Review of Mexico in Transition by Byron Crites

Book Reviews
Partly due to the fact that there is a more developed historiography for this theme
and period (and possibly richer primary sources), the articles on rural Mexico generally
show a better fi t between concepts and evidence, a greater capacity to insert case
studies into a broader framework, and a deeper analysis. Nonetheless, the ‘ urban ’
chapters do provide leads into important topics that have hitherto received little attention,
thus developing the pioneering work of Di Tella and Viqueira, and the more
recent monograph by Pérez Toledo.
Notably, the volume ’ s emphasis on the agency of subordinate groups disproves
long-held assumptions about the process of land disentailment ( desamortización ), such
as the homogenous opposition by peasant communities, or the lack of a notion of
private property among indigenous peoples. The chapters by Gutiérrez, Marino, Mendoza
and Ortiz Yam provide a nuanced and complex picture of desamortización , including
previously neglected topics such as the interplay between customary practices
and liberal legislation, and the strategic use of certain legal rights to achieve local ends,
for instance to preserve custom, to benefi t the community and to favour residents
against outsiders. These fi ndings contribute signifi cantly to an emerging revisionist
history of land privatisation, prefi gured in the work of Guy Thomson on ‘ popular
liberalism ’ in Puebla, and of which the best book-length example is Emilio Kourí ’ s
recent work on the vanilla-rich district of Papantla, Veracruz (unfortunately neither
author is discussed in this volume).
A comment is due on the treatment of agency and the state. All authors are aware
of the risks inherent in the assumption that all subaltern strategies are necessarily resistant
or in the actors ’ own interest. At best this stance provides balanced analysis, at
worst it leaves the chapters inconclusive, hampered by the fear that they may exaggerate
the rationality and effi ciency of the dominated, but without explicitly evaluating
the constraints on their action.
Gilbert M. Joseph and Daniel Nugent ’ s 1994 edited collection, Everyday Forms of
State Formation , partly inspired by Scott ’ s work, demonstrated the advantages of looking
simultaneously at both the construction of state hegemony and popular resistance.
The volume reviewed here, in seeking to recuperate the perspective from below, explicitly
excludes state formation. However, further development of this book ’ s insights
may be hindered if we disassociate popular resistance from state hegemonic processes.
We need more systematic research into the relations between hegemony and resistance,
and the specifi c strengths and weaknesses of the Mexican state. Do the multiple strategies
of resistance that we are now identifying point to a structural weakness of the
state? Does resistance from below (e.g. the strategies of the urban poor against vagrancy
laws, or those of peasants against privatisation) prevent the state ’ s standardisation
of practices (as the anthropologist Nuijten has argued for twentieth-century
Mexico) and the rule of law?
Finally, Falcón must be praised for developing a space where the contributions of
European, US and Mexican scholars speak to each other, a situation that is much less
frequent than would be desirable.
Ariadna A . Rodrigo
Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas, Mexico
© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Society for Latin American Studies
148 Bulletin of Latin American Research Vol. 26, No. 1