Abstract: Politics of the Past & Material Expressions of ‘Frenchness’ in the Municipio of San Rafael, Mexico 

The proposed fieldwork is part of a multi-year, interdisciplinary investigation of the material dimensions of the French colonial presence in the municipio of San Rafael, Veracruz, Mexico, and its legacies in the present. Through the combined lens of archaeology, history, ethnography, and heritage studies, it questions assumptions surrounding the history of French migrants in the region and their integration into the political-cultural space of Mexico. Of particular concern is the way in which ‘Frenchness’ has been ‘exceptionalized’ in the past, and deployed in the present to justify forms of discrimination and political domination by the descendants of French families, especially toward people of indigenous descent. My hypothesis is that these narratives camouflage a complex history, which can critically inform political debates in the present. I also contend that the material world – the domain of architecture, space, and objects – holds acute pertinence about how Frenchness has been constructed and misused in San Rafael.