The mestizo gaze: Visualizing racism, citizenship, and rights in neoliberal Mexico

This article explores the connections between racism, citizenship, and processes of socio-political disenfranchisement, as expressed through visual practices in neoliberal Mexico. It introduces four notions: “the mestizo gaze,” “the scopic regime of mestizaje,” “generic indigeneity,” and “racial indigeneity”. The article follows the management by the Mexican Parliament and the National Human Rights Commission of the case of Ernestina Ascencio, an elder monolingual Nahua woman who died after soldiers brutally raped her. Through the analysis of visual and other textual representations, the article shows how the scopic regime of mestizaje shapes the politics of representation that foster the State’s disavowal of indigenous people as Mexicans and as subjects of rights. The article argues that, in Mexico, racism and citizenship operate as interlocking exclusionary systems that produce a racialized regime of privilege and oppression, based on processes of visibility and invisibilization ruled by the mestizo gaze and the scopic regime of mestizaje.