Multicultural Citizenship and Intellectual Property Rights: Indigenous Embroiderers in Latin America and Guerrero

Abstract

The appropriation of textile and cultural creations and designs from indigenous peoples of Mexico and America has been increasing over the last decade (Mújica, 2018; Parra and Marcial, 2021), which has led indigenous peoples to adopt cultural resistance strategies to protect their knowledge and cultural identities. These neoliberals, extractive, chupacabra (Gálvez and Luque, 2019) and xenophobic strategies include everything from lobbying to the registration of intellectual property, fundamental elements in the organization of those peoples who have experienced cultural appropriation by national and transnational companies such as Zara and Benetton. These practices, strategies and habitus of Bourdieu (1996) affect the cultural rights of the indigenous peoples of Oaxaca and Guerrero in Mexico, as well as those of the Mapuche peoples in Chile and Argentina or the Amazonian peoples. This logic of extractive cultural exploitation also prevents recognition, visibility and the right to remuneration for their knowledge. In this sense, it is theorized that these practices positively influence the destruction of the heritage and cultural rights of indigenous peoples and consequently the generation of multicultural spaces (Kymlicka, 1996), making policies of recognition of the other impossible (Taylor, 2009). From this perspective, the objective of this article is, first, to identify, describe and explain the predatory practices that threaten the identity and cultural heritage of the ñoomda-tu un savi women and, second, to propose a multicultural and intercultural model that allows for a positive and equitable connection of the ethnic products of Amuzga women in global capitalist circuits based on gender, class and ethnicity. The methodology applied was qualitative and validated from a critical perspective. The data collection techniques were semi-structured interviews and situated ethnography.