Élites gubernamentales en tres entidades federales de México (2000-2012) Un análisis estructural

This article aims at analyzing the profile and the social structure resulting from the career itineraries of governmental elites in the states of Guanajuato, the State of Mexico, and Mexico City during the 2000-2012 period. The author applies a mixed method combining the conventional sociological analysis with a network approach. The study observes in the first place the relevance of the local space for the creation and development of elites. Secondly, it identifies the regularities and divergences in the elite recruitment and development processes in the three states under study. Finally, the analysis reveals that instability in employment may be simultaneously construed as uncertainty and an asset since it allows the local elites to gather a considerable political and social capital.     

Beyond Rainforests: Urbanisation and Emigration among Lowland Indigenous Societies in Latin America

Indigenous societies across lowland Latin America have recently made impressive political and territorial gains by emphasising their stewardship of and attachment to particular rural landscapes. But surprising new censal and microdemographic evidence shows that these groups have simultaneously been developing a presence in domestic and foreign metropolises. Cities offer employment and advanced education opportunities as well as escape from rural conflicts. We suggest that the dynamics and outcomes of these migrations are distinct from those of other rural Latin Americans. By outlining specific areas in which migration, politics, and territory appear to be interlinked, we seek to stimulate research that engages with these processes and their implications for indigenous advocacy and migration theory.     

The Utilization of “Surplus” labor in the people's republic of China

Abstract

For decades, economists concerned with the problems of economic development have noted the typical existence of surplus labor in heavily populated, underdeveloped countries, most notably those of Asia, in which the factor endowment consists of abundant and often rapidly growing labor forces coupled with scarcity of both land and capital. In such countries, the vast majority of the population usually is engaged in agricultural activities and, at a minimum, is characterized by substantial seasonal unemployment during the slack agricultural times of the year and, more typically, also has substantial disguised unemployment throughout the entire year. Also characteristic of such countries is a continuing large-scale migration of labor from rural to urban areas, which transforms the disguised agricultural unemployment into open urban unemployment as the newly (and not-so-newly) arrived urban residents discover that the jobs they seek are substantially fewer than the number of job-seekers. Furthermore, even those fortunate enough to find urban employment often appear to be substantially underemployed, for example, in jobs within the government sector, in petty retail trade, and as messengers and private household servants. Even in countries that have been experiencing relatively high levels of investment and fairly rapid rates of economic growth, the employment problems are far from eliminated and cause social and political problems as well as economic ones. It seems ironic that in such countries there exists simultaneously so many people seeking work and so much work that could be accomplished and could raise basic living standards if the unemployed (and underemployed) workers could be engaged in productive (and more productive) activities.     

The Social Function of Carlos Fuentes: A Critical Intellectual or in the ‘Shadow of the State’?

This article seeks to raise meaningful questions about the role, or wider social function, of the intellectual within state–civil society relations in Latin America characterised by conditions of socio–economic modernisation. It does so by pursuing such questions through a detailed examination of the social function of Carlos Fuentes as an intellectual in Mexico. Through a focus on the social function of Carlos Fuentes, it is possible to distinguish the role intellectual activity can play in the construction and contestation of hegemony in Mexico. Most crucially, the article prompts consideration of the social basis of hegemony and the agency of intellectuals organically tied to particular social forces functioning through state–civil society relations in the struggle over hegemony. Put differently, it is possible to grant due regard to the mixture of critical opposition and accommodation that has often confronted the intellectual within Latin America.     

Tibetan translocalities: navigating urban opportunities and new ways of belonging in Tibetan pastoral communities in China

ABSTRACT

Urban development in Tibetan areas of China lags behind that of other non-coastal, rural areas and occurs at a significantly smaller scale due to remote and mountainous terrain and a lower population density. However, just as in the rest of China, urban development in Tibetan regions is characterized by an unevenness that constitutes and produces new translocal ties, as people belong to multiple localities at the same time. But Tibetan patterns of translocal ties are unique. For college-educated Tibetans, structural factors such as educational institutions and ethnic discrimination and affective factors such as attachment to home places powerfully shape the landscape of urban opportunities along ethnic lines. Instead of educational and employment structures enabling Tibetans to pursue economic opportunities in urban centers across the country, socio-ethnic inequalities and thick relational ties eventually bring many Tibetan graduates back to the urban centers administratively connected to their rural home places in Tibetan areas.     

