Sociology and Anthropology Lecturer Holly Dygert, Ph.D., visited Oaxaca, Mexico, for the first time 20 years ago. As one of the 32 states that make up the Federative Entities of the United Mexican States, Oaxaca’s population reaches approximately 700,000 with most individuals speaking in their Indigenous language. Oaxaca is also the third most economically marginalized state in the country. Dygert, who last visited Oaxaca in 2016, will return this August and spend three weeks conducting research for several ongoing projects related to local culture and healthcare. Here, she shares the latest details on her upcoming endeavors:
Studying shifts in Indigenous sentiments
The experiences of Oaxaca’s Indigenous women have been a continuous area of study for Dygert since the early 2000s.
“Because women are seen as the bearers of Indigenous culture, they’d often be put down when they left the community. For instance, if they went to the regional center, people would say they were dirty, poor, and ignorant, and would try to cheat them,” says Dygert. “They really bore the brunt of anti-Indigenous sentiment.”
To combat anti-Indigenous attitudes, Indigenous rights activists developed programs to promote Indigenous culture and targeted their efforts to youth. While this was a good place to start, activists were not working with Indigenous women who suffered the most from the disparagement of Indigenous identities and were seen as bearers of Indigenous culture. Fast forward to today, Dygert has heard from friends and seen through social media that there has been an increase in celebration of Indigenous women in Oaxaca that didn't exist 20 years ago.
“My aim is to understand what's changed, who's involved in these efforts, and if they are really addressing the needs of the people who suffer the most from the marginalization of Indigenous identities,” Dygert says, adding that her research will involve talking to the women and men who are part of Indigenous rights work.
Dygert’s research will add to ongoing discussions and debates about the gendered dimensions of the Indigenous Rights Movements, what it means to be not just Indigenous, but an Indigenous woman, and how people are shifting their politics based on these changes.
She adds that studying how other places address major challenges can assist our own country as it seeks solutions for problems such as economic marginality, racism, marginalization of Indigenous people, and gender inequality.
Analyzing expansion of reproductive rights
While the United States has been curtailing reproductive rights (e.g., the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision that overturned the right to abortion), Latin America has been expanding its recognition of legalized abortions. With Oaxaca permitting the right to abortion in 2019, Dygert will work with women's rights organizations within the state to see how they are thinking about the new abortion rights legislation and how that fits into Indigenous women's struggles to control their own fertility.
“We often think about family planning services and contraceptives as empowering people, but they have been used to take away power from Indigenous women,” says Dygert, whose past research focused on Oaxaca’s repeated history of forced sterilization.
Due to the legalization of abortion rights, there are ongoing debates concerning what reproductive rights are and what they mean for different people — including men, women, and non-binary people. Ultimately, Dygert aims to look at how abortion politics may be unique to Indigenous women of a low-income state.
“If we see that this legislative reform opened up tons of opportunities for one population and introduced real tough challenges for another population, then we can think more carefully about what policy should look like and what programs should look like to make sure abortion rights are expanding opportunities for all people,” Dygert says.
