El cero identitario: pulsos, silencios y agencia en la trayectorialidad de las identidades culturales

Fernando Iván Garza Hernández; Luis Escobar L.-Dellamary

doi:10.22234/recu.202614.1469

Authors

Fernando Iván Garza Hernández Universidad Autónoma Indígena de México https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9244-460X
Luis Escobar L.-Dellamary Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1624-5702

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22234/recu.202614.1469

Keywords:

Cultural identity, intercultural education, indigenous peoples, decolonization, cultural diversity

Abstract

This article proposes a reconceptualization of identity based on ethnographic analysis in intercultural contexts, introducing the notion of identity zero as a point of dissolution and return from which identity trajectories emerge. The objective is to develop a theoretical framework that transcends the essentialism/constructivism dichotomy and provides interpretive tools consistent with contemporary developments in identity theory. We argue that identities are not linear continuities but agentive pulses conditioned by discursive circumstances. Through semi-structured video-recorded interviews, ethnographic records and multimodal discourse analysis, we worked with Yoreme students at the Indigenous Autonomous University of Mexico and with speakers from Yoreme communities in northern Sinaloa, demonstrating how identity zero operates as a threshold of classificatory suspension that enables forms of agency uncapturable by institutional intercultural frameworks.

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Author Biographies

Fernando Iván Garza Hernández, Universidad Autónoma Indígena de México

Mexican. Doctor in Education from the Autonomous University of Sinaloa (UAS). Honorable mention for the thesis The Identity Zero: Pulses, Silences, and Agency in the Trajectory of Cultural Identities at the Autonomous Indigenous University of Mexico (2026). He is a professor and researcher at the Autonomous Indigenous University of Mexico (UAIM), which is both his workplace and the field for his ethnographic research. Collaborator on the humanistic research project IH-2025-G-270, funded by the Secretariat of Science, Humanities, Technology, and Innovation (SECIHTI). Research focus: cultural identities in intercultural higher education, with special attention to Yoreme-speaking students from northern Sinaloa. Latest publication: Co-author of “The Paradox of Language Standardization: Equating Abstraction with Empirical Observation in Intercultural Discourse” (2025) [preprint].

Luis Escobar L.-Dellamary, Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa

Mexican. PhD from the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Affiliated with the School of Anthropological Sciences at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa (UAS) and member of the National System of Researchers (SNII). His work connects linguistics and cognitive sciences. He is the technical lead of the humanistic research project IH-2025-g-270, funded by the Secretariat of Science, Humanities, Technology, and Innovation (SECIHTI). Research areas: gesture, Mexican Sign Language (LSM), interactional linguistics, situated cognition, and enactivist and decolonial perspectives. Recent publications: “The Fluency of Intersubjective Reference: Pointing (IX) in Mexican Sign Language (LSM)” (2026) and co-author of “Naming the Other: Counter-exonyms and Identity Resistance in Marginalized Communities” (2025).

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