Reading To Be Done before This Discussion:

Klooster, Daniel J. 2005. Producing social nature in the Mexican countryside. Cultural Geograhies 12"321-344.

Things to Bring to Class: Your own notes on the article and/or a print out.  

Due in Discussion This Week: Answers to the questions below.

Due in Discussion Next Week: Questions as usual

Concepts/Ideas/Places: translocality, globalization, mobility, production of nature, production of culture, political economy, urbanization, commercial agriculture, agricultural industrialization, energy, labor, social reproduction, interconnection, environment. Mexico

Context: Earlier in the semester we explored the issue of how immigration and globalization helped transform life in a small town in the United States. We also looked at issues of development. Our discussion today brings many of these themes from the class together too look at how agricultural industrialization and globalization is transforming life in Mexico. As you read and as we discuss this reading, think about how the situations are both similar and different for people living on both sides of the border.

To Prepare for Discussion: In perhaps no other case does the interaction between market forces, social relationships, and the natural environment become as clear as it does in the structure of modern industrial agriculture. Agriculture is perhaps the most important of the ways in which humans relate to their environment and its study has traditionally been of great concern to geographers. The past two centuries have been a period of remarkable change in human agricultural practices including the introduction of mechanized farming, the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, improved high yielding crops, and most recently the introduction of genetically modified crops. Today we produce more food per unit of land than at any time in history. This has enabled humans to produce more than enough food to feed our growing population. The benefits of these technological changes are immeasurable. Yet this productivity also has economic, environmental, and cultural costs.

The article you will read for this week's discussion is exceptional in the way that it helps to connect much of what we have talked about so far this semester. As you read, pay attention to how it synthesizes issues related to demographic change, migration, economic globalization, nature, culture, identity, and of course agriculture. This kind of synthesis is at the heart of what geography is all about. The article provides a multi-dimensional explanation of the continued occupance of rural regions in Mexico. Where an economist might understand continuing to live in rural areas despite the collapse of the economy as irrational behavior, the geographer pays attention to how the economy interacts with culture and nature at different geographical scales.
The decline of agriculture in rural Mexico is of course a product of the emergence of a global food production system where food is produced in the places that have the greatest comparative advantage. In rural Mexico this means that instead of producing maize for local consumption, it is purchased from the United States. In order to maintain livelihoods income has to be generated from other activities including pottery and crafts. However, the most significant source of income is remittances from family members working abroad. Most often when we think about globalization we think in terms of goods and services flowing freely across the globe. Rarely do we talk about globalization in terms of a free flow of labor. Regional economic changes associated with globalization create push and pull factors that encourage migration. What is surprising in this article is the extent to which people adapt to globalization through temporary migration while maintaining their commitment to place and community.

Additional Questions to Be Discussed

• What implications does this article have for current debates about illegal immigration?
• What does the author mean when he talks about "producing culture while producing nature"?
• What is social nature and what does the author mean by the production of culture?
• How does this treatment of the relation between culture and nature offer an alternative to environmental determinism?

Name:
Honor Code:

Questions (to be completed before discussion)

1. What enables people to continue to live in rural Mexico despite the poor agricultural economy?

 

 

2. What are two factors that led to the decline of agriculture in rural Mexico?

 

 

3. Why does the author argue that continuing to live in countryside is a form of cultural resistance? What are the rural residents resisting?

 

 

4. Why are considerations of scale important when explaining people's abilities to maintain households in rural areas?

 

 

5. What is one question about agriculture and rural livelihoods that you would like to discuss in class?