Ancestral Barter in Contemporary Morelos: sustainable practices that build regional development

Webinar series

“Intangible Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Development”

Organized by the UNESCO Chair on
Intangible Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Development

CY Cergy Paris Université
CY Advanced Studies - CY Initiative of Excellence
UMR Héritages : Culture/s, Patrimoine/s, Création/s

Session 2

Ancestral Barter in Contemporary Morelos:
sustainable practices that build regional development

Crsitina Amescua, UNESCO Chair in research on intangible cultural heritage and cultural diversity
Centro Regional de Investigaciones Multidisciplinarias. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

15/12/2022 14.00-16.00 CET

By videoconference
https://cnrs.zoom.us/j/94804224217?pwd=TTZjZTN1Q2ZnclJIN2c1WFo0amJrdz09
Meeting id : 948 0422 4217
Secret code : g3HqFM

There are multiple ways in which sustainable development is understood and enacted at the local and regional levels. I will discuss these issues drawing from a case in a region in central Mexico, where a barter market (along with the commercial market) is held every Sunday in the town of Zacualpan de Amilpas, Morelos, interconnecting people from the highlands and the lowlands of the Popocatepetl Volcano. As the grand parents of their grandparents did, today people from this region collect natural (not cultivated) products from their lands (fruits, vegetables, wood) as well as other products they manufacture (cloths, pottery, coal) and go to Zacualpan to trade what they have for what they need or want. In doing so, they take care of their environment, they create social bonds, exchange knowledges and skills, and ensure a healthier and more varied diet for their families during the week. A wide variety of non monetary transactions are carried out as negotiations take place in nahuatl and spanish to agree on the value of the elements to be exchanged. Barter is a very complete example of how Intangible cultural heritage is at the same time a reservoir of local knowledges and a mechanism to constantly build solid and cohesive communities and groups.

Discussant: Regina Bendix, Institute for Cultural Anthropology/European Ethnology, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen.

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