A gendered economic history of rural households: Calvillo, Aguascalientes, Mexico, 1982-1991

Frontiers

Volumn 22, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 105-125

  Crummett, María De Los Angeles ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0035654684     PISSN: 01609009     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/fro.2001.0004     Document Type: Article

References (37)

1. For studies of the gendered impact of the debt crisis and structural adjustment policies in Latin America, see Adriana García and Edith Gomáriz, Mujeres centroamericanas: Ante la crisis, la guerra, y el proceso depaz (San José, Costa Rica: FLACSO/CSUCA/Universidad para la Paz, 1989); Maria L.Tarres, "Formas de organización popular urbana en la crisis económica de México: Una mirada a partir de los de abajo," (paper prepared for the Latin American Studies Association meeting, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1989); Irma Arriagada, "Unequal Participation by Women in the Working World," Santiago: CEPAL Review 40 (1990): 83-98; Neuma Aguiar, "La mujer y la crisis latinoamericana" in Mujer y crisis - respuestas ante la recesión, Neuma Aguiar, ed. (Caracas, Venezuela: Editorial Nueva Sociedad, 1990); Lourdes Beneria, "The Mexican Debt Crisis: Restructuring the Economy and the Household" in Unequal Burden, Economic Crisis, Persistent Poverty and Women's Work, Lourdes Benería and Shelley Feldman, eds. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press., 1992); and Rita M. Blumberg and Cathy Rakowski, eds., Engendering Wealth and Well-Being (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995). For specific case studies of rural Mexico, see Florencia Peña Saint Martin, Estrategias femeninas ante lapobreza, el trabajo domiciliario en la elaboracion deprendas de vestir (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1998); and Kerry Preibisch and Sharon Proctor, "Economic Crisis and Household Survival: The Crossroads of Class and Gender in Four Rural Mexican Communities" (paper prepared for the Latin American Studies Association meeting, Miami, Fla., March 2000).
2. For studies of the gendered impact of the debt crisis and structural adjustment policies in Latin America, see Adriana García and Edith Gomáriz, Mujeres centroamericanas: Ante la crisis, la guerra, y el proceso depaz (San José, Costa Rica: FLACSO/CSUCA/ Universidad para la Paz, 1989); Maria L.Tarres, "Formas de organización popular urbana en la crisis económica de México: Una mirada a partir de los de abajo," (paper prepared for the Latin American Studies Association meeting, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1989); Irma Arriagada, "Unequal Participation by Women in the Working World," Santiago: CEPAL Review 40 (1990): 83-98; Neuma Aguiar, "La mujer y la crisis latinoamericana" in Mujer y crisis - respuestas ante la recesión, Neuma Aguiar, ed. (Caracas, Venezuela: Editorial Nueva Sociedad, 1990); Lourdes Beneria, "The Mexican Debt Crisis: Restructuring the Economy and the Household" in Unequal Burden, Economic Crisis, Persistent Poverty and Women's Work, Lourdes Benería and Shelley Feldman, eds. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press., 1992); and Rita M. Blumberg and Cathy Rakowski, eds., Engendering Wealth and Well-Being (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995). For specific case studies of rural Mexico, see Florencia Peña Saint Martin, Estrategias femeninas ante lapobreza, el trabajo domiciliario en la elaboracion deprendas de vestir (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1998); and Kerry Preibisch and Sharon Proctor, "Economic Crisis and Household Survival: The Crossroads of Class and Gender in Four Rural Mexican Communities" (paper prepared for the Latin American Studies Association meeting, Miami, Fla., March 2000).
3. For studies of the gendered impact of the debt crisis and structural adjustment policies in Latin America, see Adriana García and Edith Gomáriz, Mujeres centroamericanas: Ante la crisis, la guerra, y el proceso depaz (San José, Costa Rica: FLACSO/CSUCA/ Universidad para la Paz, 1989); Maria L.Tarres, "Formas de organización popular urbana en la crisis económica de México: Una mirada a partir de los de abajo," (paper prepared for the Latin American Studies Association meeting, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1989); Irma Arriagada, "Unequal Participation by Women in the Working World," Santiago: CEPAL Review 40 (1990): 83-98; Neuma Aguiar, "La mujer y la crisis latinoamericana" in Mujer y crisis - respuestas ante la recesión, Neuma Aguiar, ed. (Caracas, Venezuela: Editorial Nueva Sociedad, 1990); Lourdes Beneria, "The Mexican Debt Crisis: Restructuring the Economy and the Household" in Unequal Burden, Economic Crisis, Persistent Poverty and Women's Work, Lourdes Benería and Shelley Feldman, eds. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press., 1992); and Rita M. Blumberg and Cathy Rakowski, eds., Engendering Wealth and Well-Being (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995). For specific case studies of rural Mexico, see Florencia Peña Saint Martin, Estrategias femeninas ante lapobreza, el trabajo domiciliario en la elaboracion deprendas de vestir (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1998); and Kerry Preibisch and Sharon Proctor, "Economic Crisis and Household Survival: The Crossroads of Class and Gender in Four Rural Mexican Communities" (paper prepared for the Latin American Studies Association meeting, Miami, Fla., March 2000).
