Abstract

SALAZAR ZARCO, Ana Lilia. Crossing the Public/Private border: the exercise of communal power in the low mixe in Oaxaca, Mexico. E&c [online]. 2020, vol.2, n.11, pp.173-188. ISSN 2477-9245.  https://doi.org/10.37228/estado_comunes.v2.n11.2020.180.

This article argues that it is possible to ‘de-patriarchalize’ power and questions the preeminence of masculine over feminine authority, which is visible in the public and private realms. This research suggests that this system of rules would not reproduce in the low mixe community in Oaxaca, Mexico. With this aim in mind, an ethnography (stories and in-depth interviews) were carried out. This analysis criticizes the notion of authority (in its etymological sense, originator/ promoter), adds value to the idea if service (donation to the other person), and suggests the possibility of exercising power without domination or verticality. This article breaks apart from the configuration of power in the capitalist-patriarchal forms of public (controlled by the State) and private (controlled by capital); likewise, notions such as politics, power and the margins of its exercise are reviewed from the perspective of indigenous communal power.

Keywords : public/private; capitalism; communal power; low mixe in Oaxaca; work..

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