POPULAR RESPONSE TO NEOLIBERAL REFORM: THE POLITICAL
CONFIGURATION OF PROPERTY RIGHTS IN TWO EJIDOS IN YUCATAN,
MEXICO
by
MICHELLE EILEEN DIGGLES
A DISSERTATION
Presented to the Department of Political Science
and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
September 2008
11
University of Oregon Graduate School
Confirmation of Approval and Acceptance of Dissertation prepared by:
Michelle Diggles
Title:
"Popular Response to Neoliberal Reform: The Political Configuration of Property Rights in Two
Ejidos in Yucatan, Mexico"
This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Department of Political Science by:
Dennis Galvan, Chairperson, Political Science
Gerald Berk, Member, Political Science
Lynn Stephen, Member, Anthropology
Leonard Feldman, Member, Political Science
Lise Nelson, Outside Member, Geography
and Richard Linton, Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies/Dean of the Graduate
School for the University of Oregon.
September 6, 2008
Original approval signatures are on file with the Graduate School and the University of Oregon
Libraries.
© 2008 Michelle Eileen Diggles
111
IV
An Abstract of the Dissertation of
Michelle Eileen Diggles for the degree of Doctor ofPhilosophy
in the Department ofPolitical Science to be taken September 2008
Title: POPULAR RESPONSE TO NEOLIBERAL REFORM: THE POLITICAL
CONFIGURATION OF PROPERTY RIGHTS IN TWO EJIDOS IN YUCATAN,
MEXICO
Approved: _
Dennis Galvan
This dissertation examines popular responses to property rights refonns in Mexico
by comparing two ejidos in the southeastern state of Yucatan. As part of a series of
neoliberal refonns enacted in the 1980s and 1990s in Mexico, the federal government
altered the existing property rights regime to enable the division and privatization of
previously protected communal land. I argue that the responses to the refonns were
contingent on the historical development of institutional rules, political and economic
practices, and cultural values. In the first case study, Mani, ejidatarios accepted the new
rules while simultaneously expressing concern over changes in the process ofbecoming an
ejidatario, a rights holder making land tenure decisions. Community members used the
new rules to guarantee access to land and the ejido system by purchasing individualized
parcelas ofejido land in part because they gained material benefits, such as secure access
to state-funded irrigation systems. The rise in the remittance-economy and population
vpressures increased local demand for land and provided the income for local buyers. In
Hunucma, the other case study, ejidatarios contested the state-imposed rules as violations
of their traditional usos y costumbres. They fought against land sales for the construction of
a new airport, rejecting the legitimacy of the formal property system because the new rules
had been manipulated by state officials and land speculators. In doing so the ejidatarios
revived and re-deployed historical cross-ejido alliances and habits ofmilitancy and
mobilization. Both cases reveal that property rights regimes are more than institutions but
rather political configurations of control over resources, whereby the distribution ofrights
and subjective interpretation of the rules and practices determine local responses.
CURRICULUM VITAE
NAME OF AUTHOR: Michelle Diggles
PLACE OF BIRTH: Dearborn, Michigan
DATE OF BIRTH: 12 October 1974
GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED:
University of Oregon, Eugene
University ofWisconsin at Madison
DEGREES AWARDED:
Doctor ofPhilosophy, Political Science, September 2008, University of Oregon
Master of Science, Political Science, December 2003, University of Oregon
Bachelor of Science, Political Science, May 1998, University of Wisconsin at
Madison
Certificate, Institute for Environmental Studies, May 1998, University of
Wisconsin at Madison
AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST:
Development in Latin America
Comparative Politics
International Relations
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:
Visiting Professor, Department of International Affairs, Lewis & Clark College,
Portland, Oregon, 2008-2009
Senior Lecturer, Department ofPolitical Science, Portland State University,
Portland, Oregon, 2007-2008
Graduate Teaching Fellow, Department of Political Science, University of
Oregon, Eugene, 2005-2007
VI
--- ._._--
Vll
GRANTS, AWARDS AND HONORS:
Graduate School Research Grant, University of Oregon, 2006
Research Grant, Oregon Federation of Women's Clubs, 2006
Gary E. Smith Summer Grant, University of Oregon, 2004
Graduate School Research Grant, University ofOregon, 2004
Graduate School Travel Grant, University of Oregon, 2003
Department Travel Grant, University of Oregon Department ofPolitical Science,
2003
Vlll
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to express sincere appreciation to my dissertation committee members for
their patience and support throughout this process, specifically the probing questions,
advice, and critiques offered by Professors Leonard Feldman and Lise Nelson. Professor
Lynn Stephen was invaluable in helping me to contextualize my case studies in the
national political context and reframe my project. Professor Gerry Berk, my mentor and
friend for many years, simultaneously encouraged me throughout this project while
challenging my arguments and framing. I must give a special thanks to Professor Dennis
Galvan, who spent countless hours guiding me through the process of research design,
data collection, and manuscript writing.
A number of people have provided me with support during my inquiry into
agrarian transformations in Mexico. Professor Oth6n Banos Ramirez in Merida helped me
to better understand regional trends and emerging issues. While in Yucat[m I benefitted
from the advice, conversations, and friendship of Claudette, Sergio, Nacho, Carlos, and
Abel. The people of Mani and Hunucma generously oponed their homes and shared their
lives with me. Employees at Procuraduria Agraria, Registro Agrario Nacional, Archivo
General del Estado de Yucatan, and Instituto Nacional de Estadisticas, Geografia y
Informaci6n assisted me as I gathered information. I was fortunate to receive financial
backing from a Lumber of institutions, particularly the Oregon Federation of Women's
Clubs and the University of Oregon.
IX
This project could not have been completed without a community to encourage and
foster my own inquiries and interests. I am grateful for the support I received from
colleagues at the University of Oregon and a number of friends, including Sonya
Bastendorff, Richard Crook, Lada Dunbar, Kelly Gronli, Patrick Gronli, Sean Parson,
Melissa Peters, Clinton Smith, and especially Jason Hartwig and Karen Peters-Van Essen.
Special thanks are reserved for my mother, who constantly reminded me that I could
achieve anything, and my father, who supported me in many different ways throughout my
experiences. And thank you to Cory Dietrich, who always believed in me.
This dissertation is dedicated to Rita C. Lebowitz.
x
Xl
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. INTRODUCTION 1
II. THEORY AND METHODS 11
Theoretical Approach 11
Methodology 20
III. AGRARIAN RULES AND PRACTICES IN YUCATAN 28
Early Land Tenure and Use-patterns 28
The Colonial Changes 31
Independence and Liberal Legislation 36
Revolution and Land Distribution 42
Neoliberal Reforms 49
Neoliberal Reform in Yucatan 52
Conclusion.................................. 56
IV. AGRARIAN REFORM AND INDIGENOUS RIGHTS 57
The Beginning of the End 58
Building a National Movement for Indigenous Rights 61
Opening National Political Space 66
Conclusion 68
V. DUAL LAND TENURE IN THE ElIDO OF MAN! 70
Colonial Imposition ofNew Rules and Practices 72
Struggling to Create the Ejido 79
Operation and Significance ofthe Ejido 80
Irrigation and Citrus Production 89
Temporary Migration 96
Conclusion 99
xii
Chapter Page
VI. CREATIVE ADAPTATION OF CULTURAL AND INSTITUTIONAL
RES01JRCES ThT MAN! 101
Land Titling in Mani .. 102
Benefits of Institutional Association.. 106
Deploying Market Strategies for Non-market Reasons 112
Preserving Communal Land 121
Conclusion 130
VII. THE HENEQUEN WORKERS OF HUNUCMA 132
Creating the Ejido 134
The Henequen Institutional Matrix 141
Political Functions of the Henequen Ejidos 153
The Decay of Henequen Ejidos 157
Conclusion..................................................................................................... 161
VIII. THE REEMERGENCE OF EJIDATARIO MOBILIZATION IN
HUNUcMA 163
Neoliberal Reforms 164
From Mega-Proyecto to Mega-Scandal........................................................ 170
Internal Mobilization Against the Land Sales 178
Alliance-building and Cultural Re-framing 186
Conclusion 196
IX. CONCLUSIONS 199
APPENDIX: SELECT DATA SOURCES 205
REFERENCES 207
--------- - --.. _._._-------------
Xlll
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1. Mexico 2
2. Yucatan 5
3. Ejido Zones 54
4. Mani 72
5. Hunucma 135
XIV
LIST OF GRAPHS
Graph Page
1. Municipal Population, Mani 96
-- ---------_.-._---
1CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This dissertation is about an outcome that was not anticipated. In 1992, the
Mexican government ended land redistribution, which had been carried out through the
ejido system, and created a neoliberal property rights regime.! Many ejidos rejected the
new rules and in 1994 an indigenous rebellion erupted in the southern state of Chiapas
over, among other things, agrarian reform. Yet, in comparing two cases in the
southeastern state of Yucatan - Mani and Hunucma - I find that responses to the
neoliberal regime did not conform to predictable patterns (see figure 1). In Mani, with
agricultural practices embedded in ethnic identity, the reforms produced little resistance.
In Hunucma, where most people had abandoned the land for wage labor, a militant
indigenous movement emerged to contest land sales. These seemingly inverted outcomes
are the result ofcommunity members creatively adapting cultural and institutional
resources to craft local responses.
I Article 27 of the 1917 Mexican Constitution provided the legal framework for agrarian reform.
Communal usufruct rights to land were granted by the Mexican government after indigenous communities
petitioned for restitution of ancestral lands (comunidades agrarias) or if twenty or more campesinos
petitioned for access to land (ejido). In Yucatan there are 784 ejidos and 2 comunidades agrarias. Given the
small number of comunidades agrarias compared with ejidos, I focusing exclusively on ejidos. Until the
neoliberal reforms of 1992, the ejido enjoyed a special legal status in Mexico and could not be mortgaged,
rented, or sold.
2Ifwe look at the structure of social relations, we may have expected to see
conflict in Mani. The population is primarily Yucatec Maya. 2 Ejido land is linked to ritual
knowledge of maize production and collective memory of a royal, ancestral Iineage. On
the eve oftbe neoliberal reforms, 82% of the residents spoke Maya (INEGI 1991).
Population pressures were straining available land and the prices for its main commercial
product - oranges - fell by 50% in the 1980s. The ejido was part of a regional citrus
producer's union, a 1110bilizational resource for alliance-building.
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Figure 1: Mexico, map by ('atrick Cronli
2 For the rest of the dissertation I refer to the Yucatcc Maya as Maya, dropping the regional descriptor. This
is not mcant to characterize all Mayan pcoplc throughoLlt Mcsoamcrica. Howcvcr, thc Maya in Yucatan
sharc both language and post-conqucst rcgional history.
3The situation in Hunucma was very different. Nearly 80% ofthe population was
employed in non-agricultural sectors and only 15% of ejido land was being cultivated
when the neoliberal property rights regime was instituted (INEGI 2001; PA 1998a, 2).
One-quarter ofthe population spoke Mayan (INEGI 2006) and Mayan ceremonies and
rituals were not widely practiced in the community. Between 1990 and 2004, attendance
at ejido meetings never rose above four hundred and fifty people, out of a total of sixteen
hundred members. Usually, less than one hundred people participated in ejido assemblies.
The ejidatarios of Hunucma had disengaged from the agrarian institution and become
wage workers.
These outcomes elude the predominant structuralist modes of explanation in
political science. Structuralism is wide-ranging in our discipline. Structural predictions
usually privilege economic processes and social class (e.g. Marx 1978, Gellner 1983,
Schumpeter 1950, Wallerstein 1979, Moore 1966, Cardoso and Faletto 1979, Gunder
Frank 1969, Hall and Soskice 2001). But structuralism is just as apparent when analysts
privilege cultural identity and affective ties (Huntington 1997, Putnam 1994, Geertz
1980, Almond and Verba 1963, Eckstein 1988) in explaining outcomes. These
perspectives presume that human behavior can be predicted through a structural analysis.
My cases challenge these assumptions, illustrating that behavior cannot be "read" off of
structures. Situated agency determines outcomes, where behavior becomes both restricted
and possible as structures constrain and enable new strategies.
The purpose of this dissertation is to explain why people in Mani and Hunucma
behaved in ways that were not easily predicted from structural factors. In doing so, I
4focus on the historically-situated cultural and institutional resources ejidatarios drew
upon. Which particular cultural and institutional resources were used? How did they
impact behavior? Why did particular resources become salient at specific times? How did
actors reconcile imposed rules with existing practices?
In the case ofMani (see figure 2), communal ejido land is used to make the milpa,
an agrarian practice of maize production linked to ritual knowledge and Mayan
ceremonies. Commercial production on individualized, irrigated plots of land began in
the 1960s and became an important local source of wages. A local land market emerged
when the neoliberal rights regime was established and guaranteed access to land for local
residents ended. The institutional reforms limited future availability of land, but enabled a
new set of local strategies. Land transactions were often driven by a generational
obligation to provide land as patrimony. This strategy had unintended effects as the
definition ofpatrimony shifted to include individualized, as opposed to only communal,
land. Ejidatarios also used the new rules to maintain a large amount of communal land,
which was valued for milpa production and embedded in conceptions of collective
memory and normative rules governing land tenure. Actors in Mani creatively adapted
institutional and cultural resources and rejected neither instrumentality nor traditional
agrarian practices.
The Hunucma ejido (see figure 2) was dominated by the production of henequen,
fibers extracted from the agave cactus. State institutions controlled the sector and
organized ejidatarios as a rural proletariat, but one that extracted concessions in exchange
for loyalty. By the 1980s the henequen sector had failed and ejidatario participation in
5agrarian production and attendance at ejido meetings was extremely low. Midwifed by
corruption, ejido land sales in 2005, part of a state govenUl1ent development project,
catalyzed a new social movement to defend ejido lands. Ejidatarios contested the fairness
of the price paid for the land, but increasingly their grievances were framed as violations
of past practices. Elements of Mayan identity, once latent, resurfaced. Institutional and
cultural legacies were recast, fusing indigenous rights, Mayan history, and historical ejido
practices.
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Figure 2: Yucatan, map by Patrick Gronli
This dissertation proceeds in five chapters. Chapter two provides the theoretical
foundation for the inquiry into local responses to neol iberal propel1y rights ref01l11s. I
6argue for attention to situated agency, which is both shaped by and transfonns structures.
This approach helps me to focus on the types of resources ejidatarios drew upon in
reacting to the imposition of new property rules.
In chapter three, I analyze changes in land tenure, property rights rules, and
agrarian practices in Yucatan. Colonial authorities imposed new fonns of political,
economic, and social organization on indigenous communities. Mayan beliefs and
religious practices, embedded in agrarian production, survived on the margins of colonial
society, but were increasingly threatened by new fonns of domination over land and
labor. Post-independence land tenure became increasingly concentrated in elite hands,
causing an unsuccessful Mayan revolt in the nineteenth century. After the Mexican
Revolution (1910-1920), the state reconstructed land tenure patterns, granting
communities land to work through new agrarian institutions such as the ejido. Yet
government policies dominated production decisions and limited ejido independence. In
1992, neoliberal refonns established new property rules to simulate investment and
economic output. The changing dynamics of Mexican political economy produced
unanticipated outcomes in Yucatan, as ejidos used the new rules to maintain communal,
rather than individualized, land.
The national politics of neoliberal refonn and indigenous organizing are covered
in chapter four. Changes in federal policy in the 1970s and 1980s created new spaces for
independent peasant and indigenous organizing. The adoption of neoliberal refonns in the
1980s gradually eroded support for the one-party dominated regime and provided a target
for social movements aimed at refonning the political system. The Zapatista rebellion in
71994 drew attention to the plight of agrarian and indigenous communities, initiating a
national dialogue on autonomy. Opposition political parties took advantage ofthe
regime's governability crisis and new democratic reforms in the 1990s. By 2000 a new
party controlled the presidency. Social mobilization continued as civil society groups
pressed for greater accountability and inclusion, but state repression oflocal communities
continued.
Chapters five and six cover the case study ofMani. Formerly home to a royal
Mayan lineage, Mani was dominated by haciendas during the colonial and post-
independence periods. Land was returned to the Mayan population in 1934 when the
ejido was created. Agrarian production was dominated by the milpa, a subsistence
farming practice. The ecological, religious, and community norms governing production
were passed down from father to son. Both milpa production and maize were central in
Mayan ceremonies. This agrarian structure persisted until the 1960s when the state
introduced and funded irrigation systems and permitted individual plots of land to be
carved out of the communal land for citrus production. A regional credit association and
citrus processing facility, governed by citrus-producing ejidos, facilitated commercial
production and marketing of crops. Population increases resulted in pressure for more
land. As a result, more individualized, irrigated plots were created from communal land
in the 1980s and 1990s.
Despite high levels of ethnic identification linked to collective memory and ritual
knowledge, Manienses were gradually altering their agrarian practices from the 1960s on.
The irrigated plots of ejido land provided early experience with individualized
8commercial production and were an important local source of wages. Cultural heritage
and attachment to traditional agrarian practices failed to provoke widespread opposition
to the neoliberal property rights regime in Mani because people had already worked out
ways to participate in market production without losing their sense of identity. Under the
new rules, ejido land could be sold. A local land market was created, as people bought
and sold the irrigated plots. However, they did so partially in response to rule changes
under the new property rights regime. The 1992 reforms ended future land redistribution
by the federal government and restricted the process of gaining ejido membership. These
two changes produced insecurity over access to land and undermined the ability to
provide land to future generations, to secure patrimony.
A local land market was created to satisfy these needs. The strategy ofbuying
land responded to cultural concerns - the right of future generations to access land - and
economic need. In the process, the definition ofpatrimony shifted. Rather than generally
having access to communal land, individual land provided to descendants could fulfill the
obligation. At the same time, ejidatarios refused complete individualization, maintaining
half of the ejido as communal land. This land was available to ejidatarios, but also to
other community members for milpa production and as a source of firewood for cooking.
The high proportion of communal land reflects the Manienses' desire to maintain
community access and the embedding of everyday practices in identity. Ritual
knowledge about farming and religious practices honoring Mayan gods were linked to the
milpa. Local narratives of Mani as an ancestral home and of the Revolutionary struggle to
reclaim the land connected place and collective memory. While neither rejecting material
9interests nor cultural imperatives, Manienses appropriated elements of the new property
rules and adapted institutional and cultural structures.
Chapters seven and eight are devoted to Hunucma. The ejido was established in
1937 after years of violence between hacienda owners and the Mayan peasantry. The
ejidatarios cultivated henequen, the most lucrative export crop from Yucatan. Without the
resources to grow, process, and market their crop, ejidatarios had to accept the
intervention ofboth the state and federal governments providing credits, access to
technology, and wages for the ejidatarios. The expansion of henequen production was
accompanied by a loss of traditional Mayan agrarian practices and rituals. This
arrangement reinforced the ejidatarios' identity as henequen wage workers rather than
proprietors oftheir own land. But they were not passive subjects; they found allies in
other henequen ejidos. In the 1960s and 1970s cross-ejido mobilization increased to
combat unfair state practices that threatened their material interests.
As the Yucatecan henequen sector waned in the 1980s, ejidatarios shifted their
primary economic activities away from agriculture and disengaged from the ejido. While
not a complete abandonment ofthe institution, the ejido no longer served as an economic
or political resource for its members. This relatively under-utilized land, near the state
capital of Merida, could be freed from the restrictive laws governing the ejidos. Indeed,
government officials saw the situation in this way in 2004 when they attempted to
purchase land from the Hunucma ejido for the construction of a new airport. The state's
airport development project would create new jobs and revitalize the economy.
10
At first, ejidatarios seemed to accept the sale, but within a few months things
changed. Ejidatarios charged state leaders and land speculators with manipulating the
legal framework and using state resources for the benefit of a few private individuals.
The ejidatarios drew on habits of mobilization and militancy from the Revolutionary era
and the 1960s and 1970s, reviving and redeploying these historical tactics. They formed a
coalition with other ejidos to defend ejido land. With supporters in national indigenous
movements and peasant organizations, the ejidatarios appealed for public support and
legally contested the process. Increasingly, the alliances they formed both locally and
nationally highlighted their shared experiences, indigenous victims of neoliberal reforms.
Ejidatarios reinterpreted their sense of patrimony, rules about voting rights, and norms of
membership derived from working the land as traditional and customary practices, known
as usos y costumbres, in the tradition of Zapata and the historical Mayan struggle against
conquerors.
Chapter nine compares the creative and adaptive responses in Mani and
Hunucma. In both cases ejidatarios constructed new patterns of interaction, drawing on
cultural and institutional resources. The outcomes were unexpected from a structural
perspective. Drawing on the ideas of situated agency and temporality, I argue that these
dissimilar contexts produced similar responses. My cases demonstrate that property rights
regimes are political configurations, whose rules are subject to contestation and
adaptation as some elements are appropriated and others rejected.
11
CHAPTER II
THEORY AND METHODS
This chapter provides the theoretical foundation for the inquiry into local
responses to neoliberal property rights refonns. I argue that structurally detenninistic
models of behavior fail to predict outcomes because they ignore the role of agency. Both
institutions and culture can be reshaped as actors reconcile imposed rules and existing
practices by drawing on historically-situated resources. This chapter concludes with a
discussion of the methods used for data collection and analysis.
Theoretical Approach
Structural detenninistic approaches are flawed because they fail to adequately
account for agency. Marx (1978) argued that social, political, and cultural outcomes (e.g.
regime-type, religion, dominant ideology, social classes) are detennined by economic
structures, specifically the mode ofproduction and the relations ofproduction. Other
structural arguments focus on material factors and social class without the Marxian slant.
Moore (1966) argued that democracy resulted from the emergence ofthe middle class in
Great Britain. Almond and Verba (1963) linked socioeconomic status, education, and
democracy, implying that structural factors, particularly economic development, produce
a civic culture, which is conducive to creating and maintaining a stable democracy. This
12
kind oftheorizing privileges economic position as a determinant ofbehavior and identity,
people's values, attitudes, and beliefs.
The assumption of material conditions determining identity and behavior has been
challenged by scholars of identity formation. Working within a Marxian frame, Roediger
(1999) does not take working class identity as a given. Rather, he details the actions of
the 19th century American working class in constructing their own identity. The Irish
workers played an integral role, abandoning racially integrated working class solidarity to
reconstruct themselves as white. This was a mechanism to deal with the rapid changes
brought about by industrialization and the creation and expansion of the wage system,
allowing workers to reap the benefits of prestige and status conferred by whiteness.
Structural changes may have been the impetus for social change, but the content and
direction of the change was not pre-determined.
Studies of nationalism illustrate the differences between structural and agency-
based accounts. Gellner (1983) argues that the nation and nationalism resulted from a
technological shift in material conditions (industrialization) as agrarian societies
transformed into industrial ones. Gellner accords primacy to the process of
industrialization as fundamentally reorganizing social life, creating more mobile
populations and shifting the nature of work from primarily physical to communicative.
For him, reordering society to serve industrial development necessitates state
involvement in mass education. For him, an organic process, at its base caused by
material changes, produces nationalism.
13
Yet this inevitable, evolutionary process of national identity formation results in
nationalism without nationalists, architects who engage in the process of constructing
identity, much like Skocpol's (1979) revolutions without revolutionaries. By contrast,
Anderson (2000) argued that the existence of administratively organized societies and the
rise in print-capitalism provided a space for identities to be imagined based on a new
conception of belonging to a nation. He combined historical configurations, technological
change, and the agency of Creole pilgrims and printman to explain the origins of
nationalism in Latin America. Anderson's narrative is compelling because it avoids the
structuralism of Gellner, which assumes that nationalism is a function of technological
changes and industrialization. Agency-based accounts of identity formation incorporate
both process and content without rejecting structural constraints (e.g. Hobsbawm and
Ranger 1983).
Studies of group organization and behavior sometimes take identity as a given, a
pre-existing condition. Primordialist conceptions of culture hold values, practices, and
beliefs as stable, leaving little room for change, such as in Geertz's (1980) Negara.
Instrumentalist conceptions try and bring agency in by recognizing that the politicization
of identity is something to be explained. For Bates (1982) the pre-existence of ethnic
connections (e.g. shared language, geographic location, kinship ties) reduces the costs of
organizing a "minimum winning coalition." Identity is primordial here, waiting to be
politicized by cultural entrepreneurs. Laitin (1986) tries to bring in agency to explain how
ancestral city, and not religion, becomes a politicized identity, focusing on the colonial
reinforcement of one identity over another. While he helps explain how one identity
14
becomes more salient at a particular historical moment over another, his view of culture
is primordial, privileging the hegemonic reinforcement of identity.
Interest-based explanations focus on rational actors as utility maximizers, acting
on their preferences (Ostrom 1990, Bates 1998). Preferences and utility maximization, as
opposed to wealth maximization, is a way to include non-economic motivations. Yet
these explanations are problematic for two reasons. First, they believe that motivation or
preferences are revealed by behavior - "if they are people buying and selling,
maximizing wealth seems a reasonable assumption" (Levi 1999,24). Yet behavior may
not reveal preferences. Second, they do not account for why and how preferences may
change during interaction.
Even explanations that integrate historical conditions and path dependence face
these challenges. Anthony Marx's (1998) analysis of racial domination privileges
historical trajectories that set South Africa and the United States apart from Brazil. Legal
racial domination in South Africa and the United States emerged from intra-white
conflict, which had to be muted to create a sense of nationalism and a stable polity. The
lack of intra-white conflict set Brazil apart, and thus failed to produce legal racial
domination. Even beyond structural characteristics of white conflict, Marx concludes by
asserting that black mobilization against domination only succeeded where white,
national unity was consolidated. Historical patterns of conflict within white society
determined the type of racial domination, which then drove the type of organization and
protest that emerged in each state to challenge racial domination. His argument is
15
structuralist, but dependent on historical conditions that set one state on a path different
from others.
Path dependency arguments (e.g. Pierson 2000) try to correct for the over-
emphasis on structural determinism by examining key points historically which led to
particular outcomes. Putnam's (1994) comparison of the development of a civic culture
in northern and southern Italy concludes that both historical pre-conditions and
institutions account for the development of civic community. The traditionally civic-
minded areas of northern Italy that became communal republics with professionalized,
public administration in the twelfth century retained their sense of civic-mindedness,
despite transformations in the political structure that occurred. In contrast to the
economic development that Almond and Verba proposed, at its core Putnam's argument
is "once a civic people, always a civic people."
As a structural model for development, neoliberal reformers believe that altering
economic institutions will reshape behavior, hoping the market will determine actions.
The neoliberal model posits a series of steps a state needs to accomplish in order to foster
market-led growth.! Policy-makers at international financial institutions (e.g.
International Monetary Fund and World Bank) believed that state intervention in markets
and the over-regulation ofthe private sector were obstacles to development (Stiglitz
2002). The solution to low economic growth was to be found in the market, as "the
history of market-based reforms has repeatedly shown that free markets, open trade, and
I The policies associated with the "Washington Consensus" include fiscal austerity, macroeconomic
stabilization, liberalization, deregulation, and privatization (Williamson 1990).
16
an economy fueled by private ownership are enormously powerful in stimulating rapid
economic growth" (Sachs).2
Neoliberal macro-economic restructuring was designed to induce efficient
resource use. Proponents of this position argue that secure and transferrable private
property rights lead to investments and increased productivity, since the benefits are
concentrated and exclusive (de Soto 2000; Demestz 1967; Levy 1997; Muir and Shen
2005). In the 1980s and 1990s, governments in both the developing world and the post-
communist bloc embarked on programs to create private property rights out of state and
collective property.3 They ended redistributive agrarian reform efforts, once the goal of
state leaders to achieve greater collective equality (Borras Jr. 2003). The 1992 neoliberal
reforms in Mexico were similarly designed to create private property out of communal
land.
Evidence from Mexico suggests that neoliberal reforms have not had the effects
proponents expected. Politicians at the federal level implemented policies to insulate
sectors of the economy from the neoliberal reforms (Kessler 1998; Carruthers, Babb, and
Halliday 2001) and at the state level reregulated regional production through new
institutions (Snyder 2001). The neoliberal property rules have been resisted by some
peasants, who balance multiple conceptions ofland in determining land use and tenure.
The ejido represents not only an economic resource, but is embedded in historical
narratives, authority, political organization, ritual knowledge, and existing practices
2 Quoted in Rodrik (1996,33)
3 See, for example, Stark and Bruszt (1998), World Bank (2003), Deininger (2002), and Borras Ir. (2005).
17
(Baiios Ramirez 1998; Goldring 1998; Mummert 2000). These examples suggest that the
macro-structural reforms do not always induce predicted beahvior. To understand this
disconnect between predicted behavior and outcomes, we need to bring agency back into
the equation.
The relationship between structural conditions and behavior is complex. Changes
in one arena, such as economic organization, may not induce the kind of social
reorganization structuralist and path-dependent arguments assert. Thompson's (1991)
analysis of changes in the English market in the eighteenth century illustrates that
structural changes may not always determine outcomes. The culture of peasants and the
working class did not change overnight to accept the commercialization of agriculture in
England. The new organization of the economy was a violation of traditional norms, and
was resisted as it infringed upon people's sense of morality. Thompson's argument is
akin to resistance faced by authoritarian regimes attempting social reorganization (Scott
1998). Ignoring existing practices and metis, local knowledge, states fail to achieve their
desired outcomes because the do not account for the informal processes within which
institutions are embedded.
Forms of social organization, once entrenched, are not so easily overcome and
replaced by new, modem forms of organization, such as interest-based associations
replacing extensive kinship structures. New forms of organization have a basis in past
forms. Institutions are constituted in a dialectical process of reconciling new institutional
forms with existing social, political and economic forms of organization. The particular
legal-rational form of the political system in Great Britain, the adherence to liberalism
18
and individuation, and the establishment ofprivate property and accumulation arose
because these values and fonns of organization were constructed from the legacy of the
past (Bendix 1977).
Even outside ofwestern nation-state development we find the transfonnation and
redeployment of institutions from the past. Rudolph and Rudolph (1967) found that the
caste system in India was not merely an illiberal relic from a traditional era that impeded
development, but a central component in organizing interests in a "modem" democracy.
Modernization did not render the caste system unnecessary, the nature of the caste shifted
as social actors redeployed the institution for new ends. Principles and orientations which
existed as preconditions to state development were often woven into the organization of
the nation-state.
In a purely structural account of social change, macrohistorical forces detennine
change. In a purely agency-based account, individual action is the only factor bringing
about social change. My approach, situated agency, falls in between. Imposing new rules
can produce discord and rejection (Scott 1998; Thompson 1985). But they can also be
adapted and transfonned (Bendix 1977; Rudolph and Rudolph 1967; Watts 1992).
Structural imposition can result in adaptive transfonnation as new institutions come in
contact with existing rules and practices (Kjrer and Pederson 2001; Granovetter 1985).
