Las formas del racismo en la escuela primaria de una comunidad maya-tseltal en Chiapas.

Abstract

Indigenous education in the highlands of Chiapas has repeatedly failed for many decades to perform and achieve results, and yet it continues to operate without changes that could transform it into a successful proposal. In spite of the inclusive and antiracist discourses that the State began to subscribe to at the end of the 20th century, the structural basis of the racist, hierarchical and classificatory order that determines the characteristics of assimilation in the Mexican Republic has not been dismantled and continues to legitimize injustices and inequalities. From an educational ethnography carried out in a marginalized village, we argue for the need to begin a process of exposure and denunciation of the racism which underlies the definition of the indigenous Mayan, as well as in different stigmatized forms of classification imposed on native peoples from school education. Eradicating racism would imply questioning the State’s responsibility and its colonial legacy, so that schools can take advantage of the knowledge, traditions and organizational forms linked to the indigenous territory. The native peoples’ own institutions are capable of stopping ethnocide by asserting their right to educational autonomy, favoring decolonization, as well as cultural and linguistic revitalization, so as to eliminate the discriminatory prejudices that shape the ways of school learning. Due to the understanding of injustices and conflicts between people of different cultures, it is crucial to learn the history and geography of territories threatened by the violence of racism in order to defend them through community ties, arts and popular cultures.