The notion of person in Mesoamerica: a dialogue of perspectives

Abstract

In this work, we will describe how the concepts of body and person have been introduced in Mexican anthropology and how the study of this particular subject has contributed to understanding the Mesoamerican native peoples. Through a historical overview, we’ll explain how different research perspectives have produced different kinds of data according to political interests. Nevertheless, the intention of this article is also to criticize all those anthropologists who have tended to adopt exogenous concepts and theories without a previous analysis.