“Their Gazes in Our Memory”. Graffiti as a Discursive Strategy as a Response to Forced Disappearances in the Córdoba-Orizaba Region

• Celia del Palacio Montiel and David Torres García

This article analyses the murals of disappeared youngsters in the Orizaba-Córdoba region in the state of Veracruz, where forced disappearances have been a serious problem for years. We analyze the work of the artist Aldo Daniel Hernández's “Fise”, as an act of resistance of the mothers, members of the victims collective, as a struggle against oblivion and impunity, placing them in their context and analyzing the reactions of authorities and society. This approach is carried out with the theoretical framework of the sociology of art as applied by Salazar (2011) on murals of Ciudad Juárez, inspired by the original framework by García Canclini (2006). It focuses on the process of organization for the creation of these artworks, the ideological framework that allowed the conditions for their creation, and the visual discursive strategies applied. A discursive struggle becomes visible amongst the victims that intend to draw attention to the injustice they suffer and the preservation of memory, and other political and social actors who try to silence them.

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María Arcelia Díaz (1896-1939): Feminist, Textile Worker, Union Leader and Pioneer of Social and Work Policies in Zapopan

• Maria Teresa Fernandez Aceves

In this essay, I interweave different materials (audio, visual, musical, maps and statistical data) with my historical interpretation of the importance of María Arcelia Díaz (1896-1939) as a feminist, textile worker, union leader and pioneer of social and labor policies in Zapopan and the resonance of her struggles in our present time. I wove the visual, text and audio materials in my historical narrative to reconfigure Díaz’s time lived along with her hushed and quieted experience of time.

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This article presents an ethnographic discussion around the processes of racialization, miscegenation and the construction of identity/otherness in Punta Maldonado (El Faro), on the Costa Chica of the state of Guerrero. In the first place, it examines the concepts of race and racialization in order to understand how physical attributes have been used to highlight differences and order them into a hierarchy. Next, it explores the meanings of some locally used categories that show the way in which the physical aspect, and the way to wear one’s hair in particular, is socially perceived and interpreted in El Faro. Finally, it analyzes how the idea of mixtures is viewed and incorporated into the collective identity narratives in the area.

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