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This article deals with the history of Mexico from the point of view of its original inhabitants. From this point of view of historical importance it is divided into four parts - Mexico before the conquest, colonial Mexico, Mexico after achieving independence and post-revolutionary Mexico. First chapter is focused to describe the social and political system of the Aztec empire as the hegemonic class at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards, and whose organization serves as an exemplary model. In the second chapter we are focusing on the change of social status of its inhabitants after the conquest of Mexico by the Europeans. The Indians have lost their indenpendence, the ruling elite their positions, although for the common Indians there was practically no change in their way of life. However, the existence of the Republic of the Indians, the Republic of the Spaniards and also the indigenous laws show that the natives, at least according to the legislation, were protected by the Spanish legislative system. This has changed substantially after the indenpendence and the birth of the Republic (chapter three) influenced by liberalism. At the time of the annulment of communal land ownership, the economic status of the indigenous people was weakened, caused marginalization and the situation of the indigenous people became a social problem. The deplorable situation of the indigenous communities began to be addressed only after the Mexican Revolution. With the agrarian reform through the ejidos, large extensions of land were returned to the natives. However, and in spite of other supports, the indigenous problem and their marginalization continues and has not been solved. It continues and even more, since the 90's, and thanks to the defeat of the agrarian reform, globalization and neoliberalism has intensified, which reflects negatively on their communities.
Journal of Peasant Studies, 1987
Revista Debates, 2018
During the last decade, Mexico has experienced high levels of violence, and one of the most vulnerable groups has been the indigenous people. In this context, the present text aims to analyse the relationship between the legacies of colonialism and social exclusion of indigenous people in Mexico. The text is divided into three parts. The first part describes the main historical lines of the discrimination against the indigenous people. The second considers the factors that have contributed to institutionalize, accept and reproduce social and economic inequality. The third discusses the complexities of the social imaginary, which strengthen the discrimination. Finally, some comments to reduce inequality in Mexico.
2018
Besides his numerous other interests Erwin Frank made a thorough study of the discrimination that Latin America's indigenous population suffered at the hands of the dominant groups as well as the ethnic movements that emerged, partly as a result of their having been marginalized. He demonstrated that it is possible to combine political commitment to the needs of the indigenous population with the necessary scientific distance towards one's object of study. An outstanding example of this is Frank's chapter on the history of Ecuador's indigenous movement (Frank 1992). In it he analysed intensively the changes in the country's agrarian structure and government policies identifying them as important factors contributing to the emergence of the indigenous movement. In the following article we make use of his argument, focussing on the history of Mexico. Preamble Numerous government aid programmes are aimed at the needs of indigenous communities in rural areas. 1 Normally, such programmes rely on census data concerning the number of speakers of indigenous languages, a community's degree of marginality, and on statistics about low educational levels to determine who will benefit. One such programme concerns the cultural missions (misiones culturales) whose promoters reside for several months in the villages implementing community development projects. Several promoters approached the local authorities of Xlapak, a village inhabited predominantly by speakers of Yucatec Maya in the Yucatan peninsula, in the early 1990s. Unexpectedly, the promoters' offer to establish a Brigade for Indigenous Development and Advancement (Brigada de Desarrollo y Mejoramiento Indígena) met with resistance. People did not object to community development as such but urged 1 Such programmes are coordinated by the National Commission for the Development of the Indigenous Peoples (CDI-Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas), which has succeeded the INI-Instituto Nacional Indigenista, the ministry of education or other institutions at the state or federal levels.
In this paper, we examine how Mexico's 1992 counter-reforms reinforced social hierarchies between two 'classes' of residents within three ejidos in an agricultural frontier in Campeche. We carried out qualitative research with 94 ejidatarios, 92 pobladores and 13 government officials. Our research shows that the reforms cemented the second-class status of pobladores, as their access to land, natural resources such as firewood and governmental subsidies is now even more contested. Ejidal residents have responded to these tensions by invoking various conceptions of citizenship to press for different forms of justice. Ejidatarios seek to enforce their legal prerogatives by advocating a tiered citizenship, inflected with aspects of 'market citizenship', in which pobladores have less access to resources and voice. Pobladores seek inclusion in the ejido via a cultural model of citizenship built around a 'civil sociality'. Despite this generalization, both groups also selectively move between and combine these citizenship frameworks to advance their claims.
