Vol. 8, No. 15 (2025)

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Editorial

Routes, dynamics and responses to migration

This number of Encartesnow indexed by Scielo Mexico, addresses migration along the Darien-Tapachula route, showing the difficulties faced by migrants, ethnographic methodologies en route and survival strategies. It also includes articles on conspiracy theorists, indigenous cultural practices and a debate on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

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Temáticas

Routes, dynamics and responses to migration

Presentation

  • Alberto Hernandez

The dossier analyzes migratory mobilities in Latin America, focusing on the routes between the Darien and Tapachula. It addresses borders as spaces of tension, the impact of digital technologies, strategies of migrant agency and the structural frameworks that shape contemporary migration trajectories.

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Dossier

Venezuelans in Costa Rica: between transit and settlement. The Ethno-survey as a methodological contribution to the study of recent migration in countries of arrival.

  • Jessica Nájera

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Social Media and Digital Platforms in the Migratory Journey, from the Darien Jungle to the Northern Border of Mexico

  • Alberto Hernández, Carlos S. Ibarra and Arturo Fabián Jiménez

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Ethnography of the migrant route, "the walkers" of the coastal highway of Chiapas, Mexico.

  • Abbdel Camargo and Ivan Porraz

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Devotions in transit: an ethnographic approach to the Soconusco Costa-Isthmus migratory circuit.

  • Mónica Marín

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Migratory processes and shelter networks in Mexico

  • Rafael Alonso Hernández

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From the Darien Gap to the Tapachula Gap. Layout and conformation of a new route for displaced persons to the United States.

  • America Navarro and Alberto Hernandez

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Realidades socioculturales

Notes on conspiracy theorizing about Reptilians and other beliefs in the time of Covid 19. A look from the implausible imaginary in castoridian key.

  • Enriqueta Lerma

Keywords: social imaginaries, conspiracy, crisis of meaning, covid-19, reptilians.

A sociological reflection is offered on the origin, meaning and scope of implausible conspiracy theories in the context of the emergence of covid-19. The analytical proposal of Cornelius Castoriadis' social imaginaries is used to problematize the difference between "plausible imaginaries": the origin of covid as a bacteriological weapon, and "implausible imaginaries": the extraterrestrial origin of covid, in order to interpret how it has been possible the increase of certain beliefs, among others, in reptilians, illuminati and extraterrestrials, who are accused of trying to dominate the world.

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The Fiesta de los Arcos: the renewal of the alliance between the ancient Indian villages of Lagos de Moreno.

  • Hector Medina

The article describes the ritual performed by the three ancient Indian villages of Lagos de Moreno (Jalisco, Mexico) in which they renew a long-standing alliance and reclaim their common history and origin as indigenous societies. It is an act of resistance to attempts to deny or make them invisible in a context of adverse policies.

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Xumuavikari náayarite. The tiznados of the Cora Holy Week in Nayarit.

  • Adriana Guzman

Based on ethnography in Mesa del Nayar, Nayarit, the process of transformation throughout the year of the tiznados, the main creators of Holy Week or Judea, is presented. náayari (Cora) and their most important activities during the festival, as well as the condensation of different creations in the same ritual: the death and resurrection of Christ (Christ-Sun for the Cora), the beginning of Christianity; the Genesis, the origin of the universe for Catholicism and the creation of the world according to the Cora, the origin of the universe for Catholicism and the creation of the world according to the Cora. naiyarite.

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Encartes multimedia

The (religious) profession of tattooing

  • Gustavo Morello

Religious tattooing has evolved from ritual to profession. Tattoo artists, by materializing beliefs, experience the tension between art and spirituality. This study examines how tattoo parlors have become spaces where contemporary religious expression is shaped, exploring the intersections between art, spirituality and commerce.

Being a craftswoman: a job among others. An ethnographic video about the different rhythms in the work of a Tseltal embroiderer.

  • Rachel Barber

Images and descriptions of textile craft production in Mexico, largely created for commercial purposes or to document projects with social impact, often emphasize the ancestral character of the craft or its usefulness in cultivating the empowerment of women artisans on their way to a better future. However, both approaches ignore the concrete ways in which women work in their daily lives. This short film, which portrays a day in the life of Antonia, a Tseltal embroiderer from the municipality of Tenejapa, in the highlands of Chiapas, seeks to paint a more accurate portrait of the place of craft production in the daily lives of women artisans.

