Communicative practices on territoriality and identity among Triqui Indians of Oaxaca, Mexico

This study presents an overview of Triqui society's development, with a general focus on Chicahuaxtla and Copala, the oldest, and most important, Triqui centers. It is argued that the two centers became engaged in different networks within the regional political economy. Differences in involvement within regional spaces affected their historical development in contrasting ways. Distinct economic and political forces, as well as religious institutions, shaped triqui society with the result that the two sub-areas now show significant differences in economic orientations, political structures and social organizations.;Territoriality is treated as a "geography of power", and Triqui's social space is seen as made up of partially distinct social networks, sometimes overlapping, frequently not, consisting of clans and lineages, towns and communities, religious, political, and economic practices that not always interact in a smooth way.;A symbolically constructed community relates to a dynamic perspective on ethnicity such as this study attempts to develop. It is argued that attention to language, or more precisely to the discursive practices that constitute the individual thematic fields of this study---talk about boundaries and identity; conflict, local knowledge and belonging; intertextuality and the negotiation of identity; genre and cultural misunderstandings---, enabled me to reveal how Triqui experience these forces in events that make up the group's daily life.;By concentrating on what is actually said in such encounters, it is possible to avoid the limitations of usual anthropologists' field procedures which rely almost entirely on talk about beliefs and practices directed at the investigator. The study provides insight into how locals talk to each other about issues of importance to them: how they mediate disputes, maintain inter-community relationships in spite of serious differences of opinion, how they themselves understand the various aspects of the territories they inhabit, and how they construct identity.;This study's discourse analysis shows how Triqui are in fact very skillful negotiators, aware of regional and national dynamics that have affected them, and moreover use them as a communicative resource with which to achieve everyday ends.;This study shows that we need a dynamic concept of identity which avoids the pitfalls of the accepted static perspectives, to distinguish between personal and shared aspects of identity, a concept that also accounts for the context bound nature of the identity expressions from which our view ultimately derives. The concrete practices of context specific discourses exemplify the inherently context bound nature of identity and boundary assessment.