This is a basic question about Grothendieck's conjectural category $M\_k$ of pure motives (over a field $k$). This construction first produces a category (the "false category of motives") which need not be Tannakian; the category undergoes a modification of the commutativity constraints which produces a category (the "true" category) which could be Tannakian (this is spelled out on page 451 [Jannsen's great paper](http://www.digizeitschriften.de/en/dms/toc/?PPN=GDZPPN002109433)).


The modification requires that the Kunneth components of the diagonal be algebraic (part of the standard motivic conjectures).


Question: Is there an alternate (geometric) construction (modulo standard conjectures) which produces the "true" category bypassing this artificial commutativity modification? 


Does this happen in Voevodsky's setup? 


Thanks!



commutativity constraint in Grothendieck's motives
I don't know any alternate geometric construction of the commutativity contraint, but there is a natural way to explain this, as a simple fact of homological algebra (and assuming very optimistic conjectures about mixed motives).


Let $DM\_{gm}(k)$ be Voevodsky's triangulated category of geometric (=constructible) motives over $k$, with rationnal coefficients. For any (smooth) $k$-scheme, we have its homological motive $M(X)$ in $DM\_{gm}(k)$ (this construction being functorial in $X$). Voevodsky proved that the full pseudo-abelian subcategory of $DM\_{gm}(k)$, closed under arbitrary Tate twists, spanned by objects of shape $M(X)^\wedge=\underline{Hom}(M(X),\mathbf{Q})$ for $X$ smooth and projective is equivalent to the category $Chow(k)$ of Chow motives (the cohomological version, constructed from rational equivalence on cycles).


Now comes the conjectural part. Assume that there exists a motivic $t$-structure on $DM\_{gm}(k)$; see this [paper](http://arxiv.org/abs/1006.1116) of Beilinson for what this means and for the link with the standard conjectures. Let us denote by $MM(k)$ the heart of this $t$-structure. The objects of the category $MM(k)$ are, by definition, *mixed motives*. This category is tannakian: for any prime number $\ell$, the $\ell$-adic realization functor defines a conservative $t$-exact and symmetric monoidal functor from $DM\_{gm}(k)$ to the bounded derived category of finite dimensional $\mathbf{Q}\_\ell$-vector spaces (this is part of what it means to be a motivic $t$-structure).


Call a mixed motive $M$ *pure of weight $n$* if $M[-n]$ is pure of weight zero in the sense of Bondarko (see this [paper](http://arxiv.org/abs/1011.3507) for the link between $t$-structures and weight structures): this simply means that $M[-n]$ belongs to $Chow(k)$, seen as a subcategory of $DM\_{gm}(k)$. For $X$ smooth and projective over $k$, as $M(X)^\wedge$ is pure of weight zero, for any integer $n$, the cohomology object $H^n(X)=\tau^{\leq n}\tau^{\geq n}(M(X)^\wedge)[n]$ is pure of weight $n$. This implies that we have a (non canonical) isomorphism $M(X)^\wedge\simeq \oplus\_n H^n(X)[-n]$ (the so called `Chow-Künneth decomposition'.


Denote by $M(k)$ the full subcategory of $MM(k)$ which consists of finite sums of objects $M$ of $MM(k)$ which are pure of weight $n$ for some integer $n$. We then have a natural functor
$$X\mapsto \oplus\_n H^n(X)$$
from the category of smooth and projective $k$-schemes to $M(k)$. This functor factors (by construction) through the category $Chow(k)$:
$$Chow(k)\to M(k)$$
and factors through *numerical equivalence* (just because the motivic $t$-structure is compatible with the monoidal structure, using Poincaré duality in $DM\_{gm}(k)$), inducing an equivalence of categories
$$Chow(k)/\text{numerical equivalence} \simeq M(k)$$
Now, the point is that $M(k)$ is a tannakian subcategory of $MM(k)$, and the modified commutativity constraint of the tensor product on the category of pure motives up to numerical equivalence is the one inherited from the natural monoidal structure of $M(k)$ through the equivalence above. 


