History

The Huichol or Wixárika people are one of the 68 original populations that make up the multicultural nation called Mexico. Various foreign and Mexican researchers have considered the Huichol or Wixaritári an artist society. At the beginning they made ritual and utilitarian objects of great plastic beauty, which during the last 70 years have not ceased to have these functions. However, currently they have also undergone a commercialization process.

"Although multiculturalism has contributed to the recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples, the reality is that there is a lack of mechanisms for these rights to be exercised. This article proposes an analysis of this situation from a specific case, Wirikuta, a sacred site of the Wixaritari, located in the desert, in San Luis Potosí, Mexico.

Abstract: Since 2010, the Wixarika (Huichol) indigenous people of western Mexico have struggled against transnational mining activity in their sacred pilgrimage site of Wirikuta in the semi-desertic plateaus of San Luis Potosi. This struggle has been accompanied by a multitude of non-indigenous and largely urban actors who have joined the Wixarika, bringing with them their own cultural, political and geographic registers for understanding and mobilizing against mining in the region.

The present anthology gathers the work of Marina Anguiano Fernández (1945-2023). Born in Mexico City, she studied her Bachelors of Arts in Ethnology and Masters in Anthropology from the National School of Anthropology and History with the honors of Cum Laude. She worked as a  full-time researcher in the Direction of Ethnology and Social Anthropology in the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH for its Spanish acronym). She obtained several national and international grants from the UNAM, Mexico; French Government; Fulbright, United States; and from the Complutense of Spain.