Monoculture and the "ecuaro": Aspects and genealogies of agricultural modernization in San Miguel Zapotitlán, Mexico.

  • Rubén Díaz Ramírez

This paper explores the arrangements between humans, non-humans and more than humans generated by the modernization of agriculture in the ejido of San Miguel Zapotitlán, municipality of Poncitlán, Mexico, since the 1950s. The images reveal an agriculture whose genealogy refers to the science of the green revolution and to the practices and knowledge of peasant origin. They show the sympathies and tensions between the traditional and the modern, the local and the global, autonomy and dependence; the monoculture of corn and wheat and the persistence of polyculture (ecuaro) and agrarian religiosity.

Photographic Essay

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Entrevistas

Interview with Alejandro Grimson. Intellectual challenges for the political imagination

  • Alexander Grimson

  • Alina Peña

The interview "Intellectual challenges for the political imagination" presents a dialogue with Alejandro Grimson, a prominent Argentine anthropologist known for his analysis of identities and borders in Latin America. Alina Peña Iguarán highlights his contributions on cultural configurations and the concept of frontier as a dynamic space of interaction and conflict. The conversation addresses three moments: the Latin American debates of the 1990s, the genesis of his book "The Limits of Culture", and the analysis of the rise of the extreme right.

Learning through struggles: "Doc Alonso's" journey

  • Jorge Alonso

  • Inés Durán Matute

The interview "Aprender con las luchas: el caminar del 'Doc Alonso'" presents the academic and activist trajectory of Jorge Alonso Sánchez, a renowned CIESAS researcher with 60 years of work in social movements. Inés Durán Matute highlights his commitment to popular struggles, his extensive work in publications and his accompaniment of movements such as Zapatismo and the indigenous communities of Jalisco.

Discrepancias

palestina

Palestine as seen from Latin America

  • Móises Garduño, Marlene Hernández Morán, Brenda Poveda, Nicólas Panotto, Damián Setton

  • moderator Arely Medina Torres

Debate on how the Palestinian situation is perceived from different Latin American perspectives. Experts from Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Argentina reflect on the current Israeli occupation in Palestine, analyzing the political, social, religious and student reactions in the countries of the region. The influence of Christian Zionism, pro-Palestinian mobilizations and geopolitical dynamics that shape the understanding of this conflict in Latin America are addressed.

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Reseñas críticas

Panoramas of world anthropologies

Gustavo Lins Ribeiro (ed. Gral.), Carmen Bueno Castellanos, Hilary Callan, Virginia García Acosta and Laura R. Valladares (eds.), Mexico: CIESAS/UAM-I/UAM-L/Universidad Iberoamericana, 2023.

From the dark side of the moon to the rising suns. The exercise of comparison in its own right

  • Rosana Guber

The book brings together contributions by 35 authors on the anthropologies of various countries. Edited by Gustavo Lins Ribeiro and other scholars, it offers a global view of the discipline beyond Eurocentrism, highlighting the diversity of anthropological traditions and their specific historical-political contexts.

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City copyright

Conrado Romo, Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2024, 100 pp.

What is the idea of a creative city based on?

  • Christian O. Grimaldo-Rodríguez

The book analyzes how "creative cities" are the product of a cognitive capitalism that privatizes culture through copyright. Romo argues that these urban models involve processes of social cleansing and territorial dispossession under the façade of "urban recovery" to attract creative industries.

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Photography and the other. Body and aesthetics of return

Diego Lizarazo, Mexico City: Government of Mexico-Subsecretaría de Cultura, 2022, 164 pp.

The "aesthetics of return", or the force of otherness of photography.

  • Antonio Rivera García

Diego Lizarazo's "Photography and the Other" explores the relationship between photography and otherness, proposing an "aesthetic of return" where the photographic image recovers the disappeared as a force of otherness, analyzing works that transform trauma into healing memory and an act of resistance.

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Director

Renée de la Torre Castellanos

Edition

Nury Salome Aguilar Pita

Correction

Cecilia Palomar

Isabel Orendáin

Design and layout

Veronica Segovia

WordPress Design and Training

Arthur Temporal Ventura

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