4. For studies of the gendered impact of the debt crisis and structural adjustment policies in Latin America, see Adriana García and Edith Gomáriz, Mujeres centroamericanas: Ante la crisis, la guerra, y el proceso depaz (San José, Costa Rica: FLACSO/CSUCA/ Universidad para la Paz, 1989); Maria L.Tarres, "Formas de organización popular urbana en la crisis económica de México: Una mirada a partir de los de abajo," (paper prepared for the Latin American Studies Association meeting, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1989); Irma Arriagada, "Unequal Participation by Women in the Working World," Santiago: CEPAL Review 40 (1990): 83-98; Neuma Aguiar, "La mujer y la crisis latinoamericana" in Mujer y crisis - respuestas ante la recesión, Neuma Aguiar, ed. (Caracas, Venezuela: Editorial Nueva Sociedad, 1990); Lourdes Beneria, "The Mexican Debt Crisis: Restructuring the Economy and the Household" in Unequal Burden, Economic Crisis, Persistent Poverty and Women's Work, Lourdes Benería and Shelley Feldman, eds. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press., 1992); and Rita M. Blumberg and Cathy Rakowski, eds., Engendering Wealth and Well-Being (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995). For specific case studies of rural Mexico, see Florencia Peña Saint Martin, Estrategias femeninas ante lapobreza, el trabajo domiciliario en la elaboracion deprendas de vestir (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1998); and Kerry Preibisch and Sharon Proctor, "Economic Crisis and Household Survival: The Crossroads of Class and Gender in Four Rural Mexican Communities" (paper prepared for the Latin American Studies Association meeting, Miami, Fla., March 2000).
5. For studies of the gendered impact of the debt crisis and structural adjustment policies in Latin America, see Adriana García and Edith Gomáriz, Mujeres centroamericanas: Ante la crisis, la guerra, y el proceso depaz (San José, Costa Rica: FLACSO/CSUCA/ Universidad para la Paz, 1989); Maria L.Tarres, "Formas de organización popular urbana en la crisis económica de México: Una mirada a partir de los de abajo," (paper prepared for the Latin American Studies Association meeting, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1989); Irma Arriagada, "Unequal Participation by Women in the Working World," Santiago: CEPAL Review 40 (1990): 83-98; Neuma Aguiar, "La mujer y la crisis latinoamericana" in Mujer y crisis - respuestas ante la recesión, Neuma Aguiar, ed. (Caracas, Venezuela: Editorial Nueva Sociedad, 1990); Lourdes Beneria, "The Mexican Debt Crisis: Restructuring the Economy and the Household" in Unequal Burden, Economic Crisis, Persistent Poverty and Women's Work, Lourdes Benería and Shelley Feldman, eds. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press., 1992); and Rita M. Blumberg and Cathy Rakowski, eds., Engendering Wealth and Well-Being (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995). For specific case studies of rural Mexico, see Florencia Peña Saint Martin, Estrategias femeninas ante lapobreza, el trabajo domiciliario en la elaboracion deprendas de vestir (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1998); and Kerry Preibisch and Sharon Proctor, "Economic Crisis and Household Survival: The Crossroads of Class and Gender in Four Rural Mexican Communities" (paper prepared for the Latin American Studies Association meeting, Miami, Fla., March 2000).