Institutions are embedded in other structures of beliefs and aspirations, and throughout
the course of institutional transfonnation, the intentions or goals of the change itself are
shaped, interpreted and created (March and Olsen 1989).
19
Values, existing practices and identity shape how actors respond to new contexts,
but these cultural elements are not detenninistic either. Both imposed rules and culture
are institutions, dynamic and reconstructable by individuals, and thus preferences
embedded in culture are open to change as well (Dessler 1989). Individuals and structures
are not distinct categories of analysis, they are mutually constituted, whereby "actors are
at the same time the creators of social systems yet created by them" (Giddens 1991,204).
Institutions are both enabling and constraining, cutting off some routes and opening
others. It is this iterative process that will detennine how the neoliberal property rights
rules are translated at the local level and how imposed rules reshape values, existing
practices and identity.
People are creative, drawing on resources from past experiences, old institutions,
(sometimes latent) cultural identities, and common practices. Situated agency helps us to
think through how this process works. Actors behave within constraints, but they draw on
cultural and institutional resources in responding to changes. This suggests that prior,
available resources are situated historically and actors may be tempered by earlier and
often gradual alterations in the political, economic and social realms (Sewell 1996).
I focus on how structural change and existing practices are reconciled in Mani and
Hunucma. Ejidatarios used different sets of cultural and institutional resources in
complex ways to produce contradictory results. For example, the ejidatarios in Mani
responded to the new rules by creating a land market. Yet their wealth maximizing
behavior partially served cultural imperatives - generational obligations to provide land
as patrimony - which became redefined to account for this new strategy. In Hunucma,
20
prior mobilizational experience was redeployed to combat land sales. In the process, the
space created by national indigenous movements provided a context to reframe material
grievances as part of a wider movement of respect for indigenous practices. Both cases
reveal creative and adaptive responses that could not be read off of structures.
Methodology
To understand how people respond to state imposed property rights changes I
selected the ejido reform project in Mexico as a political process to research. Mexico's
agrarian reform originated with the Revolution (1910-1920) and Article 27 of the 1917
Constitution. By the time neoliberal reforms were instituted in 1992, there were over
27,000 ejidos, covering half of Mexico's land, and approximately three million
ejidatarios. The sheer size and diversity of ejidos provides variation in cases while
simultaneously keeping several factors constant (e.g. timing of reforms, laws governing
cases). Within Mexico, I selected the state of Yucatan for several reasons. At a practical
level, little research had focused on ejido reforms in the state.
At a theoretical level, the view from 2004 was different from 2006. In 2004 I
selected Yucatan as the state within Mexico to study the process of ejido reform. The
Yucatan peninsula proved difficult for the Spanish to conquer; the indigenous population
resisted and fled into the jungle. During the nineteenth century, the Maya rebelled against
the elites. They were almost successful. But as of 2004, they had not engaged in
coordinated actions against the state. Over half of the state's population is Maya. With
Chiapas so nearby, a large indigenous population, and a history of mobilization, why
21
were the Maya of Yucatan today not mobilizing against the neoliberal reforms and
fighting for autonomy as other groups were in Mexico? I wanted to understand the "dog
that didn't bark."
However, when I went back to conduct the bulk of my field research in 2006, the
situation had changed. Ejidatarios from Hunucma were organizing against a state
development project. Given these events, I decided to analyze one case where ejidatarios
were contesting the neoliberal property rights regime and one case where they were not.
In Manl, people maintained Mayan practices and had ancestral ties to the land. I would
have predicted resistance in ManL In Hunucma the history of henequen workers
mobilizing may have led me to expect tension; but in the course ofmy research I watched
the movement transform from one based on material claims to one that invoked a shared
indigenous identity. The differences between these two ejidos proved to be fruitful
ground for study.
Yucatecan ejidos are generally split into three categories - northern henequen
zone, southern tropical zone, and eastern milpa zone.4 Land in the northern henequen
zone and the southern tropical zone is considered very valuable in Yucatan. The former
henequen ejidos are near the capital of Merida and thus provide land for the expanding
urban zone. The southern part of the state has a more tropical climate and better soil for
agricultural production. With the use of irrigation systems, year-round production is
possible. Both of these geographic regions of Yucatan could be construed as good cases
4 Some researchers divide Yucatecan ejidos into five zones, the three already mentioned and two others -
northern fishing zones and northeastern ranching zones. However, these two types do not constitute the
bulk of ejidos in Yucatan.
22
for the privatization of land. The experience with irrigated plots of land and increases in
population in Mani led me to believe that pressure for land privatization would be high.
The conflict in Hunucma generated by the state's airport development project provided
me with a high-profile case that many viewed as symbolic of an emerging trend of ejido
land sales in the former henequen zone.
To better grasp how land tenure has changed over time and the basis for ejido and
individual decision-making about land I employed a number of strategies for data
collection. Prior to research in Mexico, primary and secondary source materials from the
Center for U.S.-Mexico Studies library at the University of California at San Diego
provided me with information about the 1992 reforms. The Center coordinated research
by American and Mexican scholars on ejido reform between 1992 and 1996. The library
contained Mexican government publications, published reports and conference papers,
and a number of theses and dissertations. These materials enabled me to consider early
experiences with the land titling program, the evolution of agrarian policies, and
responses from several ejidos.
The majority of my data came from field experience in Mexico. In 2003, 2004,
and 2006, I lived in Mexico. My time was primarily spent in Yucatan, between Merida,
Hunucma, and ManL In Yucatan, I supplemented my secondary source materials with
local archival and statistical data about agrarian rules and practices, economic activity,
and demographic trends. 5 Most of this data was for the state as a whole or municipality-
based, although some ejido-level data was available. For ejido and community specific
5 A complete list of sources of archival data is located in Appendix.
23
archival data I relied on three sources of primary materials. The archives at the National
Agrarian Registry (RAN) in Merida contained data on Mani and Hunucma from their
creation by presidential decree through the 1990s, including reports from assemblies and
letters between agrarian agencies and the ejido. The Agency for Agrarian Justice (PA)
contained ejido level data from the 1990s to the present, including information about the
state's land titling program (PROCEDE), ejido assembly reports, and lists of rights-
holders. These materials were supplemented with locally-produced books in Mani and
Hunucma providing the history of the communities.
Periodicals, reports, other publications and interviews were the primary data
sources for explaining the government's goals for the property rights reform and the
assessments ofthe reforms. Several government-produced reports and books provided the
justification for the neoliberal reforms. The state also produced pamphlets, brochures and
manuals explaining its land titling program. The periodical archive in Merida and on-
going coverage in the regions two main daily newspaper - Por Esto! and Diario de
Yucatan - were also sources of information, particularly in assessing the evolution ofthe
debates surrounding the airport project in Hunucma. I conducted ten semi-structured
interviews with agrarian officials in Yucatan, including individuals working directly with
the two ejidos and the heads of several agencies.6
I benefited from several contacts with universities in Mexico. The libraries at
Autonomous University of Yucatan (UADY), Central Regional University of the
Yucatan Peninsula (CRUPY), and the Agricultural Ecological School in Mani contained
6 A complete list of agency representatives interviewed is located in Appendix.
24
both primary and secondary sources of data. Several faculty members and researchers at
these schools were very helpful in providing me with information about agrarian
transformations in Yucatan, Mani and Hunucma. Additionally, I interviewed
representatives from non-governmental organizations, attended local conferences and
presentations regarding agrarian issues, and had access to independently-produced reports
assessing the reforms.?
To assess decision-making processes and local practices I observed people's
behavior at a number of events in Mani and Hunucma, attending ejido assemblies, rallies,
religious ceremonies, family celebrations, local seminars, and organizational meetings. I
also followed people's daily routines to better understand everyday practices, including
living with a family in Mani. Through this process I was both an insider and outsider,
tacking between "grasping the sense of specific occurrences and gestures emphatically"
and "stepping back to situate these meanings in wider contexts" (Clifford 1983, 34). No
where was this more evident than in my experience as a subject of an interview. After
attending a coalition meeting in Hunucma for the defense of ejido lands, I was
interviewed by the region's two newspapers. Despite my desire to remain removed from
the conflict, I was directly inserted into the situation. Opponents of the land sales hoped
my research and the publicity generated from the interviews would help their cause.
Supporters of the sales saw me as an outsider interfering and sometimes as an
7 In total I interviewed nine researchers in Yucatan and six representatives from non-governmental
organizations focused on campesino issues, liberation theology, and human rights issues. I attended three
conferences and five presentations.
25
independent actor who could be swayed to support the project.8 The newspaper articles
had another unintended consequence; several people in Mani read the stories and were
eager to have their views included in my analysis of agrarian reform in their community.
I employed several techniques to understand local responses to the 1992 reforms
and people's interpretation of agrarian reform more broadly. Local historians in Yucatan,
regular community members who are interested in Yucatecan society, often gather in the
mid-morning in community coffee shops to discuss politics, current events, history and a
variety of other issues. I was able to immerse myself in this "coffee shop culture" to get
opinions from dozens of people. This provided me with a local terminology and points of
reference to use in my more formal community interviews.
The core of my data on local responses to the property rights reforms came from
fifty-five interviews with community members. The interviews ranged in time from one
hour to several hours spread out over multiple days. Most ofthese interviews were semi-
structured, asking people to assess the reforms and their impact on land tenure, explain
their views on the privatization of ejido land, and discuss their strategies for household
survival. In Mani the thirty people interviewed also explained their view of the role of
migration and the remittance-economy, and changes in agricultural production. The
fifteen people interviewed in Hunucma further evaluated the highly contested airport
development project, the role of henequen, and the institutional conflicts related to land
sales, ejido membership, and local elections. The interviews in Hunucma were
supplemented with ten interviews from people in Merida involved in the airport project
8 I consistently remained neutral, informing those I spoke with, including the reporters, that I was a
researcher investigating broader patterns of change in response to the ejido reforms.
26
and an analysis of over sixty articles, editorials, and opinion pieces from 2005 through
2006 focused on the controversial land sales in the region's two main newspapers.
I utilized two other interview strategies - rumbas and life histories. Rumbos are a
"walk-as-interview" (Forrest 1997). During these walks, residents would take me on
tours of the community, their land, or locally important sites. In doing so they provided
me with valuable information about historical development and changes, agrarian
practices, land use patterns, and current conflicts. Six ejidatarios and community
members were willing to discuss in detail their life histories. These interviews, usually
over several days, focused on the individual's biography, and allowed me to identify
generational changes in social reproduction and locally meaningful time periods of
change.
I identified and categorized patterns of difference and cleavage within the
communities of Mani and Hunucma. Then I interviewed individuals who represented the
categories For example, the respondents in Hunucma included ejidatarios both in support
and opposed to the land sales and the airport project and those who were relatively
neutral. In Mani the respondents included different types of agrarian rights-holders and
represented various demographic categories by age, biological sex, and political party.9
Analyzing this data required several techniques. First I created a chronology of
key dates and time periods of relative stasis and change. This was a difficult process as
often there is a tendency to focus on exogenous markers of time rather than locally
meaningful events. While important periods of change can be read off the Mexican
9 A description of these categories is in Appendix.
27
narrative of agrarian reform - e.g. 1917 Constitution and Article 27, 1992 neoliberal
reforms - this cataloguing privileges these structural changes as exogenous causes of
outcomes. The political configuration of property rights in Mani cannot be understood
without a careful reading of the changes produced by early experience with production on
individual, irrigated plots of land and the expansion of the remittance~economy. The
political alliances and coalitions ejidatarios formed and the strategies employed to fight
the state's airport development project in Hunucma cannot be understood without
considering the government's organization ofhenequen ejidos and ejidatario mobilization
during the 1960s and 1970s. I pieced together this chronology from archives and
secondary source materials, but oral histories presented to me through interviews,
rumbos, and life histories helped me to affix the significance, impact, and temporality of
events.
28
CHAPTER III
AGRARIAl\T RULES AND PRACTICES IN YUCATAN
This chapter focuses on land tenure and agrarian practices in Yucatan. Colonial
authorities imposed new forms ofpolitical, economic, and social organization on
indigenous communities. Mayan beliefs and religious practices, embedded in agrarian
production, survived on the margins of colonial society, but were increasingly threatened
by new forms ofdomination over land and labor. Post-independence land tenure,
concentrated in elite hands, caused an unsuccessful Mayan revolt in the nineteenth
century. After the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), the state reconstructed land tenure
patterns, granting communities land to work through new agrarian institutions such as the
ejido. Yet government policies dominated production decisions and limited ejido
independence. In 1992, neoliberal reforms established new property rules to stimulate
investment and economic output. Legacies of domination, ritual knowledge, and
collective memory became resources the ejidatarios drew on in the neoliberal era.
Early Land Tenure and Use-patterns
The Yucatan peninsula is a flat, limestone plateau in the tropical southern zone of
Mexico. The lack ofrivers and lakes, coupled with the cycles ofwet (spring-summer) and
29
dry (fall-winter) seasons, make access to water difficult for much of the year.
Historically, cenotes, natural wells formed in the limestone, provided a source of water
during the dry season. Settlement patterns on the peninsula reflected their importance.
Prior to the conquest, Mayan residences were based in a main village, but
cultivation of the milpa led to a dispersed and mobile population. During the rainy
season, people employed a shifting slash and burn production method to make the milpa,
rotating fields every few years. Shrubs and brush were burned before the rainy season
and then sown with maize, beans and squash. People allowed the land to lie fallow for
several years after cultivation as harvest yields declined. l Generally a permanent home
was established in one area, but Mayan men and sometimes whole families emigrated for
the rainy season to tend the milpa. This created dispersed temporary settlements away
from primary villages.
Rituals associated with agrarian societies have been well-documented by
anthropologists and help us to understand the centrality of maize in historical Yucatecan
Mayan society. The Mayan creation story is laid out in the Popul Yuh, an account of the
origins of the Maya believed to have been written in the sixteenth century based on oral
accounts from Quiche Maya in Guatemala. In this narrative, the Gods Tepeu and
Gucumatz tried to forge humans after creating the earth and endowing it with plants and
animals. After trying and failing to make humans out of mud and then wood, Mayan
ancestors were forged from maize (Coe 1993,29).
1 Slash and burn agriculture and land rotation was an effective agricultural technique prior to the advent of
fertilizer for this geologic area (Patch 1991). Milpa production declined in these poor soils after about two
years, necessitating the cultivation of new land (Coe 1993).
30
Particularly among the Maya in the lowlands, the area including the Yucatan
peninsula, maize production was a central part of subsistence life. However, the
cultivation of other native crops, hunting of pheasant and deer, and the collection of
honey augmented the diet. A number of rituals and sacrifices were associated with these
daily tasks, but the "largest and most dramatic of Yucatec Maya agricultural ceremonies
is the Cha chaac; its purpose is to bring rain during times of drought, and thus involves
the entire community" (Coe 1993,210).
The chaacs are the rain spirits/gods and sacrifices to them were considered crucial
to the bringing of the rains to support the milpa. Historical and contemporary
anthropological accounts of the rite are relatively similar. An hmen, or shaman, presides
over the ceremony on the outskirts oftown. An altar is erected and sacrifices of food and
drink are arranged (Coe 1993, 210). During colonialism, when traditional Mayan worship
was banned, the Cha chaac ceremony was pushed into hiding, occurring mainly in the
milpa and with only a few individuals present, not whole communities as in the past
(Farriss 1984). Modem day Cha chaac ceremonies also employ an altar and sacrificial
food, but now they are public affairs. Historically only men attended the ceremony, but
now women may attend or serve as the hmen. Further, as part ofthe syncretic outcome of
colonialism, a cross is also present on the altar.
Agricultural production and ecology were linked not only to religious practices
but also to patterns of land use and ownership. By and large, fixed private property did
not exist before the colonial era. However, patrilineal corporate ownership based on male
kin groups was evident prior to Spanish conquest and during the colonial era (Farriss
31
1984, 134). Extended families, usually parents, their adult children, and the young
grandchildren, resided in one or several small dwellings, clustered together. The father
and adult males tended to the milpa, growing maize, corn, beans, and sometimes cotton.
The mother and females raised small patches of other vegetables and turkeys (later
chickens) on the homestead plot. Land was shared by the male kin, and passed from
generation to generation. However, rather than one male inheriting land, it was held in a
corporate arrangement for use by all male members of the extended family. Once an adult
male had a sufficiently large (and older) family, he left the family homestead to establish
his own.
The Colonial Changes
The Spanish conquest of Yucatan was a protracted affair. Early attempts at
conquest, such as the campaigns of Cortes' lieutenant Francisco de Montejo in 1527,
were successfully resisted. The geography of Yucatan was difficult for the Spanish and
their horses, particularly the dense vegetation. Troop morale was low and many
abandoned the campaign due to a lack of gold. Further, the Yucatecan Mayan civilization
was organized into sixteen provinces, territorial divisions that were largely autonomous
(Farriss 1984, 12). Rather than topple one centrally located empire, as the Spanish had
done with the Aztecs in central Mexico, conquest was more complex. There were many
political authorities in the area, so that dominion and control over one only covered a
portion of the population. However, this was also a resource for the Spanish, who forged
32
alliances with some provinces, such as the one formed with the royal Tutul Xiu lineage
ruling in the southern province of Mani.
While 1547 is generally recognized as the end of the conquest, control ofYucatlin
and the Maya by the Spanish was never complete. Many Maya, throughout the colonial
era, evaded their would-be masters by retreating into the forests of the south. Spanish
settlements and towns tended to be confined to the northern part of the peninsula. This is
not to suggest that Maya and Spanish society were separate and distinct spheres; indeed,
early on the Spanish settled rural estates and there were relationships and interactions,
including trade. However, the south was relatively uncontrolled, and Maya would often
"vote with their feet" (Hirschman 1970) to resist Spanish domination.
Mining was not a major source of wealth in the Yucatan; the labor of people
cultivating agricultural products was the basis for Spanish wealth. The encomienda
system was the principal institution organizing the tribute paid by the Maya to the
colonists (Patch 1993,28) Tribute was assessed in terms of goods, often a combination of
cotton cloth, maize, fowl, and wax. A fixed monetary level was assigned to the items
over time. Tribute was paid to the encomenderos, those private individuals receiving a
land grant from the crown allowing them control over the conquered population in the
area. Other fees were required by the church. Further, the Maya were required to pay
municipal taxes to build local treasuries and to donate labor time to their Spanish
community.
Agricultural practices which dominated the colonial economy required the Maya
to spend long periods oftime in the forests alone and not under Spanish control. The
33
provision of wax for the colonists meant that Maya men often spent weeks on end
wandering alone in the forests to find bees nests, unsupervised. All of this contributed to
the Maya having a degree of freedom from colonial authorities. Southern Yucatan was
largely independent of Spanish control for about one hundred and fifty years after
conquest, and some people fled there to escape Spanish persecution. The lack of Spanish
supervision over daily life allowed Mayan customs to persist hidden from colonial eyes.
The church emphasized conversion of the Maya, but also sought to control the
population to extract resources to support parishes and to ensure Christian morals and
teachings were being followed. Sometimes the church forcibly relocated Maya who
resided in dispersed areas into more concentrated centers, making it easier to assess and
collect fees to support local parishes (Rugeley 1996). The Spanish sometimes burned
villages to get the Maya to move. However, the Maya resisted forced moves. There were
not enough Spanish settlers to keep complete control over the Maya, especially outside of
the main towns; thus, the Maya often went back to their old homes, abandoning their
places of forced relocation. Increasingly, Maya subsistence patterns and the Spanish labor
requirements collided. Colonialism brought with it a struggle between Mayan tendencies
to migrate in search ofbetter milpa for subsistence farming and the needs ofthe parish to
centralize communities for tax collection, labor, and the supervision of morality (Rugeley
1996,9).
The milpa practice resulted in seasonal migration. Thus, the Maya, while keeping
their home in one place, would live for much of the year elsewhere. This made it difficult
for the friars to maintain control over them. The friars often used money they received
34
from church wages and extra money they collected from their Mayan parishioners to buy
land and, eventually, many established haciendas. Many church officials individually
became wealthy land owners.
But the main role of the church was conversion. Idol worship was outlawed and
Catholicism was the official religion. Religious conversion, a cornerstone of colonial life,
was directed at supplanting local gods and rituals with Christian ones. Parishes were
established throughout the Yucatan to control and organize spiritual life and more.
Publicly, Christianity supplanted Mayan ceremonies, as "The Christian ritual took over
the towns, just as the churches took over the temple sites, and the friars replaced the
ahkins, the Mayan high priests" (Farriss 1984, 290).
Still, many elements of Mayan cultural and religious practices endured. Public
religious life was characterized by adherence to Christian practices and ceremonies.
Mayan religious practices were pushed to the margins, underground and hidden from the
friars and colonial authorities, carried out in the forest and in caves. They were preserved
through rituals relating to hunting, cenotes, and milpa ceremonies for rain and good
harvests (Farris 1984,292). For example, the Cha chaac ceremony to avoid drought was
held in the milpa, where families brought religious items, privately held as family
heirlooms, for the ceremony. Small groups ofmen would bring offerings to the rain god
to end the drought, but these were not the large community affairs of the past. Over time,
this dual form ofprivate-public worship was fused, with Christian saints and names
taking the places of Mayan gods and deities, and Christian symbols used in Mayan rituals
35
(Farriss 1984). This syncretic fusion allowed Mayan practices to survive the Spanish
onslaught.2
Many of the pre-conquest Mayan rituals seem to have survived, with little
alteration, to the present day. Farriss' (1984) research into Mayan cosmology argues that
early colonial descriptions of various practices and ceremonies are virtually identical to
more recent descriptions by ethnographers. She argues that the links between subsistence
food production and traditional beliefs and rituals are relatively stable. "This continuity in
lifeways and beliefs can be seen most strongly in the all-important task of food
production, with its locus in the milpa" (Farriss 1984, 288). Since Mayan religious beliefs
and practices were obscured from public view and pushed into the realm of the private,
they persisted despite acceptance of Christianity.
The relative stability ofthe colonial order was maintained for about one hundred
and fifty years. But by the end of the eighteenth century, rapid changes transformed
Yucatecan society. Population increases accelerated the demand for grains. Many estates,
the precursors to the haciendas, thus expanded agricultural production and claimed as
private property land the Maya used (Patch 1993, 143). Initially labor on these estates
came from free peasants, who traded work every Monday of the year for a piece ofland
on which to make their own milpa (Patch 1993, 148). But increasingly the Spanish elites
dominated and controlled of once-free peasants. The Bourbon reforms introduced by
King Charles III liberalized the colonial economy. In particular the rules governing trade
were relaxed allowing for trade without first going through Spain (Patch 1993,208).
2 For a discussion of religious syncretism, see Stewart 1999.
36
These rule changes gave rise to extensive privatization ofland in Yucatan and the
expansion of haciendas, as elites focused on producing products for export (e.g. hides,
tallow, meat, logwood, and henequen products). The Spanish colonists set up large
haciendas in the country to supply growing urban markets with food and to produce
export products (Rugeley 1996).
Rural society was increasingly under pressure. To improve economic productivity
and ensure a sufficiently large base oflabor, hacendados started paying taxes and church
fees for the peasants, not as a gift, but as a forced loan. The peasants were forced into
labor on the haciendas to work off the debt. This often began a cycle of permanent
service on the hacienda as the peasants were not able to pay their involuntarily incurred
debt. They were often unaware ofthe amount of their debt. This debt-peonage system
was increasingly used to guarantee access to cheap labor. Even independence from Spain
did little to alter this system. Existing land and labor practices gradually continued after
1821. Hacendados claimed communal lands as private property, as haciendas expanded
to supply both the growing internal market and export of raw materials.
Independence and Liberal Legislation
Concentrated land tenure increased in post-independence Mexico, although the
new policies were based on the liberal laws of the colonial Spanish regime. In the 1840s,
a series of laws resulted in large swathes of what were deemed "empty" lands (terrenos
baldios) being seized by elites as private property. The goal was to restrict communal
land ownership and extend private property.
37
The Yucatecan state government passed a law in 1841 which severely restricted
the size of communal village lands (Patch 1991, 55). Everything outside of the core of the
communal village lands was considered empty land and could legally be colonized by
private individuals. Lacking revenues, the state government increasingly used land as
payment, particularly to compensate soldiers for military service. In 1844 the state levied
taxes on milpa land and required villagers to pay surveying fees to delineate communal
village lands from empty land (Patch 1991, 56). These actions by the Yucatecan
government dispossessed many Maya from the land and increased the financial hardships
of the peasant class.
Many Maya lived in dispersed areas and cultivated the milpa outside of the main
village land, since these lands were largely in private hands. The milpa plots often had to
be planted farther and father away in order for the crops to grow given the poor soil
conditions on over-used land near the villages. The actions of the state government
illustrated their failure to understand or desire to ignore land use by the Maya. The liberal
legislation was designed to alter land tenure and improve Yucatan's economic position.
The goal of extending private property rights was to increase general welfare by creating
incentives for more efficient use of resources. But instead they resulted in conflict.
In 1847 the Caste War began and fighting broke out in Yucatan between the
Mayan population and the Spanish-descended elites. The Maya were quite successful in
retaking rural land, pushing their "foreign" invaders back to the capital of Merida. But
that was not to be. In a now famous description ofthe Caste War, as the time for planting
the milpa came, the Maya turned their backs and retreated to the land. Agrarian practices
38
trumped continued fighting, illustrating the centrality of the milpa in Mayan life. By and
large the war was over.3 In 1848, with supplies from Mexico City, Yucatecan elites began
to reassert control over land, pushing back against the rebels. While re-colonization of the
peninsula took many years, control gradually spread east and south.
The Caste War left a mark on the Yucatan and "reveals the continued vitality of
Maya culture. Not only were the Maya capable oforganized resistance but they had also
preserved a collective memory oftheir past" (Farriss 1984,389). The Maya had resisted
complete domination and settled in the south and east, fertile lands where milpa
cultivation could continue (Joseph 1986). But the elites would not be confined to this
arrangement. The demands for export commodities and agricultural products for the
urban areas once again pushed the boundaries, as the landed aristocracy sought to recover
and expand its economic power.
President General Porfirio Diaz (1876-1911) increased privatization and control
over land, partially to pacify the area after indigenous uprisings. By 1912, 134,000
hectares of communal village land in Yucatan was subdivided into about 12,000
individual plots. Echoing the liberals of a few decades before, the federal government
believed that these agrarian reforms were "progressive acts that would eliminate the
backward communal-village system and produce industrious, individualistic farmers
working in a free enterprise system" (Chacon 1991, 180). The impact on Yucatan was to
concentrate land in a few hands. Less than one percent ofthe elites owned over 97% of
3 Violence and battles continued to rage in Yucatan, even after most fighting had ended. In 1850, a "talking
cross" prophesized a holy war. The eastern part of the peninsula remained an uncontrolled frontier and the
base for low levels of insurgency and fighting until 1910, when control was exerted by the federal
government.
39
the land and about 96% ofthe population was landless by the early twentieth century
(Chacon 1991, 181).
One of the major causes of the new wave ofland concentration was the expansion
ofhenequen production. Henequen is a member ofthe agave family. The arid and rocky
soil of northern Yucatan provides ideal growing conditions. The plant takes between
seven and ten years to develop, and then its leaves may be cut. Raw fibers can then be
extracted from the spiky leaves. These can be used for rope and twine. Starting slowly in
the nineteenth century, by 1880 the cultivation ofhenequen for export became the major
economic activity in the northwest area of Yucatan and around Merida.
Several technical improvements in henequen production during the nineteenth
century improved processing, making the industry lucrative. Originally fibers were
scraped from the leaves by hand, a time-consuming process. But in 1860 Yucatecans
developed mechanical rasping devices (desfibradoras), which cut costs and permitted the
industry to meet growing demand (Wells 1985,28). The 1878 invention ofthe
McCormick knotter-binder and its use in the U.S. dramatically increased demand for hard
fibers (Joseph 1982,26).4 And Yucatan was poised to become the number one supplier
satisfying U.S. demand. Over 85% of all binder twine manufactured in North America
was made with Yucatecan henequen (Wells 1985,28).
"Far cheaper and far more accessible than any of its rivals, Yucatecan henequen
virtually monopolized the world market prior to 1915. While potential competitors in
4 Both the McConnick and Deering companies in the U.S. made improvements in knotter-binders by the
end of the nineteenth century. These increased efficiency in wheat harvests, more than doubling output. The
companies formed a consolidated trust, International Harvester Company, by 1915. (Wells 1985,30-37).
40
Africa and Asia were still years away from establishing the stable conditions under which
sisal plantations might flourish, Yucatan's henequeneros had mastered a technically
advanced, highly capitalized plantation economy predicated upon a labor system that
reduced production costs to a bare minimum." (Joseph 1986,91-92) American demand
drove expansion in the Yucatecan henequen industry. Between 1870 and 1915 production
increased from 30,000 bales to 950,000 bales (Wells 1985,29).5
With henequen a viable export commodity, land and labor was needed to support
the new commercial activity. Many henequen planters acquired individual land holdings
from the indigenous people through confiscation or purchase. Further, the so-called
empty lands that many Maya used for the milpa were given away or sold at low prices to
private companies before peasants could file a legal claim to the land (and even when
they did, there were often problems with the courts). (Chacon 1991) Few haciendas
outside of the northern zone grew henequen; rather, they focused on the production of
foodstuffs for the expanding urban zone using indigenous peasants as agricultural
laborers often forced into service through debts. While small compared to other
haciendas in Mexico, large mono-crop henequen haciendas replaced mixed crop
haciendas around Merida by the end of the rule of Porfirio Diaz (1911).
The concentration of land often forced free peasants to seek out work on
haciendas. Through the expansion ofdebt-peonage, labor became tied to the haciendas.
Between 1880 and 1900 the hacienda labor force increased nearly four-fold, to 80,216
(Brannon and Backlanoff 1987,39). The debt-peonage system was reinforced by
5 One bale equals 350 pounds.
41
hacienda stores (tienda de raya), which provided credit for peasants to purchase goods,
effectively placing them deeper into debt. Military conscription could also be avoided if a
peasant was an indebted laborer, and many peasants moved to the haciendas to escape
military service (Wells 1985, 159). The increasing demand for labor in the northern
henequen zone often drew Maya workers from the south to fulfill shortages (Joseph
1986).
By the early twentieth century (prior to the Mexican Revolution), Yucatecan
society had been re-shaped through government policies and mono-crop agriculture.
Landless peasants, largely Maya, had been dispossessed of their land. Political and
economic elites allowed indebtedness to serve as the mechanism supplying the henequen
haciendas with a year-round labor supply. Outside of the henequen zone haciendas
predominated, and most Maya were forced to work on them since they lacked land of
their own. These haciendas supplied food and other products to support the urban and
henequen areas of the north.
