Una etnografia de la escritura mixe

Resumen

The object of this thesis is Mixe writing, a language of oral tradition spoken in the Mexicanstate of Oaxaca. In order to assess the relevance of writing as a cultural product in Mixe society, this study investigates the changes in language and culture caused by the adoption of written language, through the study of its uses, forms and representations. The relationship of Amerindian peoples with writing throughout history is based on a relationship of power. Since the end of the 1970s, the need to write indigenous languages—which until then had been motivated by external agents in an effort to controlindigenous peoples—has been made as their own by some speakers and the achievement of this has became the spearhead of the linguistic demands of the indigenous movement that was blossoming at the time. This work describes how the process of standardization of the Mixe language carried out by its speakers was conceived and developed, and investigates the sociocultural impact derived from it. It represents a case study on the relationships that one of Mexico’s original populations established with writing. From a historical perspective and with an anthropological approach, the causes, ends and effects of writing in the Mixe language and society are addressed. It is an ethnography of Mixe writing, understood as a written representation of the interpretation of a cultural phenomenon...