Between the State and Indigenous Autonomy: Unpacking Video Indígena in Mexico

This essay unpacks the complex emergence of video indígena , or state-sponsored small media, at the height of official pluralism in Mexico in the early 1990s. A government video program created in a transitional institutional setting colludes with the indigenous autonomy movement---through the work and visions of individual video makers and cultural activists---to produce a social form and process that has gained international recognition while confronting particular challenges in indigenous communities.