But the reliance on a mono-crop export was volatile. During World War I,
supplies ofnon-Yucatecan fiber from were cut-off and stockpiling by the U.S.
government increased both demand for henequen and prices three-fold between 1915 and
1918, from $0.0559 to $0.14 per pound (Brannon and Backlanoff 1987,42). But after the
war, with competition from abroad, prices fell to $0.065 per pound (Brannon and
Backlanoff 1987,43). This, coupled with technical changes and the Great Depression,
lowered demand, price, and henequen profits. Mexican President Calles intervened in the
sector and created the Henequeneros de Yucatan Cooperativa Limitada to coordinate the
42
Yucatecan henequen market, setting export prices and restoring Yucatan's falling market
share (Brannon and Backlanoff 1987,43). But the plan failed and the henequen sector
was "unable to overcome burgeoning foreign competition after World War I" (Wells
1991, 142).
Revolution and Land Distribution
The Mexican Revolution (1910-20) once again re-shaped land tenure. Article 27
of the 1917 Mexican Constitution provided the legal basis for redistributing land to
campesinos through the ejido system.6 This system reformed land tenure relations in an
attempt to satisfy the needs of the fifteen million landless peasants (95% of rural
families), many of whom were indigenous people (Thiesenhusen 1996, 35). The ejido
system was also a pragmatic response to the needs of thousands ofpolitically mobilized
peasants.
Ejido land, unlike private property, could not legally be sold, rented, or
purchased. Communities essentially obtained usufruct rights to land from the
government. A 1971 legal change allowed ejidatarios to rent out ejido land to non-ejido
members. Ejidatarios were required to directly work their land and not hire wage
laborers. They also had the right to serve on the executive committee ofthe ejido and
voted on committee membership and internal rules. The rules governing ejidos remained
relatively stable until the shift to neoliberalism.
6 Agrarian reform is generally dated from the conception of Plan de Ayala by Zapata's supporters on
November 28, 1911. The document called for the restoration of expropriated land to local communities and
the division on one-third of all hacienda lands for landless peasants. (Katz 1996,23)
...._---------------
43
Yucatecan society was not mobilized and engaged in struggle on the mass scale
that other parts ofMexico were during the Revolution. The populist ideals of the
Revolution came late, imposed on the Yucatan by federal leaders "from without" (Joseph
1982). "Various factors - geographic isolation, counterrevolutionary movements, lack of
revolutionary leadership - caused the revolution largely to bypass Yucatan, and, as a
consequence, the state maintained its pre-Revolutionary socioeconomic structures"
(Chacon 1991, 182). The revolutionary governors imposed on Yucatan by the federal
government began agrarian reform at a faster pace than the federal government
supported.
Yucatan's first revolutionary Governor was General Salvador Alvarado (1915-
1918), arriving from Campeche in 1915. Alvarado believed that he could transform
Yucatan into a more productive region, responding to the needs of workers and
campesinos within a capitalist framework. But first he had to reorganize Yucatecan
production, eliminating obstacles to growth and development. Alvarado wanted to use
state power to end the unproductive practices that dominated the state: debt-peonage, the
large and often unproductive haciendas, and foreign control of henequen (Joseph 1982,
101). He enforced federal decrees outlawing debt-peonage, freeing some 100,000 people
(Joseph 1992, 104). However, the majority ofthe freed campesinos only left the
haciendas temporarily, as the haciendas still provided work and continued to control vast
amounts ofland. They were nevertheless free peasants, no longer forced to work to pay
off debts, signaling the end ofwhat is commonly referred to as the era of slavery (la
epocha de esclavitud).
44
After the 1917 Constitution was established, Alvarado implemented a modest
agrarian reform program, providing land so peasants could grow food, which was being
imported to supplement the region's growing population (Chacon 1991, 192). Alvarado
persuaded several hacendados to rent or cede (with compensation) land temporarily to
groups or communities. Land redistribution was minimal, but some several thousand
hectares were distributed to 12 communities (Joseph 1982, 128). Alvarado did not believe
the restoration of communal lands would lead to development. He argued that "Those
men [Maya] want only to sow their miserably small milpas, will eat nothing but com, and
cannot be persuaded to produce anything of worth for society as a whole" (Alvarado
1982).7
U.S. demand for henequen during World War 1. raised prices and provided
Alvarado with funds to support his reforms. But in 1918 he was called back from
Yucatan by the federal government for reassignment. After the war, henequen prices
plummeted. Governor Felipe Carrillo Puerto (1921-1924) came to power and also
attempted to implement agrarian reform. He hoped to break up the henequen haciendas
by restoring land to villages that had been taken during the boom. However, he
recognized that the state did not have sufficient funds to support campesinos by providing
the necessary agricultural inputs. Still, his main goal was land redistribution, and, after
Zapata's state of Morelos, more land was distributed in Yucatan during these early years
than anywhere else in Mexico (Joseph 1982, 231). He distributed some 438,866 hectares
to 22,525 peasants, most of which was land for milpa production (Spenser 1991,234).
7 As quoted in Joseph (1982, 128)
45
Carrillo Puerto's agrarian reform was aggressive and worried the landed elite, yet
his demise came when he specifically targeted the henequen haciendas. In late 1923 he
issued two decrees, both of which targeted the interests of the casta divina, Yucatan's
landed elites. He sought to seize idle lands from haciendas; however, rather than grant
usufruct rights, he planned to tum ownership over to workers to manage communally
(Joseph 1982, 261). Nominal compensation would be provided to the owners of the
expropriated lands. Further, he pursued a plan to distribute a share of the henequen profits
to the workers, to support the new cooperatives (Ibid). But Carrillo Puerto's project of
agrarian transformation was never complete, as he was assassinated in 1924.
In order for the goals ofthe Revolution to be fully implemented, especially in the
henequen zone, the power ofthe federal government was necessary. Ten years later that
requirement was met, as President General Lazaro Cardenas (1934-1940) focused on
agrarian reform in Yucatan's henequen sector. His goal was to break the power oflocal
economic elites in Mexico, those opposed to the Revolution's aims. But he also
recognized that political stability in Mexico, and success ofthe new National
Revolutionary Party (PNR), rested on mass-based support. 8
Cardenas redistributed seventeen million hectares of land throughout Mexico,
more land than had been redistributed in the prior twenty year period, creating hundreds
of ejidos (Beaucage 1998, 12). His agrarian reform benefited more than 800,000 peasant
families and he distributed twice as much as land as all of the other administrations since
8 The National Revolutionary Party (Partido Nacional Revolucionario - PNR) was created after President-
elect Alvaro Obregon's assassination in 1928. In 1946 the name was changed to the Institutional
Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional- PRJ).
-- ----- ---_._._---
46
the Revolution combined (Handelman 1997,37). His genius lay in the development of
the corporatist structures of the PNR. Cardenas incorporated both workers and peasants
into the party through institutions such as the Confederation ofMexican Workers (CTM)9
and the National Peasant Confederation (CNC).lO Ejidatarios became members ofthe
CNC, which provided access to state support. Mexican agrarian policy was ultimately
created to respond to demands for land, but also served to strengthen and maintain
political support for the one-party regime in rural areas (Barry 1995, 12). As Brannon
(1991,245) noted "the distribution of property to landless peasants created a large,
durable, and manipulable base of support for the official party".
Landowners and processors in the henequen sector continued to be a powerful
force opposing agrarian reform. In 1937 Cardenas visited Yucatan, decreeing that each
hacendado would be allowed to keep a total of 300 hectares and the rest of their holdings
would be expropriated (Joseph 1982, 292). Arriving with teams of surveyors, engineers,
and bureaucrats, he carried out the largest single episode of land reform in Yucatan.
Within two weeks he created 276 collective ejidos, which controlled 61 % of the
henequen land (Brannon 1991,246). But his effort to transfer control of henequen
production to peasants was fraught with problems. The ejidatarios had neither the capital
nor the technical skills to manage henequen farming and processing. Over the following
50 years, both the state and federal government would step in, managing and organizing
the henequen ejidos. Their actions effectively made ejidatarios state employees. The
9 Confederaci6n de Trabajadores de Mexico
10 Confederaci6n Nacional de Campesina
47
henequen ejidos nevertheless proved to be a fonnidable political bloc, and the federal
government poured millions of pesos into Yucatan to bolster the sagging sector and
ensure that the ejidatarios' support for the PRI never waned. II This arrangement resulted
in ejidatarios being converted into wage workers as opposed to proprietors of their land,
dependent on the state for their economic livelihood.
During the PRI's seventy year reign, the ejido often served as a political
instrument for the state to provide campesinos with a place to live and raise at least
subsistence crops. By institutionalizing agrarian refonn, the one-party state was able to
co-opt dissent and maintain some rural stability. But increasingly the rural sector was a
drain on federal reserves, with resources supporting industrialization. Efforts to improve
agricultural output and diversify crops were undertaken in Yucatan, specifically with the
creation of irrigation systems. Generally beginning in the 1960s, the national water
commission began to install irrigation systems in parts of (particularly southern) Yucatan.
This infrastructural change resulted in some communal lands being broken up into
individual plots to grow various fruits and vegetables for the domestic market. Southern
Yucatan in particular focused on citrus production.12 But federal policy changes once
again would impact the rural sector in Yucatan.
State support for ejidos was furthered diminished with the onset of the debt crisis
in 1982 and the subsequent adoption of neoliberal refonns. The federal government's
debt bankrupted the treasury when interest rates rose in the 1980s. To avoid defaulting on
II The politics of the henequen sector after Cardenas' distribution are discussed in greater detail in chapter
seven.
12 The development of irrigation and the citrus industry in Yucatan is discussed in greater detail in chapter
five.
48
its loans, the federal government negotiated with the u.s. government and the
International Monetary Fund for further loans to cover debt service payments. These
loans came with strings, and in 1982 Mexico entered a period ofneoliberal economic
restructuring. As a result of neoliberal reforms and budgetary cuts, fewer state resources
were available to support the ejido sector.
The agrarian sector in Yucatan was sagging by the 1980s. Construction projects in
Cancun, for the development ofthe tourism industry, brought jobs to the region.
Temporary migration provided wages for many campesinos. The 1980s also saw the rise
of a relatively new phenomenon in Yucatan - migration to the U.s. This migration
largely involved Maya, who compose approximately 65.5% ofthe state's population
(CONAPO 2005). This trend was partially driven by the failing henequen sector, which
was in crisis by the 1970s as the availability of cheaper and higher quality natural rope
from other areas (notably Brazil) and synthetic fibers began to dominate the world
market. For example, the percent of total workers employed in Yucatan's cordage
industry declined from 54% to 14% between 1965 and 1980 (Lewin 2007, 11). Further,
falling citrus prices in southern Yucatan pushed people north seeking employment.
Fluctuations in citrus prices, and the extraction ofprofits by intermediaries for
transportation and marketing costs, undermined the sector (Lewin 2007, 12).
Whereas work in Cancun or in the northern henequen zone historically provided
labor, by the 1990s these sectors were unable to fill the demand for wages from
Yucatan's rural sector. Natural disasters, such as hurricane Gilbert in 1988, and the
higher wages available in the u.s. also contributed to increases in migration. The rise in
49
migration to the U.S. has been accompanied by increases in remittances. While not
reaching the high levels found in other Mexican states, between 2001 and 2006
remittances to Yucatan rose from approximately $44 million to $114 million (Lewin
2007, 17).
Neoliberal Reforms
Neoliberal reforms were designed to alter ejido structures and permit the sale of
ejido land. 13 By creating secure and transparent property rights, reformers hoped to
attract investment into the rural sector. The changes to agrarian law and government
policies were expected to "catalyze the formation of a new economic and social dynamic
based on free market principles" (Banos Ramirez 1998,33). The greatest changes came
during the tenure of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994).
There were three main changes in policy under Salinas that greatly impacted the
ejido system specifically, and the agricultural sector broadly. First, the state ended its
blanket subsidies to the agricultural sector, removed price supports and the provision of
credits. 14 Second, trade protections were reduced, as liberalization proceeded and tariffs
13 Neoliberal reforms are usually dated as beginning in Mexico in 1982, the time of the first Structural
Adjustment Program. Reforms to Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution, which officially ended the
government's responsibility to redistribute land, were made in 1992.
14 Salinas' poverty-reduction program, PRONASOL, was designed to target some state funds towards the
poorest individuals and alleviate the stresses caused by liberalization. However it failed to provide relief for
rural agricultural producers because the distribution of funds was biased towards political and electoral
priorities, as well as poverty reduction, and was also biased towards urban areas (Kelly 2001,91).
50
were dropped. Finally, Article 27 ofthe Constitution was changed, ending agrarian
refonn and land redistribution. 15
In 1992, Salinas refonned Article 27 as he finalized the North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The refonns granted members of ejidos the right to title to
their own land, which could be sold, rented or used as collateral; granted companies the
right to purchase ejido lands and hold twenty-five times more land than individuals; and
removed the ability for peasants to petition for land redistribution (Harvey 1998, 187).
When the refonns were announced in 1991 and implemented in 1992, about half of
Mexico's territory was covered by Article 27; that is, half ofthe land was legally bound
through usufruct rights granted to ejidos (Stephen 2002, 6). There were approximately
27,410 ejidos within Mexico, which supported about 3.1 million ejidatarios and many
more oftheir dependents when the refonns were announced (Cornelius and Myhre 1998,
2).
This process of creating and implementing mechanisms to provide land titles was
complex. The neoliberalland titling program was lengthy, consisting of years of
meetings, mapping land, designating beneficiaries, and allocating certificates and titles.
The federal government created new agencies (Agency for Agrarian Justice - PA)16 and
programs (Program for Certification of Ejido Land Rights and the Titling of Urban House
15 Land redistribution had been continuing in Mexico despite earlier neoliberal reforms. For example,
Harvey (1998,174) found that in the state ofChiapas, between 1989 and 1992 there were 358 newejidos
and comunidades agrarias created, bringing the total combined number to 2,072 in Chiapas.
16 Procuraduria Agraria
51
Plots :- PROCEDE)I7, and enlisted existing agencies (National Institute of Statistics,
Geography, and Information - INEGI) I8 in this project.
The land titling program was voluntary. The process was composed of several
steps. For each ejido, an assembly of ejidatarios had to vote to participate. If a majority
voted for the program, the entire ejido began the process. The state mapped ejido land,
delineating boundaries. Often there were boundary disputes pre-dating the 1992 reforms.
These had to be settled before the program could progress in the ejido.
The ejido assemblies had to designate land tenure patterns. There were three
types ofland. The first type, uso comun, referred to land held in common by ejidatarios.
No one individual owned a specific piece ofland; rather, all ejidatarios had access. Each
ejidatario was given a title for rights to communal land. The second, a parcela, was an
individual plot of ejido land titled to one or more persons. This was individualized ejido
land. It was not privatized. The parcelas were still part of the ejido, even though not all
ejidatarios had access to it. Ejidatarios received titles to parcelas, but community
members who were not ejidatarios also received titles to parcelas. Sometimes people had
homes built on ejido land; this land was designated solar, the third type of ejido land.
When the land titling program had delineated ejido boundaries and mapped the different
forms ofland tenure, titles were given to the agrarian rights-holders.
Completing the land titling program did not mean that ejido land was private
property. In order to create private property, the ejidatarios had to vote, in an assembly, to
17 Programa de Certificacion de Derechos Ejidales y Titulacion de Solares
18 Instituto Nacional de Estadfstica Geografia e Informatica
52
allow property to be privatized. Only parcelas could be privatized. Uso comful land fIrst
had to be converted into parcelas for it to be privatized. The ejido assembly had to vote to
create parcelas out of uso comful land. If the assembly permitted the privatization of land,
the individual who had title to the parcela had to fIle for a land tenure change. They did
this through RAN. Once the paperwork was fIled, the owner of the parcela received a
new title for private property.
As part of the new rules governing the ejidos, three categories of rights-holders
were established in the agrarian law. Ejidatarios were those individuals with ejido rights,
including participation in ejido assemblies and elections. The second category, an
avecindado, is offIcially recognized by the ejido assembly or agrarian tribunal as living in
the area for one year or more. A posesionario, the fInal category, is not an ejidatario, but
owns a parcela or uses uso comful land. Posesionarios must be recognized by the ejido
assembly. The category of posesionario includes parcelarios, people who own ejido
parcelas. Sales of ejido parcelas are permitted under the new law without the privatization
of ejido land. However, these sales are restricted and can only be conducted between
these legally recognized categories of rights-holders. For sales to outsiders, people
without recognized agrarian rights, ejido land must be privatized.
Neoliberal Reform in Yucatan
The land titling process began in Yucatan in 1994. There was little organized
resistance to the program, and nearly 60% ofthe ejidos were participating in PROCEDE
53
by 1999.19 By 2006, 702 ofthe 786 ejidos in Yucatan had completed the land titling
program. Approximately 500,000 hectares of ejido land was designated as parcelas and
nearly three times as much, 1,530,244 hectares, as uso comtm (Agency for Agrarian
Justice 2006). In total, about half of Yucatan's land was in the ejido system. Virtually no
land was designated as solar. The amount ofland held as uso comtm, virtually 75% of the
ejido land in Yucatan, is large by national standards. The national average is 66% uso
comun and 33% parcelas. Yucatan and six other states in Mexico have less than 30% in
parcelas; by contrast in eighteen states over 50% is held as parcelas, with six states
registering more than 66% in parcelas (Agency for Agrarian Justice 2007).
Generally, the ejido land in Yucatan falls into three main categories of production
(see figure 3). Land in the northwestern part ofthe state, around the capital of Merida, is
comprised of about 270 of the ejidos that had produced henequen. These were the ejidos
carved out of the henequen haciendas, particularly during Cardenas' administration. The
eastern part of the state is characterized by milpa production on about four hundred ejidos
(Banos Ramirez 1998,32). These communities are sources of temporary migratory labor,
some destined for Merida, but the bulk headed to Quintana Roo, working mainly in the
Cancun area. The southern part of the state is dominated by mixed production systems,
19 Some researchers found resistance in the early years ofPROCEDE, prior to 1996. For example Banos
Ramirez (1998, 34) argued that by 1996 only 37% of Yucatan's ejidos received certificates from RAN. He
argued that the lukewarm response (in some cases outright hostility) by ejidatarios was due to a lack of
information about the program, wariness over large-scale government programs, and internal issues;
however, he argued that the relative slow pace ofparticipation in PROCEDE signaled that ejidatarios were
"far from being swept up in an entrepreneurial or free market culture" and that "the government has
ignored the social, cultural, and political dimensions of the crisis of the rural sector."
54
with both uso comL1l11and for the milpa and irrigated parcelas for commercial fruit and
bl d · 20vegeta e pro uctlon.
Communal land (uso comun) appears to have been preserved because it is suited
to the traditional milpa practice, as it allows for field rotation. One agrarian representative
argued that uso comun predominated because it "was what they [ejidatarios] could
envision." Perhaps after centuries, past agrarian practices became accepted as inevitable,
and so ejidatarios made their tenure choices based on what they knew best.
_.---
.'
I
J
,,,..- HUllucnlOl Merida
• @
u A
'--J ~)
I
'. ,.
..'
r':" _
J
"~'.'
r'
I
.... J t
I
\
I
I.
t
Ma",
•
" I',. ,
,-
I
.-'
Citrus Zone
Coastal Zone
Henequen Zone
Milpa Zone
Figure 3: Ejido Zones, map by Patrick Gronli
20 Some characterizations ofejido land in Yucatan describe five areas, the three already Illentioned plus
ejiuos involved in the cattle-raising anu fishing. However, these two types of production, and their
geographic locations, arc not as large as the other three categories.
55
As Banos Ramirez (1998, 39) noted, "For centuries, repeated attempts to introduce the
concept of private property into Yucatan's com-producing communities have failed.
They failed for one simple reason: cultivation is based on field rotation, and the most
suitable tenure pattern for field rotation is communally held land."
One current trend in Yucatecan ejidos is the sale ofland in the former henequen
zone. Much of this land has been sold to satisfy the demands of the growing urban
population of Merida. Some wealthier Meridians have built estates outside the city.
Several high-profile projects, such as a country club and housing for Merida's elites and
an increasing foreign community, have been built on former ejido land. Still, these types
oftransformations have been relatively limited compared to the total size of the ejido
sector in Yucatan.
Approximately 21,000 hectares, less than 1%, of ejido land had been privatized
by 2007, of which just under half (8,562 hectares) was in the municipality of Merida
(Ministry of Agrarian Reform 2007). This is logical, as the urban population has been
expanding. These transactions have caused many members of agrarian agencies to argue
that gradually the ejido will disappear in Yucatan. Many agrarian bureaucrats believed
that out of economic necessity ejidatarios were forced to sell their land. They further
argued that as the ejido waned as the predominant form of land tenure, it was inevitable
that the traditional culture would fade and with it cultural values and practices.
56
Conclusion
The milpa practice, embedded in ritual knowledge and identity, was preserved in
YucaUm. When land concentration threatened this practice, the Maya rebelled. Despite
failing to retake their land, this mobilization became part ofthe collective memory. While
Maya in some parts of the Yucatan maintained milpa production on ejido land in the
twentieth century, those in the henequen zone were transformed into wage workers. As
my two case studies illustrate, in the neoliberal reform era cultural identity served as a
resource for both groups in responding to the changes, even if ethnic identification had
become latent for the henequen ejidatarios.
57
CHAPTER IV
AGRARIAN REFORM AND INDIGENOUS RIGHTS
This chapter provides an overview of the national politics of agrarian refonn and
indigenous rights from the 1980s to the present. Federal policies in the 1970s and early
1980s created the conditions for regional ejido organization independent from the state.
Financial crises caused Mexico to abandon its nationalistic economic policies and adopt
neoliberal refonns in 1982. These refonns accelerated, and in 1992 the government ended
land redistribution. Criticizing neoliberalism and injustices committed against the
indigenous people, the Zapatista anny mounted a short-lived military offensive in 1994.
They succeeded in opening new political spaces for dialogue and contestation, and
pressured the state to recognize indigenous autonomy. In doing so they proposed
participatory democracy, rooted in various indigenous conceptions of autonomy, as a
counter to the neoliberal emphasis on individual liberty. In creating an alternative
framework for viewing state-society relations, indigenous movements directly confronted
and challenged official political authority in Mexico.
58
The Beginning of the End
In the 1980s grassroots indigenous and peasant movements took root in Mexico.
The increase in independent organizing was the result of new associational spaces created
in the 1970s and 1980s. President Echeverria (1970-76) encouraged regional second and
third level associations of small producers to fonn through the 1975 Agricultural Credit
Law (Fox 1992,58). The goal of the law was to unite producer groups - ejidos,
indigenous agrarian communities and private production societies - around common
economic interests, such as accessing credit and the marketing of crops. They were
pennitted to fonn secondary level associations of two or more producer groups. This
resulted in the fonnation of Unions of Ejidos. Two or more secondary level groups could
also fonn a third level Rural Collective Interest Association (ARIC). The fonnation of
Unions of Ejidos Unions, third level associations, increased during the 1980s, partially as
producers struggled to appropriate the productive process (Harvey 1998, especially
chapter 5).
Between 1980 and 1982, the federal government channeled some of their oil
revenues into the Mexican Food System (SAM), an agrarian subsidy program designed to
increase grain production and alleviate hunger. Peasant stores were created under SAM in
rural communities, managed locally by the community. While the 1982 debt crisis ended
the program, the peasant stores had a lasting political effect. "Autonomous peasant
movements took advantage ofthe program's participatory procedures to build their own
representative organizations, whose activities and scope went beyond the boundaries
originally defined by policymakers" (Fox 1992, 152). While new spaces were created for
59
peasant and indigenous mobilization, it would take some time for their demands to
impact the political system. In the meantime, the relationship between economic policy
and political institutions changed dramatically.
By the early 1980s Mexico's financing for industrialization had become
unsustainable. With mounting external debt, interest rates, and government deficit, the
state declared that its treasury reserves were depleted and would not be able to make its
debt payment in 1982. The crisis caused President Madrid (1982-88) to agree to Mexico's
first structural adjustment plan. The government began to privatize state-owned
enterprises, lowered tariffs, and cut its budget. Madrid cautiously abandoned traditional
nationalist economic policies, joining GATT in 1985 and beginning NAFTA (l'Jorth
American Free Trade Agreement) negotiations (Lindau 1996). By the end ofhis
administration, neoliberal reforms were accelerating.
The fiscal changes the federal government made in accordance with structural
adjustment programs resulted in budget cuts to social sectors. This disrupted the long-
standing tradition ofthe PRI, which maintained a corporate political structure and
allegiance through distributions of state benefits. The shift towards market-oriented
economic policies and the abandonment of social sectors faced with falling wages created
a backlash against the PRI.
Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, son of agrarian reformer Lazaro Cardenas, broke with the
PRI in the 1988 elections to run as a populist candidate. Cardenas enjoyed broad support,
especially in rural areas. He argued for greater democratization and protection for those
suffering the tough adjustment period. Carlos Salinas, the PRI candidate, officially won
60
the 1988 elections, but his legitimacy was challenged by widespread allegations of vote
tampering.
President Salinas (1988-94) aggressively pursued neoliberal reforms, including
NAFTA negotiations and the privatization of state-owned enterprises. His reforms to
Article 27 ofthe Constitution and the agrarian law ended land redistribution, removed
protections on ejido land, and created the legal mechanism for the individualization and
privatization of ejido land.! The goal was to establish a market-driven model of
development and foster capitalist agrarian transformation with the infusion of private
funds and the creation of a land market. This neoliberal development model in Mexico
was based upon the idea that the indigenous would disappear as social actors, instead
serving as a source of cheap labor for bulk commodities production. One of Salinas's
rural policy advisors believed that indigenous farmers would be driven off the land and
become "proletarianized" as a result ofNAFTA and neoliberal economic reforms (Nigh
2000, 124).
The adoption of neoliberal reforms and the radical shift in agrarian policy
represented a new conception of state-society relations. The federal government signaled
that the protection of the individual and private property was supplanting the needs of
communities. The neoliberal shift in economic policy-making was tied to a
reorganization of society, one that sought to refashion a modem Mexico. For some
twenty million peasants in the countryside, Salinas sought not to provide further agrarian
reform but to see them as inevitably unnecessary for modem Mexico (Centeno 1997).
I These points are discussed in greater detail in chapter three.
61
The peasants were to be incorporated into the modem, free market economy. The
agrarian reform of the past, which redistributed land to peasants and supported small-
scale agriculture, would cease to be a central state goal, cast instead as an obstacle to
development, and supplanted by market-driven agricultural policies.
Yet economic benefits were not evenly distributed and dissatisfaction with the
PRI was mounting. To restore legitimacy and earn international acceptance as a
modernizing state, both the Salinas and Zedillo (1994-2000) administrations liberalized
the political sphere, providing new opportunities for competition by rival parties. The PRI
was under pressure to implement democratic reforms throughout the 1990s, partially
resulting from economic crises. One of the most surprising and enduring challenges to the
PRI and the neoliberal agrarian reforms came from a poor state in southern Mexico:
Chiapas.
Building a National Movement for Indigenous Rights
By 1994, the early experiences with peasant and indigenous organizing coalesced
into a guerilla movement against the state. As NAFTA went into effect on January 1,
1994, about three thousand peasants in the state of Chiapas rose up under the auspices of
the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) and captured a number of regionally
important towns. They claimed that NAFTA was a '''death sentence to the indigenous'
and protested against exploitation and repression" (Schulz 1998, 587). Initially enjoying
success as the police and military were taken off guard, days of fighting and police
brutality against the indigenous participants and their supporters followed. Global
62
attention focused on the situation as the Zapatistas were able to utilize the media to
convey their message.2 Their media war kept the watchful eyes of the world attentive.
Through successful international organization, the Zapatistas were able to pressure the
Mexican national government to call a cease fire on January 12, 1994.
The 1994 movement was neither a spontaneous response to neoliberalism nor a
direct result of the 1992 agrarian reforms. A variety of regional organizations arose in
Chiapas throughout the 1970s and 1980s that, along with existing ejido governance
structures, became important in connecting peasants, spreading information, and
recruiting members for the EZLN.
Three different organizations emerged in Chiapas in the 1970s. The first was the
Emiliano Zapata Peasant Organization (OCEZ), which focused on land issues and
worked with peasants to maintain and receive title to ejidos. The second was the
Independent Confederation of Agricultural Workers and Indians (CIOAC), an
organization approaching the agricultural peasants as a rural proletariat and organizing
local unions based upon federal labor laws. In 1980 the CIOAC and the OCEZ joined
with other ejido unions in the central highlands and Lacandonjungle to create the Union
of Ejido Unions and Peasant Groups in Solidarity, later known as ARIC-Union of Ejido
Unions. (Collier 1999; Harvey1998; Hernandez 1994)
In the 1970s the National Forces of Liberation (FLN) arrived in Chiapas and in
effect helped to create a base for the future EZLN (Barmeyer 2003). By 1983, the EZLN
had already been established by San Emiliano community members wanting to train in
2 The Zapatistas brought communiques to a newspaper in San Cristobal, which then faxed the texts to the
newspaper LaJornada, Initially the Zapatista communities did not have direct access to the internet.
63
guerilla tactics and firearms use (Barmeyer 2003). Over the next several years, through
the work ofthe FLN, the Maoist-inspired Popular Politics (PP), and the existing
organizations, the EZLN militarily grew, amassing what materials they could and
establishing training facilities to prepare for military action. As peasants became
concerned over the ability of the ARIC-Union of Ejido Unions to effectively fight for
their concerns, some began to move towards the Emiliano Zapata Independent National
Peasant Alliance (ANCIEZ), a precursor that in 1989 became officially the public face of
the EZLN (Harvey 1998; Barmeyer 2003).
The variety of local and regional organizations operating in Chiapas was central
in linking peasants from ejidos together and forging a sense of shared identity. These
organizations also provided a training ground for different models ofhow to achieve
goals, by working with the government, by appropriating the process of production, and
by navigating the system to achieve ejido grants. The ejido structures themselves, with
community-based governance where individuals participated and shared responsibility,
using a consensus model for decision-making, were also important locations for peasants
to work with each other, build community trust and solidarity, and share information.
These regional and local forms of organization are central in understanding how people
in different areas, spread out in the jungle, could be mobilized by the EZLN.
As demonstrated in chapter seven, the mobilization of ejidatarios in the
Yucatecan henequen zone during the 1960s and 70s was the result of a regional
association. However, in the Yucatecan case those associations were imposed from above
as a union. The shared class identity established among the ejidatarios as henequen wage
64
workers became the basis for mobilization against the government when their material
interests were threatened.
The symbolic beliefs attributed to Zapata, agrarian reform, and the Revolution
were tapped by peasant, ejido, and indigenous organizations within Chiapas, including
the EZLN. However, these beliefs were not static, nor were they used by outside urban
leftists to brainwash peasants to work with them. Instead, peasants themselves were
actively engaged in a process not just of reclaiming the myth of Zapata, but of fusing that
myth with traditional beliefs to construct a new symbolism, one in which Zapatismo was
"projected as a symbol of struggle not only for indigenous peoples in Chiapas but for all
people living in misery, without rights, justice, democracy, or liberty, and who support
the struggle to obtain these goals" (Stephen 2002, 167).
