When Sebastián Blas applied to UW History’s PhD program under the supervision of professor of Latin-American history Adam Warren, he was unaware of the surprises in store for him–Blas and Warren had much more in common than just their research interests.
Professor Warren has been involved with the Tepoztlán Institute for the Transnational History of the Americas in Mexico since 2011, even serving as the institute's co-director from 2022 to 2024. Located in the mountain town of Tepoztlán, not far from the outskirts of Mexico City, the institute hosts a week-long conference each summer for graduate students, scholars, artists, and activists whose work focuses on Latin America and the Caribbean; Tepoztlán also just happens to be the hometown of Sebastián! Thinking back, he believes he may have crossed paths with Warren in Tepotztlán well before he was his PhD advisor.
That chance encounter has grown into a valuable and fruitful working relationship for both Blas and Warren. Last summer, while still serving as institute co-director, Warren hired Sebastián to help organize the annual conference. In this role, he wrote a guide to Tepoztlán for conference participants which includes a brief history of the town, which is now incorporated into the institute's website. During the conference, Sebastián coordinated cultural activities, "I gave a tour of the town to conference participants. I showed them downtown, the local museum, the colonial convent, and a pyramid on a mountain in the outskirts of the town." He also drafted a statement about the institute's relationship to the people of Tepoztlán, something akin to a land acknowledgment but tailored to the particular politics of identity and belonging in Mexico. "Writing this document and reading it out to conference participants on the first day was very important for me."
Both Prof. Warren and Sebastián strongly support the institute's mission to host an "anti-conference-conference." Warren explains that, from his first time attending in 2011, he found the conference stretched his thinking, and he was really taken by the effort that went into creating something that was different from the typical conference. "Usually people read papers on panels that are too big, and there is never enough time for questions and meaningful discussion. We are trying to do something different." According to the institute's website, their mission is to "dispense with the professional politicking that reduces so many conferences to livestock shows." Sebastián agrees and adds that the conference feels more like a workshop with a series of theory readings in the mornings. "It's like being in a classroom with people who share the same interests."
The institute strives to enhance the real-time exchange between researchers based in the U.S. and Canada and scholars in Latin America and the Caribbean. To that end, the institute awards scholarships annually to participants from Latin America and the Caribbean who lack institutional resources to pay fees and fund their own travel. Sebastián really likes this approach and he especially appreciates that there is a sliding-scale fee system that offers reduced fees for graduate students from Latin America and the Caribbean as well as free child care for participants with kids. "All the kids end up having a fun summer camp together."
When asked why the institute was founded in Tepoztlán, Sebastián explained that his hometown has attracted the attention of scholars for about a century now. In the 1920s, after spending two years in Tepoztlán, U.S. anthropologist Robert Redfield published his study Tepoztlán, a Mexican Village (University of Chicago Press,1930). This work inspired other U.S. anthropologists to follow in his footsteps such as Oscar Lewis who went on to publish Life in a Mexican Village: Tepoztlán Restudied (University of Illinois Press, 1951) that re-examines Redfield’s work and the changes that occurred in the community during the twenty-year period between the studies. At a more local level, Tepoztlán gained attention for its opposition to infringement by outsiders. In the mid-1990s, in response to plans to build a luxury golf resort in Tepoztlán, which would have threatened the ecology of the area and taken a large portion of communal land, Blas explains, "The town halted the construction by force, going so far as to depose local officials." This attracted the interest of a group of graduate students in Mexico City who decided to visit the town and serve as vote counters during the 1995 elections. Eight years later, now professors, two of these participants decided to recreate the intellectual community they had experienced by organizing a weeklong gathering in Tepoztlán for graduate students, scholars, activists, and artists of Latin America and the Caribbean. From this initiative, the institute was born.
Talking to Sebastián about his work in Tepoztlán, it was easy to see the deep knowledge and love he has for his hometown, but he also holds an ambivalence about the power dynamics at play there. Despite growing up in Tepoztlán, he is not a Tepozteco, a descendant of families that can trace their ancestry in Tepoztlán back centuries. Even though he was raised there and can count a couple generations of his family as having lived there, they are not considered Tepoztecos. Being Tepozteco carries cultural and political weight, "For instance, ever since the Revolution of 1910, communities such as Tepoztlán have had their own communal land tenure arrangements derived from a generational relationship to the valley." For this reason, Sebastián does not want to speak on behalf of Tepoztecos and Tepoztlán. At the same time, though, he is aware that the intimate knowledge and sensitivity about the place he possesses is of benefit to conference participants. "Initially, I was hesitant to do the job but ultimately I did it because I figured it was better for me to do it than somebody else. I am aware of the local politics and I could bring at least this awareness to the conference." Warren learned a great deal about the relations among residents of the town from Sebastián that challenged him to examine his own understanding about issues of Indigeneity, community, and belonging in Tepoztlán. Sebastián also pushed members of the institute to think more seriously about their own role as participants in a tourist economy that overwhelms the town with outsiders who expect a performance of “rural authenticity” of the Tepoztecos while simultaneously bringing economic prosperity to the community. Opening up these ambiguities and encouraging conference participants to sit with that feeling of unease, was essential for Sebastián to convey.
When asked if his own research focuses on Tepoztlán as well, Sebastián laughs, "My second field advisor, Dr. Ileana M. Rodríguez-Silva, has often encouraged me to write my dissertation on my home because of my knowledge and connection to the town. But, I think it might one day become the topic of my second or third book instead." Nonetheless, his research is partially inspired by his years in Tepoztlán. Sebastián studies the colonial practices the Spanish Empire used to institutionalize and regulate Indigeneity in the sixteenth century, which ultimately also created the tools of Indigenous resistance. "While Iberians might have attempted to codify what it means to become 'Indian' during the early usage of the term, colonized populations soon began to appropriate the term for their own political aims and transform a violently imposed legal category into a means of resistance."
Who could have guessed that a chance encounter in a small mountain town on the outskirts of Mexico city would one day lead to Sebastián and Warren working so closely together on a topic they both care so deeply about? While Warren may be Sebastián’s advisor, he himself has learned so much from Sebastián during their collaboration, "Working with Sebastián on the Tepoztlán Institute was terrific not just because of his deep knowledge and relationship with the place, but also because he is so thoughtful and considerate in everything he does."