6. For studies of the gendered impact of the debt crisis and structural adjustment policies in Latin America, see Adriana García and Edith Gomáriz, Mujeres centroamericanas: Ante la crisis, la guerra, y el proceso depaz (San José, Costa Rica: FLACSO/CSUCA/ Universidad para la Paz, 1989); Maria L.Tarres, "Formas de organización popular urbana en la crisis económica de México: Una mirada a partir de los de abajo," (paper prepared for the Latin American Studies Association meeting, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1989); Irma Arriagada, "Unequal Participation by Women in the Working World," Santiago: CEPAL Review 40 (1990): 83-98; Neuma Aguiar, "La mujer y la crisis latinoamericana" in Mujer y crisis - respuestas ante la recesión, Neuma Aguiar, ed. (Caracas, Venezuela: Editorial Nueva Sociedad, 1990); Lourdes Beneria, "The Mexican Debt Crisis: Restructuring the Economy and the Household" in Unequal Burden, Economic Crisis, Persistent Poverty and Women's Work, Lourdes Benería and Shelley Feldman, eds. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press., 1992); and Rita M. Blumberg and Cathy Rakowski, eds., Engendering Wealth and Well-Being (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995). For specific case studies of rural Mexico, see Florencia Peña Saint Martin, Estrategias femeninas ante lapobreza, el trabajo domiciliario en la elaboracion deprendas de vestir (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1998); and Kerry Preibisch and Sharon Proctor, "Economic Crisis and Household Survival: The Crossroads of Class and Gender in Four Rural Mexican Communities" (paper prepared for the Latin American Studies Association meeting, Miami, Fla., March 2000).
7. For studies of the gendered impact of the debt crisis and structural adjustment policies in Latin America, see Adriana García and Edith Gomáriz, Mujeres centroamericanas: Ante la crisis, la guerra, y el proceso depaz (San José, Costa Rica: FLACSO/CSUCA/ Universidad para la Paz, 1989); Maria L.Tarres, "Formas de organización popular urbana en la crisis económica de México: Una mirada a partir de los de abajo," (paper prepared for the Latin American Studies Association meeting, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1989); Irma Arriagada, "Unequal Participation by Women in the Working World," Santiago: CEPAL Review 40 (1990): 83-98; Neuma Aguiar, "La mujer y la crisis latinoamericana" in Mujer y crisis - respuestas ante la recesión, Neuma Aguiar, ed. (Caracas, Venezuela: Editorial Nueva Sociedad, 1990); Lourdes Beneria, "The Mexican Debt Crisis: Restructuring the Economy and the Household" in Unequal Burden, Economic Crisis, Persistent Poverty and Women's Work, Lourdes Benería and Shelley Feldman, eds. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press., 1992); and Rita M. Blumberg and Cathy Rakowski, eds., Engendering Wealth and Well-Being (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995). For specific case studies of rural Mexico, see Florencia Peña Saint Martin, Estrategias femeninas ante lapobreza, el trabajo domiciliario en la elaboracion deprendas de vestir (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1998); and Kerry Preibisch and Sharon Proctor, "Economic Crisis and Household Survival: The Crossroads of Class and Gender in Four Rural Mexican Communities" (paper prepared for the Latin American Studies Association meeting, Miami, Fla., March 2000).
8. For studies of the gendered impact of the debt crisis and structural adjustment policies in Latin America, see Adriana García and Edith Gomáriz, Mujeres centroamericanas: Ante la crisis, la guerra, y el proceso depaz (San José, Costa Rica: FLACSO/CSUCA/ Universidad para la Paz, 1989); Maria L.Tarres, "Formas de organización popular urbana en la crisis económica de México: Una mirada a partir de los de abajo," (paper prepared for the Latin American Studies Association meeting, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1989); Irma Arriagada, "Unequal Participation by Women in the Working World," Santiago: CEPAL Review 40 (1990): 83-98; Neuma Aguiar, "La mujer y la crisis latinoamericana" in Mujer y crisis - respuestas ante la recesión, Neuma Aguiar, ed. (Caracas, Venezuela: Editorial Nueva Sociedad, 1990); Lourdes Beneria, "The Mexican Debt Crisis: Restructuring the Economy and the Household" in Unequal Burden, Economic Crisis, Persistent Poverty and Women's Work, Lourdes Benería and Shelley Feldman, eds. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press., 1992); and Rita M. Blumberg and Cathy Rakowski, eds., Engendering Wealth and Well-Being (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995). For specific case studies of rural Mexico, see Florencia Peña Saint Martin, Estrategias femeninas ante lapobreza, el trabajo domiciliario en la elaboracion deprendas de vestir (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1998); and Kerry Preibisch and Sharon Proctor, "Economic Crisis and Household Survival: The Crossroads of Class and Gender in Four Rural Mexican Communities" (paper prepared for the Latin American Studies Association meeting, Miami, Fla., March 2000).
