Popular and Transnational Indigenisms Regarding the Early 20th Century Tarahumaras: The conception of modernity based on sports, photography and the cinema

This paper is based on the idea that, alongside the official indigenism, popular indigenisms helped to define the means for Mexico to reach modernity, focusing on regions, nations and cross-border zones. Since the 1920's, such indigenisms privileged Tarahumaras in the fields of sports, photography and the cinema, placing them at the center of the debate on Mexican nationality and ascribing them with valuable qualities for modernity. Based on the analysis of transnational practices and networks of different actors (such as Luis Marquez), I prove the importance of these commercial and experimental projects for the circulation of primitivist images of Tarahumaras as icons of a collective identity in the Mexican-US transnational context. This indigenous group is still credited with the capacity to contribute to the global competitiveness of [trans]nations.