Identify a source
If you hold a photograph or document, share what you know of its place, date and provenance.
Practice notebooks · Totonacapan Institute
Cooperation begins with a shared matter
Communities of practice form around something worth doing: repairing an object, learning a technique, understanding a document, sustaining cultivation or opening an investigation. The Institute’s cooperation begins with that specific matter and the people able to contribute to it.
Caring for the conditions of an encounter
The essays on Posadas describe a quiet task: knowing who holds a memory, which workshop maintains a practice, which archive may help and when it is better to wait. Curating an encounter means listening to the problem and preparing conditions in which people can work together. Trust needs time and clear responsibilities.
A contribution may take the form of identifying a photograph, sharing testimony, demonstrating a craft, reviewing a translation, proposing a research question or agreeing access to a tool. People living elsewhere may maintain connections through correspondence, learning and care for family archives.
A possible cooperation pathway
- Present the matter: describe the question, practice or material and its connection with Totonacapan.
- Recognise the people involved: who contributes, who decides and whom the work should benefit.
- Agree a proportionate task: a record, review, encounter or investigation with understandable aims and limits.
- Preserve and return: document the work, recognise contributions and share the result under agreed conditions.
The Institute welcomes proposals for cultural, documentary and research cooperation. An initial conversation helps establish the context and define the next step together.
Three ways to take part
Choose a starting point based on what you can contribute.
Share a craft
Describe the practice, how it is learned and what could be documented.
Propose research
Set out a specific question and an outcome that could serve the people involved.
A community of practice takes shape through what people do and learn together.
The Institute seeks to connect people who preserve, study, practise and transmit knowledge associated with Totonacapan. The starting point is a concrete relationship: a craft, a research question, a document or a need for transmission.
People and communities of practice
Workshops, families and learning spaces hold memories that do not always appear in catalogues. Listening to these experiences helps explain how a practice is sustained and what it needs to continue.
Diaspora and connections
The territory’s histories include people who arrive, leave and maintain relationships across distance. The circulation of knowledge, techniques, materials and memories opens routes of exchange between generations and places. The Institute approaches these connections with respect for each origin.
Areas for cooperation
- Describing and contextualising archives and photographs.
- History of jewellery, watchmaking and precision crafts.
- Documenting practices and learning relationships.
- Research into natural heritage and territorial knowledge.
- Translation and cultural mediation with source review.
How to begin
A useful proposal explains who is involved, what should be understood or preserved, which materials are available and the intended outcome. Scope, rights and responsibilities are agreed before joint work begins.
Participating with one’s own voice
The Institute does not assign representation to someone because of their origin or treat communities as a homogeneous whole. A conversation or institutional reference is not announced as a formal partnership.
Nature, craftsmanship and everyday life
Plants, materials and everyday crafts also help us understand a place.
Join the Institute’s network of knowledge and expertise
A shared community for taking part in the Institute
Join the LatinoEmpresa community to take part in the Totonacapan Institute’s network of knowledge and expertise. LatinoEmpresa is our community space within The Integral Management Society (IMSV) ecosystem. Participation will be organised there; this journal publishes reviewed research and contributions.
Join the LatinoEmpresa community →
On LatinoEmpresa, select “Inicia sesión o regístrate” to open “Regístrate”. On mobile, this option is inside the navigation menu. Choose “Registrarse con un email” or an available sign-in provider. If you already have an account, sign in with it: you do not need another account for the Institute. Review the public-profile option when registering; it does not authorise a public Census profile.
Contribute to the journal and the network
Introduce yourself, your practice or experience, your connection with the region, your interests and what you would like to contribute. Articles, comments, corrections, documents, historical and present-day photographs, videos, audio recordings, transcripts and translations are welcome.
Take part in the Arts and Crafts Census
This is our first priority project. Its separate record will document practices, learning and transmission, materials, products, needs and permissions. You may take part in both pathways using the same account.
