Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
2014 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2014/55S9-0004$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/676665
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ented to poverty alleviation have mushroomed. Poverty became the focus of the United Nations Government of Chiapas
Agenda 20072012, established in an attempt to address the
Millennium Goals. Under this umbrella, programs areat
least on paperaimed at reaching vulnerable populations to
increase their capacities, encourage entrepreneurialism, and
foment community and regional development. This contributes to an increasing monetarization of the economy. A significant number of greenhouses have been set up to grow
flowers for export, microloans oriented to produce and sell
craftwork have mushroomed, and tourism is heavily promoted.
In the Tzotzil town of Zinacantan, Chiapas (as in many
other tourist areas of the state), little girls, mostly barefoot
but with worn, embroidered traditional dresses, their black
hair neatly braided, attract tourists who wish to taste, smell,
and feel authenticity. Tourists arrive in cars or buses at the
central plaza,8 in front of the ancient church in the small
town, and young children (and often not-so-young women)
scramble to be the first to reach them. If the tourists agree,
they will follow the child or the woman to the house, where
the mother offers them freshly made tortillas with a morsel
of cheese, or a spoonful of sauce or beans. The tourists do
not want a fancy meal, it is clear that the family is poor. This
is part of the authenticity of the scenario. But the tortillas
are delicious. Sometimes they are also offered pox (a local
alcoholic drink), which most tourists want to try but find
that they cannot handle more than a small sip.
After the meal, the lady of the house shows her visitors her
craftwork. They make tablecloths, table mats, cloth napkins,
shawls, skirts, blouses, dresses, scarves, and bags, among other
things destined for sale to tourists. Having had a warm snack
of tortillas for free, customers can hardly go without buying
a little something. They are also expected to leave a tip. Although we were able to witness groups of people who came,
ate, bought next to nothing, and left an offensively small tip
perhaps under the calculation that poor people can make do
with a few coinsa display of poverty generally lands the
household more sales.
Dona Juanas household is an example of the need to introduce new trappings to indigenous life. Income-generating
activities range from the most traditional weaving with waist
looms to the use of the web for marketing. Everyone in her
all-female household contributes in one way or another to
their diversified economy. Dona Juana has used the waist
loom since she was a child. She smiles when tourists come
to her house and ask to try it out. They wince after a few
minutes of kneeling on the floor, so she offers a stool, but it
is nevertheless extremely difficult.
The family also owns two sewing machines, one of which
is designed for embroidery. These Dona Juana obtained as
8. There are times when there are as many as seven buses parked in
the plaza. But at other times, as was the case during the crisis, there are
no buses at all.
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to obtain status or monetary gain. In addition, their reckonings could involve fear, resentment, or despair.
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appreciation of the workings of power at different levels, particularly the ways in which value regimes operate.
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to the region.16 Many interviewees suggested that milpa farming is almost equivalent to being poor. Such a lifestyle has
been curtailed in many ways by population increasethere
is not enough land to go aroundand the introduction and
later overusage of fertilizer as well as the increasing need for
cash and thus the need for wage work. This is in addition to
the encroachment of cash crops and greenhouseswhich are
now being encouraged through government loans as part of
the Agenda Chiapas-Naciones Unidas (Chiapas-UN
agenda)and the flourishing tourist industry, which introduced the need for new trappings to indigenous life. From
this angle, power wielders draw on value regimes wherein
particular notions of development are pursued. Promises of
progress and modernity trigger hope.
Hope is also kindled in the big city of Guadalajara, where,
as we have mentioned, impoverished neighborhoods face
usury and everyday discrimination. Some inhabitants hold
their patrons responsible, particularly in the case of factory
workers, whose contracts verge on illegality. But most are
unemployed. Government is accused of making promises that
are not kept and also of feathering politicians nests by exploiting peoples poverty for purposes of legitimation.
But local leaders have, by now, learned to ask for favors
in return. They will mobilize inhabitants to participate in
political meetings and campaigns in return for piped water
or electricity and in more than a few cases for personal favors
such as a job for a son or nephew. Statesmen will help leaders
obtain access to welfare programs for the local population.
