Abstract
This chapter looks at the relationship between social resilience and Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) in a local setting, positing that each nurtures the other and that they constitute important pillars for sustainable, long-term, and context-coherent peace. Specifically, the chapter seeks to explore the way in which cultural heritage renews itself through the centrality of social resilience, which is conceptualized systemically as a process and explored in a case study of the Mojiganga festival in the state of Morelos in Mexico. A significant ICH practice becomes a social resilience pillar of the social system, as it enables the system to reconfigure its internal coherence and sense of identity (to be), mediate change (to continue), and develop (to grow) with endless potential. At the same time, however, this process of social resilience provides feedback and reconfigures ICH.
Dr. Serena Eréndira Serrano Oswald, researcher, Regional Multidisciplinary Research Center, National Autonomous University of Mexico (CRIM–UNAM); Email: sesohi@hotmail.com.
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- 1.
See “INTANGIBLE. Reencuentro: La Mojiganga en Zacualpan de Amilpas”; at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obP5UPAdto4 (5 May 2015).
- 2.
See the “Online Etymology Dictionary”; at: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=resilience&allowed_in_frame=0 (5 May 2015).
- 3.
‘Convivial’ following from convivencia as defined by Arizpe (2014: 3, footnote) in the work on Intangible Cultural Heritage as: “Convivencia in Spanish means not only the conviviality of sharing an agreeable feast as in English or in French. Vivencia in Spanish means a life experience so that convivencia means not only sharing together but actually living the experience together.”.
- 4.
See the “Royal Spanish Dictionary”; at: http://www.rae.es (5 May 2015).
- 5.
For the UNESCO-UniTwin ICH Chair/CRIM/IMRyT documentary in which local people describe and analyse the Mojiganga in Zacualpan, see “INTANGIBLE. Reencuentro: La Mojiganga en Zacualpan de Amilpas”; at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obP5UPAdto4. For other public videos portraying the Mojiganga in Zacualpan, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqCoCTvTYkg, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyn_MeJqo5Y, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsbueXsXaik, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaV9PpT1t1g, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qyfmuQjDqI, and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyqvYZDaccA. If you wish to see more pictures by local people displayed on social networks, see: https://www.facebook.com/AyuntamientoZacualpan, https://www.facebook.com/comitefiestaspatronales.zacualpan?fref=ts, https://www.facebook.com/comparsa.falfan?fref=ts, and https://www.facebook.com/pages/COMPARSA-ZACUALPAN-M%C3%81GICO/164,215,380,341,111?fref=ts (5 May 2015).
- 6.
‘Nahual’ from Nahualt ‘nahualli’ meaning ‘disguised or hidden’ is the historical and socially shared belief in Meso-American territories in shamans and people of power turning into animals, mostly their animal spirit guides, for the purposes of magic and ritual.
- 7.
Emiliano Zapata Salazar (8 August 1870–10 April 1919), peasant leader during the Mexican Revolution, leader of the Liberation Army of the South. One of the most famous and influential figures in Mexican history. For basic information online, see: http://www.biography.com/people/emiliano-zapata-9540356 or http://latinamericanhistory.about.com/od/themexicanrevolution/p/08zapatabio.htm (5 May 2015).
- 8.
‘Concheros’, also called Azteca, Mexica or Huehuenche dance, refers to a syncretic ritual dance and dance ceremony, performed by a dance group with music, mixing indigenous and colonial elements. It is a widespread practice of intangible cultural heritage in Mexico.
- 9.
The Convent of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin in Zacualpan is one of the sixteenth-century monasteries in the Popocatépetl volcano hillside area. Since December 1994 it has been on the UNESCO List of World Heritage Sites. Being inscribed on this list consecrates the exceptional and universal value of a natural or cultural good in order for it to be protected for the benefit of humanity.
- 10.
A pre-Hispanic ritual involving a team of men who ascend a thirty-metre pole, they dance as they fly, and one of them plays music at the top of the pole. Since 2009, it has been catalogued by UNESCO as a Practice of Mexican and Guatemalan Intangible Cultural Heritage (register 00175).
- 11.
The government programme of ‘Magical Villages’ (‘Pueblos Mágicos’) is an initiative developed by the federal Ministry of Tourism, linked to state and local governments, in order to promote tourism in a few selected localities across the country which must fulfil certain criteria: preserve symbolic heritage and architectural beauty, be protagonists of historical feats and legends, be ancient in historical and cultural terms, and maintain a day-to-day lifestyle in which its inhabitants live by their customs and traditions.
- 12.
For example, “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” in Spanish rhymes and sounds almost like “Here comes the VAT with its Forty Thieves” (‘El IVA va con sus 40 ladrones’).
- 13.
‘Coatlicue’ from Nahua mythology is the mother of the gods, dual goddess of life and death, representing Mother Earth and fertility.
- 14.
Mexico is ranked as the fifth most dangerous country in the Latin American Security Index (FTI 2014). Within Mexico, according to the Citizen’s Council for Public Security and Justice (Consejo Ciudadano para la Seguridad Pública y la Justicia 2015), the state of Morelos has the highest violence index in the country, and its capital city Cuernavaca is ranked as the most violent in the country, which puts it among the most dangerous places in the world.
- 15.
The extensive work on resilience and trauma following violence, abuse and social injustice linked to the importance of including a public ritualistic dimension of therapy by neuropsychiatrist and systemic psychotherapist Jorge Barudy supports this vision (see especially Barudy and Dantagnan 2011).
- 16.
In Mexico, drinking in the streets is not usually allowed.
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Serrano Oswald, S.E. (2016). Social Resilience and Intangible Cultural Heritage: A Mutually Fertilizing Potential Seen in a Case Study in Mexico. In: Oswald Spring, Ú., Brauch, H., Serrano Oswald, S., Bennett, J. (eds) Regional Ecological Challenges for Peace in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia Pacific. The Anthropocene: Politik—Economics—Society—Science, vol 5. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30560-8_4
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