Minerals, Collecting, and Value across the US-Mexico Border

Elizabeth Emma Ferry

Description

Minerals as objects of desire, commerce, and study

Elizabeth Emma Ferry traces the movement of minerals as they circulate from Mexican mines to markets, museums, and private collections on both sides of the US-Mexico border. She describes how and why these byproducts of ore mining come to be valued by people in various walks of life as scientific specimens, religious offerings, works of art, and luxury collectibles. The story of mineral exploration and trade defines a variegated transnational space, shedding new light on the complex relationship between these two countries and on the process of making value itself.

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Making Value and U.S.-Mexican Space
1. Histories, Mineralogies, Economies
2. Shifting Stones: Mineralogy and Mineral Collecting in Mexico and the United States
3. Making Scientific Value
4. Mineral Collections and Their Minerals: Building Up U.S.-Mexican Transnational Spaces
5. Making Places in Space: Miners and Collectors in Guanajuato and Tucson
6. Mineral Marketplaces, Arbitrage, and the Production of Difference
Conclusion
Appendix: Sources and Methods
Notes
References
Index

Sujets

• HISTORY
• Histoire
• México
• Mexico ? United States relations
• Latin America
• History of science
• History of the Americas
• Anthropology
• Mexico

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 19 juin 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253009487
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

M INERALS , C OLLECTING , AND V ALUE ACROSS THE U.S.-M EXICO B ORDER
TRACKING GLOBALIZATION Robert J. Foster, editor
Editorial advisory board
Mohammed Bamyeh Lisa Cartwright Randall Halle
M INERALS , C OLLECTING , AND V ALUE ACROSS THE U.S.-M EXICO B ORDER