We also welcome the diaspora and people returning to the region: what they preserve, adapt and teach, and how their connection with Totonacapan continues. Academic qualifications are not required to contribute knowledge and experience.
Prefer email? You can contribute without registering: write to comunidad@latinoempresa.com with a short introduction and a description of your contribution.
Photographs, videos and large files
Historical photographs and images of present-day crafts are particularly welcome. Include any known authorship, date, place and provenance; say when information is unknown.
Large files are welcome too. Ask LatinoEmpresa’s administration for a suitable delivery space, describing your material, the number of files and their approximate size. You do not need to attach them to your first message or make them public. The administration will agree the delivery arrangements with you; a request does not automatically create storage.
Availability: general LatinoEmpresa registration is available. The dedicated contribution and Census forms, tracking reference and review workflow are being prepared and are not yet open. Meanwhile, use email to introduce your proposal.
The Contribution and publication guidelines and Participation guidelines continue to govern this pathway. Contributions are reviewed before publication, preserving attribution and agreed permissions.
Knowledge of Totonacapan lives in those who practise it, remember it, research it, teach it and take it with them to other places. We invite you to take part in an open network of knowledge, crafts, research and collaboration.
You do not need an academic qualification or to practise an ancestral craft. You may be a craftsperson, master, apprentice, restorer, farmer, cook, musician, photographer, chronicler, researcher, teacher, entrepreneur, trader or someone who knows the history of a practice. You can also contribute if you preserve documents, recognise someone who practises it, or would like to help document it with their permission.
If you are part of the Totonacapan diaspora, we would also like to hear about your experience: people, families and communities living outside the region; workshops, restaurants, businesses, associations, cultural projects, shops or initiatives established elsewhere; people who export products, teach techniques, preserve traditions, maintain ties with the region or create new opportunities for encounter.
Tell us what you know, what you do, where you maintain that connection and how you would like to contribute. The Institute will listen to your proposal and agree with you what can be documented, shared or undertaken together, always respecting your authorship, the communities involved and knowledge that is not intended for public disclosure.
Five ways to contribute
1) KNOWLEDGE AND CRAFTS: practitioners of traditional or contemporary crafts; people who know a craft even if they do not practise it; masters and apprentices; those who can identify other people who preserve it. A record of the practice, materials, transmission, needs and context.
2) MEMORY AND DOCUMENTS: custodians of photographs, letters, family archives, names, places, dates or testimonies, with identified provenance.
3) DIASPORA AND CONNECTIONS BEYOND THE REGION: people and communities connected with Totonacapan outside the region, businesses established elsewhere, gastronomy, trade, exports, associations and cultural or meeting spaces; identify the place of origin or connection, destination, specific initiative, dates, sources and the connection that continues. Birthplace, a surname or commercial activity do not confer representation of the region.
4) RESEARCH AND EDUCATION: scholars, chroniclers, teachers, institutions, linguists, independent researchers and people contributing questions, sources, translations, reviews or fieldwork.
5) LIVING CULTURE AND MEDIATION: artists, musicians, cultural organisers, festival organisers, restorers, guides, communicators and people who facilitate transmission, cooperation or encounters.
These categories are ways to contribute, not hierarchical ranks. A person may contribute in several areas.
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Read the complete page →Sponsors
We thank these organisations for supporting the Institute.
The Institute welcomes new sponsors to help preserve archives, document crafts and pass on knowledge.
Discuss sponsorshipPerspective Beyond / An entrance to the thought Atlas
Ideas in conversation with this page
Community & Cooperation
Open the map and explore its connections
The Atlas connects pages, ideas, experiences and sources. This map starts from the current reading and opens a path through its conceptual neighbours.
Select an idea to read what it contributes and how it connects. Lines also connect the readings with each other.
Work with your assistant
Copy the entry and give it to your assistant. Ask for an explanation, a comparison or an application to your own question.