Traditional health practitioners' practices and the sustainability of extinction-prone traditional medicinal plants

ABSTRACT

For centuries, traditional health practitioners (THPs) have used their indigenous knowledge (IK) in conserving medicinal plants and environments in order to maintain sustainability. Medicinal plants have played an important role in the healthcare system of Africa. With the rapid environmental, social, economic and political changes occurring in many areas inhabited by rural people, the danger exists that the loss of biodiversity from habitat destruction and unsustainable harvesting practices will cause some species to become extinct, threatening the availability of medicinal plants on a regional level. This article presents the findings of research conducted to investigate the sustainability of the harvesting practices of THPs, with specific reference to extinction-prone traditional medicinal plants in the study areas of the Limpopo province, South Africa. The main aim of the study was to determine the natural habitat of extinction-prone traditional medicinal plants, combining the insight of THPs with the ultimate goal of guiding research for the conservation, propagation and cultivation of traditional medicinal plants. The study adopted a qualitative research approach and data were collected using in-depth interviews. The findings indicate that the THPs’ practices are shaped by historical processes and local cultural values, social norms and their management strategies, which are influenced by a broad range of factors.     

¿Qué es racismo?: awareness of racism and discrimination in Ecuador

In the national consciousness, Ecuador is a mestizo nation. However, it is also an ethnically diverse nation with sizable minorities of indigenous and Afrodescended peoples. In national surveys, there is also a considerable minority who self-identify as blanco (white). Although there is strong evidence of continuing discrimination and prejudice toward both indigenous and Afro-descended peoples, there is little public discussion or political action addressing such issues. The emergence of a powerful and resilient indigenous movement in the late 1980s gained international interest and acclaim in the 1990s, in part because of the peaceful mobilization efforts and effective bargaining tactics of the movement. However, indigenous leaders usually have not engaged in a discourse of racismo and/or discriminación. There has been much less social movement solidarity and activism among Afro-Ecuadorians, but their leaders commonly employ a discourse of racismo and discriminación. In August and September 2004, a survey of more than eight thousand adult Ecuadorians was conducted in regard to racism and related topics. In this research, we use several measures from this survey that focus on awareness of and sensitivity to issues of racism, prejudice, and discrimination. Self-identification of respondents enables us to contrast the responses of whites, mestizos, Indians, and Afro-Ecuadorians to the measures. Other independent variables of interest are level of education, the region in which the respondent resides, and whether the respondent lives in an urban or rural area. Regression results show differences among the ethnic groups in levels of awareness of racism, but more powerful predictors are level of education and rural residence.     

Income and Wealth Inequality in Nepal, 1996 and 2004: Changes and Socio-demographic,Spatial and Economic Determinants

Micro-data from national surveys indicate that economic inequality remained high and relatively unchanged in Nepal during the middle 1990s and early 2000s. Using household income and wealth as indicators, this study finds that many of the demographic characteristics, such as age, caste, ethnicity and widowhood, determined mostly along traditional social hierarchies, play influential roles in determining inequality in much of Nepal. In urban areas and especially in Kathmandu, however, these factors have proved increasingly less influential, replacing them with such factors as migration, education and labour market participation. These changes highlight the mechanisms through which different social groups are experiencing inequality, with important implications for the much needed economic, social and political stability of the country.     

Gabriel Barrios Cabrera: The anti-agrarian friend of the Campesino1

Abstract — This article considers the cacicazgo of Gabriel Barrios Cabrera in the Sierra de Puebla, Mexico during the 1920s. It analyses the ways in which he introduced social and economic development, and clarifies the apparent contradiction in his hostile response to agrarismo yet benevolence towards the region's campesinos. A picture emerges of a regional leader whose own philosophy and actions were fashioned by distinctly local views on land, autonomy and patronage. As such, his style of leadership defies neat categorisation and suggests that rural leaders could not help but reflect the characteristics and interests of the region in which they operated.     

Asset stripping in Chinese state-owned enterprises

This study addresses the consequences of commercialization and modernization of agriculture on ethnic minority farming communities in Vietnam's upland areas. These communities have been deeply affected by the pro-market reforms introduced nation-wide as the result of economic renovation (doi moi). The study examines the changes in standards of living and quality of life as well as the constraints acting on the development of family farms. Importantly, it investigates the role of government in influencing the process of rural development. Some of the most important findings can be summarized as follows. First, pro-market reforms have led to the diversification of the farm economy. Cash crops, especially tree crops, are now the main component of the household economy. Second, income disparities have increased and poverty remains entrenched in pockets of the upland population. Third, in its effort to restructure the national economy, the central government has decreased its contribution to upland development. The weakening of the social and physical infrastructure hampers farmers' efforts to participate in the market economy. Fourth, because of a general lack of rural industries, few employment opportunities exist outside the farm sector. As a result, many households engage in informal off-farm activities as a survival strategy.     

