communities. The dialogical strategy applied here is developed together with UVI researchers, students and alumni who work inside these projects and exchange continuously academic and community-based knowledge. This strategy conceives ethnography and its systematic oscillation between an emic and an etic – internal, actor-centered vs. external, structure-centered – vision of diversity, as a reflexive task which, when functioning from the inside, recovers participants actors discourses, while at the same time, functioning on the outside, contrasts the corresponding habitualized intra-group praxis with inter group interactions

Expected Outcomes

In this paper, we analyze how knowledge diversity and the diverse ways of knowing are being constructed, managed, intertwined, exchanged and perceived, in a process of mutual enrichment, ever since the introduction of the intercultural university into these regions. To do this, InterSaberes uses participatory and ethnographic approaches to collect data from academic actors, teachers and students. We are furthermore collecting data from community stakeholders, including local civil authorities, agricultural and religious, as well as local knowledge specialists, such as nongovernmental organizations. The resulting “ecology of knowledge” (De Sousa Santos) therefore is a direct result of student, teacher, researcher, community partners and host communities participation in the research process. Accordingly, we will focus in the following on the mutual transfer, the linking and hybridizing of academic knowledge, organizational knowledge and community knowledge, by analyzing and comparing three closely interrelated dimensions: the “inter-cultural” dimension (the dialogue between different cultures and worldviews), the “inter-lingual” dimension (the inter-relationship between linguistic systems which have coexisted for centuries in each of the regions) and the “inter-actor” dimension (the increasing communication between academic actors, communities and social organizations).

References

Aguado Odina, T. & M. del Olmo (eds., 2009) Intercultural Education: perspectives and proposals. Madrid: UNED Dietz, G. (2004) From Indigenismo to Zapatismo: the struggle for indigenous rights in twentieth century Mexico. In: N. Grey Postero & L. Zamosc (eds.): The Struggle for Indian Rights in Latin America, pp. 32-80. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press --- (2009) Multiculturalism, Interculturality and Diversity in Education. Münster, New York, München & Berlin: Waxmann Dietz, G. (ed., 2009) Intercultural Universities in Mexico. Special issue of Intercultural Education, 20 n° 1 Gingrich, A. (2004) Conceptualising Identities. In: G. Baumann & A. Gingrich (ed.): Grammars of Identity/Alterity: a structural approach, pp. 3-17. London: Berghahn Gogolin, I. (1994) Der monolinguale Habitus der multilingualen Schule. Münster – New York, NY: Waxmann Gundara, J. (2001) Interculturalism, Education and Inclusion. London: Paul Chapman Kymlicka, W. (1995) Multicultural Citizenship. Oxford: Clarendon Leff, E. (2003) Racionalidad ambiental y diálogo de saberes: sentidos y senderos de un futuro sustentable. Desenvolvimento e Meio Ambiente 7: 13-40 Mateos Cortés, L.S. (2009) The Transnational Migration of the Discourse of Interculturality. Intercultural Education 20 no. 1: 27-37 Reay, D. / M.E. David / S. Ball (2005) Degrees of Choice: social class, race, gender in higher education. Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books Rockwell, E. & A.M. Gomes (2009) Introduction to the Special Issue: rethinking indigenous education from a Latin American perspective. Anthropology and Education Quarterly 40 no.2: 97-109 Skutnabb-Kargas, T. et al. (eds., 2009) Social Justice through Multilingual Education. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Santos, B. de Sousa (2006) La Sociología de las Ausencias y la Sociología de las Emergencias: para una ecología de saberes. In: B. de Sousa Santos: Renovar la teoría crítica y reinventar la emancipación social. Buenos Aires: CLACSO

Author Information

Gunther Dietz (presenting / submitting)

Universidad Veracruzana

Xalapa

Laura Selene Mateos Cortés (presenting)

Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico

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