The women of the National Museum of Anthropology: a narrative of the absent at the Aztec exhibit

  • Melisa Muñoz Reyes Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla
  • Citlalli Reynoso Ramos Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla
  • Mariano Castellanos Arenas Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla
Keywords: museum, museum discourse, decoloniality, women

Abstract

Mexico’s National Museum of Anthropology, founded in 1964, functions as a legitimation space for Mexican national culture, and an ideologization space that reproduces a particular museographic discourse. The discourse that is shown within the museum, specifically the Aztec room, is partial and stereotyped, hierarchizing masculine over feminine. This article seeks to show the relationship of what is shown in the museum and the decoloniality theory, the last of which comes from the modernity-coloniality binomial, this will show that the tour of the museum, and the Aztec room, are part of a lineal evolutionist thinking, within which the Aztec feminine figure is thrown to the side.

Author Biographies

Citlalli Reynoso Ramos, Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla

Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades “Alfonso Vélez Pliego”

Mariano Castellanos Arenas, Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla

Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades “Alfonso Vélez Pliego”

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Published
2021-10-29
How to Cite
Muñoz Reyes, M., Reynoso Ramos, C., & Castellanos Arenas, M. (2021). The women of the National Museum of Anthropology: a narrative of the absent at the Aztec exhibit. Complutum, 32(2), 591-600. https://doi.org/10.5209/cmpl.78584