Mexico: the Other Side of the Wall

Hello to everyone and most particularly the students in my Politics of Mexico course this summer, both virtual and real time. The real time students are part of a study abroad experience. We will be in Mexico this summer from July 6 to July 21, studying the outcomes of the 2018 presidential elections in Mexico and producing a documentary on Mexican perspectives on politics, which we are calling "Mexico the Other Side of the Wall." I am hopeful that his blog will serve to connect the virtual and real time classes and give people access to commentary on political developments in Mexico.

I think about this project in relationship to the concept of the subaltern from post-colonial studies. The subaltern are subjugated groups, the victims of class domination, (neo)colonial domination, or both. Who cares about the subaltern? The subaltern exists in order to be acted upon, not to act in its own right. This is one way of making sense of the absence of Mexican perspectives from our discourses about trade, immigration, and the so called "war on drugs."

One might also say that this absence is a reflection of a certain national narcissism that exists in the U.S. - we are constantly gazing in the mirror of the mass media fascinated or perhaps horrified by our own reflection or by the political soap opera that is currently playing itself out in Washington. We are rarely concious of the perspective of the groups that we act upon. This is the story of Vietnam, Iraq, Mexico (I would contend) and many other places besides.

I will be posting posting muchas reflexiones sobre la politica Mexicana in the weeks to come. I hope that you will have occasion to read some of these.

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Mexico: The Other Side of the Wall

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