9. Diane Elson, Male Bias in the Development Process (New York: Manchester University Press, 1991); and Preibisch and Proctor, "Economic Crisis and Household Survival," 1.
10. Diane Elson, Male Bias in the Development Process (New York: Manchester University Press, 1991); and Preibisch and Proctor, "Economic Crisis and Household Survival," 1.
11. Pacific Council on International Policy, 2000, "Mexico Transforming," (Los Angeles: University of Southern California, 2000); and Preibisch and Proctor, "Economic Crisis and Household Survival," 4.
12. Pacific Council on International Policy, 2000, "Mexico Transforming," (Los Angeles: University of Southern California, 2000); and Preibisch and Proctor, "Economic Crisis and Household Survival," 4.
13. See María Crummett, "Agrarian Class Structure and Migration: A Comparative Regional Analysis from Aguascalientes, Mexico," (Ph.D. diss., New School for Social Research, 1984), 212-17, for a discussion of sampling procedures and an analysis of the three survey regions. Both the 1982 and the 1991 surveys recorded information on the members of each household and their activities, including agricultural work, paid work, unpaid domestic work, self-employment, and migration. In addition to the formal survey instrument, the research strategy includes interviews with key informants in the region and the collection of secondary data.
14. Household class position was determined through an analysis of factors shaping both the external structure of rural households, such as access to land and the buying and selling of labor power, and die internal structure, organization, and composition of households. See María Crummett, "Class, Household Structure, and the Peasantry: An Empirical Approach," Journal of Peasant Studies, 14:3 (1987): 363-79, for methodology employed in determining the three major class categories (commercial, subsistence, and landless) in the survey.
15. Secretaría de Agricultura y Recursos Hidraúlicos, "Plan Regional de Investigación Agrícola, Aguascalientes" (Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Agrarias, 1980), 52.
16. The ejido formed the basic unit of agrarian reform policies following the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920). Ownership and administration of an ejido is legally vested in a community responsible for allocating cropland to individual ejido members, the ejidatarios. Reforms implemented under the Salinas administration now allow ejido land to be sold, thus removing a restriction since the Revolution that ejido land could not be sold (or leased) but had to be kept in the community. Sharecropping arrangements in Calvillo generally grant the sharecropper use of land in return for which the landowner receives one-half of the harvest.
17. María Crummett, "Rural Women and Industrial Homework in Latin America: Research Review and Agenda," Rural Employment Policy Research Programme, International Labour Office Working Paper Series No. 46 (Geneva: ILO, 1988).
18. In Mexico, subcontracting is normally referred to as domestic maquila (maquila doméstica) when piecework is carried out in the home. In Calvillo, maquila consists of labor-intensive embroidery undertaken for a firm under specific contract arrangements, including exact specifications regarding design. In most cases, raw materials such as cloth and thread are provided, and production is mainly oriented toward the internal market.
19. Crummett, "Rural Women and Industrial Homework in Latin America," 20.
20. Kirsten Appending, "Los campesinos maiceros frente a la político de abasto: Una contradición permanente" (paper prepared for the Latin American Studies Association Meeting, Washington, D.C., 1991); Patricia Arias and Jorge Durand, "Campesinos de fines del siglo XX," (Mexico: Revista del Centro de Investigaciones, 3, 1990): 41-49; and Lois Stanford, "Privatization of Mexican Agriculture: The Impact on Peasant Organizations," (paper prepared for the Latin America Studies Association Meeting, Washington, D.C., 1991).
21. Kirsten Appending, "Los campesinos maiceros frente a la político de abasto: Una contradición permanente" (paper prepared for the Latin American Studies Association Meeting, Washington, D.C., 1991); Patricia Arias and Jorge Durand, "Campesinos de fines del siglo XX," (Mexico: Revista del Centro de Investigaciones, 3, 1990): 41-49; and Lois Stanford, "Privatization of Mexican Agriculture: The Impact on Peasant Organizations," (paper prepared for the Latin America Studies Association Meeting, Washington, D.C., 1991).
22. Kirsten Appending, "Los campesinos maiceros frente a la político de abasto: Una contradición permanente" (paper prepared for the Latin American Studies Association Meeting, Washington, D.C., 1991); Patricia Arias and Jorge Durand, "Campesinos de fines del siglo XX," (Mexico: Revista del Centro de Investigaciones, 3, 1990): 41-49; and Lois Stanford, "Privatization of Mexican Agriculture: The Impact on Peasant Organizations," (paper prepared for the Latin America Studies Association Meeting, Washington, D.C., 1991).
