Chapter 8

Social Issues and the Field of Archaeological Heritage Preservation

It is clear even without entering an exhaustive process of analysis that there are a range of value systems involved in the struggle for archaeological sites in Oaxaca. These systems are not necessarily identified with those philosophical values which inspire the academic conservation and restoration movements or the responsibility for transmission of cultural heritage to the future. Rather, the social issues described here show the struggle turns on the conceptualization of archaeological sites as resources, and the right of access to their exploitation in different ways, including tourism, agriculture, real estate, housing, and commerce. Those earlier philosophic values of conservation and restoration are confined to the academic world, and understood by those social groups which surround the sites only with great difficulty. The importance of that vision of the future which formed part of the principles of the golden age of Mexican archaeology evidently has been forgotten.

Data gathered in the course of this research affirm that the level of importance attached to archaeological zones today corresponds most closely to the immediate financial gains they can generate. This attitude has been demonstrated by many sectors, not just the individual who speculates in land, nor of those with authority over land who use their power to decide who gets what. It is also found at the highest levels of the entity with responsibility for conservation, as it must be concerned with near-term gains rather than the long term.

In Mexico the public body with overall policy and coordinating responsibility for culture is the National Council for Culture and the Arts (CENCA). As the most authoritative representative of government policy for culture, CENCA has emphasized an orientation to the globalization process taking place in all areas of national life. As this process assumes as part of its ultimate objective a certain uniformity in Mexico it generates ambiquity and tension. Thus the president of CENCA makes an urgent call for a return to roots, to "recover specific unique elements and affirm differences," to share the development process "without losing that which characterizes and distinguishes us." Nevertheless, he says, when "the defense becomes extreme it can convert itself into a resistance to change and a rejection of that which comes from outside" (Tovar y de Teresa 1994: 12).

This type of contradiction has characterized the neoliberal policies introduced in Mexico by recent administrations. Such policies have thus far failed to develop a coherent response either to cultural diversity or to the tremendous social and economic inequality which marks contemporary Mexico. I am not going to enter into a wide-ranging discussion of national politics. These comments simply place in a broader context the official discourse regarding archaeological heritage conservation, helping us to understand the place conservation occupies in the wider policy arena.

As we have seen across this project, most recently official attention to archaeological heritage in Mexico has consisted of selecting 14 spectacular zones in which to develop projects better understood in terms of scenography than archaeology, and which had as a final goal tourism and other forms of commercial exploitation. Of these projects only one was in Oaxaca, and this was Monte Alban.

In this case it is clear the conservation issue was not seen in its cultural and natural context, as I have tried to describe here. Instead the site was addressed solely in terms of its monumental areas with rapid exploration and massive reconstruction. Equally the project deemed as a fact that archaeological areas are "federal property" without the legal process of purchase or condemnation with compensation that assures for INAH tenure over land within the bounded areas and the right to exploit the subsoil therein.Nevertheless, another federal agency charged with regulating land use, stated and published "the property regime in the area will not be modified" (SEDESOL 1996: 3), that is, that communal and ejido land , as well as private lands contained within the boundary, would continue with the same status and that the boundary-setting exercise contemplated only the regulation of land use.

Unfortunately I have to say this was not the only special project managed with a lack of theoretical, legal, and technical focus on conservation, as this neglect was a constant in the management of projects oriented toward tourism. Within these contradictions in site management there has at no time been credit either for the customary law or the tremendous organizational capacity which social groups, marginal or legitimate, have demonstrated when confronted by government intervention into their affairs.

Mitla is an interesting example in the sense of being considered as an archaeological site "practically lost"—in the words of more than one INAH official—which at the same time represents for the owners of the housing which surrounds the site pieces of land they have "won" despite the presence and opposition of INAH. In the same sense, thorough research on the different social groups with interests in the site in order to do more effective conservation planning—interpreted as "getting yourself in trouble" in the words of the same INAH officials—signifies a fertile research filed in archaeological resource management and practically the only possibility for exploring alternative projects of heritage conservation grounded in community participation and understanding.

Analysis carried out through anthropological research at Mitla and Monte Alban makes it possible to recognize that the operational framework imposed by the structures of power associated with cultural resources management does not coincide with the official discourse in Mexico. Nor is it consistent with the frameworks for cultural resources management in other countries as a contemporary response to possible sustainable use of archaeological heritage. Instead it once again falls into the practice of academic isolation which, as noted at the start of this study, bring more adverse than beneficial consequences at all levels.

Here we see the process of archaeological heritage conservation finds itself immersed in a whirlpool of contradictions stemming from the complexity of social and political interests it touches. It is understood and in general terms accepted that the Mexican national government jealously guards for itself resources highly valued for historic and aesthetic reasons. Nevertheless, this position does not have to be an obstacle to updating approaches to research, conservation, and economic use of archaeological monuments for collective benefit. To accomplish this I propose an approach to archaeological resources management consistent with national realities, including:

involvement of communities and groups with capacities for self-management in the sustainable development of sites, with the benefits and responsibilities this arrangement creates.
assuring professionals in the field be true specialists as defined in the course of this analysis, and not just imports from the discipline of archaeology.
reinforcing the institution charged with administering cultural resources by updating personnel and orienting them toward education at all levels, and by taking care that site exploitation be truly sustainable.

This proposal points in the direction of a new conceptualization of academic and administrative dimensions of site use which stands apart from and as a counterpoint to the traditional academic activities of archaeology.

Last Modified: Thursday April 01 2004