Les argents de la fin du progrès : une ethnographie du Mexique rural néolibéral
(2019)
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- Since the end of the eighties, the Mexican rural world has been facing radical transformations due to the application of neoliberal policies. From an agricultural economy based on land, we are now seeing a rural society where land is less central and where families depend on many sources of liquidity for their livelihoods (remittances, money transfers from the State, microcredits, etc.). This thesis analyses these transformations on the basis of a locally situated ethnographic research, undertaken over a period of 15 months (between 2016 and 2018). In El Progreso, a small village of 2000 inhabitants situated in the sierra of the State of Puebla (Mexico), the above-mentioned transition to neoliberalism is experienced as being extremely brutal. Previously, people in El Progreso relied mainly on coffee agriculture. Nowadays, these times are referred to as a glorious and mythical past, associated to progress. This contrasts the current times which people perceive as uncertain and difficult. Hence, the inhabitants get the impression to have lost what mattered, and to live on the ruins of progress. This thesis aims to discuss the specific place that money occupies in these transformations. Indeed, the new monies on which families depend, like microcredits and conditional cash transfers, are not insignificant. They contribute to the insertion into this rural world of a particular rationality corresponding to neoliberal ideology; that of the entrepreneurial subject, responsible of his own development, and obliged to use money as such. However, people make uses of money that do not correspond to this logic. This leads to tensions between diverse economic imaginaries and practices. Our work analyses the processes induced by this encounter between heterogeneous manners of doing and imagining the economy, discussing how people negotiate the gaps and frictions generated, and how it contributes to reconfigure power relations. More broadly, this thesis allows to think about transformations that numerous rural areas in the world are experiencing, as the pressure of a global free market and austerity policies make it increasingly difficult to live from agriculture. Additionally, it discusses socio-cultural processes resulting from the recent mutations of the capitalist economy, where financial markets have a growing influence, which spreads to previously peripheral regions.
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Crucifix, C. (2019). Les argents de la fin du progrès : une ethnographie du Mexique rural néolibéral. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/60753