How have changes in patterns of rural accumulation and production during the twentieth century affected peasant livelihoods in Mexico, and how have peasants responded to these changes? These questions will be examined using three contemporary agrarian questions – those of Bernstein, Araghi, and McMichael - as frameworks to investigate processes of capitalist agrarian transition in Mexico and their effects on peasant livelihoods. This paper traces the social, economic and technical transformations installed in Mexico in the name of progress during the twentieth century, and the resulting processes of dispossession by displacement and differentiation experienced by the Mexican peasantry. I propose that while processes of dispossession by displacement and differentiation were prevalent in the modernist era, that under neoliberalism, processes of exclusion have become more relevant to the agrarian question today.
Forum for Development Studies , 2018
This essay seeks to give a broad view of what the agrarian reform policies represented for Latin America from an institutional point of view, with special emphasis on Mexico. Using a combination of primary and secondary sources, it seeks to answer questions such as: What did the agrarian reforms mean for the Latin American countryside? What was the effect they had on the development of Latin American economies? What were the institutional effects of having implemented these reform programmes? It can be concluded that agrarian reform policies in Latin America, which were originally planned to distribute and return lands to various communities, as well as to restore communal rights over the ownership of those lands, were not successful in the medium and long term, with some exceptions in the short term. The sort and quality of lands distributed to the beneficiaries of the programmes, the lack of effective support by governments through specific policies, and the internal organization of ejidos, are some of the causes of the failure of agrarian reform programmes prior to the emergence of neoliberalism in the region.
En esta colaboración damos por hecho que durante las primeras décadas de las administraciones posrevolucionarias una parte importante del programa gubernamental estuvo dedicado a concluir centralizadamente los proyectos de irrigación regionales desarrollados por empresas colonizadoras y hacendados durante el porfiriato. Es decir, las políticas de irrigación revolucionarias posteriores a la fundación de la Comisión Nacional de Irrigación en 1926 continuaron los planes e incluso las obras que se tenían contempladas antes del inicio del movimiento armado de 1910 en algunas regiones del país.
Latin American Politics and Society, 2007
Written By Paula I. Clavecillas [BSCOE 2-1] Readings in Philippine History Since pre-colonial times, the division between the elite and the poor has been evident in the baranganic societies led by the datus. This division further widened during the Spanish colonization. The continuous colonialism of Spain and the establishment of encomienderos transformed these post-communal relations into ones of exploitation. Paving the way for the natives' awareness of dispossession. Spain succeeded in its conquest and brought significant changes to the people but these changes also brought undisguised oppression and cruelty. The feudal governing system imposed by Spain had good intentions but overruled by the greedy and cruel encomienderos, the system collapsed. The Encomienda system further developed into what we know today as the Hacienda system. Far worse and exploitative than before, the hacienda system is wherein "hacienderos", the landlords, were at the top of the system and the workers were at the bottom. Despite the people's revolution, the system continues to exist even after the country's independence in 1946. The hacienderos became even more powerful and established the new aristocracy in the independent country. Even though agrarian reforms were introduced in the following years to standardize the distribution of land to the tenant farmers, there was no real progress. The survival of this system further enhanced the oppression of the rich to the poor, even reaching the government, the very system that oath to destroy the system and minimize the social stratification. As the system continues to stand and the exploitative and oppressive practices further pushing the people into poverty. It is no surprise that the country continues to be underdeveloped, when the most important factor of development, agrarian reform, cannot be achieved. This paper further discusses the different bases of the country's underdevelopment. Venturing the historical, political, and social issues the country is suffering from. How these conditions continue to cripple the Filipino people and enrich the elite.
Journal of Peasant Studies, 2002
Los movimientos sociales surgidos en contra de la imposición de iniciativas gubernamentales de desarrollo territorial favorecen la conformación de sujetos sociales, a partir de la constitución, resurgimiento y revalorización de nuevas y viejas identidades emanadas de las acciones colectivas y de las estrategias de participación social. En este trabajo se analiza el proceso de formación de la Unión Campesina Emiliano Zapata Vive (UCEZV), a raíz de la tentativa gubernamental de imponer, en la región Tepeaca-Tecamachalco, Puebla, un proyecto de desarrollo regional; así como el proceso de conformación de dicha organización como un sujeto social. Los casos de movimientos sociales exitosos en defensa del territorio, como el que se expone en este artículo, ilustran las contradicciones del modelo de desarrollo, así como la vigencia y revalorización de las identidades rurales y el modo de vida campesino.
