A Eulogy For TheColoso
The Politics Of Commemoration In Calderón's Mexico
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2170230 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Tania Islas Weinstein (0000-0002-6088-8318, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 475-499 |
| Publication date | 2015-10-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1356-9325 • E-ISSN: 1469-9575 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13569325.2015.1098596 |
| OpenAlex | W2291103361 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 17 |
In 2010, ten years after Mexico’s so-called ‘transition to democracy,’ the country commemorated two hundred years of independence and one hundred years of revolution. To celebrate, the state spent nearly 230 million dollars on diverse sites of memory, mass spectacles, and works of art. These commemorative projects, including the controversial, gigantic statue dubbed the Coloso, triggered extensive debates that addressed the country’s myriad contemporary political issues. These discussions revealed a growing disappointment with electoral democracy and an increasing anxiety about the war on the drug trade launched by president Felipe Calderón. The state’s manifestation of power during the celebrations was paradoxically seen as a reminder of its inability to curb the growing violence, and the commemorations were widely regarded as a failure. This paper examines this failure by analyzing how the Coloso generated political discourses that fostered new forms of resistance and critique. Soon after its display, the statue was abandoned and inadvertently became an ephemeral monument. This paper argues that the literal rise and fall of the Coloso is symptomatic of the state’s increasing inability to control the nation’s symbolic landscape
Art history · Democracy · Disappointment · Economic history · Eulogy · Independence (probability theory · Media studies · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Resistance (ecology · Sociology · State (computer science · Statue · History · Law · Politics and Society in Latin America
The texture of memory
Civic War and the Corruption of the Citizen
Peripheral Visions
Between Past and Future
Viva Mexico! Viva la Independencia
Ambiguities of Domination
Cloning Terror
Benjamín Argumedo y los colorados de La Laguna
Collecting Mexico
The Organization of Political Ideology
Bl
Mexico City
Times of Crisis
Echoes of the Mexican revolution
Seeing a State
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |