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The National Institute of Anthropology and History in Oaxaca

Given the demographic growth and other changes in the country the original structure and operational arrangements of INAH were no longer adequate to deal with new circumstances, and in the 1970s it was decided to expand the number of regional offices. At first the expectation was that each office would serve several states, but in 1992 it was decided each state would have its INAH center, and that is the arrangement in effect today. INAH's Oaxaca Center was created in 1972 as the Oaxaca Regional Center, with specific responsibility to address problems of conservation in the archaeological zones and in the historic district of the city of Oaxaca. Today INAH Oaxaca is the second largest state office in Mexico, with approximately fifty permanent staff and about the same number on temporary or fixed-term contracts. Under certain circumstances, such as the Monte Alban Special Project, the workforce may grow substantially as staff are added for the duration of the funding.

Although a center of major importance in the country because of the remains of a mosaic of pre-Columbian cultures, INAH has in Oaxaca only eight permanent archaeologists to look after and catalog the nearly 10,000 archaeological sites in the state. This includes maintaining in good condition the 12 archaeological zones open to the public, carrying out research projects around Oaxaca, disseminating information about Oaxaca archaeology with the goal of building public awareness, providing sporadic curation service to the Regional Museum of Oaxaca, reviewing proposed infrastructure or public works projects to be carried out by other agencies to make sure they do not damage archaeological resources, and above all, responding to reports of destruction or looting as well as carry out salvage archaeology around the state, something necessary on a daily basis. The only practical strategy to address as much as possible has been through short, focused projects distributed among the archaeologists based on interest and skills, attending only the most urgent and necessary projects. Anything less urgent is repeatedly postponed, which includes, of course, any sistematically planned academic research.

Government archaeologists as a social group

As noted at the beginning of this study, a principal concern of the research is to identify individuals or social groups affecting in some way the archaeological resources of the country. For obvious reasons one of the most influential groups are government archaeologists, that is, the archaeologists working for INAH. It is worth remembering that except for a handful of academic archaeologists employed in a few universities, all the archaeologists working professionally in Mexico do so through INAH, which makes membership in this group so important.

Some interviews with archaeologists of the INAH Oaxaca Center provide us with points of reference regarding different spheres of activity in relationship to archaeological heritage. First, it is important to note that patterns of behavior and attitude are not uniform. One group has a strong orientation toward the union which speaks for professional employees and is very attentive to professional matters as well as personnel issues. Collective concerns and a high value attached to solidarity mean individual preferences are subsumed by group norms. This group tends to be critical of projects seen as facilitating exploitation of archaeological heritage for the tourist trade. A second group tends to be less likely to participate in the union, more individualistic, and more inclined to address projects driven by government policy. In general archaeologists favoring this perspective seek pragmatic accomodation with projects offering funding, status, and opportunities to pursue personal agendas.

Second, the archaeologists feel themselves isolated from others in anthropology, to the point of having almost no academic contact with the social anthropologists, ethnographers, ethnohistorians, and linguists working in the same center. This estrangement has two sources. One has to do with different allocations of time, as archaeological heritage conservation keeps them in the field 70 percent of the time. The second source is that the archaeologists of the Oaxaca Center consider the other specialists—most of whom hold a masters or doctorate—as belonging to a different social class.

There is some irony in the fact that despite this separation from the anthropologists, ethnographers, and others they see themselves using ethnographic methods and understanding which come not from books but from experience. Negotiating agreements for heritage protection implies close contact with municipal authorities and other community leaders, and also requires managing conflict, or searching for ways to avoid it. But there is no systematic sharing of skills and knowledge which might make their responsibilities easier to manage or draw other specialists into this challenging topic.

Third, in general the archaeologists report significant difficulties in staying current with the profession or enhancing their academic preparation. They may spend up to 30 percent of their time reading at home as the library at the INAH Oaxaca Center, which at one time was the most complete library regarding research on the state, has degenerated to a semi-public consulting center for high school students. The collection has been pilfered to the point where it is almost useless to search for specialized material. Most of the archaeologists do not read English or any other foreign language. They have little contact with the foreign scholars who come to Oaxaca for summer research. In part this is due to a sense that much of the research is not germaine to community concerns, and in part to an apparent lack of interest on the part of foreigners regarding interaction with local archaeologists.

The Oaxaca Center does not have an ongoing program of professional development, and the archaeologists have not been able to create an atmosphere which encourages the personal or institutional investment. There is little general or theoretical discussion. Fortunately there are a number of research centers and universities in Oaxaca, so the most interested are afforded opportunities to participate in academic and professional exchange with people sharing some, although not all, of the same interests. In general terms the academic context of archaeological heritage conservation in Oaxaca is truly worrisome. Without denying the tendency for interviewees to be sensitive to the difficulties challenging them, we need to note a high percentage of archaeologists from across the country, and especially from the state offices, share these concerns.