E LIZABETH E MMA F ERRY
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS Bloomington and Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS Office of Scholarly Publishing Herman B Wells Library 350 1320 East 10th Street Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
Telephone orders 800-842-6796 Fax orders 812-855-7931
2013 by Elizabeth Emma Ferry
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ferry, Elizabeth Emma.
Minerals, collecting, and value across the U.S.-Mexico border / Elizabeth Emma Ferry.
pages cm - (Tracking globalization)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-00928-9 (cloth : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-00936-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-00948-7 (electronic book) 1. Minerals-Collection and preservation-United States. 2. Minerals-Collection and preservation-Mexico. 3. Rock collectors. 4. Mineral industries-Social aspects. 5. United States-Commerce-Mexico. 6. Mexico-Commerce-United States. I. Title.
QE392.5.U5F47 2013
382 .45549972-dc23 2013001007
1 2 3 4 5 18 17 16 15 14 13
To David, Sebastian, and Isaiah
C ONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Making Value and U.S.-Mexican Space
1 Histories, Mineralogies, Economies
2 Shifting Stones: Mineralogy and Mineral Collecting in Mexico and the United States
3 Making Scientific Value
4 Mineral Collections and Their Minerals: Building Up U.S.-Mexican Transnational Spaces
5 Making Places in Space: Miners and Collectors in Guanajuato and Tucson
6 Mineral Marketplaces, Arbitrage, and the Production of Difference
Conclusion
Appendix: Sources and Methods
Notes
References
Index
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
So many people have helped me with this project, it is hard even to know where to begin. However, I will start in Guanajuato, where I first got the idea from seeing miners sell minerals, use them as religious offerings, and give them as gifts. My particular thanks go to Cirilo Palacios and his family, Pancho and Domingo Granados, Alejandra G mez, Elia M nica Z rate, and Ada Marina Lara Meza. In Mexico City, thanks to Mar a Guadalupe Villase or, Juan Carlos Miranda, Oscar Irazaba, and Oscar Escamilla. Among those whom I met in Tucson and Colorado, I am particularly indebted to Dennis Beals, Peter Megaw, and Wendell Wilson, as well as to Terry Wallace, Steve Smale, Tom Gressman, Mike New, Herb Obodda, Gene Schlepp, and Carole Lee, among others. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, thanks to Carl Francis, Alden Carpenter, and the members of the Boston Mineral Club, especially Jim Catterton and Nate Martin. In Mapim , L zaro de Anda and Mario Pecina were particularly kind and helpful. At the Smithsonian Institution, Pamela Henson, Jeffrey Post, Pete Dunn, and James Luhr went out of their way to educate and guide me. Lawrence Conklin, William Panczner, and George Hoke provided me with valuable historical information and materials. Rub n Lechuga Paredes and Vera Regehr, both, at the time, doctoral students at the Universidad Iberoamericana, served as gifted research assistants in Mapim . Thomas Moore of the Mineralogical Record reviewed the geological and mineralogical discussions in the book and went above and beyond in editing my prose.
The project has also benefited from the tremendous help of my anthropological and other colleagues, particularly: Mark Auslander, Manduhai Buyandelger, Josiah Heyman, Sarah Hill, Robert Hunt, Smita Lahiri, Sarah Lamb, Ann Marie Leshkowich, Mandana Limbert, Caitrin Lynch, Roger Magazine, Carlota McAllister, Janet McIntosh, Paul Nadasdy, Rich ard Parmentier, Heather Paxson, Smitha Radhakrishnan, Leslie Salzinger, Karen Strassler, Ajantha Subramanian, Christine Walley, and David Wood. My thanks go, as always, to my advisors and mentors, especially to Katherine Verdery, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Sidney Mintz, Gillian Feeley-Harnik, and Fernando Coronil. Many thanks to Robert Foster for his support for this project in an early phase and his patience as I slowly got it finished. Thanks to my editor and assistant editor Rebecca Tolen and Sarah Jacobi for all their help and guidance and to two anonymous reviewers for Indiana University Press. I am also indebted to the Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Program, The Newhouse Center for the Humanities at Wellesley College, and the Brandeis Latin American and Latino Studies Program and Norman Fund for Faculty Research. Audiences at Brandeis University, Cornell University, Harvard University, Wesleyan University, SUNY Albany, Boston College, el Colegio de Michoac n, and Universidad Iberoamericana heard earlier versions of some chapters and provided useful comments. An earlier (and quite different) version of chapter 5 was published in American Ethnologist under the title Geologies of Power: Value Transformations of Minerals from Guanajuato, Mexico.
M INERALS , C OLLECTING, AND V ALUE ACROSS THE U.S.-M EXICO B ORDER
I NTRODUCTION: M AKING V ALUE AND U.S.-M EXICAN S PACE
This book traces the movements of minerals-discrete bits of the earth s crust like the ones commemorated in two series of postage stamps issued in the United States and Mexico ( figures 0.1 and 0.2 )-as they circulate from Mexican mines through markets and museums in Mexico and the United States. These objects are valued in many different ways: as scientific artifacts, collectibles, religious offerings, commodities (some cheap, some very pricy), and gifts. This book explores the range of things that people in Mexico and the United States think about and do with minerals, as well as what minerals do as actors in their own right. These practices surrounding minerals depend on mining, museum and private collecting, and scientific research, all crucial areas in the relationship between Mexico and the United States over the past 150 years. I look at the transactions through which minerals are created as valuable, and further, at how people and minerals create value together and thus create many other things: objects, knowledge, people, places, markets, and so on. This attention to value gives us a new perspective on the United States and Mexico and the connections between them. But to begin thinking about these bigger questions, we need some idea of what kind of things we are talking about. What do I mean by minerals?
Definition: Mineral
1. A naturally occurring inorganic element or compound having an orderly internal structure and characteristic chemical composition, crystal form, and physical properties. 1
-Dictionary of Mining, Mineral, and Related Terms
From this definition, we already know several things. Minerals are not made by humans. They are not organic. Because they have an orderly internal structure, they are not gases or liquids. They are identifiably distinct materials-that is, they are not rocks, which are agglomerations of minerals formed through geologic processes. So far, so good.

FIGURE 0.1. America s Mineral Heritage U.S. postage stamps, 1974.

FIGURE 0.2. Minerales Mexicanos Mexican postage stamps, 2005.
However, this only takes us part of the way to understanding the protagonists of this story, which can be defined far more specifically. Minerals can be melted down as ore or cut into gemstones. We ingest them in our food and water and make them into components of objects such as watches, radios, lampshades, and bombs. They can be used in many ways, although most of these instances lie outside the scope of this book. I focus on minerals that are used as distinct objects in their own right rather than as ingredients or components of something else, in the form of by-products of ore mining, scientific specimens, collectors specimens, religious offerings, and natural art. I am primarily concerned with three fields where minerals are valued: ore mining, mineral collecting, and mineralogy. All of the minerals I consider here are found in Mexico and are used in Mexico and the United States.
A few illustrations may help make clear the kinds of issues and objects under consideration.
Denver, Colorado, 2005: At the Denver Gem and Mineral Show, in one of the hotels where dealers rented rooms to display their wares, I met a middle-aged U.S. man looking at some trays set up near the vending machines. As we peered at thumbnail specimens of malachite and azurite (green and blue copper minerals), I told him about my research. He responded enthusiastically and said, A mineral person looking at a mineral is like a mother looking at her baby. It s a spiritual thing. Sometimes when a stone is coming to me, I will dream in that color for weeks. There s a deep pleasure there.
Mapim , Durango, 2007: A dealer who runs the small store at the municipal museum in Mapim , a dusty mining town in northern Mexico whose population has shrunk over the course of the twentieth century, invited me t