Indigenous Interfaces ― Spaces, Technology, and Social Networks in Mexico and Central America

Cultural preservation, linguistic revitalization, intellectual heritage, and environmental sustainability became central to Indigenous movements in Mexico and Central America after 1992. While the emergence of these issues triggered important conversations, none to date have examined the role that new media has played in accomplishing their objectives.

Indigenous Interfaces provides the first thorough examination of indigeneity at the interface of cyberspace. Correspondingly, it examines the impact of new media on the struggles for self-determination that Indigenous peoples undergo in Mexico and Central America. The volume’s contributors highlight the fresh approaches that Mesoamerica’s Indigenous peoples have given to new media—from YouTubing Maya rock music to hashtagging in Zapotec. Together, they argue that these cyberspatial activities both maintain tradition and ensure its continuity. Without considering the implications of new technologies, Indigenous Interfaces argues, twenty-first-century indigeneity in Mexico and Central America cannot be successfully documented, evaluated, and comprehended.

Indigenous Interfaces rejects the myth that indigeneity and information technology are incompatible through its compelling analysis of the relationships between Indigenous peoples and new media. The volume illustrates how Indigenous peoples are selectively and strategically choosing to interface with cybertechnology, highlights Indigenous interpretations of new media, and brings to center Indigenous communities who are resetting modes of communication and redirecting the flow of information. It convincingly argues that interfacing with traditional technologies simultaneously with new media gives Indigenous peoples an edge on the claim to autonomous and sovereign ways of being Indigenous in the twenty-first century.

Contributors
Arturo Arias
Debra A. Castillo
Gloria Elizabeth Chacón
Adam W. Coon
Emiliana Cruz
Tajëëw Díaz Robles
Mauricio Espinoza
Alicia Ivonne Estrada
Jennifer Gómez Menjívar
Sue P. Haglund
Brook Danielle Lillehaugen
Paul Joseph López Oro
Rita M. Palacios
Gabriela Spears-Rico
Paul Worley

Jennifer Gómez Menjívar is an associate professor of Spanish and Latin American studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth. She is the co-author of Tropical Tongues: Language Ideologies, Endangerment, and Minority Languages in Belize.

Gloria Elizabeth Chacón is an associate professor in the Literature Department at University of California, San Diego. She is the author of Indigenous Cosmolectics: Kab’awil and the Making of Maya and Zapotec Literatures.