An Outline of the Development of the Mexican Anthropology from the early 19th Century until 1948

• Authors: Kašpar Oldřich

Title variants

CS

Nástin vývoje mexické antropologie od počátku 19. století do roku 1948

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

This overview study seeks to capture basic features of the development of the Mexican anthropology from its “formative” beginnings at the very outset of the 19th century until the founding of the National Indigenist Institute in 1948. Emphasis is placed on the historical roots of the latter scientific discipline, the contribution of foreign scholars to the development of the discipline in the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries, and the variable evolution of a constant in the Mexican ethnographic and anthropological research, namely the pervasive question of indigenism. The description and analysis of the activities of the basic museum and academic institutions, as well as of the first professional periodicals have not been left out either. The work also analyses the impact that various turning points in the Mexican history of the defined period had on the development of the discipline (the Second Mexican Empire in the 19th century, the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, the last two decades of the 19th and the first decade of the 20th centuries, the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1917, the later period of ‘cardenism’, etc.). The author has based his text on the study of archival documents, contemporary Mexican ethnographic and museum literature, and contemporary scholarly works, especially those written by Mexican and American anthropologists.

Keywords

EN

History of anthropology; Mexican anthropology and ethnography indigenism; Indian communities in Mexico

• Publisher: The National Institute of Folk Culture
• Journal: Národopisná revue (Journal of Ethnology)
• Year: 2021
• Volume: 31
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 102 - 110

Contributors

author

Kašpar Oldřich