The 1994 uprising opened new political spaces for indigenous people to articulate
their grievances and demands. The peace negotiations, facilitated by Chiapas Bishop
Ruiz in San Andres Lamiinzar, opened a national dialogue for civil society to examine
the costs of neoliberal reforms and consider and contest what citizenship and democracy
meant in Mexico (Harvey 1998, 199). The EZLN included over 100 advisors from a
broad array of organizations during negotiations with the government. Despite a signed
agreement on "Indigenous Rights and Culture," negotiations broke down over the issue
of "Democracy and Justice," resulting in increased violence and government
assassinations ofpolitical activists and their families (Schulz 1998, 601).
Indigenous autonomy emerged as a major goal during the negotiations. "The
economic struggles for land, credit, and fair prices, while necessary to build regional
65
organizations, were increasingly articulated in a cultural-political discourse of indigenous
autonomy" (Harvey 1998, 204). During the meetings, EZLN representatives asserted
their cultural identity, displaying their cultural pride in their language, dress, and the
make-up ofthe team, composed of Maya (Gilbreth and Otero 2001). The 1996 San
Andres Peace Accords that resulted from the negotiations did not deal explicitly with
land and agrarian reform, but focused instead on indigenous autonomy and the rights of
self-determination (Stephen 2002). The concept of indigenous autonomy is based upon
the idea that indigenous people can live according to their own "practices and customs,"
in accordance with Covenant 169 ofthe Internal Labor Organization, which Mexico has
signed (SIPAZ 1998).
Out of the events of 1994-1996, two rival national indigenous organizations
emerged - CNI and ANIPA. The National Indigenous Convention (CNI) is a national
network of indigenous groups, many of whom are Zapatista sympathizers. The CNI has
often endorsed Zapatista proposals and has consulted with the EZLN. The National
Pluralistic Indigenous Assembly for Autonomy (ANIPA) emerged from communities in
Chiapas who were not supportive of the EZLN, specifically members from the ARIC-
Union of Ejido Unions (Harvey 1998, 220-222). A series of assemblies in 1994 and 1995
of indigenous people in Mexico focused on the issue of autonomy. During the meetings
there was contestation over the conception of autonomy. These disagreements became
more solidified as the CNI and ANIPA became established networks. ANIPA members
supported regional autonomy that cut across ethnic divisions (Mattiace 1997). The
Zapatistas supported communal autonomy. While these organizations have diverged over
66
autonomy, they have also served as spaces for dialogue over how autonomy should
operate within the state.3
Opening National Political Space
In 2000, the previously unimaginable became reality. Seventy years ofPRI rule
came to an end. Vincente Fox, candidate for the conservative National Action Party
(PAN), won the presidency. The PAN displaced the PRI from power. The opposition
party victory created an opening for real democratic competition, which also benefitted
the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). The leftist PRD was established in the
wake of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas' failed 1988 candidacy. Since Cardenas' first attempt to
win the presidency, the PRD had fared poorly in presidential elections. However, they
had done well at the local level in some regions of Mexico, including winning the
mayoral election in Mexico City.
By the 2006 elections, the PRD had a leading candidate. Andres Manual L6pez
Obrador (AMLO) was a populist mayor from Mexico City who had achieved national
fame by the time the 2006 electoral cycle commenced. He was the projected front-runner
in the July election. As summer approached, the PAN and PRI launched massive attacks
on his reputation, painting him as a radical leftist. AMLO made a number of missteps,
3 Amendments made to Article 4 of the Mexican Constitution in the mid-1990s fonnally guaranteed
protection to the culture, traditions, and customs of indigenous people. However, the changes were placed
under a section of the Constitution entitled "OfIndividual Guarantees" thereby conferring protections to
individuals but not conferring rights to collective indigenous groups. Further, the section explicitly focuses
on protection culture, customs and traditions of indigenous peoples, but not giving rights to indigenous
peoples. (lung 2003)
67
assuming his lead in the polls was large enough to skip a nationally televised presidential
debate. His lead in the polls began to shrink.
The Zapatistas adopted a new political strategy for the 2006 elections. They
created La Otra Campana, The Other Campaign. Working outside of the political parties,
they tried to mobilize people throughout Mexico. A delegation of Zapatistas traveled
across the country to areas where indigenous conflict was developing. They listened to
people talk about their problems and the injustices they faced. The Other Campaign was
endorsed by the CNI and they jointly called for a convention in the spring to discuss
injustice and highlight the plight of indigenous communities throughout Mexico.
Both the Zapatista movement and the democratic reforms created a political space
for civil society to pressure the political system to incorporate alternative conceptions of
state-society interaction. Rather than a top-down process of control, indigenous groups
were pressing for more localized decision-making. But their movements were resisted by
authorities. In May of2006 an annual protest in Oaxaca turned violent. The protests were
organized by teachers during union contract negotiations with the state. On June 14th the
governor ordered police to remove the protestors, resulting in violence. Months ofunrest
followed. The government opposition, the Popular Assembly of Oaxacan Pueblos
(APPO), staged protests, took control of radio stations, and pressured the governor to
resign. The government's response was increased harassment, assassination, illegal
arrests, and torture (Guttman 2008). The governor never resigned, but the APPO
catalyzed hundreds of thousands of marchers for massive protests. Violence also erupted
in Atenco, near Mexico City, as flower vendors were attacked by police. Atenco was the
68
cite of violent confrontations between residents and police a few years earlier when
President Fox tried use ejido land to build a new airport.4
In July, Felipe Calderon, the PAN candidate, was declared the victor in the
presidential elections. Months of protests followed. There were accusations of voter fraud
during the election and AMLO demanded a recount. While the vote was close, recounts
showed Calderon had narrowly won. Refusing to accept the decision, AMLO took to the
streets. Protestors blocked major intersections in Mexico City. AMLO called for an
overthrow of Calderon and set-up a parallel government. His protests and rallies lasted
into the fall before finally dissipating.
Conclusion
The intersection of agrarian policies and neoliberal reforms helped to propel an
indigenous rebellion in Chiapas into the national spotlight. As the Zapatistas pressed for
indigenous rights, they also opened up political space for contestation over local, state,
national, and international actors to examine neoliberalism and its impact on
communities. Their goals went beyond local needs and increasingly focused on
participatory democracy and the meaning of autonomy (Stephen and Collier 1997). As a
result, the neoliberal emphasis on individuals within society resided next to the
movement for explicit recognition of indigenous practices and customs and a community-
centric definition of autonomy.
4 The conflict in Atenco is discussed in greater detail in chapter eight.
69
The Zapatistas and CNI created an important political opening. They provided a
national space for people to articulate their grievances against neoliberalism and
treatment by the state. Networks of indigenous people from different communities
mobilized and worked together on common issue. In doing they established a shared
frame for how to view state-society relations, local rights and autonomy. The
mobilization against land sales in Hunucma, the subject ofchapters seven and eight, is an
example of the intersection between the national (indigenous politics) and the local (one
ejido). They employ a shared language - usos y costumbres - and make comparisons -
Atenco - based on their interactions in the new spaces created by the Zapatistas.
There are many parallels between the ejido ofMani and the situation in Chiapas.
In both places secondary associations were created, organizing ejidos as producers. Both
coffee and orange prices fell in the 1980s and demographic changes exerted pressure on
the land. Yet, in Mani indigenous identity and protections for existing practices did not
produce ejidatario resistance to the neoliberal reforms or mobilization against the state. In
1994, after the EZLN mobilized against authorities in Chiapas, the Mani ejido began the
new land titling program. Explaining the outcome in Mani is the subject of the next two
chapters.
70
CHAPTER V
DUAL LAND TENURE IN THE EJIDO OF MAN!
The case of land tenure changes in Mani provides us with a window into the
decision-making process from the bottom-up, how ejidatarios and community members
respond to state-imposed rules and structures in one local community. In this community,
identity is linked to ritual knowledge, place, and agrarian production. This may have
produced resistance to the neoliberal property rights regime if cultural identity
determined responses. The end of protections for ejido land, central in Mani for the
milpa, may have generated opposition. Yet this is not what occurred. Rather than
opposition to the new rules, Manienses engaged in creative and adaptive responses,
drawing on locally-available political economic and ideational resources: the benefits of
institutional association, new migration patterns, and cultural values embedded in land.
This chapter examines the establishment ofthe Mani ejido prior to the neoliberal
reforms. Formerly home to a royal Mayan lineage, Mani was dominated by haciendas
during the colonial period. Christian missionaries further undermined Mayan rituals and
customs, trying to convert and Hispanicize the local population. This situation persisted
until after the Mexican Revolution, when the Mayan population reasserted its claims to
ancestral lands.
71
After violent battles in the 1920s to reclaim land from haciendas, the ejido was
created in 1934. Agriculture centered on making the milpa on communal ejido land.! This
land tenure arrangement persisted until the 1960s when the state introduced and funded
irrigation systems and permitted individual plots ofland to be carved out of the
communal land for citrus production. In the 1970s, Mani joined a regional secondary-
level citrus producer's organization for ejidos to strengthen their economic power. With
state support reduced and orange prices falling, temporary migration accelerated as a
household strategy in the 1980s.
The high levels of ethnic identity in Mani - linked to milpa production - and the
mobilizational resource of the regional citrus union could have resulted in a movement
against the neoliberal reforms, as occurred in Chiapas. Yet there were no local
manifestations of the kind of movement that arose in Chiapas. The gradual introduction
of individual plots of irrigated land for commercial production began to displace milpa
production on communal land and led to the creation of a land market in ManL Yet the
individualization and marketization of ejido land failed to completely supplant culturally-
rooted and historically-constituted agrarian practices. To understand this reaction, we
must first explore the institutional and cultural resources that actors drew upon in the
neoliberal era.
1 Milpa is translated from Mayan as "to the field". It is an historical process in the Yucatan of slash-and-
bum agriculture used to cultivate com, beans, and squash. Milpa practices date to pre-conquest times and
are linked to religious rituals, most notably the Cha Chaac ceremony for rain. The milpa practice is
explained in more detail in chapter three.
72
Colonial Imposition of New Rules <lI1d Pmcticcs
With a population of about four thousand, the town of Man! is located sixty-seven
kilometers south of the state capital of Merida (see figure 4).2 Man! was the capital of one
of the sixteen Mayan provinces in Yucat;'l11 prior to the conquest. When the Spanish
arrived in Yucatill1 in the sixteenth century, the Tutu! Xiu family ruled the area amund
Mani. Gaspar Antonio Xiu, grandson of the Tutul Xiu king, was born in 1531 in Mani.
L
~-
Merida
~
,
I
!
'-- .. -.
I ....'
'-I
r:
'-I .. i-c.....
I
I
I
M~nl
•
• Oxku!Zc"b
-
.-
)
,--
t
'-~
':.
oJ
Figure 4: Manl, map hy Patrick Gronli
2 Mani is the naille of the lawn and the Illunieipality. The Illunicipality has two towns, Man! and Tipikal.
Therc is one ejido for residents of the town of" Man!, of the same name. There is also one smaller ejido in
Tipikal. My references here arc all to the town and cjido of Mani.
73
When the Spanish conqueror Francisco de Montejo arrived in 1541, the Tutl Xiu family
worked with them; the king was even baptized as Francisco Montejo Tutul Xiu. Gaspar
Antonio Xiu was educated first by leading Mayan teachers and then the Franciscan friars
who settled in Mani (Xiu 1981, 9). With this background, Gaspar Antonio Xiu was fluent
in both Spanish and Mayan. He served as a translator for the Spanish and the friars, and
wrote an account of Mayan life and customs.
Spanish rule in Yucatan, as elsewhere, conflicted with local practices. Xiu tells us
that prior to the arrival ofthe Spanish "land was held in common" and there were no
boundaries between the towns (Xiu 1981, 79). However, under Spanish rule a conference
was held in Mani in 1557 to delineate the boundaries between various provinces in the
area, including the areas ofthe Xius (Gates 1978, 132). This would be one of many
Spanish efforts to transform the existing practices and customs of the Maya.
Aside from altering land use patterns, the Spanish imposed a tax system on the
Yucatan, requiring residents to pay tribute. The dominant milpa practice directly
conflicted with the tribute system, as it was difficult to collect tribute when the
population was dispersed. The result was greater restrictions on Mayan settlement
patterns. From the surviving tax records, we can deduce the size ofthe population in the
area. The 1549 tax list records 7,290 "heads of households" in the Xiu territory, which
was the third largest (of sixteen) province listed in Yucatan (Gates 1978, 142). For the
village of Mani, 970 households are listed, the largest in the Xiu territory (Gates 1978,
154). Roys (1957, 69) estimates that there were 4,365 residents in Mani in 1549.
However, these numbers are misleading. It is likely that many more households were
,----------------------
74
found in both the Xiu territory and in Mani. The entire Xiu territory was composed of
fifty-seven villages, but only sixteen were reported on the 1549 tax list; further, the
names only corresponded to identifiable male heads of household (Gates 1978, 154).
Often the Mayan settlement patterns were dispersed owing to the need to travel for milpa
production and hunting. And people evaded the authorities so they would not have to pay
tribute.
To establish greater control over the Mayan population, the friars worked with the
Spanish colonial authorities. By instilling Christianity and Spanish customs, they hoped
to alter the existing rituals, customs, and practices of the people. In 1552 the Spanish
Royal Audience in Guatemala, at the behest of the friars, decreed a set of ordinances on
the "conduct and treatment ofthe Indians" (Gates 1978, 157). The decree forbade people
from living in the forests and restricted moving from one town to another without
approval. Being away from town for more than 40 days, unless for public service, was
punishable with "100 blows and 100 days in prison" (Gates 1978, 157). These rules
violated existing Mayan norms of working and, often, living away from the main village
during the milpa season. To further restrict Mayan ritual practices, Christianity was the
only religion permitted and teaching the "old rites" was forbidden. Attacking the role of
maize - produced in the milpa - in local culture, the casting of grains for religious
purposes was forbidden, as were the ancient drinks (Gates 1978, 158).3
3 The Mayans made two drinks from maize mixed with water. The first was a cold drink, usually prepared
in the morning for mid-day. The other, usually reserved for special occasions, was a mixture of maize,
cacao beans, water, and often other spices. The drink was mixed with a wooden utensil, making it appear
foamy.
75
Aside from these restrictions on Mayan daily routines, the main square in Man!
was converted literally and symbolically to represent the new authorities in the area. On
one side ofthe square a Franciscan convent was built. Begun around 1549, it wasn't
completed until the seventeenth century. It is one of the oldest in Yucatan. Across from
the convent the municipal government building was constructed on the site of the old
Tutul Xiu house.
In 1562, friar and bishop ofYucatlin Fray Diego de Landa carried out an
infamous auto-da-fe in Man!, publicly punishing those who were continuing their Mayan
religious practices. The punishments were carried out in the main square, in front of the
convent. The Franciscan friar, writing about the incident, noted that despite great inroads
among the Maya and the willingness of the people to become "good Christians" there
were problems. The friars held an inquiry and found that the Maya "were perverted by
the ... chiefs and went back to worshipping idols and making sacrifices" (Landa 2003,60).
As punishment, many people were tortured, humiliated and forced into service for their
crimes. Historical accounts estimate that 10,000 Mayans were killed, and 5000 idols, 13
large rock altars, 27 rolls of parchment, and 197 religious vessels were destroyed (Burgos
Parra 2000, 32).
Gaspar Antonio Xiu, as a translator for Landa, was forced to be a witness against
the accused. He had to read off the charges and punishments against his own people. A
month later he was accused of having forbidden objects and was arrested. He was quickly
released and tried to get his grandfather and others released from prison for their crimes,
76
but he was too late; Francisco de Montejo Tutul Xiu, "the last governor Mani had, from
the ancient royal lineage" died in prison (Xiu 1981, 11).
These early colonial experiences are not merely historical accounts of Mani. They
retain importance in the collective memory of the current residents. One of the main
restaurants in town is named "Tutul Xiu" after the royal family. The restaurant has
paintings commemorating the auto-da-fe, which illustrate the destruction ofthe Mayan
possessions and the brutality inflicted against the people. There is also a framed section
of a note from Professor Gaspar Antonio Xiu, descendant of the royal lineage, which
states: "And still after many centuries the Indian laments in the silence ofthe night the
story he has heard from his elders ofthe destruction of the last kingdom of the Tutul-Xiu
which existed in this province of Mani."
When I was at the restaurant, one ofthe waiters was quick to discuss the town's
history with me. He told me about "the royal family Tutul Xiu who ruled many years
ago ... they were from here, Mani." As he said this last part he smiled broadly, clearly
with pride in the history of the town. He also spoke of the restoration ofthe old convent,
now a famous landmark and a tourist destination. He said, "the history and the culture are
very strong here. It is why people come to visit."
The convent was mentioned to me by many residents as an important piece of
history to go and see. It is a large building and the oldest in town. There is a sense of
pride about it, and more than one person encouraged me to go inside for a tour, which I
did. A few people asked if! know about Landa and the auto-da-fe. When I said I had
heard the story, they often shook their heads. The sadness and pain, evident on people's
77
faces when they mention the "priest who burned everything" have not passed in the
centuries since his violence against the Mayans and destruction of their history. Neither
the Tutul Xius nor the Landa episode are forgotten; stores along the main road selling
hammocks, locally made clothing, and souvenirs also contain books about the Tutul Xius
and Landa's actions.
While the population ofMani was quite large in the sixteenth century, as
illustrated above in the tax records, it soon dwindled. The centuries of colonial rule and
settlement pushed people off of the village lands as nearby haciendas expanded. Some
residents fled the area. One ofthe older ejidatarios I spoke recounted the history ofland
and population changes in Mani. "Around 1540 or so Mani was very large with many
people," he told me, "but the people died very quickly. There were only 70-100 people
around" by the early twentieth century. He believed that before the haciendas expanded
"there used to be land anyone could work, but then it became private and there was no
land." That, according to him, is what drove people from the area. And, he added that
people fled the area because of "the priest who burned everything during the auto-da-fe."
He said before "the land was all private property, there was no ejido. There weren't many
people in the town." The 1549 tax list recorded almost 1,000 households, corresponding
to about 4,300 residents. By the seventeenth century, that figure was cut in half (Forrest
1997,92).
Despite Spanish legal efforts to change Mayan customs and practices by imposing
stiffpenalties, many elements survived, ifin an adapted and obscured form.4 As
4 This point is discussed in more detail in chapter 3.
78
discussed later, the milpa system of agricultural production persists to the present day.
And other Mayan rituals continue to be held, such as the hetz luum to ward off evil
spirits. Maize is still the main subsistence crop, used not only for tortillas but also in a
number of hot and cold beverages and for rituals. While the Manienses may have lost
their land under colonial and post-independence regimes, many elements oftheir history,
culture, rituals, and agrarian practices survived.
Colonial and Mexican regimes presided over the creation of private property,
displacing Mayans from this land as occurred on the lands of indigenous people
throughout Mexico. As noted in chapter 3, by the early twentieth century, the land around
Mani was held largely by private owners in haciendas. The liberal economic refonns of
the nineteenth century and the policies offonner President General Porfirio Diaz (1876-
1911) resulted in privatization of the last of the communal lands on the peninsula. The
haciendas around Mani were built around the few underground water sources - cenotes -
existing in the region. Thus the private owners had a monopoly hold on this vital
resource. Many ofthe Maya in the area were forced to work on these estates (Forrest
2004, 182). The haciendas supplied food for the northern zone, where henequen
production dominated the landscape. Food was brought to the nearby town of Oxcutzcab,
southwest of ManL Oxcutzcab was linked to the state capital of Merida in the nineteenth
century by the construction of a railroad and was a key point in transferring food between
southern Yucatan and the urban north.
79
Struggling to Create the Ejido
The early 1920s are remembered by locals as a violent period during which they
struggled to regain control of land from local elites. During Governor Carrillo Puerto's
administration, the official Socialist Party ofthe Southeast (PSS) sought to implement
agrarian reform, viewing the campesinos as a potential base of support for a socialist
revolution "from above" (Joseph 1979, 56).5 In Mani, Carrillo Puerto sought to end the
control exerted by the hacendados. Some ejidatarios, whether out of experience when
they were young or through stories passed down from their fathers, recall the former
socialist governor's visit to ManL One ejidatario told me that his father's generation had
struggled, "violently and with force" to free land that had been held by a very few private
land owners before the ejido was established. His father had told him that Governor
Carrillo Puerto came to the area and told the people "to take the land back". Forrest
(1997, 132) found similar recollections among the ejidatarios, who recalled the
governor's speech in Mani that "the time of slavery was over and that freedom had
come" instructing the campesinos to go to the haciendas and "claim your ejido".
These early struggles for land began a process that culminated in 1934. Landless
campesinos who lived in the area and had worked on the haciendas around Mani
requested the return of their ancestral land. The petition was considered by the Local
Agrarian Commission, a state-level branch of the national agrarian agency in charge of
5 The goals of the PSS stressed individual rights and freedoms, state intervention in the economy, and
secularism. They hoped that with an end to the "time of slavery," they could break the power that the
landed class, Catholic clergy, and local political bosses exerted over Yucatecan society through education,
agrarian reform, cooperatives, and secularization (Fallaw 2001, 11).
80
land refonns.6 The Local Agrarian Commission recommended 1,943 hectares be granted.
The governor of Yucatan approved a provisional occupation of the lands, expropriated
from seven haciendas for 460 beneficiaries. 7 On October 15, 1934, by a decree from
President Rodriguez, the ejido ofMani was officially established. (Diario Oficia11935)
Operation and Significance ofthe Ejido
This section details the agrarian and institutional processes of the ejido. The next
chapter analyzes how Manienses responded to changes in the rules governing the ejido.
But these historical practices provided resources the ejidatarios drew upon in neoliberal
refonn era. The initial 460 beneficiaries of the agrarian refonn, the new ejidatarios of
Mani, had usufruct rights to ejido land held as uso comUn. The communal land tenure
pattern can be viewed as linked to Mayan cultural values, which have tended to stress the
needs of the community before those of the individual (Flores Torres 2000). One
ejidatario contrasted ejido land to private land. He said that the "ejido is important
because it is for all the people, the invitation is for all. All of the people are the owners of
the uso comun land, but not one specific part of it." He gave an example. "The wood on
the ejido land is yours, it's for everyone to use. If it's private land you cannot cut it
because you cannot enter the private land. But here you can get the wood for cooking."
The milpa provided the basic staple ofthe diet - maize - and was linked to
household roles. Families, generally the father and young sons, made the milpa. They
6 As Craig (1983, 250) notes, the name offederal agency in charge of administering land reform has
changed several times and has been called the National Agrarian Commission, the Department of Agrarian
Affairs and Colonization, and the Ministry of Agrarian Reform.
7 Land was expropriated from the haciendas of San Pedro, Mopilli, San Lorenzo Chumucbe, Santa Teresa,
Santa Rita, San Antonio Ekmaben, and San Antonio Ticimul (Diario Oficial 1935).
81
planted their monte with maize every spring to take advantage of the rains and tended to
it throughout the rainy season. The fields were burned before the rains started and a stick
was used to push the maize kernels into the wet, ash-covered ground after the rains
began. Weeding was done by hand and the land was rain-fed. Ejidatarios in Mani used
this method quite successfully, as had people historically in the region.
Women would turn the maize into food for the family. The kernels were soaked in
lime and ground to make a corn meal. That meal was used to make tortillas and drinks for
the family. Tortillas were cooked over a fire. This practice still persists in Mani. One
ejidatario told me that "we have a stove but my wife still makes the tortillas over a fire.
Everyone uses wood for cooking [tortillas] even if you have a stove because it's custom."
Any leftover maize was fed to animals raised at the homestead, usually turkeys or
chickens.
As discussed in chapter 3, the milpa is also associated with the Cha Chaac ritual.
In this Mayan ceremony sacrifices are made to the chaacs, the rain gods. Prior to burning
the vegetation bowls of maize stew, pozole, are set at the four corners of the milpa as a
sacrifice. The hmen in Mani then presides over the ritual to see if the rains will come.
After the ceremony, the fields are burned. Maize kernels are usually present on altars for
Mayan ceremonies and other foods prepared from maize are offered as gifts to the gods.
The communal ejido land was well-suited to the customs and practices ofthe
Manienses in making the milpa, which required the rotation of crop land and fallow
periods for soil regeneration. Since there is very little top soil on the Yucatan peninsula,
field rotation was necessary so the foliage could grow back. Once vegetation grew on the
82
land it could be burned again. Burning the vegetation enriches the soil, acting as a
fertilizer for the crops. The availability of communal land, as opposed to assigning each
ejidatario a specific plot ofland, fit with the requirements of moving the milpa's location
every few years.
Yet, the techniques of making the milpa, learning to read the landscape to know
when the rains were coming, and understanding local ecological practices, were leamed
in the family as an inheritance, imbued with cultural significance. One ejidatario told me
that he learned from his father, as his father had from his grandfather, how to make the
milpa. One ejidatario noted that when he was young and the ejido was first created he
"would go to the field with my father, for the milpa, starting when I was seven. All of the
land used to be for the milpa, all for com and maybe a few other things. When I was
seventeen I stopped going to school and got my own milpa." He said that before the ejido
was created most of the land was privately held and it was hard for people to make the
milpa. But there was lots of land available after the ejido was created. "There were large
montei for the milpa. We cut maybe 4 hectares. The first year the harvest was very good,
and then the second. But then you had to move. The land needed to recuperate for five
years." Moving the milpa to a different place was the result of years of local knowledge
being passed down. Everyone I spoke with who made the milpa knew that you had to
change the monte every few years for good harvests to continue. And they learned this
through practices taught to them by their fathers and through their experiences working
the land. Milpa production was linked to everyday life in Mani, connecting agricultural
8 "Monte" is the word people used locally to refer to the hill, mountain, or place where they cultivate the
milpa.
83
practices, land tenure fOnTIs, the family division-of-labor, social reproduction, and Mayan
religious beliefs and rituals.
The need to allow the soil to regenerate resulted in immediate pressures on the
available ejido land. In 1942 the ejidatarios began the process of working with Yucatecan
agrarian officials to expand the ejido territory. In 1943 the agrarian agency noted that
there were 415 ejidatarios, each with approximately five hectares of land. They
concluded that this amount ofland "was insufficient to cover the needs of a typical
campesino family ofthis region" and found the request completely justified (Ministry of
Agrarian Reform 1943,2). However, the expansion ofejido land did not occur. In 1948
then President Avila Camacho denied the request. There was broad agreement on the
need for more ejido land in Mani "in view of the campesinos ability to work and the
period ofrest that the land needs," however the ejido was surrounded by other ejidos and
private property (Ministry of Agrarian Reform 1948, 1). Thus, no land was available in
the area for the expansion at that time.
The pressures for greater land distribution in southern Yucatcin were recounted to
me several times. One resident of Mani told me the story of a nearby ejido. His father
was an ejidatario. He remembered that the ejido petitioned for an expansion since "there
was not enough land in the ejido for the community but there was no more land to give
out in the area." An agrarian official working in southern Yucatcin corroborated the
problems Mani was having with land pressures. He said "the population increased, but
there wasn't any land near ManL" Instead, "the state gave the ejido land near Tekax and
created new population centers for the applicants from ManL" The expansion of ejido
84
land that was requested in 1942 took more than forty years to complete. In 1985,430
hectares ofland was added to the Mani ejido, bringing the total amount ofland to 2,364
hectares (Agency for Agrarian Justice 2001). The expansion of ejido land was not
accompanied by the expansion in the number of ejidatarios listed in Mani.
The creation of the Mani ejido was a historically significant event, providing
guaranteed access to land for the local population. Yet it was not a panacea for the people
because of the institutional rules governing the system and natural disasters that ravaged
the harvests. The structure of the ejido system opened the door for new forms of state
control over the ejidatarios and limited the type of crops that could be produced. The
agrarian code forbade the hiring of wage laborers to work the land as well as the sale or
rental ofland. Irrigation and other improvements were too costly for the ejidatarios who
only had access to public (state) resources and could not attract or generate private
investment. These rules constrained agricultural diversification. They also maintained
ejidatario dependence on the PRI-run federal government for credit.
Milpa production was important in the Mani ejido, but it was also risky. The
milpa was the primary source of subsistence food for the community, although maize was
often sold in nearby markets for transport to Merida. The income earned by selling maize
was a supplement for the family. But reliance on milpa production for subsistence food
and supplemental income was prone to devastation. Natural disasters could wipe out an
entire harvest. In the 1940s a plague of locusts ravaged the area. The locusts destroyed
the entire harvest from the milpas in Mani. Normal rates of maize production did not
resume for six to eight years (Forrest 1997, 124).
85
Often, milpa production did not provide sufficient income for family survival.
During World War II, the federal government pressured the ejido leadership to plant one
hundred mecates9 ofmilpa, indicating that the ejidatarios were "morally obligated" to
produce for the nation. The ejido leadership responded that this request was very difficult
to fulfill. Ejidatarios were "often obliged to return and look for private work to support
their families" (Ministry of Agrarian Reform 2000a, 11).
Access to uso comun land to make the milpa was granted in two different ways
within the ejido structure. The first was by becoming an ejidatario. Ejidatarios were
guaranteed access to communal land for milpa production. Residents of Mani could
request that the ejido assembly grant them agrarian rights to be officially listed as an
ejidatario. Proof of their residency was necessary for the agrarian agencies to officially
record them as having rights. The process of granting ejido membership was determined
locally, but within government guidelines.
The ejido assembly, at approximately ten year intervals, would examine the list of
officially recognized ejidatarios and update it. During these times, names were purged
from the list of those that had died, were no longer in the area, or were not using the
land. lO The ejidatarios would then vote, in an assembly, to offer membership to
community members who wanted to become an ejidatario. Between 1935 and 1984, the
agrarian records indicate that on five separate occasions names of ejidatarios were purged
from the list and new ones added (Ministry of Agrarian Reform 1985).
9 A mecate is an old measurement term, roughly equal to one-tenth of an acre, measuring about twenty by
twenty meters.
10 An ejidatario could not maintain their status if they were not working the land.
86
Second, on could obtain the right to work on ejido land via a grant from the ejido
assembly. The assembly often voted to grant other community members (non-ejidatarios)
the use of communal land for the milpa. This was an important point of access for the
sons of the ejidatarios. When they were of age, around seventeen years old, young men
often began to make their own milpa apart from their father's on uso comtm land. One
ejidatario noted the importance of making the uso comun land available to non-
ejidatarios. For him it is important because "it is a patrimony for our kids. The land
belongs to the community and it's there so they can use it." He felt that without
communal land, the sons of ejidatarios would have no land to access.