The gender agenda: NGOs and capitalist relations in highland Cambodia

Cambodia’s mountainous northeastern province of Ratanakiri, which only twenty years ago was home to mainly indigenous minority groups largely focused on subsistence production, has undergone rapid ecological, social, and economic transformation. Deforestation and land alienation in the context of large-scale plantation agriculture, land speculation, and smallholder cash cropping have led to concerns that indigenous communities are being alienated from their land and not benefitting from economic changes. This has resulted in a significant number of NGO and government programs that attempt to protect and “empower” indigenous people, particularly women. This article examines a one-year research project which explored the relationship between indigenous women and land change in two indigenous villages. It discusses how indigenous women as well as Khmer and landless Cham immigrants have dealt with the commoditization of land and labor. It focuses on the differentiated way capitalist relations have pushed men, women, landless laborers, and increasingly wealthy landowners on increasingly divergent life trajectories. Compelled by donors to focus on gender and indigenous women as an object of governance, the NGO that directed this project struggled to keep up with the realities of capitalist relations on the ground.     

Social capital, social liabilities, and political capital: Social networks and informal manufacturing in Nigeria

This article addresses the question of why social networks havefailed to promote economic development in Africa when they havebeen associated with economic growth in other parts of the world.Detailed field research traces the role of social networks inthe economic organization of two dynamic informal enterpriseclusters in the town of Aba in south-eastern Nigeria, an arearenowned for the density of its popular economic networks andfor the rapid development of small-scale manufacturing underNigeria’s structural adjustment programme. Focusing onthe role of embedded social institutions and their restructuringamid the competitive pressures of rapid liberalization, I considerthe extent to which social networks in Aba constitute ‘socialcapital’ capable of promoting economic development inthe context of ongoing liberalization, ‘social liabilities’that undermine accumulation through a social logic of redistributionand parochialism, or ‘political capital’ throughwhich popular forces are incorporated into the ‘shadowstructures’ of predatory states. This article challengesthe essentialism of much of the contemporary literature on Africansocial networks, arguing for a sharper focus on the specificinstitutional capacities of indigenous economic institutions.It calls for greater attention to the role of rapid liberalizationand state neglect in explaining the developmental failures ofAfrican informal enterprise networks.     

浅析马来西亚的农村发展政策与战略

农村的发展在马来西亚经济以及社会、政治的发展中都占有很重要的地位.马来西亚农村的基本特点包括贫困率高、生产率低、缺乏最基本的经济和社会福利设施以及市场不发达等.马来西亚农村经济是以农业为基础的,所以以农村改革为主的马来西亚农村发展政策一直都是农村经济结构转型和消除农村贫困的主要政策工具.自独立以来马来西亚的农村发展取得了很大的成就,但是农村贫困问题以及部门之间和部门内部的发展不平衡问题仍然比较突出.因此,到今天农村的发展依然是马来西亚经济发展的重要内容.     

Social democracy and globalisation: the limits of social democracy in historical perspective

This article argues that social democratic governments throughout the 20^th century faced internal and international constraints arising from the operation of capitalist economies and that the evidence for a qualitative deepening of such constraints since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system is far from unequivocal. Financial markets were already big enough and fast enough to deter such governments from the pursuit of egalitarian policies in the interwar years or to destabilise them if they ignored the warning signs. This article also shows that the efficacy of Keynesian macroeconomic policy in the Golden Age has been exaggerated and that the problem of short–term movements of speculative capital persisted throughout this era in a country such as Britain. Keynesianism never worked in the face of mass unemployment and it is misleading to suggest that its breakdown in the 1970s somehow robbed social democracy of the policy tools that had maintained full employment in the 1950s and 1960s. A host of additional problems have indeed beset social democratic governments since 1973, but the analysis of such problems is hindered rather than helped by much of the literature which invokes economic globalisation. Globalisation theory is in need of further specification before it can be useful and arguments about the economic consequences of globalisation since 1973 need to distinguish its effects from those of the many conjunctural problems of the period as well as the policies that important agencies have pursued in search of solutions to them.     

Rural Transformations and Democracy in Northeast Thailand

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the underlying economic, social and political processes that contributed to democratic progress in the rural areas of northeast Thailand. After the 2006 military coup villagers in the region played an important role in anti-coup activities and actively demanded for democratic rule. To defend democratic rule, villagers not only opposed military intervention but also challenged elites, who they considered had masterminded the coup. The coup was a landmark change in terms of the relationship between the highest authority in Thailand and the rural masses. According to the Thai hierarchical order, villagers are regarded as inferior who must obey the elite. Any action that does not conform to this rule is considered morally wrong and to be punished. Why did rural dwellers dare to engage openly in political action that defied the hierarchical order? To comprehend such actions the article examines structural changes in Thailand’s countryside that released villagers from traditional bonds and enabled them to engage in a new form of political mobilisation. It is argued that the emergence of a democratic movement in the rural northeast is a result of two important processes: rural socio-economic transformations and political democratisation.     

