Restoration and Faith: practicing religion and conservation in Mexico's historic churches

Project Information

MEXRES

Grant agreement ID: 701601

DOI

10.3030/701601

Project closed

EC signature date 16 March 2016

Start date 1 December 2016

End date 30 November 2018

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 183 454,80

EU contribution

€ 183 454,80

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITY OF KENT
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MEXRES (Restoration and Faith: practicing religion and conservation in Mexico's historic churches)

Reporting period: 2016-12-01 to 2018-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The central motivation behind the research project was to investigate the tensions inherent in the concept of ‘religious heritage’: does the designation of an object, building or space as heritage fundamentally change its meanings and its use for religious communities or the population at large? Heritage can be understood as one process through which cultural elites and nation-states “canonize culture,” that is, produce authoritative understandings of culture and history by isolating and defining particular features of history as essential to their society’s identity. As such, a fundamental feature of heritage is the desire to prevent or reverse visible changes that have occurred since the historical events or period that is deemed interesting or valuable. While this may not be controversial in cases where the objects are no longer in active use, heritage principles have increasingly come into conflict with the religious practices and beliefs of local communities. For these groups, these objects and places may not primarily be evidence of a past culture or event, but rather contemporary features of their religious practice and beliefs, which are important in their everyday lives. On the other hand, the ongoing use of objects and spaces for religious purposes may place them at risk from the point of view of heritage conservationists. This may lead to frictions or outright disagreements between heritage professionals and religious communities. As such, the question of whether heritage designation is fundamentally at odds with the beliefs, desires and rights of religious communities is an important one for policy-makers and society more generally, as they struggle to balance the cultural rights of minorities and subaltern groups with the social, educational, and historical desires of society at large.

The project investigated this issue by considering the case of a ruined sixteenth century Dominican monastery that is currently being restored in the village of Santa Cruz Mixtepec, Oaxaca, Mexico. The monastery is attached to the still-functioning Catholic church, which serves the entire Mixtepec parish, where the vast majority of its 3,500 inhabitants identify as Catholics. The central research questions were: 1. What cultural, religious, and vocational ideologies and beliefs come into conflict as actors work through restoration projects together? 2. How are the material and immaterial aspects of sacred and historically valuable objects understood by different kinds of actors? 3. How are relations of power manifested and reinforced or resisted?

The project shows that there are significant points of juncture and disjuncture between religious and heritage perspectives in Santa Cruz Mixtepec. All stakeholders agree that the items and architecture in the church are valuable, however understandings of this value and its meaning for society differ greatly. Although all parties are interested in continuing the restoration work, municipal and catholic authorities would prefer that the resources were spent on restoring the antique carvings of saints rather than the architectural features of the monastery cloister. While the monastery’s architecture is more significant and unique from an historical/heritage point of view, the building is significantly less important to the local Catholic community. Despite these differences, stakeholders plan on continuing to work together. These observations will be used to contribute to current debates in the fields of anthropology, religious studies and heritage studies.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

December 2016-June 2017: Pre-fieldwork preparation

-Literature review
-Preparation for the fieldwork period,
-Research seminars/workshops at University of Kent; University of Manchester; University of Sussex; University College London

July – December, 2017: Ethnographic Research in Oaxaca, Mexico

-Ethnographic research in Santa Cruz Mixtepec, Oaxaca, Mexico.
-Research and interviews with heritage experts in Oaxaca City, Mexico
-Open-ended interviews in neighbouring communities and parishes.
-Bibliographic archival research in Oaxaca City
-“Note from the field” report for project websites

January – November, 2018: Writing and Dissemination

A. Academic Dissemination Activities:
-Drafted 4 articles
-Co-organised and chaired a panel on ‘Aesthetics and Religious Collectivities’ at the Royal Anthropological Institute annual conference.
-Co-authored 1 special issue proposal on the theme of ‘aesthetics and religious collectivities’
-Worked with a cartographer to produce maps and architectural plans of the field site
-“San Jacinto or San José? San Jacinto or San José? Historicity and the mis/recognition of Catholic saints in religious and heritage perspectives.” University of London Anthropology of Christianity Workshop, May 29-30, 2018.
-“Aesthetics, Authority and ‘Scales’ of Belonging in Lived Mexican Catholicism.” The Royal Anthropological Association Annual Conference, Art, Materiality and Representation, London, June 1-3, 2018.
-“The Aesthetics of Practice and Presence: Authority, Community and Immanence in a Mexican Catholic church.” Cambridge University Social Anthropology Society, Cambridge, November 8, 2018.
-“13 Grains of Maize: material religion and history in the ‘deep local’ of witchcraft in Oaxaca, Mexico.” American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, San Jose, California, USA, November 14-18, 2018.

B. Public Engagement/Dissemination Activities:
-“Saints of the Shaking Earth.” The Religion Factor, https://religionfactor.net/2018/01/10/saints-of-the-shaking-earth/
-Public lecture “Researching Religious Heritage at Kent,” Beaney House of Art and Knowledge, July 20, 2018.
-“What Can Witchcraft Do In Mexico?” Anthropology News, http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2018/10/24/what-can-witchcraft-do-in-mexico/
-Reports for research participants
-Project websites

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Journal articles in progress:

“Introduction: Aesthetics and Religious Collectivities” with Timothy Carroll
Drawing the Sacred In and Out: Catholic aesthetics and the negotiation of proximity in Mexico.
“San Jacinto or San José? History, knowledge and the mis/recognition of Catholic saints in Oaxaca, Mexico.”
Negotiating the Sacred-Historic in Mexican Catholic Heritage”


Impact:

The most visible evidence of impact is the results of a survey conducted after the public lecture event “Researching Religious Heritage at Kent.”All respondents said that they learned something new about the issues surrounding religious heritage, and 89% reported that the presentations changed the way that they had previously thought about religious heritage and heritage research.

More broadly, as the dissemination of results through academic and non-academic publications progresses, the project is likely to impact the ways that scholars and the general public view the relationship between the ‘heritagization’ of sites and the everyday lives of the people who are connected to the objects and places concerned. The research is therefore expected to make an important contribution to social debate, as this issue is at the heart of the politics of culture, museums and the arts, and speaks to the ways that funding is used to delimit and control material culture as property.

The monastery ruin in Santa Cruz Mixtepec, September 2017

Procession for the Holy Cross, Santa Cruz Mixtepec, September 2017