Dystopia versus uchronia: what they call today's Mexican anthropology. Comments to the book of Luis Vázquez León Crowd and dystopia: essays on the new ethnic condition in Michoacán (2010) Mexico. UNAM

Abstract

It is not so easy to criticize a critic, especially when it comes to a person that I am learning to appreciate more and more, like Dr. Luis Vázquez as an academic and a man. I consider that Luis Vásquez is an important figure in critical anthropology, to such a degree that he could have titled his book on multitude and dystopia with another expression, such as: "of what they call anthropology Mexican today. "
Therefore, my task is to make (or at least try) "a criticism of the criticism", modestly and with all proportion saved, as Luc Boltanski (disciple and then dissident of the work of Bourdieu) did more than enough. However, this objective seems complicated or redundant; you have to know where and how to enter the controversial space that this great anthropologist has managed to build over the years. One of the techniques to achieve this goal is to use the contrapié, that is, to place the analysis in the cracks left by the critical work of Luis Vázquez and to be where it is least expected.