The INAH “is clear about its needs”

At the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) “there is always an atmosphere of controversy, plural and critical, vibrant. Let it continue like this. How boring it would be if everyone said: ‘yes, Mr. Director,'” said Diego Prieto, who was ratified by President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo to continue leading that body, in which there will be the next six years. continuity with change.

This was explained by the anthropologist, who has been directing the INAH since August 2016, when the then federal Secretary of Culture, Rafael Tovar y de Teresa, appointed him in charge after the resignation of Teresa Franco. In December 2018, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador ratified him as general director.

In interview with The Day, The official, who from 1995 to 2010 was director of the INAH Querétaro Center, reiterated that the institute, although it is strong until 2024, has many gaps, lags and deficiencies, but this is how it has been forged, with growing challenges that require growing resources that do not exist. That is why we must take charge of increasing self-generated resources, as well as creating policies so that sectors of society contributeamong other actions.

Regarding the request that members of the National Union of Professors of Scientific Research and Teaching of the INAH made to Sheinbaum so that Prieto was not ratified, accusing him, among other points, of obstructing research, increasing bureaucracy, violating labor rights and impoverishing assets cultural by focusing all resources on the Mayan Train project, the academic also rejected that, in this last aspect, any area has been punished.

“We were never told: ‘take budget away from something to give it to the Mayan Train.’ There has always been a lack of resources to do research. When I arrived at INAH Querétaro, in 1995, I was told that the previous year there had not been a peso for this activity, and an archaeologist, to give me peace of mind, proposed: ‘let’s take the opportunity to write.’

“It’s a bit like what happened to us during the pandemic, not only were there no resources, but there was also no way to do field work, because everything was closed. We take the opportunity to write. Furthermore, the President did not deceive anyone; He said that investment efforts were going to focus on the south, southeast and the Yucatan Peninsula; That meant that INAH had additional resources to undertake these tasks. Yes, we focused our attention there, but we also attended places such as the San Juan de Ulúa Fort, in Veracruz; the San Diego Fort, in Acapulco, as well as the former Hermosillo penitentiary, in Sonora, and the Cocóspera Mission, both in this same state, among others.

Now the train from the north is coming, let’s take advantage of this. President Sheinbaum has just announced that she will make trains for the center and the north, and the INAH will be there; This means that we will find resources for projects in those areas, even on the northern border. We are a government institution while remaining a cutting-edge education and research entity; So we have to go hand in hand with the government’s priorities, not fighting with them, and we have to be aware of the general priorities that the country has.

Prieto Hernández reiterated that the INAH has never been in jail. “We have many needs, and I am pleased that our colleagues from the unions (there are six of them) are always aware that there is a resource and that there is no shortage. The good thing about our groups is that they not only fight for their own benefits and benefits, but also for the defense of INAH and heritage; I like that. In that speech they are sometimes very emphatically determined to fight for more, and that’s good.

“We are going to fight too, but we must keep in mind that we cannot always achieve 100. That is what institutional management is about: knowing that there are maximums and minimums. We must defend the minimum program without ceasing to emphasize the maximum, because perhaps we will hit it.

“For example, I never imagined that this year we would have a budget forecast of 8 billion pesos. There was an increase that was a message that the INAH is important, we must recognize it. Today we are the best-known cultural institution in Mexico, the only one that has a presence throughout the country, and we are not only focused on the Mayan Train.

So, as President Sheinbaum said, we must govern for everyone, that means recognizing that at the INAH there is everything, colleagues who support different ideologies, theoretical and methodological positions, as well as ideas about what research should be. But in all of this a clear commitment to science, critical thinking and society prevails.

In the talk, Prieto Hernández celebrated that at the institute “there is an atmosphere of controversy, plural and critical, vibrant.” Photo Roberto García Ortiz

Goals

For the six-year term that is already underway, the director of the institute points out among some of his goals: to generate a much more consistent research policy, to have greater regulatory strength and to increase the cultural presence of Mexico in the United States.

He explained that the INAH has around 865 researchers, who “have to take charge of the responsibility we have towards society, which is what pays us. There are some very good ones and a few that make you want to wonder what they do; They and the union know that, it is commonplace. That is why we have to strengthen a research policy where resources flow to solvent research, evaluated by peers, with specific goals and with a series of accents on collective work, because contemporary research must be collective.

Yes, there are great geniuses, but these also occur in the midst of work teams, in training projects that favor multi- and transdisciplinary work, and that address the academic, legal and social tasks of the institute.

Thanks to the Mayan Train, he continued, the INAH had this year a total special provisionof just over 8 billion pesos; “We must try to grow those resources. Imagine that we could have it in 2025, as the kids in the city would say. prepa: With that we already did it.”

Prieto Hernández highlighted that now the body in his charge “is very clear about its needs, because before the accounts were all rewritten. The main thing we need is to regularize our chapter 1000 (which organizes workers’ compensation), so that the general working conditions have a budgetary basis.

“In some cases, more than money we need to restructure the budget to sufficiently provide chapter 1000, and thus take care of what always happens: transfers from other chapters to 1000, since there we are left with liabilities.

We also need a provision, even if it is not immense, for the maintenance of our infrastructures, which are far behind, not from six years ago, but from 20 or 30 years ago, and we need to maintain what happened this year: to have a provision for a program to regularize land tenure in archaeological zones, in order to overcome the problems we have with individuals whose properties are in areas close to the heritage.

New declarations

Diego Prieto is optimistic about the future, commenting that, before, “INAH was alone, quixotically fighting for a heritage. Now we are accompanied, that is why we were able to recover more than 14 thousand cultural, archaeological and historical assets. Before, the institute was fighting and more or less pulling a bit on the chancellery, on Interpol; Now the entire diplomatic apparatus is our ally thanks to the intervention of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“They are qualitative differences that may not be noticed, but we are more accompanied and that in the long run will result in the essential resources arriving.

“Throughout the territory we have good directors of the INAH centers, archaeologists, custodians, architects, restorers, museographers, educational promoters, researchers. We have ready the files of 19 declarations that recognize the historical and cultural values ​​of a locality, and perhaps in this government we will achieve 28, which would be fabulous, because it will help us to have much greater strength in the care of historical centers or archaeological zones.

“Without making a big fuss, we have also cleaned the INAH of people who behaved with little honesty, in accordance with the line of work against corruption proposed by the now former president López Obrador.

All this means that we are going to continue working hard so that what the government does in cultural matters is known and strengthened. We are going to work with the new federal Secretary of Culture, Claudia Curiel de Icaza, with the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature, with Popular Cultures, with the National Institute of Indigenous Languages, with the Mexican Institute of Cinematography… We are part of an impressive cultural network; So, for the next six years, the INAH looks very goodhe concluded.