Between Otherness and Sameness
The Quintana Roo Territory, in the Southeast of México, on the border with Belize, was established in 1902. In this peripheral region, the population is a strategic issue of sovereignty and national identity. This research conducts a historical anthropology bearing on the racialization of immigration policies, the introduction of measures of integration and development of the region and the negotiations between the central government (México) and the capital of Quintana Roo Territory (Payo Obispo, Chetumal). It focuses on the emergence of a new political and administrative entity in the margins of the nation and relocates México in the heart of post-slavery migrations. Thus, analyzing the case of the « black foreigner », it introduces a non-Indian « otherness » in the reflections on the nation, mestizaje and race.