Ser comunero/a en los tiempos de diáspora. Videos de fiestas en el Distrito Mixe, Oaxaca, México
Kummels, Ingrid – 2015
This contribution explores the production, circulation and reception of a film genre that was created on a local level by actors of the village of Tamazulapam del Espíritu Santo of the Distrito Mixe: patron saint’s fiesta videos. It proposes that the focus on this film genre might provide important insights into endogenous media dynamics and their local history in an ‘indigenous’ community of Mexico. As part of the local media that are distinguished as “communal” and “commercial”, fiesta videos are utilized for integrating members that migrated to the United States and for creating new transnational spaces of imagination. Local debates around these controversial films are examined as well as the ways in which the role of local media and of being a comunero/a (community member) are redefined in the time of geographical dispersion of the community.