Being an elected official within the ejido, especially to the Comisariado Ejidal,
the ejido executive council, came with other benefits. Ejido leadership was sometimes a
stepping-stone to the municipal government. "Frequently the president will run for the
municipal president," one ejido leader told me. While in Mani I spoke with the former
Comisariado president, who had been elected to the municipality post.
Ejido presidents also found ways to make money from their position. One such
way was by renting out the ejido building for private events. Several ejidatarios told me
that presidents made money by "renting out the ejido building and then keeping the
money, instead of giving it to the ejido." Speaking with a group of people, one ejidatario
accused the current president of doing that for a family's birthday party for their daughter
and then keeping the money for himself. The other people present agreed, nodding their
heads and making jokes about the fairness of him using the ejido building for his own
gam.
------------------
87
The benefits associated with ejidatario status and leadership positions contributed
to controversy in other areas. Control over the list of ejidatarios generated internal
conflict. One ejidatario said that "before [the neoliberal reforms] there was only a list of
names. The agrarian agencies kept the list. Someone would say, 'yes, my name is on the
list,' and you would look and say, 'no, I cannot find it,' and they would say, 'yes, it's
there, I have rights'." The agrarian officials kept the list of names and had the final say in
who had rights; this control could be used to take people's rights away during ejido
elections, as sometimes occurred. "There were problems before with names disappearing
off of the official list of ejidatarios," an ejidatario told me.
The control over land and resources often led to intense competition for
leadership positions within the ejido assemblies. One older ejidatario told me that in the
past "during the assemblies, the candidates used to pay for or buy votes. Sometimes there
was bidding. You would go into the ejido building and one would say 'I'll give you 5
pesos' and another' I'll give you 6'." In the early decades after the creation of the ejido
there was no political party competition. Still, ejidatarios recalled contested elections
between rival PRI candidates.
These allegations oftampering with the list of ejidatarios and individual money-
making increasingly became embedded in political divisions. Yucatan was historically a
state with ties to the conservative National Action Party, PAN. Several ejidatarios told
me that the oldest, local, Yucatecan PAN chapter was in Mani. It was "started by an
ejidatario. He was once the president of the ejido." Another ejidatario said he was the
88
president of the PAN chapter in Mani over 25 years ago. The internal partisan divisions
increasingly manifested themselves in assessments over the ejido.
In speaking with PANistas, several accused PRIista ejido presidents of taking
ejidatarios affiliated with the PAN off of the list of ejidatarios. PANistas also accused
PRI ejido presidents of taking ejido money. In this vein, a PRI ejidatario criticized the
federal agrarian programs under PAN President Fox. He said that, "before there were
programs and supports from the government. Salinas and Zedillo [PRI presidents] helped
more than Fox. Now the [private] ranches get more help than the campesinos." He went
on to note that "there are many PANistas here and many PANista ejidatarios do not
receive help from the government." PAN members level similar accusations against
former PRJ presidents. "We got nothing from the PRJ," said one PANista, "then the PAN
came into power with Fox and the government built us these houses." He was referring to
the program ofbuilding small, cement houses, with electricity and running water, that
occurred after a hurricane destroyed much of the area.
While real internal conflicts and divisions existed (and persist), the community
was linked by a shared set of agrarian practices. The milpa, embedded in ritual,
production, institutional features of the ejido, and social reproduction, dominated the
communal land. Woven together these elements formed part of a collective identity that
combined elements ofMayan historical beliefs and practices with post-Revolutionary
forms of organization. This system persisted for nearly thirty years until a new
government program was created in Mani and altered agrarian practices.
89
Irrigation and Citrus Production
While some small scale diversification occurred in the 1940s and 1950s, major
inroads for commercial production did not begin in Mani until the 1960s when the state
began to invest in irrigation systems in southern Yucatan (Rosales Gonzalez 1988). The
tropical southern Yucatecan landscape was the target of state plans to cultivate citrus and
other fruits for market sale. The goal was to increase the productivity ofthe land for both
export and the need for food for expanding urban areas. Year-round production for
market sale originated with these state-sponsored irrigation systems introduced in the
1960s. These irrigation systems resulted in the establishment of a new category of land in
the Mani ejido, the parcelas, and a new category of rights holders,parcelarios. This new
land tenure category and changes in agrarian practices were the direct result of
government programs. As demonstrated in the next chapter, the parcelas threatened the
continuation of milpa practices by reducing the amount of cornrnunalland available,
while simultaneously providing new routes to access land. In the neoliberal reform era
this impacted the strategies available to Manienses in responding to the new rules. This
section details the creation and operation of the parcelas prior to the 1992 reforms.
The land for the individual parcelas came from the existing uso comtin ejido land,
and all of it was irrigated. As ejido land, it was subject to the same types of rules
governing all ejido land. Individuals enjoyed use rights, not transferable ownership rights.
The land was not privatized, only individualized. Holders ofthese use rights, referred to
as parcelarios, did not have ownership titles to their land. That is, individuals had access
to their own plots ofland to work, but the land was not the equivalent of private property.
90
However, the parcelas could be bequeathed. Ejidatarios who wanted a parcela could
obtain access with the support of the ejido assembly; other community members who
were not ejidatarios also had the ability to obtain use-rights to a parcela.
The National Water CommissionII built the irrigation systems for the parcelas,
providing wells, electric pumps, and various canals, pipes and tubes to carry the water
(Forrest 1997, 151). Some projects consisted of wells dug into the limestone to bring up
fresh water, which then passed through small canals made of rock. Wooden boards were
placed along the canals to stop and start the flow of water. Other irrigation projects
dispersed water through sprinkler systems or used drip irrigation systems. 12 A project of
this scale could not be carried out independently by the ejido given their lack of access to
private funds for such a project.
Such an undertaking required the financial investment, technological knowledge,
and coordination of state agencies. Federal support to expand citrus production for export
was part of the national economic strategy of import-substitution industrialization in the
1960s and 1970s. While most investments during this period favored manufacturing over
agriculture, agricultural investment continued in market- and export-oriented crops, as
opposed to subsistence production (Levy and Bruhn 2006, 152). Aside from the foreign
currency earned through export-agriculture, increased commercial production provided
food for the expanding urban population.
II Comision Nacional de Agua (CNA)
12 The state installed sprinkler irrigation systems on 3,900 hectares in 15 municipalities, primarily in
southern Yucatan (Banos Ramirez 1998,41).
91
Yet the expansion of irrigation was not simply a regional or national project; this
investment involved international financiers. In 1964 the Inter-American Development
Bank (IADB) created Plan Chaac to provide assistance to Mexico. The push for citrus
production in Yucatan by the IADB was partially a response to increasing demand for
oranges in Florida (Fuentes and Morales 2000, 158). In coordination with the Mexican
federal government, IADB constructed irrigation systems and supplied credit and
technical advice.
As part of the project irrigation units 13 were constructed to manage the provision
of water to the parce1as. These irrigation units constituted a new institutional arrangement
within the ejido. They were formed of thirty to fifty ofthe irrigated parce1as. The
parcelarios who were granted exclusive rights to the individualized ejido land became
members of the irrigation units. These "partners" in an irrigation unit paid for the
electricity to run the water pumps by the hour. The parcelarios were responsible for
agricultural inputs (e.g. fertilizer). They also tended the irrigated parcelas, particularly
focusing on weeding until the fruit trees were mature and could provide shade, which
then decreased the need for weeding.
Many of these irrigation units have locally meaningful names. The first, created in
1960 and functioning by 1961, was called "Unidad Antigua" and contains 65 parce1as,
most of which are three hectares. The next three irrigation units, each with parcelas three
hectares in size, were created under and bear the name of "Plan Chaac," a reference to the
Mayan Chaac gods. Another unit is named after the royal Mayan lineage, "Tutul Xiu."
13 Unidades de riego, literally units of irrigation.
92
Irrigation units constructed after 1980 were part of "Plan Nacional" and some have
names ofRevolutionary leaders, such as "Francisco 1. Madero" and "Emiliano Zapata."
The names suggest an attempt to create a link between the new agrarian practices and
historical legacies ofboth Revolutionary agrarian goals and Mayan ancestry.
According to the agrarian records, the size of the individual parcels varied.
Initially they were quite large, some as big as four hectares (Ministry of Agrarian Reform
2000b). Over time, the size shrank as there were pressures for more ejido land due to
increases in population and demand. One ejidatario argued that "back when it started
everyone planted milpa and no one wanted parcelas, so they had more land to give out."
In the 1960s few people in the ejido ofMani signed up for the program. Some
thought the program was just another way for the government to control them, and they
feared joining. "People were afraid. The Plan Chaac lands were heavily regulated. Maybe
they thought it was a way for the government to control them," said one ejidatario. Others
were concerned about the financial risks and the time spent working on the parcels before
any income could be generated. A parcelario told me "for 10 years people had to pay a lot
before they [orange trees] were ready and you could make money."
When the parcelas began to generate income, and particularly when citrus
production proved to be successful, demand for parcels increased. This was especially
true when orange prices increased. Now, most ejidatarios, and many other members of
the community, have parcelas ofland. As one ejido official in the community told me, "it
seems to me that now everyone wants one." This suggests that demand increased as the
community became more familiar with the new production process or as people saw the
93
benefits ofparticipation outweighed the drawbacks. As a consequence of the increased
demand for parcelas, those created in the 1980s and later tended to be no larger than one
hectare.
Since the 1960s uso comun land and the parcelas have represented two different
types ofland tenure, understood locally as constituting two different types of agricultural
practices and crop choices. The milpa made on uso comUn land was seasonal and rain-
fed. It had signified and continues to represent, the small-scale production of maize and
b .c b . . 14eans lor su slstence consumptIOn.
Some Manienses view the parcelas as eroding the availability of communal land
for the milpa, and thus destroying the essence ofthe ejido. "The ejido is being wasted,
ended," one ejidatario lamented. "As more people enter the irrigation units, there is no
more ejido. There is no more ejido because the people are increasing [parcelas] with the
irrigation." Despite the irrigated parcelas being ejido land, he believed only the
communal land constituted the ejido. He saw population increases coincide with an
expansion in irrigated land, which further raised demand for parcelas to be carved out of
uso comUn land. For him, this cycle was destroying the ejido.
The irrigated parcelas were associated with commercial production. Parcelarios
earned cash by selling their produce, usually citrus, to nearby markets. Further, they
would often hire local campesinos to aid in the weeding process. 15 Historically, there
14 A few people reported growing chilies or watennelon in their milpas, but this is not a widespread
phenomenon.
15 Despite the illegality of hiring wage labor to work ejido land, the practice often occurred on a small
scale. Anecdotal accounts and my own observations in Mani suggest that the local campesinos hired to
work on the parcelas were residents ofMani.
94
were virtually no options in Manf for campesinos to earn wages, and they would have to
travel to Oxcutzcab for day labor. But the parcelas altered that situation beginning in the
1960s. The income earned was a supplement to the (largely) subsistence milpa
production. In times of poor milpa harvests, such as in 1979 and 1980, the money earned
on parcelas allowed campesinos to purchase food. At other times, the milpa provided
staples and income from parcelas was used as a supplement. (Forrest 1997, 157). While
extra maize and beans produced on the milpa were sold in local markets, milpa
production did not entail wage labor and the income generated tended to be quite smal1. 16
The parcelas were linked to year-round production of fruits and vegetables for market
sale and served as a locus for earning income in an area with few other opportunities for
wage labor.
Crops cultivated on the parcelas usually were sold in markets of nearby
Oxcutzcab for distribution throughout Yucatan. Often a variety of local fruits were
cultivated, but since the early 1980s a greater emphasis has been placed on oranges. In
1978, nine ejidos in southern Yucatan formed the Union of Citrus-producing Ejidos
(UEC), a secondary-level association of ejido citrus producers (AMSDA 11). 17 The UEC
was created to solve problems associated with marketing citrus crops and provide credit
for citrus production (e.g. fertilizer).
In 1981 the state government received support from the Banrural to build the Akil
juice processing plant (AMSDA 11). The Akil facility was built near Manf and
16 One ejidatario told me that he only receives two pesos for a kilo of com at the local markets.
J7The formation ofUEC (La Union de Ejidos Citricultores) was part of national policies encouraging ejido
unions to form, as discussed in chapter four. The ejido unions, such as the UEC, were granted access to
state resources. Later the number of ejido members ofUEC was expanded to twelve ejidos.
95
Oxcutzcab as part of the state's initiative to diversify agricultural production, particularly
for export. Ejidatarios sold oranges to the factory, which produced concentrated frozen
juice for export to the U.S. and for consumption within Mexico. Since the producers of
the citrus technically owned the plant, they often set purchase prices for oranges that
were higher than in other markets. This could be sustainable given economies of scale
and the foreign export of frozen juice. Local markets were notorious for offering low
prices. However, state subsidies provided the necessary income to fund the equipment
and continue to keep the juice processing plant afloat. Still, the Akil juice factory needed
foreign revenue to maintain its high prices for oranges.
Juice production did not solve the economic woes of the parcelarios as the prices
have been unstable and have fallen considerably. Banos Ramirez (2003,93) estimated
that by the end of the 1980s prices had fallen in absolute terms by 50%. Still, even if the
citrus development plan was less successful than intended, the irrigation systems have
allowed the production of a variety of crops, such as squash, achiote, avocado, and
cucumbers. People now sell their products at markets in Oxcutzcab in large quantities to
be shipped all over Mexico (Cancun, Mexico City, e.g.).
During the time period the parcelas were being established in Mani the population
was also increasing, exerting more pressure for the individualization of land. The
population ofthe town was only 1,723 in the 1940 national census; by 1990 that figure
had nearly doubled to 3,418 (Forrest 1997, 100; INEGI 1991). Statistics for the Mani
municipal population, which includes residents in the nearby town ofTipikal, are more
96
revealing (see chart 1).18 The population decreased by 11% between 1940 and 1950
before beginning dramatic, double-digit increases during the next quarter century or so.
Between 1960 and 1970 the population increased from 2,252 to 2,598; by 2000 it was
over 5,000.
Graph 1: Municipal Population, Mani
Source: Ku DuPorto 1991: 11 0; INEGI 2001
200019871970
Year
1960195019401930
5000
4500
4000
3500
c
o 3000
~
:;, 2500
g- 2000
c.. 1500 + _
1000 +---
500+---
0+----...,.....----
I
Temporary Migration
Temporary migration for wages is not particularly a new phenomenon in Mani.
However, as a household strategy it became increasingly important in the 1980s and
1990s. In the neoliberal reform era, the remittances were valuable as a source of income
to purchase parcelas, as demonstrated in the next chapter. In times of natural disaster,
when drought or plague destroyed the milpa, men often left their homes for wage work to
buy food for their families. But beginning in the 1970s the nature oftemporary migration
18 Tipikal is a small town, with only 704 people as of the 1990 census (INEG! 1991).
97
changed. The development of Cancun and the Maya Riviera, the coastal area south of
Cancun, as a tourist destination created a high demand for labor in construction in the
border state of Quintana Roo. Over time, demand expanded, as labor was needed to work
in the tourist industry. Gradually, Yucatecans migrated to the area for work and
eventually some found employment in the Caribbean.
The trend towards migration began in Mani in the 1980s. Under the strain of a
poor economy and cut-backs in state subsidies due to Mexico's structural adjustment
policies, people went to the U.S. for work. By the 1990s temporary migration was a
major strategy for wages. Some Yucatecos had begun to migrate to the U.S. for work in
the 1980s, but as a large-scale phenomena U.S. migration did not really impact the region
until the 1990s.19 Between 1990 and 2005, the number ofYucatecan migrants living in
the U.S. rose from 35,374 to 50,982 (CONAPO 2006, 138).20 While not all went
illegally, many did.
Portland, Oregon became the major center for the people of Mani. They set up
communities in Portland's suburbs, cooking their hometown food in small, family-run
establishments. Some families have become established in both Mexico and Oregon, with
relatives visiting each other for special events and keeping homes in both places. One
couple had five adult children, and their families, living in Portland and another 2 in
Mani. They sometimes visited their family, as when Hurricane Gilbert in 1988 destroyed
their home in Mani or for their granddaughters' quincefiera (fifteenth birthday). Over half
19 On this point, see especially Lewin (2007) and Lewin and Guzman (2005).
20 Earlier data on Yucatecan migration and Man! specific data was not readily available since this is a
relatively new phenomenon that has not historically been well-documented in Yucatan.
98
of the people I spoke with in Manf had been a migrant to the Portland-area or had
someone in their family with migratory experience. Indeed, only one person I spoke with
had not heard ofPortland; he stood out to me as the only person who had no stories about
someone having been in Oregon.
Wages earned in the U.S. exceed local averages. The average wage in Manf is
five to seven u.s. dollars for one day of work; in the u.s. they make the same amount
hourly. Remittances from Manienses have become an important part of the local
economy. This phenomena is not just specific to Mani; migration from Mexico to the
U.s. increased dramatically in the 1990s (Pew 2007). A new, national program has been
created to harness remittances from migrants living in the U.S., "3 for 1" - tres por uno.
In these programs remittances from migrants (the one) are matched by local, state and
federal funding (the three) for community projects. In 2006 a health clinic opened in
Manf, with funding corning from this program. One of the local government officials told
said he often travels to Portland to visit people from Mani, inform them about the
community, and get support for projects.
Many people temporarily migrate when the family needs wages. This often
happens when school-age children need money for books, tuition, transportation or other
related expenses. Young men often go shortly before or after getting married. They then
use the money to construct their own homes. Wages are used for many household
improvements, including better housing construction, trucks, even a pool. Now those
remittances are also used to buy land.
99
These remittances make income available for community members to buy land
and other agricultural inputs. Planting citrus trees, purchasing seeds and other chemical
inputs, is costly. In the early years of parcela production, extra labor is often needed to
help with the weeding. Some residents told me they hire other community members to
harvest some crops or to reduce their time in the fields, particularly when they have a
parcela and make the milpa. Further, it is quicker and easier to get crops to the market in
Oxcutzcab with a truck. All of these resources, which make the parcelas productive, must
come from somewhere. And remittance wages is most often cited as the main source of
income for purchasing a parcela (Hervik 2003, Lewin 2007).
Conclusion
Despite high levels of ethnic identification linked to collective memory and ritual
knowledge, Manienses were gradually altering their agrarian practices from the 1960s on.
The irrigated parce1as of ejido land provided early experience with individualized
commercial production and were an important local source of wages. The cultural
significance of milpa production failed to translate into wide spread opposition to the
neoliberal property rights regime in Mani because people were already participating in
market production.
Population increases resulted in pressure for land. In the 1980s and 1990s more
irrigated parcelas were created from communal land. The remittance economy also
provided new sources of income for households. These trends of increasing population
and new sources of income created pressure for the marketization of land, forging new
100
economic arrangements (Boserup 1965). The strategy of gradually replacing communal
land and milpa practices with irrigated parcelas for commercial production seemed to be
a successful way to transform traditional peasants to modernizing farmers.
Several structural characteristics could have produced tension in Mani when the
neoliberal reforms were introduced. Ejido land was stretched between communal land for
the milpa and parcelas for citrus production. This stress could have produced resistance to
the reforms and divided the community. Yet, as demonstrated in the next chapter,
ejidatarios drew on cultural and institutional features of the pre-reform ejido to craft
solutions to these new challenges.
101
CHAPTER VI
CREATIVE ADAPTATION OF CULTURAL
AND INSTITUTIONAL RESOURCES IN MAN!
The neoliberal refonns could have catalyzed the privatization of ejido land in
ManL However, privatization failed to emerge. The individual parcelas remained in the
ejido system. This was a logical outcome given institutional features of ejido association
and changes in political economy. Ejido parcelas included access to water rights and
lower transaction costs for ejido land sales (as opposed to private land sales). Coupled
with changes in demographics and wage-earning, local demand for land increased,
resulting in marketization of ejido parcelas. But despite the economic value of the
irrigated parcelas, ejidatarios also rejected the state's efforts to parce1ize all ofthe ejido
land, instead choosing to maintain a large amount of communal land for milpa
production.
In explaining this outcome, I argue that the local land market was partially a
response to concerns over generational obligations to provide land and represents a
market solution deployed for non-market reasons. Further, the maintenance of communal
land is embedded in ritual knowledge, place and collective memory, and nonns linking
labor and tenure. Actors in Mani creatively adapted institutional and cultural resources
and rejected neither instrumentality nor cultural imperatives, both structuralist bases for
102
behavior. To understand this outcome, we must first examine the neoliberalland titling
process.
Land Titling in Mani
This section explains the land titling process in Mani and the new institutional
framework established by the neoliberal rules. During the land titling process a key issue
emerged. A large portion of ejido land was held as communal land, while some land was
in the irrigated parcelas. During the land titling process, ejidatarios had to determine what
kind of land - uso comUn, parcelas - would compose the ejido. Ultimately they decided
to maintain a dual tenure pattern. However, the neoliberal rules changed the rights
associated with the parcelas, allowing them to be sold. Strategies that Manienses
employed in responding to the new rules were contingent on this rule change, as
demonstrated in the next section.
There was no widespread resistance to the state's land titling program in ManL
The ejidatarios voted, during an assembly in 1994, to participate in the program. During
the assemblies held over the multi-year process, the state proposed dividing all of the
land into individual parcelas. This seemed like a logical proposition. As noted earlier,
population pressures were already straining land use. And the state was hoping to
improve food production, which had fallen in recent decades and led to an increase in
importing food into Yucatan. Communal land was a less desirable tenure form from their
103
perspective. Parce1izing all the land was a logical proposition. By 1994, eight irrigation
units composed of individual parce1as already existed in the Mani ejido.!
But the ejidatarios refused to individualize all of the land, choosing instead to
maintain the existing dual land tenure pattern. They did agree to create four more
irrigation units in 1996, while the land titling program was still in progress. The four new
irrigation units were completed in 1997. By the time the land titling process was
completed in 1999, a total of twelve irrigation units existed. In the end, 1,413 hectares
were designated as uso comun land and 799 hectares were designated as parcelas, and
therefore part of the state financed irrigation system as all parcelas in Mani are irrigated
(Agency for Agrarian Justice 1999).
All 438 ejidatarios were given certificates entitling them to an equal percent of
uso com1in land (Agency for Agrarian Justice 1999). The state also mapped 538 parcelas.
Each ofthe parcelarios, who had earlier been granted access to individualized land (the
irrigated parcelas), received titles to their ejido parcelas (Agency for Agrarian Justice
1999). These titles ensured them ownership rights to their land. Ofthe 538 parcelarios,
244 were listed as being held by an ejidatario (Ibid.).
The ejidatarios and parcelarios are very proud of their certificates entitling them
to agrarian rights. On most occasions they showed me the certificates, pointing out their
name. They see it as a guarantee of rights. One ejidatario told me that "before the reforms
we only had a list of ejidatarios and nothing else ...now there are individual documents"
He showed me the list of ejidatarios and said "before it was like this but now it's better
1 Recall from chapter three that the individualization of ejido land is not the same as the privatization of
ejido land.
104
because everyone has documents and this is because of the reforms." He then showed me
his certificate of rights to uso comun land.
This ejidatario noted problems with the official list of ejidatarios prior to the
neoliberal reforms. There were often disputes, sometimes fueled by partisan cleavages
between the PRJ and PAN, about names on the list. The ejido leadership and the agrarian
agencies were often accused of changing the names of who could vote in assemblies. The
new law not only provided a guarantee of rights, it also removed dependence on the state
to ensure one's rights. The certificates also have the potential to diminish partisan
cleavages, reducing the chance that party affiliation would interfere with the maintenance
of agrarian rights.
Parcelarios received certificates to the irrigated parcelas, which were created in
the 1960s and later. Under the new rules, parcelarios owned the parcelas, having
individual and transferable rights. Parce1arios could sell the land to a locally recognized
agrarian community member (ejidatario or non-ejidatario residing in Mani) without
consent of the ejido assembly.2 However, they could not sell the land outside of the
community. This is one key difference between parcelas, which are individualized ejido
land, and privatized land. Private land can be sold outside of the community, parcelas
cannot. The marketization of land could occur with the parcelas, but it was an intemally-
controlled process. The ejido assembly determined who would be recognized as having
agrarian rights. Only members of the agrarian community could receive rights under the
ejido rules. Legal recognition served as an institutional barrier to outsiders acquiring
2 In chapter three the legal categories of locally recognized community members with agrarian rights are
explained.
105
ejido parcelas. Thus, the process of buying and selling parcelas was bounded by
community.
The irrigation infrastructure on the parcelas and access to the water was also
provided to the parcelarios and individuals purchasing a parcela. If a parcela was sold,
access to irrigation was sold with the parcela. Parcelarios still had to pay for the
electricity to run the pumps and the state continued to maintain the irrigation
infrastructure and provide the water.
Decision-making power during assemblies continued to reside with ejidatarios,
who had rights within the institution. Parcelarios who were not ejidatarios did not have
voting rights or the right to run for ejido leadership positions. However, they were
permitted to speak during assemblies and make requests for the assembly to consider.
In 2006, the ejidatarios created three hundred more ejido parcelas from uso
comtin land to form six new irrigation units. When the land titling program concluded in
1999, two-thirds of ejido land was communal (uso comw) and one-third was in the form
of parcelas; now these proportions had shifted so that about half of the ejido land was uso
comw and the other half in parcelas. Each of these new parcelas was approximately one
hectare in size.
The creation of new parcelas in 2006 may have signaled a move towards
increasing individualization, and eventual privatization, of ejido land. But the benefits of
keeping the parcelas within the ejido structure and the local demand for land within the
community made privatization unnecessary, as demonstrated in the next section.
Ejidatarios rejected the proposal to parcelize all ofthe ejido land, preserving a large
106
segment ofuso comUn land. The local land market and the preservation of communal
land were partially the result of ejidatarios balancing cultural and material needs.
Benefits of Institutional Association
The gradual evolution of the parce1as and their importance in the local economy
should have made Mani a good case for privatization. This would be a logical next step in
the seemingly inevitable adoption ofmarket-oriented practices. The ejido parce1as can be
used as collateral for loans under the law, but they are not being accepted by banks as
collateral (Brown 2004). Privatizing the land would provide more opportunities to access
non-state credit. Yet, despite the existing demand for parcelas in Mani, the ejidatarios
have not allowed the privatization ofland and there have been no efforts by non-
ejidatario parce1arios to have the ejido assembly consider land privatization. This
outcome is the result of features ofpolitical economy and local context.
One reason there is no movement to privatize ejido parcelas is water rights. The
ejido assembly can request that the state expand the irrigation infrastructure. Ejidatarios
told me that on private property it is more difficult to get water unless you have the
money to build the irrigation infrastructure. According to the ejido leaders, every request
to expand the irrigation infrastructure thus far has met with agreement by the state. The
parcelas, which might otherwise be only rain-fed, are thus always irrigated in the Mani
ejido. Ejido parcelas are institutionally linked to secure water rights, a crucial ingredient
for production in a seasonally water scarce region. One ejidatario who served in a
position ofleadership in the ejido assembly spoke to me about the six irrigation units that
107
were being created in 2006. He said "the ejidatarios voted to create the parcelas. We told
the visitadora [state agrarian official] we wanted to have the irrigation systems built. The
state said yes."
The irrigation infrastructure is an important local resource for market production.
One ejidatario said, "before there was no citrus without the irrigation units because there
was no water. But now we can grow them [oranges] and sell them at the markets, which
is a benefit to the people." He also told me that "now you can sell products year round,
every month or two when a harvest is ready. I grow watermelon, squash, oranges, and
avocados, and sell them in OX.,,3 When I spoke with this ejidatario he offered me
watermelon; "it's from my parcela. Try it."
The parcelarios (both ejidatarios and non-ejidatarios) often express pride in the
products they grow. When I first met one parcelario, he cut open a fresh coconut from his
parcela. "Drink the juice," he told me. He then cut up the flesh and spooned some ofthe
soft parts into the juice. "It's good, no?" I agreed it was good. He smiled and said, "I
grew that on my parcela." Later he took me to see his parcela. It was off of the old road to
Oxcutzcab. He took me on a tour ofthe one hectare plot. He showed me the irrigation
system, but said "I am not using it now because of the rains." The parcelario also pointed
out his lime, lemon and orange tress, achiote, squash, and yucca. He told me he sells the
produce in the markets. He also grew a grass, which is sold to ranches as a feed for cattle.
This is one of the family's main sources of income. Sometimes he works as a day laborer
3 Many Manienses call Oxcutzcab "Ox" (pronounced "ash").
108
when there is nothing to sell from the parcela. "Take these back with you," he offered, as
he picked several limes. "They are very good and fresh."
A few people with parcelas spoke about their products as feeding the nation. At
the large markets in Oxcutzcab, parcelarios sell their crops to be shipped off to Merida,
the Cancun area, and even Mexico City. Many also sell their oranges to the Akil juice
factory. Concentrated orange juice is then sold throughout Mexico and exported. One
parcelario said, "the countryside produces the food for the nation." He further argued that
because of this, the government had an "obligation to aid the campesinos."
This conception of the role of Mani as food suppliers has historical roots. During
the colonial era the amount of land in milpa cultivation increased to feed growing urban
populations. With the henequen boom at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the
twentieth centuries, milpa production increased in southern Yucatan and in Mani. Large
amounts of land in the north were converted to henequen production and the northern
hacienda populations expanded to provide the necessary labor (Forrest 1997, 118). This
was accompanied by railway expansion from Merida to southern Yucatan, increasing the
speed with which foodstuffs could be transported to the henequen zone (Wells 1992). A
few years ago, a paved road between Mani and Oxcutzcab was completed to facilitate
travel between the two towns and the movement of crops from the parcelas to
Oxcutzcab's markets. Both the historical and contemporary roles of campesinos in Mani
as producers not only for their own families or even community, but also for people
throughout the region and nation, provide a sense of pride and income.
109
The irrigation systems have brought economic benefits to the area and the
beneficiaries are proud of the crops they cultivate. Although the irrigation infrastructure
could be built on private land, Manienses I spoke with believe the process is much more
difficult and costly. The parcelarios were unclear if the state would have paid for the
infrastructure if it was not on ejido land. More importantly, the ejido has regular contact
with state agencies through the agrarian representatives working with them. The
transaction costs for getting the irrigation infrastructure built are lower since the ejido
requests the new systems from the state through the agrarian representatives.
Within the institutional structure of the ejido, collective action problems are
solved and state resources can be harnessed through a familiar process. As I noted above,
an ejidatario explained this process to me. He said "the ejidatarios voted to create the
parcelas. We told the visitadora [state agrarian official] we wanted to have the irrigation
systems built. The state said yes." For the ejidatarios the process of getting the state to
construct the irrigation infrastructure is simple. They ask for it, get approval, and it is
done. This institutional arrangement, providing easy access to water rights, has created
counter-weights to the pressure of privatizing land. The institutional benefits of irrigation
are one logical reason to keep parcelas in the ejido structure.