Locals seek such clientelistic practices with the hope of obtaining some benefits. This is the foundation of corrupt systems: some of the people will receive meager benefits, and
both leaders and politicians will increase their legitimacy and
status.
It is in this context that particular scripts are reproduced
with the participation of different and to a degree opposing
parties. Rhetoric addressing equality, democracy, and the battle to eradicate poverty are rampant. With them, a host of
popularly accepted values are repeatedly brought into
speeches, a significant number of which have little bearing
on everyday social life. Rather, frameworks of calculation include the nature of the relationship between leaders and politicians, the possibilities of which might land locals with some
asset, service, or at least prestige and status that will be useful
in further negotiations.
16. As Joshua C. Greene (unpublished manuscript, 2010) asserts, reports of US corn swamping in Chiapas markets are rampant. According
to the US Department of Agriculture, average corn farm size in the United
States has grown from 200 to 600 acres in the past 25 years. According
to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, mechanization and biotechnology have pushed US yields to three times the
yield in Mexico. As farm size and productivity increased in the United
States, these highland farmers continue to work small plots on steep and
rocky mountainsides, planting and harvesting by hand. In the logic of
international trade, farmers from these two corn-producing nations are
said to compete freely.
In Conclusion
Making do is not just a matter of having a roof over ones
head, food on ones table, or cash in ones hand. It also
involves the circulation of information, the management of
social relations and abilities, and sustaining social membership. Meeting commitments, guaranteeing protection, acquiring status, and organizing time are as important as food
and physical security. This is quite evident in the preceding
ethnographical accounts.
I critique analytical approaches that, in adhering to the
facade of money as a universal yardstick, snub a number of
social and economic relations (generally considered erratic,
volatile, or subjective) as externalitiesthus obscuring the
ways in which noncommodity values and institutions act to
restructure monetary frameworksand I argue for the need
to examine social, cultural, and moral dimensions of financial
calculations. In this light, the definition and classification of
debt, for example, can vary within and between these different
scripts and frameworks of calculation. Debt can, in some
scenarios, be calculated as a liability, and in others it can be
calculated as an asset.17 In the case of Mexicans caught up in
the mortgage crisis, one is able to observe the workings of
frameworks wherein peopleand institutionsarticulate social, cultural, and political factors to signify and weigh their
financial options and those of others. Exploring these issues
entails focusing on their livelihoods, the workings of their
economies in interaction with their social environment, and
their financial practices.
However, as Stephen Gudeman (2012) has asserted, economies are always shifting constellations. And the boundaries
between what we can identify as different value regimes are
often blurry and inconsistent. I thus suggest the need to focus
on processes of framing and defining frontiers rather than
seeking to describe the characteristics of a specific regime.
The analysis of particular scripts and forms of ranking and
categorization can be useful tools in this endeavor.
In the description of the workings of value regimes, I have
pointed to the ways in which power relations play important
roles in their configuration and reproduction. Such power
relations are not, however, unidirectional. It is important to
emphasize the need for consent, acceptance, and legitimation
in its reproduction.
In all three scenarios I have discussed, hope forms an intrinsic part of the economic calculations that different actors
make, particularly with regard to finance. However, hope is
formulated in harmony with scripts, which in turn draw on
diverse regimes of value. But in an economy marked by uncertainty and fear, it is important to take into account the
17. For example, within a typically capitalist evaluation, it is considered
sound for enterprises to work with a degree of debt: those who have
never worked with loans might be classified as too conservative, not
forward looking, and even inefficient. And at the individual level, when
soliciting a loan, consumers with good credit history have advantages
over consumers who have never engaged in debt.
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank Susana Narotzky and Niko Besnier for the
energy and inspiration they invested in the organization of
the Crisis, Value, and Hope: Rethinking the Economy symposium, which gave birth to this special issue of Current
Anthropology. The comments they, Katherine Gibson, and the
rest of the participants in the symposium made on this article
were extremely useful, as were the observations made by two
anonymous reviewers. I greatly appreciate the support we
received from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, with special
thanks to Leslie Aiello and Laurie Obbink.
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