On the correct training of indio s in the handicraft market at chichén itzá: tactics and tactility of gender, class, race and state

In 1983, an invasion by 300 vendors of food, beverage and artisanry began of the archaeological‐touristic site of Chichén, Itzá, México; this provoked several crises. Here I consider one dimension of this crisis and conflictual situation that deals with the state attempt to impose control and proper order on the invading venders. This essay develops an analysis of the ambivalences and duplicitous dynamics of power so as to 1)reconsider the nature of hegemony, 2)to rethink the notion of resistance and return it to a de Certeauian problematic, and 3) to locate an analysis of governmentality between “top‐down” and “bottom‐up” narratives of the state through an analysis of the disciplinary and policing mechanisms.