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I am requesting NEH support to complete a historical ethnography about the discursive and representational practices through which claims to cultural distinction and indigeneity have been debated in Oaxaca, Mexico. I explore nineteenth century debates about property and genealogy, post-revolutionary state and educational programs, and the gendered visual canons of cultural type. I argue that culture in Oaxaca is conceived of as at once a natural or genealogical connection to locality, and a personal attribute that must be constantly worked on and secured. Ethnographic analysis focuses on suspicion and uncertainty as responses to this notion of culture.