Home > Events > Imaginary Communities: Indians and Campesinos in Mexican Social Thought

Imaginary Communities: Indians and Campesinos in Mexican Social Thought

Lecture by Dr. Emilio Kourí, Professor of History & Director of the Katz Center for Mexican Studies at the University of Chicago

Thursday, October 06, 2011
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
6275 Bunche Hall (History Conference Room)
UCLA

Dr. Kourí earned his AB in philosophy and his PhD in history from Harvard University. He is the author of the prize-winning book "A Pueblo Divided: Business, Property and Community in Papantla, Mexico." In this lecture, Professor Kourí will explore the centrality of deeply entrenched and largely unexamined ideas about Indian communities and communal organization in the social imagination of Mexico that were brought to the fore by the 1994 Zapatista uprising in Chiapas. These include the idea that social relations within Indian villages were largely harmonious and cohesive and that communal or collective landholding was the natural expression of this inherent cultural solidarity. Dr. Kourí will discuss how these ideas, based on cultural assumptions with little empirical research, have evolved over the last century and what their implications have been for Mexican social policies, particularly land reform and indigenous education.

Cost: Free and open to the public.

Special Instructions

The lecture will be preceded by a light lunch at 12:30 pm in the History Department Reading Room (6265 Bunche Hall) for Latin American, Native American Studies and History students and faculty to meet with Dr. Kourí informally. Space is limited, RSVP to gomez@international.ucla.edu by October 3rd is required. 

For more information please contact

Mikael Wolfe
mwolfe@history.ucla.edu

Download File: KouriE-Lecture-Revised-ed-ik0.pdf

Sponsor(s): Latin American Institute, Center for Mexican Studies, Department of History, American Indian Studies Center