Mexican ancestral cosmologies , gender fluidity, and its contributions to contemporary gender debates
Aula 113, Università degli Studi di Milano
Via Festa del Perdono 7
Abstract
Gender fluidity in Mesoamerican Mexican traditions. “Otroa” gender identity is a philosophically grounded and totally contemporary proposal emerging from activist political social movements now in Mexico. It is specially present within indigenous Zapatista struggles for justice. An analysis and revival of classical influences of ancestral local cosmologies have allowed indigenous movements today to search and recuperate this innovative gender category: Otroa, compañeroa, niñoa, promotoroa. These experiential social spaces are claiming their particularity in community life that goes beyond transgender, bisexual, homosexual, lesbian, definitions.
Bio
Dr. Sylvia Marcos, a post-doctoral fellow in Psychology and Sociology of Religions at Harvard University, is a visiting professor in the Graduate School of Religious Studies at Claremont University, CA. She is a member and founder of the permanent seminar on Anthropology and Gender at the Institute of Anthropological Research of UNAM and a member of the permanent steering committee of ALER (Latin American Association for the Study of Religions).