An intersection of heritagisation and securitisation in postcolonial Mexican communities

Heritage in postcolonial settings has many dimensions that require in-depth exploration. This research aims to study critical forms of heritage and security through local perspectives in postcolonial settings in order explore to what extent can heritagisation and securitisation have a link in postcolonial communities. Mexico is filled with a mixture of socio-cultural practices, perceptions, and discourses of community-making from official and unofficial perspectives as part of a postcolonial setting. Yet, in times of insecurity due to rising crime and violence, (in)security perceptions and practices may be intertwined with heritage practices and discourses. This connection requires further analysis in order to understand the potentials layers that heritagisation may arise for community implications as can be with (in)security in Comonfort, San Miguel de Allende, and Celaya in the state of Guanajuato in Mexico. In this research, I aim to advance an understanding of heritagisation in postcolonial settings by showing that critical heritage, as a complex field, requires more research towards other regions and other disciplines by exploring an intersection with critical security studies. The study examines this junction through the methodological approach of collective and comparative case studies with ethnographic approaches, employing several methods such as participant observation, ethnographic interviews, surveys, and problem-centred interviews. Through triangulation of data collection and interpretation based on grounded theory, my inquiry captures participants’ perspectives on top-down and bottom-up heritagisation with securitisation conceptions; thus, gathering crucial insights and explaining the socio-cultural linkage between the two fields. The chosen methods offer an understanding into a postcolonial methodology, critical perspective, and constructivist paradigm from the proposed intersection. This dialogue points out to the diverse layers of complexities of heritage-making in regard to community-making connected to security-making. In conclusion, this research prompts in presenting a nexus between heritagisation and securitisation in postcolonial communities relating critical heritage and critical security studies in Mexico, and calls to further explore pluriversality of heritage and security practices related to community implications under postcolonial condition.