The Community Determines the Programme! Impressions from a site visit at RELIC partner Guanajuato
From 16 May to 21 May, 2025, I had the honour of meeting and consulting colleagues leading the MA “Sociedad y Patrimonio” at the Universidad de Guanajuato in Mexico as part of the Erasmus Mundus Joint Design project “Religion and Critical Heritage Studies: Towards an MA in Responsible Cultural Leadership” (RELIC), led by the Heritage and Religion team at the University of Groningen. Guanajuato’s programme in Society and Heritage, which boasts also a UNESCO World Heritage chair in in Legislation, Society and Heritage, is a leading Heritage programme in Mexico, and in Latin America broadly. While I had met some of the Guanajuato team before during their visit to Groningen in March 2025, naturally I was excited to learn more about their programme, their heritage contexts, and how they approach critical heritage studies on the ground.
Guanajuato is a city of about 200 000 inhabitants and state capital of Guanajuato State, that is nestled in a narrow valley, about 2000m above sea level, in central Mexico. Mra. Rosa María Pérez Vargas, Director the University’s Public Administration programme expertly coordinated my visit, despite a very busy schedule hosting an international conference in public administration that happened started during my stay. Rosa María kindly met me at the airport and put me in a university car to drive across the dry surroundings about half an hour to the city.
It is difficult to put into words the extraordinary burst of colour and life that greets you as you emerge from the extensive tunnel system leading into the city. The light is intense, the colours saturated, and the streets jostling. After settling in my hotel, Mra. Ada Marina Lara Meza, who is administrative secretary of the UNESCO chair, and a leading figure in the heritage programme, and her husband immediately took me to one of their favourite places to eat: fried chiles, an extraordinary black mole sauce, soft tacos, and my first taste of pulque, a beverage made with the fermented sap of the maguey (agave) plant. The food was fantastic, but what struck me most was the genuine contact that Ada and her husband had with the owner whom they had known for many years, and the ease with which they spoke together about what is central to their approach to heritage: the communities of Guanajuato, their needs and struggles.
On Day Two Ada and Rosa María gave me a wonderful tour of the historic centre of Guanajuato and its impressive churches, markets, and immaculately clean public parks (I was struck by how extraordinarily clean all the public spaces were). May is a month of special devotion to Mary in much of Latin America, and as we were returning towards my accommodation, we came across one of the nightly processions in honour of the Virgin: on this occasion it was an endlessly long parade of taxis festively decorated, and filled with family-members and friends, which slowly and noisily made its way to the basilica for a blessing.
On Sunday, a rest day, I took a bus to the nearby baroque jewel of a city, San Miguel de Allende, and from there a taxi to the Sanctuary of Atotonilco. This UNESCO heritage site, known affectionately as the Mexican Sistine Chapel, is an extraordinary combination of devotion, the deployment spatial techniques, and baroque mural art, which I came to learn about through the research of Dr Mauricio Oviedo, who completed his PhD at Groningen, and is now professor of art history at the Universidad de Costa Rica. The church of the sanctuary was filled to standing room only with the pilgrims and worshippers for mass. Outside under the straw awning, the soft blue-corn tacos, the mole, roasted peppers, and tamales were also heavenly.
Monday was a busy day of meetings with university officials at the university, located in the University’s impressive central buildings in the historic centre. It was inspiring to learn from Dr Felipe Macías Gloria, the academic coordinator of the programme, and the holder of the UNESCO chair, about the core vision of their approach to heritage education. For Guanajuato, Dr Macías underlined, the community is not only central, but leading in their approach to heritage. Local communities themselves set the research and learning agenda of students, and benefit directly from the students learning and instructions. On this basis, Guanajuato has built a leading heritage programme attracting students from across Mexico and an international profile of which they are rightly proud. Meetings with Dr Leandro Eduardo Astrain Bañuelos (Dean of the Faculty of Law, Politics and Government), Dr Susana Martínez Nava (Director of the Department of Law), and Mra. Virgini Sophie Paultrat discussed the University’s strong support of our collaboration, and willingness to support the Erasmus Mundus measure in whatever way possible.
On Day Three, I travelled with Ada and Felipe to the Centro INAH Guanajuato, the state’s base for the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, the Mexican federal bureau for research into and preservation, protection, and promotion of all heritage in Mexico. At the centre, sited in a beautiful old hacienda, we met with students of heritage MA programme, and with researchers at INAH. Among other things, they discussed adapting to the challenges of new technologies to safeguard Guanajuato’s precious heritage. For example, representatives of INAH described the unforeseen impact on local communities of using drones to survey archaeologic sites in remote and dangerous regions. When communities reported feeling as though they were being surveiled by the state, researchers developed new collaborations to use less invasive satellite imaging which enables them to detect damage to sites due to fire, vandalism, or theft, that would otherwise be difficult or expensive to access. They also showed how 3d printing technology was enabling to open new avenues of research in archaeological finds, and discussed the role of INAH in conversations with local government officials and property owners to ensure that historical monuments are well preserved.
Most impressive of all, however, were the students’ own brief presentations. There is not space here to describe them all, but two of their projects in particular stood out for their sensitivity and passionate engagement. One student was conducting research on the songs of his own indigenous group, helping community members to develop children’s education programmes and means of recording the songs so that they are not lost: the student had organised a concert of the songs, and as a singer himself performed one of them for us all. His commitment and his profound understanding and care for the heritage he was at work to preserve was palpable. Another student was studying the cooking traditions of elderly women in her community who used (and knew where to find) local indigenous plants for their recipes. Again, the embeddedness in the needs of local community members was impressive.
In the afternoon, I had the opportunity to visit with Ada one of the city’s many museums, the Museo Regional de Guanajuato Alhóndiga de Granaditas. The museum is housed in an enormous and rather foreboding colonial-era grain storage building. The building was stormed by the Catholic priest, and prominent leader of Mexican independence, Miguel Hildalgo y Costilla during the Mexican War of Independence. Hildago and three other leaders of the struggle were eventually captured, excommunicated, and executed, their heads being posted at the four corners of the building as a grim warning against future insurrection. The museum therefore serves at once as an important repository of archaeological and historical material cultures of the city, a home of a powerful series of murals by José Chávez Morado, a monument of enormous wealth and power of the colonial power and of its cruelty, and as a shrine to fallen heroes fighting for freedom. Ada and I visited another monument to Hildago overlooking the city bathed in afternoon light before returning to university just in time to catch a meserizing ballet folklórico performed by a student troupe.
The days were extraordinarily rich, inspiring, and rewarding. What a privilege it will be to work with these scholars and their communities!
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.