The continued availability of state resources for infrastructure development on
ejido land seems disconnected from the national rhetoric. The neoliberallanguage of the
reforms emphasized private investment, as opposed to public support. The divergence
between the official action of providing state funding for investment on non-privatized
110
land and the neoliberallanguage suggests a contradiction between how the agrarian
bureaucracy functions and the goals of the reform.
Lower transaction costs are another institutional feature of ejido parcelas. Under
the new agrarian laws, ejido parcelas can be transferred to an ejidatario or to a local
resident (recognized by the ejido) without a vote of the ejido assembly. To do this, the
buyer and seller of the land must have a written agreement, which is signed before two
witnesses. That agreement is then transferred to the ejido leadership. It is the ejido
governing body's duty to inform the Agrarian National Registry (RAN) of the change in
ownership (Agency for Agrarian Justice 2007). All ofthe ejido parcela land sales are now
carried out this way, within the community. A local land market has emerged.
Privatizing land is a lengthy and involved process. First, if it is communal land,
the ejido assembly must vote to divide the land into a parcela. Then that parcela must be
assigned to a specific person. In Mani, this has already been done with half of the land.
But the process does not end there. The assembly also has to vote to allow parcelas to be
privatized. A quorum of75% of the ejidatarios is required at the assembly; if this quorum
is not met, only 50% +1 are required at subsequent assemblies.4 Once quorum is met, a
majority of all ejidatarios present at the meeting must agree to the privatization of land.
Finally, land owners must file proper paperwork with RAN to receive their title. It is thus
simpler to sell a parcela to a legally-recognized community member than to privatize the
land and sell it to someone who is not part ofthe ejido or the associated local community.
4 Under the new agrarian laws, there are different quorum requirements for different types of motions. If
quorum is not achieved at the first assembly, subsequent assemblies can be called, within one month, to
deal with the same agenda items. For subsequent assemblies, the quorum requirements are reduced.
111
The relative ease of ejido land transactions makes privatization a more time-consuming,
and thus costly, route to marketization.
Yet a local land market could not have been established without two other
changes in Mani: increases in population and remittances. As noted in the last chapter,
the population of Mani increased dramatically from the 1960s on. In 2006 the population
ofthe town was 3,915 (INEGI 2007). However, residents claim the actual population is
much higher, believing that between one thousand and fifteen hundred people have
temporarily migrated to the U.S. for work. These population increases contributed to
more demands for land, including the creation of parcelas in 1996 and 2006. The
remittance economy has provided the means to purchase parcelas.
One returning migrant I spoke with had been working in the U.S. He had sent
money home to his mother every week while working to set-up his own household and
buy a truck. He also used some of the remittances he sent back to buy a parce1a. Another
ejidatario originally went to the U.S. to earn money for school for his children. But, when
he returned, he was able to use some of that money for a new commodity: land. He told
me, "I bought many things with the money, like a truck. We have a bigger house... And I
bought another parcela."
The link between remittances and parcelas is clear amongst most people I spoke
with in the community. One parcelario noted that in order to buy more parcelas he would
have to "leave home and go to the U.S. or Cancun" where the wages are higher. He had
two brothers already living in the U.S., but said "I don't want to go with my brothers."
He had worked near Cancun in the past, but he did not want to do again. Another
112
campesino expressed similar concerns, noting that without funds from the remittance
economy, he was just too poor to be a parcelario. "I am too poor for a parcela," he told
me. "I would have to go to the U.S. for money."
Demographic shifts, remittances, and the institutional benefits of ejido association
have all impacted ejido land tenure decisions. Privatization is neither necessary nor
desired. And a land market functions in Mani within the existing rules. But there is a
difference here between a local or internal market in ejido parcelas and the idea of a
private market. The local land market restricts land sales to community members; those
restrictions would not be in place if the land was privatized. This arrangement privileges
community members over outsiders and restricts ownership patterns. It is possible that
preservation oflocal patterns ofland ownership is a motive for not privatizing land, not
simply institutional benefits. This raises an important question: what motivates buyers of
parcelas? Pressure on the land and economic benefits are central, but as demonstrated
below, institutional changes under the neoliberal reform and cultural values are crucial
components.
Deploying Market Strategies for Non-market Reasons
The continued creation ofparcelas and the local land market are being driven not
only by economic considerations, but also by concerns over generational obligations to
provide land. The generational obligation to provide land is often equated with patrimony
- a legacy or right for all people to have access to land. Nearly one-third (nine) of the
community members interviewed expressed concern over access to land for future
113
generations. 5 Each of them spoke of a generational obligation to ensure that land was
accessible for those who wanted to work on it. One ejidatario said they, referring to the
community, had "an obligation to the past and future" to ensure that land "was available
for people to work." This sense of obligation was widespread.
Several people specifically mentioned their own children in this process, but all of
them also referenced a more general obligation, not just for their children or
grandchildren, but for "many generations to come." One older woman had inherited her
husband's ejidatario rights. She was passing them onto her daughter when she died
because her daughter is single and has a son. He had a right to have land and she wanted
to guarantee that right.
There are two features of the neoliberal property rights regime that have caused
concerned about access to land in the future. First, the reforms to Article 27 ended land
redistribution. The state is no longer obligated to provide land to peasants who request it
and there will be no more grants from the federal government for ejido land. The removal
ofthis provision limits ejido land to the land currently available in the ejido. Of course, in
an area such as Mani, where population pressures and private land ownership have
stretched the availability of new land to its limit, it was improbable to believe that the
state would have been able to increase the amount of ejido land even before the 1992
reforms.6 But another set of reforms also contributed to the sense of instability, and these
centered on how an individual becomes an ejidatario.
5 See Appendix for a description of interviewees in ManL
6 One agrarian official told me that even before the 1992 reforms there were pressures on the land in
southern Yucatan as many people wanted the access they were guaranteed in Article 27. As new land was
114
An important institutional change altered the process for becoming an ejidatario.
One of the pieces of the neoliberal reforms was the establishment of inheritance rights.
Each current ejidatario is required to have a line of succession naming who will receive
their rights when they die. Ejidatarios can also pass on their rights to others before they
die. Prior to the 1992 reforms, the ejido assembly could vote to change who was an
ejidatario, purging outdated names and adding new ones. Now, the only way to become
an ejidatario is to inherit the rights. The process to become an ejidatario is thus more
restrictive than in the past.
Ejidatario status provides many benefits. Ejidatarios have voting rights in
assemblies, where land tenure decisions are made. The ejido assembly also has the power
to permit non-ejidatarios access to communal land to make the milpa, a common practice
in Mani. Ejidatarios are also guaranteed access to uso comu.n land, of which they are
technically the owners of an equal percent ofthe uso comu.n land. Nearly every ejidatario
I spoke with made the milpa on communal land. Those with ejidatario status must decide
which of their children will get the rights, knowing the rest will not. For those without a
parent with ejidatario rights, it is highly unlikely that they will ever become an ejidatario.
Changes in designating ejidatario status are part of the reason that many community
members express concern about access to communal land for the milpa.
While President Salinas professed that the neoliberal reforms would make land
tenure more secure, many people in Mani view the reforms as having the opposite effect.
Fully one-third of the people I interviewed in Mani expressed concern about the
added, often it was not near the core of the ejido. One part of the Mani ejido, for example, is near Tekax,
which is in another municipality.
115
availability ofland for future generations.7 These people all recognized purchasing a
parcela as a viable strategy, even if they did not uniformly support the idea.8 Some
already had one parcela but hoped to get more. The community members I spoke with
believe they have a generational obligation to ensure land is available. The restrictions
placed on enlarging the size of the ejido and adding new ejidatarios have resulted in some
people purchasing parcelas. The market now functions as the main route to guarantee
access to land.
Manienses in different structural positions express similar concerns about access
to land in the future. Ejidatarios and parcelarios noted that the availability ofland as a
patrimony or right for future generations is a problem with the new rules. Examining the
statements of people with different institutional access illustrates this point.
People who are not ejidatarios, yet primarily engaged in agricultural work, are
rationally expressing concern over access to land. They have no guarantees to uso comlin
land for themselves or for their children. Yet even among parcelarios there is continued
concern over the availability of land for future generations. Parcelarios have irrigated
parcelas to pass onto their children; however, many ofthem also make the milpa on
communal land. One parcelario explicitly spoke about the changes in this process. Both
his father and brother are ejidatarios. He will not inherit his father's ejidatario rights,
another brother will. But he said would like to become an ejidatario because "it offers
7 These individuals include people of different generations, categories of rights holders (ejidatarios,
parcelarios, campesinos), and political parties (PRI and PAN), and people with migration experience and
without.
8 Three of the community members were concerned about the parcelas because they were created from
communal land for the milpa. I discuss this point below.
116
security. Now my milpa is not secure, it's temporary." He uses the communal land to
make his milpa. He is worried about the future, "what about my daughters and their
children? What land will be available for them?" Three other campesinos who do not
own a parcela spoke of similar concerns with changes in the process ofadding new
ejidatarios and how that may impact access to land for themselves and for their children.
Without ejidatario status, both campesinos and parcelarios express concern over land for
future generations.
Three ejidatarios, two of whom have parcelas, expressed the same concern over
the security of land in the future. Why would people with guaranteed land rights express
concern about access to land? They were worried about the restrictiveness of the new
policy on designating ejidatarios. Their concerns also focused on generational
obligations. One ejidatario noted, "I have seven children and only three hectares of land.
It will not be enough land for them." Despite having three parcelas and full ejido rights to
pass onto one of his children, he wanted his children and their children to be able to be
guaranteed their patrimony, access to land. His solution has been to purchase additional
parcelas, a market solution deployed for non-market reasons.
Another ejidatario expressed concerned about land for his children. Some of his
adult children go to school and live in Merida, getting trained in non-agricultural fields.
One, for example, is studying computers. I asked him ifhe thought they would return, to
work the land in Mani. He admitted that some probably would not. But, he told me, "I
want them to have land when I die to work, to make a living on. It's their patrimony."
Even though he recognized that it is unlikely that all of his children would return to Mani
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for agricultural work, he felt obligated to ensure they had that opportunity. He bought
parcelas to fulfill this obligation.
Some people are beginning to view the parcelas as constituting a patrimonial
legacy, which would enable them to pass on irrigated land to pass on to their children. In
the face of concerns over communal land for the milpa, Manienses in different structural
positions are altering their conception of how to fulfill the obligation to provide land.
Even though the parcelas are not used for the milpa, they still constitute land available for
future generations.
One ejidatario who doesn't have a wife said he sold his parcela to his brother,
who is now working in the U.S. Instead of earning money through a parcela, he works as
a day laborer in Yucatan. His brother, with income in the U.S., purchased the parcela to
pass onto his children, to ensure they had land if they returned to Mani. He told me "my
brother is not an ejidatario and has no land for his children. If they want to have land in
the future, how will they get it?" His brother has lived in the U.S. for almost twenty
years. I asked him if he thought his nephews or nieces would return to Mani and work the
land. "It's possible, but maybe not," he told me. "But it's their patrimony."
The new rules governing ejido land have simultaneously served as constraints and
resources. The institutional rules ending land redistribution and limiting the path to
ejidatario status have generated concerns over guaranteed land availability. Yet the
neoliberal property rights regime enabled a local land market with low transaction costs.
Participating in the land market is a creative solution deployed for cultural motives. The
new property laws and institutions have shaped local action. But they are not simply
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imposed from above; the laws and institutions have effects through concrete behaviors
and are given meaning through practice. Actors are both constituted by and constitute the
new rules.
This strategy, though, is contested. Conflict over the idea of using parcelas to
fulfill generational obligations is evident in Mani. Not all ejidatarios believe buying
parcelas is a good strategy. One ejidatario said he was not supportive ofthe parcelas
because they come from uso comun land. He argued that "as more of them [parcelas] are
created, there is less land for the milpa." The historical struggle to get back land and
constitute the ejido partially drives his desire to protect the communal land, not only from
outside interests, but also from further parcelization.
One of the second generation ejidatarios argued that if all of the land was
parcelized, it was possible that "someone's monte would be far away from their home,"
making it difficult to work the land for the milpa, like it had been before the ejido was
created. In the past "there was lots ofland for the montes." But now, "with the irrigation
units, the ejidatarios cannot enter to make milpa." He directly compared the parcelas to
the time when haciendas dominated the landscape in speaking of land availability. He
added that before the irrigated parcelas were established, "you could change the monte
every one or two years, but now you cannot." He believed that as "more people enter the
irrigation units, the ejido will disappear." His desire was for another land reform, this one
an appropriation ofprivately held land and parcelas to create more uso comun land.
The conflict over the parcelas is linked both to age and agrarian rights. Older
ejidatarios who do not have parcelas rejected the parcelas as beneficial. Campesinos,
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people who are neither ejidatarios nor own a parce1a, also rejected the parce1as as
beneficial. But their rejection ofthe benefits of the parce1as is due to the source of the
land: the ejido uso comu.n land. Ofthe twenty male heads-of-household interviewed, over
one-quarter ofthem specifically argued that the parce1as were valuable (all but two own a
parcela) and only three believed they were not beneficial.9 Of the three who did not think
they were beneficial, none owned a parcela and two were second generation ejidatarios. lO
The parcelas are obviously viewed as beneficial by those who own them or see
others benefiting from them; but there is also a difference between generations and
parcelarios and non-parcelarios in their assessments of the irrigated parcels of land. All of
the people who did not agree with parcelization of ejido land recounted narratives of
learning to make the milpa on uso comu.n land with their fathers. This regularized habit,
especially amongst the second generation ejidatarios, actually defined what ejido land is
for them. The ejido was equated with communal land, not the parcelas. The parcelas were
like private land, whose creation "cut off access to the montes."
The five individuals arguing that the parcelas were beneficial were all younger,
born after the parcelas were created in Mani. In speaking about their life histories they
recounted going to make the milpa with their fathers. But they also spoke about the
parcelas and early experiences cultivating crops on the irrigated land. The changing
agrarian practices seemed to have impacted how they viewed the parcelas.
9 The other male heads-of-household either did not discuss the benefits of the parcelas specifically,
speaking about ejido land in general, or had no opinion.
10 As a second generation ejidatario, their fathers were the first ejidatarios in the 1930s.
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The concept ofpatrimony and fulfilling a generational obligation to provide land
is not stagnant. The salience and meaning ofpatrimony is relatively stable, but the
acceptable strategies for fulfilling the generational obligation have changed for some
people. The "parcelas as patrimony" rationale is still contested within ManL Despite the
.contested nature of the marketization strategy, there is broad agreement that patrimony
and continued access to land for succeeding generations is important. All of the
contestation over the parcelas takes place within a shared frame of reference about how to
fulfill the patrimony.
Even as ejidatarios and parcelarios continued to buy parcelas, nearly all of the
ones I spoke with expressed concern about dwindling uso comw land for making the
milpa. This is particularly problematic when trying to understand the rationale for
ejidatarios. For the ejidatarios, with guaranteed access to land and rights to pass onto
future generations (although only one ejidatario status to bequeath), their behavior does
not correspond to their structural position. Since they have institutional, guaranteed
access, they should not be expressing concern about their own, or their children's, ability
to access land. It is true that most of these ejidatarios have more children than parcelas.
But in buying parcelas, they would have additional land for multiple children. They could
individualize all ofthe ejido land, carving parcelas out of the uso comw land. Then they
would have more land to pass on and their security concerns for future generations would
be alleviated. Still, though, this solution would not guarantee access for making the milpa
on communal land.
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Over half, 244, ofthe 438 ejidatarios already have at least one parcela. With a
majority in the ejido assembly, the ejidatarios have the institutional power to convert all
of the uso comtm land into parcelas. Yet, instead of parcelizing all of the land, the
ejidatarios have maintained a large amount of communal land. Despite recognizing
parcelas as a way to fulfill generational obligations, these ejidatarios with parcelas still
believed land should be available for the whole community to use. Beyond that, they
viewed the communal land as something to be protected because of its cultural
significance.
In making land tenure decisions, ejidatarios rejected neither instrumentality nor
cultural imperatives. The maintenance ofparcelas within the ejido structure provided
access to resources not readily available with private property. But the new rules
generated insecurity. As a result, buying parcelas emerged as one strategy to ensure land
was available for future generations. But the ejidatarios employed another strategy. They
preserved a large amount of communal land. While permitting new parcelas to be
created from ejido land as recently as 2006, the ejidatarios still recognized the need to
provide uso comun land for the milpa.
Preserving Communal Land
Uso comtm land still constitutes half of the ejido, a sizeable portion. The cultural
significance of communal land impacted the ejidatarios' decision to oppose the
parcelization of all ejido land. The preservation of communal land is linked to three
things. First, it is the primary location for making the milpa, which is embedded in ritual
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knowledge and Mayan religious practices. Second it is linked to place and collective
memory. Finally, it is imbued with a sense of acceptable land use policies, partially
derived from the Revolutionary reinforcement of the idea that land should be available
for those who want to work it. These three elements explain why most ejidatarios, and
other community members, support the preservation of uso comlin land.
Communal land has been preserved in Mani because it is the physical place in
which many residents make the milpa. Ejidatarios recognize the value ofuso comun land
as a resource to be shared with the community for milpa production. This explains why
non-ejidatarios are granted the right to work the ejido land. One ejidatario estimated that
over fifteen hundred community members (non-ejidatarios) made their milpa on uso
comun land. 11
Neither the parcelas nor wage labor has supplanted the milpa. A common practice
in Mani is for someone to work during the week away from the town. Residents
sometimes migrate regionally for wages. On Saturday nights they return and Sunday is
the day for tending to the milpa. Two Manienses I spoke with were working northeast of
Mani for an archaeologist excavating ruins. They left on Mondays in the morning and
went to the site several hours away. On Saturdays they returned in the evenings. Sundays
were devoted to tending the milpa. Both men used communal land for the milpa.
Milpa production is common amongst parcelarios, people who work irrigated
land, and wage workers. I spoke with one parcelario about his work. He is young and has
not yet gotten married or started a family. He has a parcela and grows oranges and other
II In a 1994 survey, about 60% of the milpas made by residents ofMani were made on ejido land (Forrest
1997, 150).
123
fruits for sale. He also works in Oxcutzcab at a shop during the week. And he makes his
milpa on uso comun land. Despite the wages he earns in Oxcutzcab and the money he
receives from selling his produce, he still invests time in milpa production.
One ejidatario, also engaged in wage labor, continues to make the milpa on uso
comtin land. He works as a cook on the weekends in a local restaurant. He owns a parcela
and often sells his watermelon and other products at the market in Oxcutzcab. Yet his
participation in the market economy has not displaced the value he places on the milpa.
This agrarian practice is not limited by generation, income level, or agrarian status
(owner of a parcela or not). Rather, the milpa practice is common and widespread in
Mani.
The actual process of making the milpa is learned as it is experienced by sons
going to the fields with their fathers. An ejidatario told me that he takes his sons into the
fields with them, so they can learn. "They see me work the land. Then, when the father
dies, the sons know what to do." As noted in the previous chapter, several ejidatarios
recounted their life histories, noting how they learned to make the milpa. One ejidatario
said he "would go to the field with my father, for the milpa, starting when I was seven.
When I was seventeen I stopped going to school and got my own milpa."
One element of this ritual knowledge is knowing the process and communal
norms for making the milpa. One parcelario explained to me the burning process. "Before
the rains you bum the field. It's the stuff from last year that's left over." He and his
brothers had learned this process when they were young. Their father, an ejidatario,
would take them to the milpa and teach them. I asked how he knew it was time to bum.
-----------
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He said, "You know, before the rain when everything is dry." There are also rules for
burning. "You cannot burn someone else's land." He recounted an incident with another
milpero. "He burned his fields, but part of mine too. He is supposed to pay me for doing
this. But he didn't." This communal rule governs milpa production. If your fire leaves
your area and burns the area where someone else is making the milpa, you are obligated
to pay. I asked how much, but he only said "not very much money." He wasn't planning
to report the violation, mainly because he burned the field a few days later.
Both the milpa and the maize produced on it are embedded within Mayan
religious practices. Of the thirty community members interviewed, over two-thirds
(twenty-one) participated in Mayan religious ceremonies. And ofthe ten people
interviewed who make milpa (nine on uso comun land), eight of them spoke about
Mayan ceremonies related to the land, particularly the Cha Chaac ceremony. The rain
ceremony, they told me, is a community affair held in April or May and marks the start of
seasonal milpa production. A hmen (Mayan religious leader) presides over the ceremony.
Beginning in 1994, the local Catholic parish began to incorporate elements of the
ceremony into a mass as well. The incorporation of a Mayan rain ceremony by the parish
further signifies the local prevalence ofmilpa practices.
The ritual of prayers and sacrifices to the rain god in Mani were captured by a
recent researcher in a series ofphotographs (including descriptions) that hang outside of
the government offices in the town square. The pictures show the hmen in front of the
altar. On the altar are sacrifices of tortillas, fowl, and various foods made with maize. A
cross is also on the altar. The hmen was surrounded by women helping with the
125
preparations. With these pictures, the importance and centrality of Mayan practices
related to the milpa are on display.
Several people spoke of the Maya as a "people of the land" who were dependent
on the land for their well-being. Sacrifices to the rain god are seen as crucial to ensure
their survival. One person noted that the recent hurricanes were because the gods were
"angry because not enough was offered during the ceremonies." The Maya often call
themselves, and are called by others, the people ofthe maize. This is partially, as noted in
chapter three, from the Popul Voh story of creation, that the Maya were created out of
maIze.
The maize produced on the milpa is central to other Mayan ceremonies as well.
One ceremony I witnessed was the hetz luum, to ward off evil spirits. A family had asked
a hmen to perform the ceremony because the father was sick and needed an operation.
But the family couldn't afford the procedure. They hoped the hetz luum would help him.
When we first arrived we walked to an altar in the back ofthe family's
homestead. A small rectangular table was set-up. A large wooden cross was on the table
in the back. Bowls and old paint buckets of sacrificial food offerings were laid out on the
table. There were tortillas, made ofmaize, cooked turkey, a thick maize stew called
"yax," and small bowls of a maize and honey mixture. There was a candle and incense on
the table as well. When we first arrived, women were helping to place the food they had
prepared on the altar. Then they left and the hmen lit incense and started the ceremony.
The ceremony was short and consisted of the hmen softly offering the sacrifices and
asking for the evil spirits to leave. It was all in Mayan. After the ceremony the family and
126
guests ate the food from the altar that had been used as an offering. This narrative of the
hetz luum illustrates the centrality of maize in Mayan ceremonies performed today.
Ensuring the production of maize responds to the persistence of Mayan beliefs in ManL
Preserving uso comun land is equated with providing a space for milpa
production. The milpa itself is embedded in ritual knowledge, passed down from father to
son, and Mayan religious practices, particularly honoring the rain gods. The maize
harvested from the milpa is central not only in the local diet, but also in sacrificial
offerings to the gods made during different ceremonies. The dual land tenure system in
the Mani ejido reflects not only the instrumentality of needing irrigated land for
production, but also the practice of milpa production on communal land.
The second major explanation for the preservation of communal land is that it is
embedded in collective memory and place. Community members view the land in Mani
as ancestral land that belongs to them all, not just a select few. When speaking about the
land, many people invoked their "Mayan ancestors" who had lived here before.
One ejidatario invoked "past ancestors" and people having the land as a
patrimony to pass on. He said "land and the cyclical nature of time are linked. What
happens here now is connected to what happened before and what happens in the future.
These old ideas about land are important. They are from the ancestors. We must have the
land to pass onto our children and grandchildren." He believed these conceptions of time
and land came from the "ancestors" writings and beliefs.
127
As noted in the previous chapter, one ejidatario l2 said that the "ejido is important
because it is for all the people, the invitation is for all. All of the people are the owners of
the uso comun land, but not one specific part of it." This conception of "land" includes
the resources on the land. "The wood on the ejido land is yours, it's for everyone to use."
I often witnessed members of the community, non-ejidatarios, coming back from uso
comun ejido land with piles of sticks for their fires, over which they cooked the tortillas.
This conception ofland belonging to the community as a whole can be found far back in
Mayan history. In writing about the lives ofhis people, Gaspar Antonio Xiu who lived in
Mani in the sixteenth century noted that "land was held in common" (Xiu 1981, 79).
One ejidatario told me that historically people "never used pockets for money.
They would bury their money and if they died sometimes others didn't know where the
money was and it was lost for awhile or forever." He told me that, about ten years ago,
one of his neighbors was "digging in the land to put in a pole for a house and found a
box. It was full ofgold, pure gold." He said the "Mayan ancestors often buried things" of
value. A parcelario showed me a rock collection of from his land. Part of the collection
was old shells. He said, "these used to be money. My ancestors used them. I found them
right here, in my yard." Both of these Manienses saw the land as providing evidence of a
link to the past, evidence of ancestors who had lived in the area.
As noted in the previous chapter, collective memory also links present day
Manienses to a Mayan past. The royal Tutul Xiu family continues to have a presence in
the form ofpictures, historical narratives, books, and a restaurant. The harsh treatment of
12 This ejidatario also owned multiple parcelas but was against parcelizing all of the land.
128
the Maya at the hands of the friar Landa is still remembered and lamented by community
members. The majority of people I spoke with linked Mani as a physical space with local
Mayan history not as an abstract idea but an ancestral horne.
Local collective memory also invokes the post-Revolutionary struggle to get the
land back from the haciendas. One resident recalled the difficulties his father and others
had in getting land to create the ejido. He said "people had machetes, the socialists were
fighting the land owners, there were fires, it was very violent." Another second
generation ejidatario said he would never sell his land or give up his rights, as the land "is
a symbol of the struggle to get access."
The impact of Revolutionary ideas is also partially evident in the discussion above
about patrimony. During the period ofland reform and redistribution, the state said it
would provide land to all of those who wanted it. This probably reinforced Mayan ideas
about collective land and the generational obligations that people now express. It is also
linked to norms about land use and access. The pre-1992 agrarian rules required that
ejidatarios work the land or else lose their status. This link between work and land rights,
a legacy of the Mexican Revolution and provisions in the agrarian code, was popularized
by PRI governments. This norm continues to be expressed in ManL
Two ejidatarios interviewed argued that uso comun land should be made available
for any local resident wanting to work. They were both second generation ejidatarios
whose fathers had been among the first beneficiaries of the land reform in 1934.
Legitimate land tenure was defined for them as mixing labor with land. If you work the
land, if you do something productive with it, then you should be entitled to have land to
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work. If you are not going to use the land, than you have no claims to it. One resident
noted that there "used to be land for whoever wanted to work it" but was concerned that
there wouldn't be enough in the future if more land is converted into parcelas.
Several ejidatarios argued that anyone wanting to make the milpa should be
guaranteed access to land. This is also one explanation for the granting of access to uso
comtin land for the approximately fifteen hundred non-ejidatarios for the milpa.
Communal land is not restricted to ejidatarios only; ejidatarios grant others the
opportunity to use it. This concept was reinforced at a class offered at the local ecological
school. 13 During one session, the instructor talked about land use in the Bible, noting that
"all land comes from God so only use it, work it...you cannot sell the land because only
God owns the land." This message is harmonious with protecting communal land for
milpa production. And we see that Mayan, Revolutionary, and Christian discourses all
reinforce the idea ofland being available to those who want to work it.
The uso comtin land has been preserved for many reasons. Both ritual knowledge
and Mayan religious practices are embedded in milpa production, locally equated with
communal land. The landscape is also tied to collective memory and place, invoking
ancestral ties and a struggle to gain back land. The post-Revolutionary governments
reinforced norms about mixing labor and land as a norm. These values, beliefs, and
practices have shaped land tenure decision-making and have acted as a counter-weight to
the pressures for parcelization of all ejido land. These cultural values and practices
13 U Yits Ka'an, the Experimental Farming School of Mani, began operating in 1996 and teaches
participants about agricultural practices for development that are environmentally and culturally sound. It
was created by a group ofCatholic priests influenced by liberation theology and is connected to two
universities in Yucatan.
130
associated with land are part of the historical construction of identity in Mani. They acted
as resources ejidatarios drew upon in shaping their responses to the new rules. While the
economic value of the crops grown on the parcelas resulted in ejidatarios permitting more
parcelas to be created, the ejidatarios also recognized the cultural values of uso comtin
land.
Conclusion
The case of Mani illustrates that the responses to the neoliberal property rights
reforms cannot be "read off' of structural factors. With a high degree of ethnic
identification linked to milpa production and place as ancestral home, one could have
predicted resistance to and rejection of the new regime in Mani. Alternatively, with
population increases and the benefits of irrigated parcelas, one could have predicted full
individualization of communal land. Yet neither of these outcomes occurred.
Rather, Manienses responded in different ways. They avoided land privatization,
selectively appropriating elements ofthe new rules. The neoliberal property rights regime
restructured interaction, fostering a local land market. But marketization was deployed
for different reasons, often used to fulfill a cultural obligation to future generations.
Through this process, the definition of patrimony was contested as some people used the
new land tenure rules to solve the insecurity produced by the institutional reforms. The
new rules and strategies for fulfilling patrimonial obligations were reinterpreted and
transformed. Further, ejidatarios limited the conversion of communal land because it was
embedded in cultural meaning and a sense of identity. Their behavior in making land
131
tenure decision was embedded in historically constituted values, cultural patrimony,
collective memory, and existing agrarian practices. The Manienses creatively adapted
cultural and institutional resources to craft locally appropriate responses to the imposition
of the neoliberal property rights regime.
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CHAPTER VII
THE HENEQUEN WORKERS OF HUNUCMA
The neoliberal property rights regime established by President Salinas in 1992
resulted in unexpected outcomes in Hunucma. When the reforms were enacted, most
people had disengaged from the ejido. Ejidatario participation in agrarian production and
attendance at assemblies was extremely low. Developing the land could bring economic
benefits to both the ejidatarios and the community, through privatization and outside
investment. This ejido was a good candidate for the kinds oftransformations the
neoliberal reformers hoped to achieve - freeing up under-utilized land to make it more
productive. Thus, Hunucma appeared to be a place where little resistance to the reforms
would emerge. Yet the outcome was quite different. Land sales in 2005, which were part
of a state government development project, catalyzed a new social movement to defend
ejido lands. In the process, ejidatarios in Hunucma drew on institutional and cultural
resources to contest the new property rights regime, reviving habits of militancy and
national mobilization and framing their grievances as part of wider indigenous resistance
actions.
Opposition to the sale of ejido land under the neoliberal regime was the result of
irregularities in the land privatization process and questions about the fairness of the price
paid. A structuralist explanation may be able to account for these claims. Upon learning
133
that the land sold would be more valuable since it was being developed by the state
government, ejidatarios claimed that the institutional rules were violated and the sales
should be nullified or renegotiated. But a structural interpretation fails to account for the
re-framing ofthe material and processural grievances as part of wider national indigenous
autonomy actions, ignoring the agency of the actors involved. Ejidatarios drew on
institutional and cultural resources - local customary practices and a national discourse of
indigenous rights linked to the contemporary political context - in challenging the state
and linking their struggles to a centuries old conflict between the indigenous people and
foreign conquerors.
