Yaqui Homeland and Homeplace: The Everyday Production of Ethnic Identity (review)

Yaqui Homeland and Homeplace is the result of more than sixteen months of ethnographic fieldwork spread out over ten years among the Yaqui of northern Mexico. The book, written by anthropologist Kirstin Erickson, consists of eight chapters arranged into two parts—“Narrating Place, Articulating Identity” and “The Articulation of Gender and Ethnicity.” The book also contains a Spanish-English glossary, a Yaqui-English glossary, and an appendix of selected narrative transcriptions.

Kirstin Erickson is associate professor of anthropology in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. She has published three articles and numerous professional presentations and blog posts about various aspects of the Yaqui culture, especially the role of women. In 2005, she was part of a textile-silkscreen production regarding Yaqui healing and material culture exhibited at the Rochester Art Center Museum in southern Minnesota.

Yaqui Homeland and Homeplace is based upon participant observation ethnographic field methods while living with the Yaqui, collecting interviews and oral histories in Spanish using “snowball sampling.” Each chapter opens with a quote from a narrator, and each chapter contains a sizeable number of narrative excerpts that are placed into one of two sections in the book. The first section focuses on the significance of place and how Yaqui individuals construct their ethnic-cultural identity in terms of their ancestral homeland. The second section of the book shifts to a focus on women’s voices and experiences. While there are a number of articles and books published about the Yaqui, few focus on the construction of identity, the creation of home spaces, and the role of women in contemporary Yaqui culture.

The book’s title might be considered a little misleading because it provides no indication that two-thirds of the book is actually about women’s construction of identity and homeplaces. A more appropriate title for the book might give an indication of the prominent role that Erickson has given to gender in her analysis. Erickson is careful to limit her use of the term “oral history” because this was very much an anthropological ethnography. She summarized and interpreted much of the Yaqui stories in terms of existing anthropological theory and did not indicate to what extent the Yaqui had participated in the analysis or interpretation of the material. Erickson also made no mention of how or where the interview tapes or transcripts were housed or if they are available to the public, but this is typical of an anthropological ethnography.

However, none of these issues detracts from the message Erickson is trying to convey. Through a description of a generally harsh life on the reservation with few employment opportunities, she successfully conveys how the history of the Yaqui people and the integral role of women play into their everyday production of ethnic identity. The personal stories that Erickson has collected and interpreted reveal the impact of Yaqui displacement from their aboriginal territories. Likewise, through the stories of two women, Erickson is able to identify the many elements that create a gendered Yaqui identity among Yaqui women.

Through discourses such as the use of flowers in women’s clothing to the role of bravery in birth stories to women’s household ceremonies, the author makes clear that homeplace is the primary locus of women’s power among the Yaqui. At times, Erickson’s desire to make her point about the role of women in creating homeplace and identity can feel repetitive, yet she paints a powerful picture of a strong Yaqui woman who faces many obstacles.

Erickson’s work supplements a robust literature on Yaqui culture and identity dating back to the 1940s. Earlier works by such scholars as Edward Spicer, Evelyn Hu-DeHart, Thomas McGuire, Mini Valenzuela Kaczkurkin, and David Delgado Shorter focused on Yaqui history and the sociopolitical organization of the Yaqui. They also created a picture of Yaqui identity that is forged not only...