Embodying Mexico: Tourism, Nationalism, and Performance (review)

Abstract

Embodying Mexico: Tourism, Nationalism, and Performance. By Ruth Hellier-Tinoco. (Currents in Latin American and Iberian Music, no. 4.) New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. [x, 341 p. ISBN 9780195340365 (hardcover), $99; ISBN 9780199790814 (paperback), $29.95.] Illustrations, appendices, bibliography, index. Embodying Mexico focuses on two corporeal acts or embodied activities known as La Danza de los Viejitos (The Dance of Old Men) and Noche de Muertos (Night of Dead), both from Lake Patzcuaro area of Michoacan, Mexico. As author Ruth Hellier-Tinoco argues, these practices, associated with P'urhepecha people, are deployed as efficacious, iconic embodiments and referents of Mexico and Mexicanness (p. 3), a process begun in early 1920s following Mexican revolution. The book reveals gradual appropriation and essentialization of these practices to further politics and poetics of nationalism and tourism under rhetoric of supporting folklore and indigenous peoples. The author surveys nine decades of such processes, showing how, despite era or ideology, people and institutions used similar or identical techniques to subsume practices for their own ends. The book itself is an expansion of Hillier-Tinoco's doctoral dissertation from 2001, allowing her to write with an assuredness and vivid detail that come with over a decade of research in this area. As a result, even bibliography alone is a valuable resource for researchers of related topics. The first appendix-on choreology and music of The Old Men-is only detailed account of music and dance that approaches something of a normative analysis. Though it was probably publisher's decision to set appendix in a smaller typeface, it does indicate that book is not about music or dance per se, but more about historical, political, ideo logical, and social processes in which sounds and movements are imbricated. The book is well illustrated with maps and still photographs, but especially welcome is publisher's willingness to include some of author's videos on a companion Web site (http://www.oup.com/us/embodying mexico, accessed 28 June 2012). Since so much of book relies on understanding contexts in which these practices are deployed, it is to credit of Oxford University Press that it enables videos to illuminate text in that way. Embodying Mexico is divided into three main parts: part 1 gives a general overview of subject and theoretical issues at play; part 2 is largest part of book, serving as a chronological and somewhat thematic exploration of The Old Men, Night of Dead, and array of people and techniques involved in labeling these variously as indigenous, Mexican, folklore, patrimony, and so on; part 3 consists of particular cases used for further analysis and theoretical excursions. From outset, Hellier-Tinoco's theoretical undertaking as introduced in part 1 is ambitious and somewhat overwhelming. The broad scope at times leads to lists of academic terms, such as when she states that her theoretical themes include notions of folkloricization, ideological refunctionalization, embodiment, essentialization, gaze, authentication, commodification, commoditization, and traditionalization (p. 5). She does cover much of this conceptual terrain to varying degrees, displaying an impressive understanding of each area, yet as a result of including so many theoretical themes, seems leftwith little space to further or deeply refine any particular one. The author also makes an unusual distinction between words commodification and commoditization, usually used synonymously. It is unclear how commodification-defined in text as the alteration or of a practice to suit a particular agenda and enactment venue (p. 46)-is any more useful than simply saying modification or alteration. Nevertheless, these are relatively minor issues within overall scope of book, one that is generally masterful and enlightening. …