The Intercultural Autonomous University of Mexico “Foxite”: history and utopia of a Mazahua university project A Universidade Autónoma Intercultural do México “Foxite”: história e utopia de um projeto universitário Mazahua

Abstract

This text offers a reflection aimed at historicizing and analyzing the political postulates that preceded the creation of the Intercultural University of the State of Mexico (UIEM). For this purpose, it resorts to testimonies and documents left by various protagonists, indigenous and non-indigenous, who participated directly in the project of formation of the Intercultural Autonomous University of Mexico “Foxite” (UAIMF), as well as in the formation of a proposal for bilingual and pluricultural education proposal that emerged from a local ethnopolitical movement; both processes constitute direct antecedents of the UIEM. From the analysis of these materials, it is concluded that the decision to omit the surnames “indigenous” or “Mazahua”, as well as to exclude the reference to “Foxite” in the name of the university, responds to more than semantic considerations: it reflects political disputes and agreements between local actors —indigenous and non-indigenous—, the government of the State of Mexico and the Mexican federal government. It is further argued that this name change has had and continues to have practical repercussions on the way in which transversal concepts are currently conceived and applied within the Mexican intercultural university model, as well as in the political-administrative structure of the institution. In order to illustrate how notions such as interculturality, indigenous identity and ethnic revindication are applied on a daily basis in the classrooms of the UIEM, the experiences of a professor-researcher of the UIEM, who participates as co-author of this paper, are presented.