Estudios Fronterizos (Jul 2002)
From made up communities to invisible communities: Toward a framework for the study of Baja California’s Yumans
Abstract
This paper focuses on the construction of social networks and ethnicity among the Yuman indigenous people of Baja California, Mexico. By questioning the traditional view of the Yumans as decimated and culturally assimilated groups, this paper suggests a new theoretical framework to approach the alleged dissipation of distinctive Yuman populations. Central concepts of this framework are the notions of transnational community, hyperspace and polybian. According to the author, these concepts applied to field-research may reveal how the Yumans remain engaged in the elaboration of new forms of social organization and ethnic self-references, through the construction of wide social networks that include (although it is not limited to) the linguistically-related groups living in the United States.
