Mar
2
Folk culture and modernity
Posted by: Brian | March 2, 2009 | Comments Off on Folk culture and modernity
In the reading entitled “The Politics of Visibility” authored by Bruce Campbell talks about the stages in which murals have taken shape in throughout Mexico. I did not like the way in which he presented these stages at first, with his introduction and description of each painting individually, it was quite drab. Once Campbell gets into the ‘Politics’ of the murals it gets interesting. He shows how depending on the how the government wanted its cultural icons and symbols to be display in a certain fashion. This is especially prevalent according to the author in the case of education which has show us the power of manipulation in a place such as Mexico. Campbell talks about how nationalism became huge because of governmental pressure, to distinct itself from other Latin American countries. It does show an exertion of manipulation and culture creation at the same time. Certain paintings during times of revolution show just that, revolting. During times of catholic dominance, murals were made to display certain things, in order not to offend. I believe the other presents the new trend in murals has turned into graffiti.
The second article discusses the nation state and spirit possession. This was a somewhat difficult read as it was written in some sort of mix between native story telling techniques and plain English. The beginning passage talks of some sort of “Spirit Queen” in relation to nation state fetishism. I agreed with the majority of things said in this passage as I believe them to be true about nationalism and how people view themselves within a state. I also enjoyed the map on page eight about the colonialist powers exploitation of the country for its oil and its need for cars and videos. This is a such a simple drawing I could have done it myself but I holds within it a very power and insightful throught around neo-colonialist relations.
