Abstract
The Mexican census attempts to identify the country’s indigenous population based on the criteria of self-ascription and “use of language.” This analysis reflects on fluctuations in both variables and contradictions: the data collected shows that indigenous identity is not restricted to those who speak an indigenous language. Based on the analysis of Mexico’s 2000 and 2010 censuses, and the 2015 inter-census survey, this chapter recognizes that many people who identify as indigenous will not officially be identified as such and contends that using “language use” as the sole indigenous identification criterion produces a statistical underestimation.
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Calleros, H., Ibarra, I. (2022). Indigenous and Mexican Identities in Census Counting. In: Baikady, R., Sajid, S., Przeperski, J., Nadesan, V., Islam, M.R., Gao, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Global Social Problems. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68127-2_50-1
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