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  • Embodying Mexico: Tourism, Nationalism, and Performance
  • Nolan Warden
Embodying Mexico: Tourism, National ism, and Performance. By Ruth Hellier-Tinoco. (Currents in Latin American and Iberian Music, no. 4.) New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. [x, 341 p. ISBN 9780195340365 (hardcover), $99; ISBN 9780199790814 (paperback), $29.95.] Illustrations, appendices, bibliography, index.

Embodying Mexico focuses on two "corporeal acts" or "embodied activities" known as La Danza de los Viejitos (The Dance of the Old Men) and Noche de Muertos (Night of the Dead), both from the Lake Pátzcuaro area of Michoacán, Mexico. As the author Ruth Hellier-Tinoco argues, these practices, associated with the P'urhépecha people, are "deployed as efficacious, iconic embodiments and referents of Mexico and Mexicanness" (p. 3), a process begun in the early 1920s following the Mexican revolution. The book reveals the gradual appropriation and essentialization of these practices to further the "politics and poetics" of nationalism and tourism under the rhetoric of supporting "folklore" and indigenous peoples. The author surveys nine decades of such processes, showing how, despite the era or ideology, people and institutions used similar or identical techniques to subsume the practices for their own ends.

The book itself is an expansion of Hillier-Tinoco's doctoral dissertation from 2001, allowing her to write with an assuredness and vivid detail that come with over a decade of research in this area. As a result, even the bibliography alone is a valuable resource for researchers of related topics. The first appendix—on the "choreology" and music of The Old Men—is the only detailed account of the music and dance that approaches something of a normative analysis. Though it was probably the publisher's decision to set the appendix in a smaller typeface, it does indicate that the book is not about music or dance per se, but more about the historical, political, ideological, and social processes in which the sounds and movements are imbricated. The book is well illustrated with maps and still photographs, but especially welcome is the publisher's willingness to include some of the author's videos on a companion Web site (http://www.oup.com/us/embodying mexico, accessed 28 June 2012). Since so much of the book relies on understanding the contexts in which these practices are deployed, it is to the credit of Oxford University Press that it enables the videos to illuminate the text in that way.

Embodying Mexico is divided into three main parts: part 1 gives a general overview of the subject and the theoretical issues at play; part 2 is the largest part of the book, serving as a chronological and somewhat thematic exploration of The Old Men, Night of the Dead, and the array of people and techniques involved in labeling these variously as "indigenous," "Mexican," "folklore," "patrimony," and so on; part 3 consists of particular cases used for further analysis and theoretical excursions.

From the outset, Hellier-Tinoco's theoretical undertaking as introduced in part 1 is ambitious and somewhat overwhelming. The broad scope at times leads to lists of academic terms, such as when she states that her theoretical themes include "notions of folkloricization, ideological refunctionalization, embodiment, essentialization, gaze, authentication, commodification, commoditization, and traditionalization" (p. 5). She does cover much of this conceptual terrain to varying degrees, displaying an impressive understanding of each area, yet as a result of including so many theoretical themes, seems left with little space to further or deeply refine any particular one. The author also makes an unusual distinction between the words commodification and commoditization, usually used synonymously. It is unclear how commodification—defined in the text as "the alteration or modification of a practice to suit a particular agenda and enactment venue" (p. 46)—is any more useful than simply saying "modification" or "alteration." Nevertheless, these are relatively minor issues within the overall scope of the book, one that is generally masterful and enlightening.

In part 1, Hellier-Tinoco also introduces her neologism performism, which she uses to articulate "matters of process, practice, [End Page 323] doctrine, and theory. . . . it conveys the idea of both doctrine and process, indexing a network of ideas that is political, pragmatic, and processual. . . . it engages...

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