A Grass Roots View of Religious Change Amongst Women in an Indigenous Community in Chiapas, Mexico

Abstract — This paper discusses the changing position of women in an indigenous community in Chiapas, Mexico. It argues that women are gaining new agency and an increased pride in their ethnicity as they become members of the various sects that are taking root in the community. Affiliation to a sect provides them with an institution that they can call their own thus satisfying their felt need to be part of the longer-term economic and political changes that are occurring while still being shielded from them.     

Networks of Reciprocity: Precarity and Community Social Organisations in Rural Myanmar

ABSTRACT

Growing precarity amongst rural households in Myanmar is characterised by increasingly debt-fuelled agriculture, decreasing sufficiency and sustainability of rural livelihoods and an absence of social safety nets. This constrains the capacity for viable livelihoods, as risk-averse coping strategies undermine long-term economic sustainability. In this context, informal support networks may be expected to decline or collapse. However, recent evidence demonstrates the widespread emergence of community-based social organisations in rural communities, formed along traditional principles of reciprocity. Analysis of large-scale rural household surveys demonstrates that such organisations are found in nearly 40% of communities in rural Myanmar. These organisations collect and redistribute funds to help with healthcare, education, funerals and other social needs. The presence of such organisations is linked to higher levels of household resilience, achieved through reducing the inequalities linked to gender, disability and poverty, and through providing enabling environments for effective income diversification. Communities with higher levels of migration are more likely to have community-based social organisations, possibly a result of economic and social remittances. In the absence of effective formalised social protection, these social organisations provide most of the social assistance in rural communities, representing new networks of reciprocity in the face of increasing precarity.     

Labour migration and rural transformation in post-colonial Swaziland

This article describes the effects of labor migration in rural southern Swaziland. It is argued that wages from rural migration to mining areas were invested in agricultural implements such as tractors, in education of children, and in cattle. These effects are improvements in rural quality of life and involve women in agricultural production. Male labor migration in southern Swaziland contributed to progress and rural development for rich and poor families at the individual level. Community level changes from labor migration were not evident. The author does not suggest that all changes were due to labor migration or unique. Negative effects are recognized, such as life style changes or changes in social customs. It is stated that southern Swaziland benefited little post-independence from national development. The Lowveld benefitted from sugar and citrus plantations. The central region experienced development of industry and commerce. The northern region had sugar plantations and mining development. The western region established commercial forests. The south only had export labor, which was attracted to higher wages in South Africa. Data and arguments in this article pertain only to male labor migration to mining areas. The literature on development tends to associate male labor migration with underdevelopment. Women are left to plough the fields in traditional agricultural production. Evidence is presented for southern Swaziland, which showed periods of low agricultural production and poor health conditions. During the 1940s this was the case and male absence was very high. Although women had limitations, it is argued that the most important factor was unavailability of new technology. By the 1970s, women were able to hire private or government tractors for tilling the soil.     

Rural economy,environmental degradation and economic disparity: a case study in Deryabuyi,Xinjiang

Deryabuyi, a small isolated town in the Takla Makan desert in Xinjiang, China, is viewed from the perspective of its rural economy. The minority Uyghur inhabitants are similar to other rural minority communities in China. In particular, focus is placed on the digging of rabbit carrots, a medicinal herb that grows on the roots of mesquite trees. Just as the Tibetan caterpillar-fungus collection has brought cash, and problems, to rural Tibetans, the collection of rabbit carrots has brought cash to Deryabuyi. However, the loss of the ability to engage in sustainable economic activities due to environmental degradation, loss of grazing land, overharvesting of scarce resources, diversion of water resources, government neglect along with scarce and/or inadequate social services such as health care and education, and job discrimination among others, may mean the destruction of this unique cultural community. As such, Deryabuyi can be seen as a microcosm of the challenges facing rural minorities in Xinjiang and in other parts of China.     

Reconstructing Indigenous ethnicities: the Arapium and Jaraqui peoples of the lower Amazon, Brazil

In Latin America, indigenous identity claims among people not previously recognized as such by the state have become a key topic of anthropological and sociological research. Scholars have analyzed the motivations and political implications of this trend and the impacts of indigenous population's growth on national demographic indicators. However, little is known about how people claiming indigenous status constructs the meaning of their indigenous ethnicity. Drawing from sixty-four indepth interviews, focus-group analyses, and participant observation, this article explores the double process of identity construction: the reconstruction of the Arapium indigenous identity and the creation of the Jaraqui indigenous identity in Brazil's Lower Amazon. The findings reveal six themes that contribute to the embodiment of a definition of indigenous identity and the establishment of a discursive basis to claim recognition: sense of rootedness, historical memory, historical transformation, consciousness, social exclusion, and identity politics.