23. José Luis Calva, "La inversión privada, social y pública en el sector agropecuario," (Mexico City, unpublished manuscript, n.d.).
24. Calva, "La inversión privada," 2.
25. Percentages are based on a total of fifty-three households rather than the original sample of fifty-six. One respondent declined to reinterviewed in 1991, and two other households no longer existed because elderly members had died in the interim.
26. J. Rojas Nieto, "Las contradicciones de desarrollo industrial: notas sobre el desarrollo industrial de Aguascalientes," (paper prepared for the Eleventh Colloquium on "Las Realidades Regionales de la Crisis Nacional," Zamora, Mexico, 1989), 5-70.
27. In October 1991, one U. S. dollar equalled 3000 Mexican pesos.
28. Calva, "La inversion privada," 11.
29. Rojas Nieto, "Las contradicciones de desarrollo industrial," 13.
30. Highly skilled women embroidering designs on collars (bordados) by machine can complete one collar in thirty to forty-five minutes. On an average, women produce ten collars a day or fifty per week. Depending upon the degree of difficulty of the embroidered pattern and the firm distributing the material, women receive between 4,000 and 7,000 pesos per collar. Elaborately hand-sewn blouses (deshilados), on the other hand, take several hours to complete. A skilled laborer, working six to eight hours a day, can finish three to four blouses a day or about fifteen to twenty per week. Women receive 500 pesos per blouse. By way of comparison, male agricultural workers in guava are paid 20,000 pesos per day.
31. The major migration trends documented in Calvillo in the 1980s - increased male migration, long-term residency in the United States, and a higher incidence of female migration - have also been reported for other rural sending communities in Mexico. See Wayne Cornelius, "Los Migrantes de la Crisis: The Changing Profile of Mexican Migration to the United States," in Social Responses to Mexico's Economic Crisis of the 1980s, Mercedes González de la Rocha and Augustín Escobar Latapí, eds. (San Diego: University of California Press, 1991); and Pierette Hondagneu-Sotelo, Gender Transitions: Mexican Experiences of Immigration (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).
32. The major migration trends documented in Calvillo in the 1980s - increased male migration, long-term residency in the United States, and a higher incidence of female migration - have also been reported for other rural sending communities in Mexico. See Wayne Cornelius, "Los Migrantes de la Crisis: The Changing Profile of Mexican Migration to the United States," in Social Responses to Mexico's Economic Crisis of the 1980s, Mercedes González de la Rocha and Augustín Escobar Latapí, eds. (San Diego: University of California Press, 1991); and Pierette Hondagneu-Sotelo, Gender Transitions: Mexican Experiences of Immigration (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).
33. Joycelin Massiah, "Defining Women's Work in the Commonwealth Caribbean" in Persistent Inequalities: Women and World Development, Irene Tinker, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990); and Brígida García and Orlandina de Oliveira, "Gender Relations in Urban Middle-Class and Working-Class Households in Mexico," in Blumberg and Raakowski, Engendering Wealth and Well-Being, 237.
34. Joycelin Massiah, "Defining Women's Work in the Commonwealth Caribbean" in Persistent Inequalities: Women and World Development, Irene Tinker, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990); and Brígida García and Orlandina de Oliveira, "Gender Relations in Urban Middle-Class and Working-Class Households in Mexico," in Blumberg and Raakowski, Engendering Wealth and Well-Being, 237.
35. Joycelin Massiah, "Defining Women's Work in the Commonwealth Caribbean" in Persistent Inequalities: Women and World Development, Irene Tinker, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990); and Brígida García and Orlandina de Oliveira, "Gender Relations in Urban Middle-Class and Working-Class Households in Mexico," in Blumberg and Raakowski, Engendering Wealth and Well-Being, 237.
36. Merilee Grindle, "The Response to Austerity: Political and Economic Strategies of Mexico's Rural Poor," in Rocha and Latapí, Social Responses to Mexico's Economic Crisis of the 1980s, 140.
37. Merilee Grindle, "The Response to Austerity: Political and Economic Strategies of Mexico's Rural Poor," in Rocha and Latapí, Social Responses to Mexico's Economic Crisis of the 1980s, 140.