This chapter examines the historical institutional and cultural resources the
ejidatarios were able to draw on in the neoliberal era. The establishment of the Hunucma
ejido in 1937 resulted from the mobilization of the local, largely Maya-identified
peasantry seeking land redistribution from the large henequen haciendas. But
management ofthe henequen sector by both state and federal institutions exerted political
and economic control from above, making ejidatarios dependent on the state for their
economic livelihood. This arrangement reinforced the ejidatarios' identity as henequen
wage workers rather than proprietors of their own land, and resulted in cross-ejido
mobilization against the government in the 1960s and 1970s when material conflicts
arose. Both the internal organization of the Hunucma ejido and its relations with the state
and other ejidos were driven by henequen production. As the Yucatecan henequen sector
waned in the 1980s, ejidatarios shifted their primary economic activities and disengaged
from the ejido. Their historical institutional practices and cultural identity became latent
134
but, as demonstrated in the next chapter, ultimately were revived and redeployed under
the new property rights regime.
Creating the Ejido
The ejido of Hunucma is located in the municipality of the same name, 28
kilometers west of Merida (see figure 5). The ejidatarios and their families primarily
reside in the city of Hunucma, which has a population of22,800 (INEGI 2005). Hunucma
forms part of the henequen producing region of Yucatan, the arid northwestern part of the
state. In the late nineteenth century henequen production became a viable export-
industry. The success of the henequen industry was partially conditioned by technical
improvements elsewhere, as noted in chapter 3. Hacendados in this region earned their
living by exploiting a largely indigenous workforce, tied to the henequen hacienda
through debt-peonage. These workers were legally barred from seeking employment in
other sectors until their debts were paid (Brannon and Baklanoff 1987, 49).
While Yucatan was not characterized by large-scale fighting during the
Revolutionary period (1910-1920) as compared with northern and central Mexico,
Hunucma was an exception. In March of 1911, President Porfirio Diaz appointed General
Luis del Carmen Curiel as Governor of Yucatan. Riots followed in Hunucma and two
other municipalities as rural laborers protested their treatment and General Curiel's
actions, especially conscription (Carey 1984,24). The violence in Hunucma resulted in
major property damage. Curiel, like Diaz, didn't last long. Fighting increased in
Hunucma throughout the decade as "bands of rebels escaped elite supervision" and
135
operated throughout the area (Fallaw 2002, 649). Imposcd Revolutionary governments in
the pcninsula neither lasted long nor werc very successful for the first several years. In
1915 the debt-peonage system was officially outlawed in Yucatan by Govcrnor Avila, but
major changcs fai led to
Hunucma
•
.r;
r
I
i
L. .,
! I ..1
-y
Merida
@
1
1
1
)
'.
._J-
Figure 5: I-Iunllcma, map by Patrie!, Gronli
emerge as his power to enforce the degree was limited (Carey 1984, 29). Over the next
five years debt peonage gradually eroded as a mechanlsm of control over workers.
However, lacking access to their own land, tools, or other agricultural inputs, the fonncr
peons were forccd to scck work on the hacicndas as agricultural wage laborers.
136
In 1918 henequen workers in Hunucma fIrst petitioned for land restitution, one
year after the 1917 Mexican Constitution was drafted. Article 27 of the Constitution
provided the legal basis for the request. But the hacienda owners who controlled both the
land and henequen production resisted the expropriation of their lands and the privileges
that they had exercised. According to the agrarian archives, hacienda owners in Hunucma
petitioned the government to halt the land redistribution. They argued that the request
was inappropriate since their land was "constituted of industrial units dedicated to the
cultivation of henequen," an important export crop (Ministry of Agrarian Reform 1939).
Rather than wait for government action, the workers and peasants in Hunucma
organized into brigades to take the land for themselves. Historical recounts of this period
showed that the battles at many ofthe haciendas were violent (Cetina Aguilar 2006). In
1922 the state governor denied the initial request for ejido land by the residents of
Hunucma. Instead, he provided a provisional land grant (Ministry of Agrarian Reform
1939). But this provisional land grant was insuffIcient. Many local residents did not have
agrarian rights and the amount of land provided failed to conform to the stipulations in
the agrarian code regarding the hectares of land per person that should be available to
ejido.
Violence continued in the municipality of Hunucma throughout the 1930s. The
local peasant class, primarily Maya, fought alongside leftist leaders to over throw the old
landlords. In 1936 a state-wide electoral struggle spilled into Hunucma. Ideological
tensions between conservative and several left-wing factions were mounting. One leftist
leader, Antonio Betancourt Perez, head of the state's education department, spoke at a
137
rally in Merida. He threatened to "bring down 5,000 Indians from the hills of Hunucma"
to counter the conservative factions (Diario de Yucatan 1936). I Both the leftist movement
to reform the region and the peasants of Hunucma would be bolstered the following year
by Cardenas' visit.
In 1937 President Cardenas visited the Yucatan to implement agrarian reform.
During the presidential campaign in 1934, he had been in Merida and pledged to support
the henequen workers in recovering their land. After his election, federal intervention in
the Yucatecan henequen haciendas was blocked by local politicians and hacendados.
Cardenas returned to Yucatan with members of the agrarian bureaucracy to redistribute
henequen land to the workers, creating collective ejidos from the haciendas (Fallaw
2001).
The ejido of Hunucma was created by an edict by President Cardenas on
September 1, 1937? The land granted for the creation of the new ejido was composed of
the prior, provisional land grant, plus another 10,000 hectares. Use-rights for the land
were officially transferred from the hacendados to the ejido, although, as granted under
the law, the hacendados were allowed to retain their equipment, buildings, and three
hundred hectares of land per individual (Brannon and Backlanoff 1987,52). The state
mandated that the majority of the land was to be used for the collective cultivation of
henequen (Ministry of Agrarian Reform 1939). A few hectares were set aside for local
1 Quoted in Fallaw (2002, 66)
2 The ejido of Hunucma was officially created by presidential decree on September 1, 1937. It was
published in the Diario Oficial de la Federaci6n on August 11, 1939.
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schools. After almost twenty years, the former henequen workers of Hunucma were now
ejidatarios.
Both the national agrarian laws and the institutional structure of the ejido were
imposed from above. But over time they came to constitute local customary practices. As
discussed in the next chapter, when the neoliberal reforms altered the legal framework of
the ejido, the property rights regime came under attack for violating these established
norms. Thus, understanding the historical construction of local practices is crucial for
understanding the institutional resources that ejidatarios drew on in contesting the
validity of the neoliberal regime. A few components of the institution were central.
Under the agrarian laws, ejidatarios had to work the land; as such, being an
ejidatario was linked to agrarian production. If a peasant was absent or not working the
land for more than two years, that peasant would lose agrarian rights and could be
replaced by another person. Decision-making within the ejido occurred at assemblies. All
ejidatarios had equal rights at the assemblies. The assemblies elected members of the
Comisariado Ejidal and Consejo de Vigilancia, by majority vote. Each ejidatario had the
option ofrunning for office. The Comisariado Ejidal was the executive committee of the
ejido. The Consejo de Vigilancia was charged with ensuring that the members of the
executive committee fulfilled their duties in accordance with the law arid maintaining and
defending ejido boundaries. The ejido assembly voted on the internal rules, which were
binding to all members. Finally, the assembly controlled access to the land. Since
Hunucma was a collective ejido, the land was worked communally, however not as one
big plot of land but in groups.
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The ejido contained a sub-layer of institutions - nineteen groups. The ejidatarios
were organized into groups for the cultivation of the large portions ofland. The groups
corresponded to the haciendas and properties where land had been taken, and were not
necessarily geographically connected. The agrarian archives make several references to
the "trabajadores y peones," workers and peons, being granted access to ejido land in a
particular group. For example, in 1937 the ejido was officially fonned and the provisional
land grant given to the residents was expanded. The decree from the Ministry of Agrarian
Refonn specifically delineated which henequen estates3 land will be taken from and then
went on to specify that the land for the ejido will benefit the workers and peons from that
estate (Ministry of Agrarian Refonn 1937). For example, the "peons and workers of the
estate Texan and Annexes" were delivered "852 hectares with henequen and 1,892
hectares uncultivated" (Ministry of Agrarian Refonn 1937, 3). The newly created
ejidatarios were being given land carved from the very haciendas and, later, estates where
they had worked.
These groups, though, were not simple geographic assignments of people to parts
of the land. The ejidatarios of Hunucma were expected to cultivate henequen collectively
with members of their group. The groups also made important productive decisions,
including receiving credit to support henequen production. Each member of a group had
equal rights and groups decisions were made by majority vote. Meetings, separate from
the assemblies when the all of the ejidatarios met, were held for each of the groups
whenever they needed to discuss various matters. The groups could also make requests
3 The tenn "hacienda" was no longer regularly used after the Revolution in official communications
regarding the Hunucma ejido. Instead the haciendas were referred to as ranches or estates.
140
for the whole ejido to consider. Below the level of the whole ejido, Hunucma then had a
spatial, organizational, and productive institutional structure of group-membership,
heavily imbued with the legacies of the hacienda era.
Henequen continued to be the most viable crop for the ejidatarios. President
Cardenas' decree instructed the beneficiaries of the agrarian reform "to promote and
preserve the henequen plants they had been granted" (Ministry of Agrarian Reform
1939). But the relative amount of the land planted with henequen that the ejidatarios
received was quite low. Only 2,343 hectares were planted with henequen (Ministry of
Agrarian Reform 1937, 1). The ejido needed state support, primarily credit, to expand
henequen production. As detailed below, both federal and state agencies provided
assistance, but the process was riddled with problems that hampered the success ofthe
henequen ejido.
The Hunucma ejido as a whole maintained its importance despite the productive
centrality ofthe groups. The various functions ofthe groups did not supersede the role of
the ejido assembly or the importance of participation. All ejidatarios maintained equal
membership in the ejido. Violations of this norm often resulted in disputes. For example,
in 1952 there was an internal conflict over ejido elections. After the August election,
several ejidatarios challenged the results, noting irregularities in the process. Specifically,
charges were leveled against the validity of the election and the Ministry of Agrarian
Reform was asked to intervene in the situation. The complainants noted that some
ejidatarios were not notified about the meeting or were barred from participating while
other people, who did not have agrarian rights, were permitted to vote (Ministry of
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Agrarian Refonn 1953). The election of new leaders was certified and made official in
1953. Yet this episode illustrates that despite the productive importance of the groups, the
stakes in ejido elections remained high. The Hunucma ejido thus operated as a layered
institution.
The Henequen Institutional Matrix
This section examines the organization of henequen-producing ejidos by the
federal and state governments. After 1937, when President Cardenas created over two
hundred new ejidos, mostly in the henequen zone, both the national and Yucatecan
governments wanted to ensure the continued viability ofthe lucrative export crop.
Through an array of credit, production, and processing institutions, the henequen ejidos
were controlled from above. The institutions governing henequen production, heavily
influenced by fonner hacienda owners, reinforced not ejidatario control, but ejidatarios as
workers without productive decision-making power. As demonstrated later, this
organization of henequen ejidos resulted in class conflict between government
institutions and the ejidatarios over material grievances.
The establishment of the Hunucma ejido was followed by decades of struggle for
control of henequen production in the region. First the federal government took control of
the sector in 1937, hoping to use the collective Yucatecan henequen ejidos as model of
the positive benefits communal land tenure could provide. The federal government had
an interest in ensuring that these ejidos continued to produce henequen for export. Over
60% ofYucatecan land sown in henequen was now under ejido control (Brannon and
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Backlanoff 1987, 52). Further, Cardenas believed the collective organization of ejido,
freed from the hacienda, a symbol of Old Mexico, was "inseparable from a larger social,
cultural, and even moral transformation" whereby the "collective ejido, along with the
school, would instill sobriety, patriotism, industry, and secularism" (Fallaw 2001, 13).
The stakes for Cardenas were not only economic but also political and cultural: the
modernization of Yucatan, and Mexico.
One example of implementing Cardenas' policies reveals both their appeal and
their limitations in practice. In 1937 federal government representatives in Merida
attempted to prohibit alcohol sales as part of the Cardenista project. Their efforts at
restricting the sale of alcohol in the capital of Merida were successfully resisted by tavern
owners who were well-connected with the local political and economic elite; however,
the push to limit drinking was well-received in rural areas. In Hunucma a Communist-
affiliated women's group requested that Cardenas close the taverns, which they called
"baneful centers of vice." (Fallaw 2001,93). While ultimately an unsuccessful movement
in Hunucma, the Cardenista project appealed to members of the peasant class as a way to
take control away from powerful economic and political interests. Yet, as we will see
repeated often, the transformative potential of Cardenas' policies was regularly impeded.
The newly established henequen ejidos faced problems from the outset. The
henequen plants were at different stages, some ready for cutting, but most in need of
more time for growth.4 This meant that it would be several years before some ejidos were
able to harvest their crop and thus gain income. In Hunucma, only 10% of ejido land was
4 It could take up to ten years for a henequen plant to reach maturity so its leaves could be harvested and
processed an, on average, plants lasted for twenty years.
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cultivated in henequen. To make their land more productive, the ejidatarios needed loans
to expand production. Further, the rasping machines necessary for extracting the fiber
from the henequen plant's leaves were still under control ofthe hacienda owners, as was
permitted under the agrarian laws. Finally, the ejidatarios generally lacked the technical
knowledge and the credit to grow, process, and market the crop. Under these conditions,
the federal government initially stepped in to provide the resources necessary for the
henequen ejidos to operate.
The National Ejido Credit Bank (BNCE)5 was established by the federal
government as a credit agency for the ejidatarios, providing technical advice on henequen
cultivation, and administrative and financial support until the ejidos were established and
able to function independently. Hunucma, as with other henequen ejidos, became
dependent on the federal government. The henequen ejidos lost money in the early years,
falling deeper into debt with the BNCE and unable to generate enough income to support
its members (Brannon and Bak1anoff 1987,54). The collective management and
communal exploitation of land for henequen production through the ejido seemed to be
failing and was draining federal resources.6 As a result, the Cardenas administration
returned control of the ejidos to the Yucatecan state government in 1938, as controlling
henequen production resulted in massive outflows of federal pesos.7
5 Banco Nacional de CrMito Ejidal
6 For example, the BNCE gave sixteen million pesos to the henequen ejidos and only received nine million
in return (Brannon and Baklanoff 1987,54).
7 The biggest fmancial problem facing the federal government was the nationalization of the foreign-owned
oil industry, and the need to raise revenues to compensate foreign owners.
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Yucatecan Governor Canto Echeverria designed a new strategy to organize
henequen production by managing the henequen ejido as a single administrative unit,
called EI Gran Ejido. In place of focusing on ejidos as individual producers, Canto
Echeverria believed that centralizing the administration of the henequen ejidos through
state agencies would be more efficient, restore discipline, and improve the quality of the
product (Fallaw 2001, 128). The old state institution, Henequeneros de Yucatan
Cooperativa Limitada8, was reorganized by the state government to manage henequen
ejidos. Canto Echeverria led the agency, which was governed by representatives from
both private and ejido henequen producers. In its operation, Henequeneros de Yucatan is
an example of the imposition of an institutional layer of control from above and
illustrates a deepening of the process oftuming ejidatarios into wage workers rather than
proprietors of their own land.
Henequeneros de Yucatan was in charge of henequen production, administration,
processing, and marketing, and controlled 80% of ejido fiber production, which some
likened to one giant henequen hacienda (Chardon 1961, 43-44). This giant henequen
hacienda, with 50,000 ejidatarios as members, was based on the premise that "no ejidos
would be poor nor rich and all would have proportional salaries and the same
opportunities" (Benitez 1956, 168). The agency stepped in to solve a number of problems
in the sector. First, it standardized ejidatario wages, eliminating income disparities
(Brannon and Baklanoff 1987,54). Another problem the henequen ejidos faced was that
8 Henequeneros de Yucatan Cooperativa Limitada was organized by President Calles in 1925 to salvage the
henequen industry. As I noted in chapter 3, prices for henequen were high during World War I, but quickly
fell once the war ended. Henequemos de Yucatan Cooperativa Limitada was charged with restoring
Yucatan's market share vis-a-vis competitors abroad (Brannon and Baklanoff 1987, 43).
145
the agrarian reform had separated the production of raw plants from the processing of
leaves. Ejidatarios controlled the majority of henequen land, but they did not have the
facilities to process the raw henequen into fiber. The former hacendados refused the
ejidos access to their leaf-processing equipment, the raspers. So, in 1938 the state
government forced the hacendados to allow Henequeneros de Yucatan to control the
rasping machines necessary to process the raw leaves and extract the fibers. A new law
was enacted requiring the owners ofthe mills to allow ejidatarios to use their facilities
(Chardon 1961, 43).9 Henequeneros de Yucatan oversaw the implementation of the law,
including the expropriation of rasping machines.
This organization was designed to improve ejidatario life and ensure that regional
henequen production kept up with demand. If a henequen producer agreed to sell all of its
fiber to the institution, they became a member. Ejidatarios, small producers, and the
former hacienda owners all had the ability to join Henequeneros de Yucatan. The
organization paid ejidatarios a fixed wage for their henequen crops and directed henequen
cultivation on the ejido (Brannon and Baklanoff 1987, 54). Over half ofthe profits were
divided up amongst the non-ejidatario producers, although the majority went to the
former hacienda owners. In effect, Henequeneros de Yucatan became a "tool ofthe
governor and landlords" (Markiewicz 1993, 145). The state now exerted its control over
the ejidos through this re-organized institution, which was dominated not only by the
Governor but also by a few Yucatecan state elites and owners of processing plants, the
ex-hacendados (Brannon 1991,246).
9 The new law, enacted in 1938, was called La Ley de ocupacion de maquinarias.
146
Ejido access to and control over the rasping equipment was short-lived. In 1942,
the equipment was returned to the hacendados (Chardon 1961,43). The machines had
fallen into disrepair and the hacendados agreed to maintain the raspers to ensure that
production kept up with rising U.S. wartime demand (Markiewicz 1993, 145). The
United States' demand for fibers increased during World War II, creating a temporary
peace in Yucatan's henequen industry as fiber prices rose from their interwar trough of 6
cents to 9 cents per pound (Brannon and Bak1anoff 1987, 55). The United States
contracted for all Yucatecan fiber produced from 1942-1945, as U.S. producers of rope,
harvest twine, and other products were cut-off from suppliers outside North America
(Chardon 1961,44). Many former hacendados believed that the return of the processing
equipment was a step towards "ending ejida1 policy in the Yucatan Peninsula"
(Markiewicz 1993, 145).
In the decade after the Word War II boom, little money was invested in technical
improvements for the henequen sector. The federal government pressured both the state
government and the Henequeneros de Yucatan to purchase modem processing
machinery, hoping to spur the private owners of the equipment to also make
improvements through increased competition (Markiewicz 1993, 147). But production of
henequen in the Yucatan fell from a high of 121,663 tons in 1943 to 74,651 by 1955
(Brannon and Bak1anoff 1987,63). With the henequen industry seemingly in a free fall
and widespread rumors of corruption within Henequeneros de Yucatan, President Ruiz
Cortines dissolved the institution in 1955 (Brannon and Bak1anoff 1987, 56).
147
This once lucrative export-industry stagnated and was viewed as inefficient and
corrupt. Competition from cheaper and higher quality sisal fiber in Brazil, Haiti, and
Tanzania and synthetic fiber reduced the economic sustainability of henequen (Brannon
and Backlanoff 1987, 104). The federal government stepped in during the 1960s, re-
asserting control over the henequen sector. Cordemex, a parastatal agency, was created in
1961 for the industrialization of henequen. 10 Ultimately, Cordemex was granted a
monopoly in purchasing and processing raw fibers, creating cordage products, and selling
those products abroad. (Brannon 1991, 247)
Cordemex was designed as both an economic and political solution to the
problems facing the henequen sector. Officials argued that under this new regime
production and manufacturing could be integrated by the federal government, making it
possible to take advantage of economies of scale. Further, the state could embark on a
modernization program for the industry to retain global competitiveness as producers of
cheaper, alternative fibers were gaining market share. The Yucatecan Joint Agrarian
Commission sent a letter to the Ministry of Agrarian Reform in 1961 to this effect,
requesting federal government support to bolster the henequen sector. Specifically, they
asked for an increase in the availability of raspers and greater emphasis on the
industrialization of henequen for the ejido (General Archives ofthe State ofYucatlin
10 Henequeneros de Yucatan was replaced by three organizations, the Union of Henequen Producers
(UPH), the ejido bank and agrarian department, and Cordeleros de Mexico. The UPH represented private
owners. The ejido bank and agrarian department were state agencies working with the ejidatarios.
Corde1eros de Mexico was an association of cordage (rope and fiber-making) mills, which ultimately tried,
unsuccessfully, to set prices. (Chardon 1961,45) Under mounting economic difficulties and fears of the
henequen industry falling under foreign control, the federal government bailed out Cordeleros de Mexico
and nationalized the cordage mills in 1964. The federal government reorganized the cordage mills under
federal control through Cordemex.
148
1961). The report notes that the "henequen ejidatarios must take their henequen leaves
and return to be subjects of the past since there are not enough machines" for removing
the raw fibers from the leaves (General Archives ofthe State of Yucatan 1961). They also
requested more centers to receive the raw fiber and tum it into rope and other value-
added products for sale. Federal authorities, responding to pressure from ejidatarios,
hoped to use Cordemex to raise the standard of living for ejidatarios with the profits they
would earn through reorganization and modernization. I I Thus, "the nationalization
measure was viewed by government officials as an expression of nationalism and support
for the masses" (Brannon and Baklanoff, 1987,95).
The federal government continued to invest in the industry, despite falling
revenues from henequen sales. The state was obligated to pay ejidatarios their wages,
regardless of production goals or market demand. Each year, millions of pesos were
invested in the henequen sector through subsidies and credits, but not recovered in market
sales. For example, the Agrarian Bank recovered 72% of its credit advances in 1956, but
by 1964 that figure had fallen to 57.6% (Brannon and Baklanoff 1987, 76). Despite the
state's efforts to improve production and modernize the sector, it was characterized by
corruption and inefficiency.
Funds from the bank were provided directly to the ejidos. In the case ofHunucma,
the groups managed the funds and directed work. The agrarian archives in Merida contain
evidence of group meetings to discuss credits from the agrarian bank. For example, in
1965, seventy four ejidatarios, members of group five, met to discuss the recently
11 The state was also under pressure from the cordage workers, who were organized under the PRI's official
labor union, the Confederation of Mexican Workers (Confederaci6n de Trabajadores de Mexico - CTM).
149
advanced credit for henequen production (Ministry of Agrarian Refonn 1965a). These
ejido groups functioned to organize the ejidatarios and corresponded to geographic
boundaries demarcating the land that groups of ejidatarios could access. Despite
belonging to the same ejido, the groups were central to productive activities, the
communal cultivation of henequen and added another layer of organization to the ejido
structure.
The groups within the Hunucma ejido sometimes conflicted. On one occasion a
boundary dispute occurred between groups three and seven. The agrarian archives
document an exchange between the ejido leadership and the state Department of Agrarian
Affairs (Ministry of Agrarian Refonn 1963). The letter requests that agrarian officials
resolve a conflict between the two groups over henequen plants. The members of group
three argued that some of their henequen plants were within the boundaries of the land of
group seven. Since henequen production dominated economic activities in the ejido,
these types of disputes were not minor. The request to have the state solve the problem
illustrates the divisions that could arise and not be solved internally through the ejido
assembly. But more importantly, the conflict reinforces the centrality ofthe ejidatarios as
wage workers dependent on henequen. The ejidatarios specifically raised concerns over
where henequen plants were located, and thus who controlled them. The dispute focused
on economic production and control over resources.
By the 1960s the henequen sector was already in decline. In 1965 the Hunucma
ejido petitioned the state to move into cattle-raising. The ejidatarios were told to abandon
the idea owing to the "length oftime it would take to start" such an operation. Further,
150
the state told the ejidatarios that "the lack of vegetation and seasonal rainfall" in the area
were problems which would "interfere with successful cattle-raising." The ejidatarios
were advised to continue producing henequen. (Ministry of Agrarian Affairs 1965b, 11)
The ejido also made a request with the Union of Small Ranches to have a new zone
established to support livestock in Hunucma (Ministry of Agrarian Affairs 1965b, 3).
However, it would be nearly fifteen years before even small-scale diversification of
production into breeding animals actually occurred. The ejidatarios would have to focus
on henequen.
What is notable in the agrarian archives pertaining to Hunucma during the 1950s-
1970s is the absence of references to com production, particularly the traditional Maya
practice of making the milpa. On several occasions henequen production and credits for
the groups are raised. There are also exchanges pertaining to the attempt by the Hunucma
ejidatarios to move into ranching. However, milpa production is notable for its absence in
the records, in terms of hectares dedicated and the provision of credits or other supports.
The act of making the milpa is one of the agricultural practices that characterized pre-
conquest Mayan production. During the colonial era it was also one of the few physical
places where Mayan religious ceremonies survived. Even today, people in Yucatan speak
of the Maya as "people of the com" and view the milpa as a cultural and religious
practice, including sacrifices to the rain god.
Both anecdotal evidence and a 1998 agrarian survey of the Hunucma ejido
suggest that some milpa production continued (Agency for Agrarian Justice 1998a).
However, the decline in wide-spread milpa production is suggestive of a tum away from
151
historical Mayan agricultural practices. The shift away from milpa production was not
necessarily the choice ofthe ejidatarios; generally ejidos were limited in what they could
produce by the type of credit and support the government provided. But this raises a
fundamental question: How was the organization of the ejido and henequen production
related to cultural identity? While it is impossible to know for sure ifthe internal ejido
relationships and the external organization by the state and federal government caused
changes in cultural values and identity, some type of relationship seems to exist. The rise
in henequen production and the organization of the campesinos as wage workers appears
to coincide with a decrease in Mayan customs and habits. A local historian and professor
in Hunucma, Anacleto Cetina Aguilar (2006, 144), noted a decline in pre-Hispanic
Mayan practices.
He detailed several pre-Hispanic Mayan ceremonies that had been lost to the
community and were now considered "foreign," no longer native to the local population
but exotic elements of other places and peoples. For example, a number of ceremonies
honoring Mayan gods took occurred historically in the area, including the "Yurn Chac"
for the rain god and the "Yum K'ax" for the land (2006, 144). These ceremonies are no
longer held, at least not as community-wide affairs that people widely know about and
participate in. The Mayan baptism, or "Hetz Mek," traditionally was linked to Mayan
agricultural practices. For example, a young boy would be baptized at the age of four
months. The selection of four months corresponded to the four comers of the milpa and
symbolically reinforced the attachment between the Mayan men and their duty to make
the milpa (2006, 144). However, this practice, too, is no longer common in Hunucma.
152
Cetina Aguilar lamented the loss of these practices, noting that "our land is full of rich
traditions, that which we should maintain and preserve for future generations, to
guarantee a rebirth of our glorious past" (2006, 145).
The decline in participation in Mayan ceremonies equates with a decline in local
use of an indigenous language. 12 Whereas over 50% ofthe population spoke Mayan at
the beginning of the twentieth century, that number had dwindled. The 2000 census
recorded the municipal population at 25,979, yet only 7,494 people spoke an indigenous
language (!NEG! 2001). The 2005 census saw the figure of indigenous language speakers
in the municipality fall to 6,971 (!NEG! 2006).
The loss of Mayan customs and habits coincides with government organization of
and control over the henequen sector and the movement away from traditional crop
cultivation towards increased henequen production. A 1988 assessment of municipal
production in Hunucma found that com was planted on approximately fourteen hundred
hectares of land (Centina Aguilar 2006, 162).13 Agrarian practices of the past, such as
milpa production, were supplanted with henequen. The cultivation of henequen in large
groups and the amount of land required to ensure a continuous crop pushed the
cultivation of other fruits and vegetables off of ejido land. Rather than proprietors of their
own land, the ejidatarios had become wage workers, dependent, though, on the capital of
the state (Villanueva Mukul 1990, 107).
12 Two indigenous languages are spoken in Hunucma, Mayan and Nahuatl. Statistics delineating the
proportion ofeach spoken were unavailable. However, Mayan is the predominant indigenous language in
the municipality.
13 The Hunucma ejido alone is composed of over 20,000 hectares ofland.
153
Political Functions of the Henequen Ejidos
Given internal problems in the sector and displacement due to competition from
abroad, why did the state maintain and even expand its support for henequen production
and manufacturing? Cordemex and its associated institutions had political and social
functions, not simply economic and technical aims. Economic decision-making could
thus be subordinated to social and political objectives of the regime, in that way serving
regime stability by maintaining the status quo. The organization of the ejidatarios as
henequen workers made them a political bloc under state and party control. 14 Social and
political stability in the henequen zone rested with the National Peasant Federation
(CNC), which controlled the ejidatarios and constituted the main political force in the
region (Villanueva Muku11985, 26). All requests for land and any other demands on the
state had to be channeled through the CNC (Brannon and Backlanoff 1987, 14). As such,
the state needed to ensure the economic viability of the henequen ejidos to stave off any
unrest and maintain support for the PRI.
Indeed, in the 1967 state elections, a PAN candidate won as mayor of Merida, the
capital of Yucatan, and two other PAN candidates were elected to the state legislature.
These were the first such gains by an opposition party since the PRI consolidated its
control after the Revolution (Brannon and Baklanoff 1987, 116). These electoral victories
threatened the control the PRI was trying to maintain in Yucatan. The base of support for
the PAN came primarily from Merida's catholic, conservative, upper-class that had, prior
14 As part of his political project, Cardenas created the National Peasant Federation (Confederaci6n
Nacional Camepsina - CNe). All ejidatarios were required to join the CNC, which was one of the three
main sectors of the PRJ. The CNC organized ejidatarios and bound them to the state and the party, acting as
a kind of union for rural workers.
154
to the Revolution, acted as the land-owing aristocracy. But in state-wide elections, the
PRJ continued to enjoy popular support in rural areas from ejidatarios. The need to
maintain political support among the ejidatarios in Yucatan resulted in the PRl-controlled
federal government increasing its array of subsidies, credits, and investments in the
henequen sector as a response to the needs of the rural population. During President Diaz
Ordaz's term (1965-1970), per capita public expenditures in Yucatan tripled that of the
previous administration (Brannon and Baklanoff 1987, 117).
The corporatist relationships institutionalized between the state and the ejidatarios
through Cordemex, the CNC, and the ejido credit agencies reinforced cross-ejido
alliances, which often became the basis for political movements. The relationship was not
merely top-down; ejidatarios began to join forces and mobilize against unfair practices
and policies. One such example can be found in 1966, when the Agrarian Bank altered
the wage system. Ejidatarios had been paid a fixed and uniform wage by the bank.