The Indian community of colonial Mexico: fifteen …, 1990
The papers analyzes globalisation processes in native communities in Mexico. It focuses on the questions of territory, economy, migration, tourism, informations technology and ecology. These questions we consider to be the most important in the process of globalisation, even though they represent only a sample of more numerous questions related to this process. The lack of territory signifies that there is less and less land owned by native Mexicans which means no place where they might be able to preserve their cultures. Together with overpopulation and ecological problems it pressures native Mexicans to migrate to the towns or even the USA which has a deep influence on the stability of conservative indigenous communities. The access to information and the growth of tourism in which they participate also open the communities to the outer world. Therefore they must face up to the changes which are quicker than ever before and it is hard to foretell the final impact of globalisation on native Mexican peoples.
LASA-Forum, 2021
En 1989 Fernando Tudela publicó el libro “La modernización forzada del trópico: El caso de Tabasco”. Tudela señalaba que, si bien de acuerdo con indicadores convencionales la riqueza regional crecía, las condiciones de vida de una parte sustancial de la población tabasqueña empeoraron. Comencé recordando este libro para introducir otro proceso de “modernización forzada” que experimenta hoy en día la Península de Yucatán, otra región tropical de gran biodiversidad compuesta por tres estados (Yucatán, Campeche y Quintana Roo). Ahí se desarrolla uno de los “proyectos prioritarios” del presidente de México: el Tren Maya. Este proyecto anunciado como de “reordenamiento territorial” para una de las regiones “olvidadas del desarrollo nacional”, según el discurso oficial, se suma a una larga lista de proyectos desarrollistas que desde la década de los años 2000 impactan la región y polarizan la redistribución y acceso de los recursos socioambientales. ¿Qué efectos tienen dichos proyectos sobre las poblaciones locales y los ecosistemas? y ¿Cómo se posiciona y responde la población y sociedad civil organizada frente a la reciente efervescencia desarrollista?
Abstract The aim of this paper is to contribute to an understanding of persistent ethnic inequality in Northern Mexico. This involves systematizing empirical findings related to the Raramuri emic conception of wellbeing dimensions and exploring their barriers. In this light two qualitative dimensions of Raramuri wellbeing are described; the importance of farming and the importance of effective social networks. This paper argues that unequal social, economic and political interactions held between the Raramuri and the mestizo limit and hinder Raramuri wellbeing. Three hindering factors are explored; land conflicts; institutional arrangements by the ejido (land management scheme) system and ethnically differentiated vulnerability. Additionally, it is argued that these factors are charged by underlining power asymmetries that contribute to the persistence of deprived conditions for that indigenous group. Finally, the paper explores structural factors contributing to the wider setting that permits inequality; inter-ethnic economic interactions that lead to an increase in vulnerability; and inter-group political relations and institutional arrangements leading to opportunity hoarding.
2019
Neoliberal reforms in Mexico entailed a transition from a state-managed economic model to one oriented towards the free market. These reforms also triggered the dismantling of the corporate structures of the twentieth century. Some of these reforms, such as the amendments made to Articles 2 and 4 in the Constitution, officially recognized cultural diversity. Drawing from eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork and six months of archival research, the aim of this article is to present the case study of a group of intellectuals from the locality of Cherán, Michoacán, who were trained during the decline of the post-revolutionary state and its clientelist practices. The members of this group managed to adapt to the neoliberal transition by shifting from political militants of a national movement that demanded democratization, universal citizenship, and rights, to managers of ethnicity who claimed the right to self-determination. By taking a group of intellectuals from Cherán as a case study, I intend to show the articulation between local and national political processes. The introduction of multicultural policies in Mexico is often hailed as a step towards ensuring greater respect for human rights. However, this paper argues that the implementation of multicultural policies, during a period of state reforms, ended up reinforcing political fragmentation given the different political processes at play at both the local and national level.
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