Protection or Peril? Colonial Jurisdictions and Ethnic Segregation in Mexico
Please arrive 5 minutes before event begins.
This paper uses evidence on long-gone historical district boundaries and capitals from the 16th to the late 18th centuries to trace the long-run impact of the colonial state on contemporary ethnic segregation in Mexico. Despite massive administrative reorganization and rural-urban migration since independence in 1821, results show that localities farther from colonial officials at the time hold a disproportionate share of indigenous population today relative to localities that were closer. This result is stronger in areas where the potential for extraction in colonial times was greater and where officials faced fewer checks to their power. Their persistence can be attributed to less productive communal landholdings (ejidos) and more reliance on primary sector activities (agriculture). To disentangle the effect of colonial jurisdictions from conditions that may enable ethnic segregation, I compare localities less than 20 kilometers from each other but that belonged to different colonial jurisdictions and exploit the relative distance to their respective former administrators as a source of exogenous variation. The results are consistent with indigenous groups seeking refuge far from the reach of colonial administrators — an alternative explanation for why ethnic segregation arises and persists over time.
Date: 30 October 2020, 16:00 (Friday, 3rd week, Michaelmas 2020)
Venue: Colloquium to be hosted on Zoom
Speaker: Jenny Guardado (Georgetown)
Organising department: Department of Politics and International Relations (DPIR)
Organisers: Petra Schleiter (DPIR), Nelson Ruiz (University of Oxford)
Part of: Politics Research Colloquium
Booking required?: Not required
Booking email: events@politics.ox.ac.uk
Audience: This colloquium is usually a closed event to members of Oxford, but this Michaelmas Term, we are delighted to be able to open this event to external attendees. Please email events@politics.ox.ac.uk to book your place using your official University email address. (If you are a member of Oxford, email us, and you can be added to the Politics Research Colloquium mailing list, you do not need to book your place and joining details will be emailed to you)
Editor: Hannah Vinten