However, in 1965 the bank tried to improve worker-productivity by paying a bonus to
ejidos producing a higher quality ofhenequen fiber. The goal of the bonus was to provide
incentives to improve upon export fiber quality, which by then was considered ofinferior
quality by foreign buyers. But the plan failed as ejidatarios resisted the change to the
long-standing practice of paying uniform wages. More than fifteen thousand ejidatarios
protested in Merida in 1966 until federal troops were brought in to end the rioting and
looting (Villanueva Muku11985, 47). The policy was immediately reversed and the
bonuses or profits were evenly distributed to all ofthe ejidatarios. This experience led
one bank official to compare the henequen ejidos to a union, "one whose political power
155
precluded attempts by the bank to rationalize production" (Brannon and Baklanoff 1987,
80).
Large-scale ejidatario movements were also organized in 1969 and 1976 in
Merida. In 1969 ejidatarios occupied the city's center demanding holiday bonuses be
distributed to all of ejidatarios in the henequen zone. In 1976, after the peso devaluation,
they marched again demanding increases in their wages (Villanueva Mukul1985, 48).
The 1960s and 1970s in Yucatan were thus characterized by a growing class struggle
between henequen ejidatarios and the governmental institutions controlling production.
Rather than merely a top-down process, cross-ejido alliances were formed to push back.
Habits of mobilization and militancy in Hunucma dated back to the Revolutionary
period. Recall that, countering the state-wide trend, indigenous peasants here had
violently struggled against the hacienda owners to re-claim their land. Once again they
were moved to action, now as henequen workers fighting for fair wages. But this time
they were engaged in actions that cut across local allegiances and needs. These patterns
of cross-ejido mobilization and militant action confronting unjust practices that denied
them material compensation would be re-invoked in the post-neoliberal reform period.
In 1974, the state reorganized the array of agrarian and ejido credit institutions
and formed Banrural. The purpose of Banrural was to provide credit, advice, and
technical support to stimulate agriculture. Banrural created and oversaw a rigid division-
of labor on the ejidos that reinforced the role of ejidatarios as wage earners and not
proprietors. Banrural created work plans for the ejidos, ensuring that the specific
production tasks required for the henequen industry were carried out, including clearing
156
the land to sow new henequen plants, cutting leaves, and cleaning existing fields. Ejido
foreman checked the work progress, which was subjected to weekly Banrura1 inspections
to ensure satisfactory compliance. (Brannon and Bak1anoff 1987,64). "In reality, with the
intervention of Banrua1, the ejidatario lost all opportunity to act as the proprietor of the
land and was converted into a wage earner of Banrura1 in the process of producing
henequen" (Cetina Aguilar 2006, 158). The disaggregating of the production and
processing of henequen resulted in the ejidatarios losing productive decision-making
control, instead forced to comply with external work plans promulgated by state
institutions. The ejidatarios of Hunucma effectively become employees ofthe
government.
The Cordemex-Banrura1 matrix and the organization of ejidatarios through the
CNC reinforced identity along social class lines, linked to the production of raw
henequen fiber. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, re-organization of the sector to increase
productivity and efficiency was never seriously considered by state or federal officials
because maintaining political support was the primary goal (Brannon and Bak1anoff
1987). The credit advanced to the ejidatarios by Banrura1 functioned as a wage, one that
that the government (both state and federal) was loathe to end. The henequen workers
were an organized political force, not just an economic one. They could tum out for mass
rallies in support of or to oppose government policies. The ejidatarios provided a political
base that the state could harness. However distorted, corrupt, and inefficient the henequen
sector and market had become in Yucatan, it still operated according to a functional logic.
The federal government channeled economic resources into the region to co-opt dissent
-_ .. _- ---- -------
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and maintain its base of political support. This logic operated to reinforce the social class
position of the ejidatarios.
Since its inception, the ejido was subjected to control by outsiders.
The control exercised by the bank and the owners of processing equipment
essentially eliminated the ejidatarios' disposition oftheir own land and
labor. They were treated and came to perceive themselves as wage
laborers rather than property owners. Their status was made worse by the
gross mismanagement of the henequen bureaucracy, which more often
than not took actions in its own interests or that of Mexico City....The
ejidatarios had become wards of the state and an increasingly burdensome
drain on the federal treasury. (Brannon 1991,247)
But the ejidatarios were not mere puppets ofthe government or local elites. When
material conflicts occurred, the ejidatarios could mobilize to demand policy revisions and
just compensation. Their crucial role as henequen producers and the linkages between
ejidos thus operated as a source of political power.
The Decay of Heneguen Ejidos
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s world prices for henequen fell. Increased
competition from synthetics and the availability of higher quality sisal undercut the
viability ofYucat<'m's "green gold". Henequen production, reaching over 130,000 tons of
raw fiber produced in Yucatan during the 1960s, had fallen to about 35,000 tons by 1990
(Brannon and Backlanoff 1987,63; Banos Ramirez 1998,45). With the sector losing
money and structural adjustment policies forcing budgetary cutbacks, Cordemex was
closed on April 10, 1991, the anniversary of Emiliano Zapata's assassination. Zapata, the
famed Revolutionary hero of the peasants, inspired the creation of the ejido system.
158
Ending its commitment to the henequen ejidos on the anniversary of his death
symbolically signaled the demise of the henequen ejido. The height of ejido political
power in the region, during the henequen years after World War II, is now remembered
locally as the golden age of the ejido in Yucatan. Without state support for henequen, the
arid and rocky northwestern part ofthe state provided few incentives for continued
agricultural production as little could grow there.
As henequen sales and state support waned, so did participation in the Hunucma
ejido. An ejido report written by the Agency for Agrarian Justice in 1998 illustrates this
disengagement. As of 1984, approximately 75% ofthe ejidatarios had no certificates
proving they had ejido rights. An additional five hundred people were utilizing ejido land
but were never recognized by an assembly as having rights to the land (Agency for
Agrarian Justice 1998a, 1). The official procedures delineating who had agrarian rights
and access to the land were being neither followed nor enforced when the neoliberal
refonns were enacted by the federal government in the 1990s.
One cause ofthis failure to enforce ejido rules is found in land-use changes. The
ejido as a whole and the individual groups cultivating henequen were key institutions in
organizing production and receiving government support. But by the 1980s henequen
production was on the decline. The 1998 land titling report of the Hunucma ejido found
that only five hundred hectares were cultivated in henequen, three hundred hectares in
citrus fruits, and two thousand hectares were used for cattle ranching (Agency for
Agrarian Justice 1998a, 2). With over 20,000 hectares of ejido land available,
approximately 15% of the land was being used for production.
159
In the absence of government support and with the closing of Cordemex, the ejido
was in decline. The official list of ejidatarios was outdated and in Hunucma there was
"little interest" in taking the necessary steps to rectify the problem (Agency for Agrarian
Justice 1998a, 4). Some ejidatarios had left the area and others had died without being
replaced. But many found work in other sectors. State agrarian officials noted that due to
"the lack of work they [ejidatarios] migrate to the city of Merida" (Agency for Agrarian
Justice 1998a, 4). Without the ability to cultivate henequen, many people found day jobs
in the expanding maquiladoras around Merida or in the city as day laborers. For example,
during the 1990s foreign-owned maquiladoras - factories that pieced together items -
opened in the Yucatan. Monty Industries operates factories for jeans makers throughout
the region, including one in Hunucma, which opened in 1999 (Castilla Ramos and Torres
Gongora 2007,59).
Further evidence of disengagement from the ejido can be found in examining
participation in assemblies. According to state agrarian officials, the problems with
outdated lists of rights holders, and migration to Merida for work were "reflected in the
attendance of ejidatarios at assemblies" (Agency for Agrarian Justice 1998a, 4). The
highest tum-out at assemblies was for the election ofthe members of the Comisariado
Ejidal and the Consejo de Vigilancia. Attendance for these elections was about four
hundred and fifty, out of sixteen hundred ejidatarios (Agency for Agrarian Justice 1998a,
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4). When the key economic role of the ejido declined with henequen, so did the political
value of participation for many members. IS
This is not to suggest there was a complete abandonment of the ejido in
Hunucma. It continued to be a valuable institution for many residents and even provoked
struggles with other ejidos. Boundary disputes with nearby ejidos persisted into the
1990s, resolved only when the ejido voted to participate in the state's land titling
program. An initial ejido survey conducted by agrarian officials in 1995 and a follow-up
in 1998 noted boundary disputes between Hunucma and the ejidos of Sisal, Texan, and
Hunkanab (Agency for Agrarian Justice 1995; Agency for Agrarian Justice 1998a). There
is also evidence of continuing internal disputes over the boundaries between the land of
the nineteen groups and who had rights to work land in which are (Agency for Agrarian
Justice 1995; Agency for Agrarian Justice 1998a). These problems delayed the land
titling process.
Although ultimately resolved, some ejidatarios failed to recognize the agreements
as legitimate. One ejidatario told me that there were no markings dividing the land, the
government had done so, but "it only exists in their heads." To him, the ejido land
belonged to all of them to work together. Another ejidatario echoed these sentiments,
noting that with the decline in state support for henequen production, people began to see
the land as their patrimony, a right and legacy that could not be divided or taken away.
The rows of henequen, which had so dominated twentieth century life in
Hunucma, disappeared and were replaced by a knotted mix of small trees, shrubs and
15 As noted in the next chapter, low attendance plagued attempts by the Hunucma ejido to enter the state's
land titling program, PROCEDE.
161
bushes across the rocky landscape of Hunucma. In 2006 I walked with two ejidatarios
from Hunucma through part of the ejido land. I asked about the milpa production, that
traditional practice signifying not merely maize production but a link to a Mayan past.
One ejidatario, now in his sixties, pointed to the weeds and shrubs that had reclaimed the
landscape and told me, "there, there is your milpa." The other told me that some milpa
was being planted in the western part of the ejido. He also told me that "before lots of
other crops were planted, like tomatoes and squash. Now there are not enough
government resources and people are not planting much on the land. Many people work
in town, in Merida, or in maquiladoras."
This anecdotal evidence is corroborated by statistical data. The 2000 municipal
census found that only 21.5% ofthe population was engaged in agriculture and other
primary economic activities (INEGI 2001). Approximately 78.5% ofthe population was
employed in other sectors, including mining, construction, tourism and the service-sector
(INEGI2001).
Conclusion
During the Mexican Revolution, Mayan peasants in Hunucma mobilized to fight
for land. After 20 years of struggling they successfully formed an ejido, devoted to
cultivating henequen. Without the resources to grow, process, and market their crop, both
the state and federal governments stepped in, providing credits, access to technology, and
wages for the ejidatarios. In doing so the ejidatarios were transformed into wage workers
and not proprietors of, and hence decision-makers about, their land. This process was
162
accompanied by a loss of traditional Maya practices. Yet, the ejidatarios found allies in
other henequen ejidos, working together in the latter half of the 1960s and early 1970s to
combat unfair state practices that threatened their economic livelihoods.
The decline in the henequen sector and the state's ending of its supports ushered
in an era of disengagement from the ejido. Shifting economic activities away from
agricultural work on ejido land, ejidatario participation in assemblies dwindled. While
not a complete abandonment of the institution, the ejido no longer served as an economic
or political resource for its members. The rocky and arid land could be better utilized, and
that is what the state government thought in 2005 when it tried to buy land from
Hunucma to construct a new airport. Yet, as demonstrated in the next chapter, the
interactions between the state and the Hunucma ejido resulted in mobilization for a fairer
process, better compensation, and respect for the indigenous people of Yucatan and the
land that was theirs. The ejidatarios ultimately drew on their experiences of mobilization
and militancy from the Revolutionary era and the 1960s and 1970s, reviving and re-
deploying these historical tactics.
163
CHAPTER VIII
THE REEMERGENCE OF EJIDATARIO MOBILIZATION IN HUNUCMA
As Salinas pursued neoliberal reforms, ejidatarios in Hunucma had largely
disengaged from the institutions of the ejido. Hunucma thus seemed like a good candidate
for land privatization. The state's airport development project would create new jobs and
revitalize the economy. In a place like Hunucma, where agriculture had largely
disappeared as a primary economic activity, one may have expected ejido land to be sold
without much conflict. This relatively under-utilized land, near the capital of Merida,
could be freed from the restrictive laws governing the ejidos. This was how government
officials saw the situation in 2004 when they attempted to purchase land from the
Hunucma ejido for the construction of a new airport. But this process failed to proceed as
state leaders expected. Within two years ejidatarios were fighting the proposal. During
this process many ejidatarios charged state leaders and land speculators with
manipulating the legal framework and using state resources for the benefit of a few
private individuals.
From a structural point-of-view we may have expected some tensions to arise as
ejidatarios disputed the low price paid for the land, inconsistencies in the process of
purchasing the land, and unequal access to information. Early on, ejidatarios made these
exact types of claims. However, the mobilization against the airport project became a
164
transfonnative process, one that recast local customary practices, known as usos y
costumbres, in the language of national indigenous autonomy movements. Ejidatarios
drew on the tradition of Zapata and an historical Mayan struggle against conquerors in
building alliances to contest the land sales. Specific chains of interaction between local
elites, state government leaders, political activists, and ejidatarios surrounding the
proposed airport development project in Hunucma became the catalyst for social and
political re-organization.
The ejidatarios ' struggle was not characterized simply by adversariallegalism or
public protests, but also by the construction of a new discursive framing for how to
evaluate the new property rights regime. The evolution of the grievances of the
ejidatarios, detailed in this chapter, can be viewed through three discourses. At the outset
ejidatarios framed their grievances as material and processural. Outside activists and
Zapatista-affiliated organizations framed the conflict as incursions on indigenous rights
and the Revolutionary legacy of Emiliano Zapata. Increasingly, ejidatarios in Hunucma
fused these discourses, framing the land sales as violations of customary practices and as
part of a wider indigenous struggle within Mexico. The process of mobilizing against the
project highlights the importance of agency and the use of institutional and cultural
resources to respond to broader structural changes.
Neoliberal Refonns
President Salinas was radically reforming the ejido system just as Cordemex was
closing its doors. Change was in the air. Government workers headed to ejidos
165
throughout the state to implement the new policy, including granting ejidatarios
certificates guaranteeing their ejido rights and access to land. In 1999, President Zedillo
visited Hunucma and praised the efforts by the state government, agrarian agencies and
ejidos in implementing the reforms. Over 80% ofthe Yucatecan ejidos had completed the
state's land titling program. He announced that the ejido lands were at last secure, the
ejidatarios and their families would be guaranteed their rights to their land and homes,
their patrimony, with the new titles they received. He believed that "the security of land
tenure prevents conflicts and favors tranquility," and boasted of a hopeful future (Zedillo
1999).
In 1998 the ejido assembly in Hunucma considered participation in the state's
land titling process, beginning the process of mapping and titling the land. Participation
in PROCEDE was delayed due to boundary disputes with other ejidos and problems in
achieving a quorum. In January of 1998 the ejido held an assembly, but only twelve of
the sixteen hundred ejidatarios attended the meeting (Agency for Agrarian Justice
1998b). A second assembly was held in February of 1998. All of the sixty-two ejidatarios
present voted to have the ejido participate in PROCEDE (Agency for Agrarian Justice
1998c). Since this was the second meeting called to consider these issues, the quorum
requirements were reduced.
The ejido land was held in different forms of tenure. The majority ofland, over
70%, was in large plots (Agency for Agrarian Justice 2001). This land was designed to be
cultivated collectively - although most was unused - and corresponded to the nineteen
groups, a legacy ofthe henequen era. Ejidatarios were entitled to an equal share or
166
percentage of land in the group to which they were a member. The agrarian records also
indicate that 274 individual parcelas were being used by community members, some of
whom were ejidatarios (Agency for Agrarian Justice 2001). Each ofthese individuals
received a title to their parcela. The expanding population had also resulted in people
living on ejido land (Agency for Agrarian Justice 1998a, 2). During the land titling
process, 800 homesteads - solares - were recognized on ejido land (Agency for Agrarian
Justice 2001). The ejido completed its land titling program in 2001 and the ejidatarios
and owners ofthe individual parcels ofland received their certificates. However,
immediately there were problems.
Between 2001 and 2002 the agrarian records noted continuing challenges in
determining who was an ejidatario with rights to participate in assemblies. In 2001, a
number of ejido assemblies were called, each one falling short ofthe required quorum
figures. In July of2001 an assembly was held, the fourth called in a month due to
attendance problems. Only 308 ejidatarios were present (Agency for Agrarian Justice
2001,3). However, given the previous failed attempts at achieving quorum, a lower
figure was accepted in accordance with the agrarian law. At this meeting, the assembly
lowered its total number of ejidatarios with rights in force to six hundred (Agency for
Agrarian Justice 2001, 3). Ofthe initial sixteen hundred rights holders, twenty-seven
individuals were listed multiple times l despite each only having one vote (Agency for
Agrarian Justice 2001,2). As a result, the quorum figure was lowered by twenty-eight.
Another 409 ejidatarios were listed as dead and were also removed from the quorum
lOne ejidatario was listed three times and twenty-six were listed twice; thus twenty-eight was the figured
used (Agency for Agrarian Justice 2001, 2)
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count. Finally, 563 ejidatarios were found to have not been in the area for more than six
months; according to the agrarian law, this allowed the assembly to purge them as well
(Agency for Agrarian Justice 2001, 2). A total of one thousand ejidatarios were
considered to have lost their rights. With the lowered number of 600 total ejidatarios,
only 301 were necessary for an assembly to be valid.
But this issue persisted. In September of 2001 the list of ejidatarios with rights in
force, and thus counting towards the overall quorum figures, was the subject of more
debate. The numbers of ejidatarios removed from the original list of 1600 was now
altered to only 689, not 1000 as before (Agency for Agrarian Justice 2002, 1). This
reflected changes in the number of deceased (358) and those no longer in the area (303)
plus the 28 duplicate names. Challenges to the changes made in July of2001 had resulted
in changes to quorum again. In a number of circumstances, it appeared that the problems
were administrative; however, some evidence suggests that in a few cases ejidatarios
actively pursued reinstatement with the agrarian officials, as proof of their status was
needed to resolve the problems. The total number of ejidatarios with rights in force thus
became 911, lowering the quorum requirements at assemblies to 456.
The immediate value of the new certificates and the impact of the new rules were
not clear. The henequen zone, once a battlefield for control of Yucatan's most lucrative
export crop, was no longer subjected to protracted conflicts between the agrarian workers
and the government. Without a productive base, there was little interest by the ejidatarios
in the land. Henequen production was no longer a primary economic activity, although
some land was used for citrus cultivation and raising animals (Agency for Agrarian
168
Justice 2001). Since primary economic activities had shifted away from agricultural
labor, selling the land was logical for agrarian rights holders. Anecdotal evidence
suggests that some land sales occurred between 2001 and 2004.2 The structural prediction
is thus right during this time period. Disengagement from both agricultural work and the
ejido as an institution reduced the value placed on the land. Selling land was thus a viable
option. Yet a few years later, such land sales were being resisted. The central puzzle is to
explain how and why this shift occurred.
In 2005 the Hunucma ejido became the focal point in a scandal surrounding
Metr6polisur, a state development project that included the construction of a new airport
on what had been ejido land. The scandal pitted a group of ejidatarios against the state
government and gained the ejidatarios a national spotlight. The Governor and state-level
agrarian officials were implicated in corruption, the misuse of state funds, and
circumventing ejido rules. The controversy spread, drawing in other ejidos and political
activists who were concerned over the re-concentration of land tenure in Yucatan, what
some called a re~colonization process. Market failures and uneven access to information
may have caused the mobilization against the land sales, but how can we account for the
reinvigoration of a cultural frame that came to dominate the controversy? Doing so
requires an examination of the interactions of the actors involved and how this shaped
and gave meaning to the discursive construction of the conflict.
This trend of an emerging market in ejido land was not unique to Hunucma. The
neoliberal reforms were aimed at creating the institutional structures necessary to
2 Some ejidatarios indicated that the fonner ejido president (2001-2004) encouraged people to sell their
land.
169
transform land into private property and, in many cases, provided the means to regularize
ejido land sales that had illegally occurred prior to the reform period.3 Some land in the
peri-urban zone of the capital was purchased by Merida's jet set and the increasing
number of foreign-born retirees. With American baby-boomers retiring, and the low cost
of living in Yucatan, several new housing developments were constructed to respond to
the rising demand for luxury homes. Yucatan had also become an important tourist
destination, linking side trips to its Mayan archaeological sites and colonial cities with
tour packages for the beach crowd in Cancun. Without state support and subsidies, the
ejido sector in the former henequen zone was in decline. Selling land for new
developments was one of the only viable options left to turn the land into something of
value.
Hunucma seemed to be an excellent candidate for the privatization of land,
allowing entrepreneurs to develop land in the peri-urban zone. Metr6polisur, the state's
airport development project, promised to bring jobs to the area and catalyze economic
growth after years of stagnation. As there was little resistance to the state's land titling
program and a history of state involvement in economic production, the construction of a
new international airport in Hunucma appeared to be a justifiable solution to local and
state problems. But the state's missteps in pursuing the airport project produced tension
over the new property rights regime and resulted in an unexpected outcome - the creation
3 Prior to the neoliberal reforms of the 1990s, ejido land throughout Mexico had been illegally sold or
leased. Often this land was near coastal or tourist areas or near an expanding urban zone. On this point, see
Vazquez Castillo (2004), Cornelius and Myhre (1998), and Markiewicz (1983). My investigation of ej idos
in the municipality ofMerida found that one ejido, Colonias del Sur, had disappeared by the time the
neo1iberal reforms were enacted. The agrarian records contained no information about the ejido. A local
leader of a campesino organization told me that the ejido land had been illegally sold during the urban
expansion of the 1980s.
170
of a new social movement to challenge the land sales in Hunucma and the impact of the
reforms on the ejidatarios. The conflict illustrates the creativity of the actors involved as
they drew upon existing cultural and institutional resources to reframe the issue and link
their cause to indigenous resistance movements nationally.
From Mega-Proyecto to Mega-Scandal
In February of2005, about 1,500 hectares (roughly 15%) of ejido land in
Hunucma were purchased by private individuals. At the outset little controversy emerged.
But by the summer, the transactions were increasingly scrutinized by ejidatarios and
activists. The legality of the land sales and the low price paid formed the epicenter of the
conflict. The disputes over the land sales also resulted in an internal power struggle for
control of the ejido leadership. With continued coverage in the regions two main
newspapers, Diario de Yucatan and Por Esto!, Hunucma gradually became a symbol of
the abuse of the new property rights regimes in the former henequen zone.
Yucatan's Governor Patricio Patr6n Laviada wanted to move Merida's existing
international airport. Located in the southern part of the capital, he argued that the current
airport met neither the needs of the state's growing tourism industry nor the expansion of
the urban population. So he proposed a two-phase development project called
Metr6polisur. The first phase included the construction of a new international airport in
Hunucma and the expansion of a roadway from Merida to Hunucma to serve the airport.
The new airport would provide easy access to beaches and tourism areas in the west of
the state, including the coastal city ofCelestun (famous for its flamingos) and its
171
biosphere reserve. The second phase was the development of the old airport site in
Merida. That area was set to be demolished, paving the way for the construction of new
homes, to accommodate a growing urban population. Further, the new housing
development would be accompanied by businesses, a new zoo, and a museum focusing
on Mayan history.
According to the Governor's office, the state initially attempted to buy the land
from the ejidatarios for the new airport, offering seven thousand pesos per hectare. But
the ejidatarios rejected the offer. At this point, private land speculators stepped in,
offering to purchase ejido land in Hunucma and other nearby towns for higher prices. On
its surface the land seemed relatively worthless. With henequen no longer a viable
commodity, there was little else that could grow in the rocky soil and arid climate. Many
ejidatarios no longer worked the land. Milpa production had ended as henequen took over
during the twentieth century. The president of the Comisariado Ejidal was approached
about selling some of the land. Ejidatarios told me that agrarian officials working with
Hunucma encouraged the sale.
The president informed the ejidatarios about the proposal. He also met with the
three groups whose land was being considered: groups three, seven, and eleven. These
groups were three of the nineteen controlling ejido land in Hunucma. He spoke with the
ejidatarios who had titles to land in each group. In order for the sale ofland to occur, the
ejidatarios with rights in these groups first had to vote for approval. A member of group
three, who voted to sell his land, told me that initially they "were offered a low price for
the land, but the president negotiated for more." The agrarian officials working with the
172
Hunucma ejido recommended they accept the initial offer. However, the president was
successful. The land speculators agreed to pay the higher price he had negotiated. The
ejidatarios in the three groups agreed to the sale. The next step was for the entire ejido
assembly to vote on the proposal.
The process for selling ejido land requires that the large plots of land, those
controlled by the nineteen groups, first be divided into smaller parcelas ofland. If the
groups accepted the land tenure change, as they did in this case, then the matter would go
to the entire ejido assembly for a vote. The ejido assembly could vote for privatization,
thus permitting the sale of the land.
That assembly was held on February 27,2005. By the time of the 2005 assembly,
the quorum figures had once again been changed. In 2003 another assembly was held and
the number of ejidatarios with rights in force was 944. At the February 2005 meeting,
538 of the 944 officially listed ejidatarios met and voted unanimously to divide 1,526
hectares ofuso comun land into six parcelas (Peniche 2005). At the same meeting, the
ejidatarios agreed to sell the newly created parcelas to six people, identified in the press
as land speculators. One of the land speculators was Antonino Almazan Arteaga, the
former head of the state-level National Agrarian Registry (RAN). The speculators
intended to sell the land to the state government for use as the site of the new airport. The
land was sold to the speculators and Metr6polisur seemed to be on its way.
By the summer of2005, many ejidatarios, including some that had voted for the
land sales, were challenging the transactions. They argued first that many ejidatarios had
agreed to accept a low price for their land because they did not have the same information
173
as the land speculators, who knew the state planned to build a new airport which would
raise the value ofthe property. The Governor was accused ofproviding insider
infonnation to Almazan Arteaga about Metr6polisur, enabling him to make a lot of
money by purchasing the land cheaply and then selling it to the state for higher prices.
The Governor's son and uncle were allegedly business associates of Almazan Arteaga.
Critics argued that these connections gave the speculators inside access to infonnation
about the project. As such, that infonnation may have allowed the land speculators to
know that the value ofthe ejido land would increase in a short time. Thus the risk in
investing was low, as they were guaranteed government support for the purchase of the
land. Even though the land seemed worthless on its surface since henequen production
had ended, this project guaranteed income for the speculators. But Yucatan's Governor
argued that Metr6polisur was part of an already established state development plan, one
that everybody had access to, and so the accusations were unfounded.
Some of the ejidatarios next took issue with the February 2005 ejido assembly
that approved the land sales, which fonned one key element in the conflict. Despite there
being 1600 ejidatarios, only 944 names were listed as official ejidatarios with voting
rights. This lowered the quorum figures required for the assembly to be valid. Many
asked why such a discrepancy existed between what ejidatarios claimed was the official
count (sixteen hundred) and the total maintained by the agrarian agencies. According to
the state agrarian agencies working with Hunucma, the 2003 decision to lower the
quorum figures was made in an ejido assembly and in accordance with the internal
governing rules for the ejido of Hunucma. But many ejidatarios contested the legality of
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the February 27 assembly and the earlier purging of names, arguing that the suspension
of voting rights misrepresented the true number of ejidatarios. These ejidatarios argued
that 801 ejidatarios had to be present for the February 27 meeting to be legal and that the
earlier suspension of voting rights was not legal.
A number of ejidatarios also noted irregularities in the granting of rights. They
argued that some ejidatarios were listed multiple times on the official list of ejidatarios,
the original list of sixteen ejidatarios, and that some of the individuals were not listed as
residents of Hunucma. They pointed to numerous examples in the official list of names.
One ejidatario, who had been among the first to challenge the sale, showed me the
inconsistencies in the agrarian records. He pointed to individuals listed multiple times
and some who resided in other states in Mexico. He asked, "how could that be?" and
called the land titling "a fraud." Some of the names on the list were for people living in
Mexico City. Another ejidatario believed "the government already had plans for the land"
and so "manipulated PROCEDE to get what they wanted." One community member
charged the ejido president with putting "people on the list who were not ejidatarios and
had no rights ... so they could receive money from the land sales." He further charged that
some of the land sold was not even part of the Hunucma ejido but belonged to a nearby
ejido. Another community member noted that his father was on the official list of
ejidatarios. His father was now considered absent from the area, and thus had lost his
rights and was no longer counted towards the quorum. However, he noted "my father has
been dead for seven years. How can he be listed?" Finally, they noted that some people
had certificates entitling them to ejidatario status and rights in the ejido, but their names
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were not on the officia11ist. Each example of an irregularity illustrated problems with the
new property rights regime. The institutions governing the ejido and the designation of
rights holders appeared out-of-step with the local reality.
Further, according to some ejidatarios, the February 27 assembly was not a
regularly-scheduled meeting. There should have been one month of public notice before
the assembly, yet notification did not occur. The meeting was called through a process of
collecting signatures from ejidatarios, and some claimed the signatures were not legally
obtained since money was paid to signatories; in essence, they charged that ejidatarios
were bribed into agreeing to the assembly (Mis Coba 2006a). The president of the ejido
and the leaders of the groups were accused of making the most money, although several
ejidatarios believed that over 350 others who participated in the assembly "earned 100-
150 pesos for their signature."
Throughout this process, it appeared that the market for land did not function as it
was intended due to uneven access to information about the state's plans. More
importantly, the institutional process for selling the land was marred by irregularities and
inconsistencies, leading to conflict over how the new property rights regime would
function. Yet, the Yucatecan agrarian officials argued that the process of selling the land
was legal. They say that fifty percent plus one ejidatarios were present at the February 27
assembly and approved the deal, making it legal.
By August of2005 concerns were raised about the sale price of the land. The key
question involved Almazan Arteaga's role as an unofficial intermediary for the state,
directly using state money, rather than his own, to purchase the land. The seemingly high
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commission he extracted (some say embezzled) also drew criticism. While the technical
legality of the use of state funds was not legally challenged by the ejidatarios, the fairness
of commissions drew sharp condemnation. Rather than invest his own money in ejido
land, Almazan Arteaga was accused of using 61 million pesos of state money to purchase
the land in Hunucma. The amount of money the ejidatarios were paid by the speculators
for the land is between 90 centavos and 1 peso 30 centavos per square meter. The first
figure is based on what the ejidatarios claimed they received, the higher figure is based
on what the Governor says was paid to the ejidatarios (Peniche 2005). Thus, Alamazan
Arteaga's fee for the transaction, the discrepancy between what he received from the
government and paid to the ejidatarios for their land, falls between 22 and 34 million
pesos (Ibid). It seemed to some that state resources were being used to line the coffers of
a well-connected businessman - and former agrarian official.
The attention placed on the land speculators and their relationship to state leaders
raised further questions about the speed with which the deal was approved. When
ejidatarios sell land, a lengthy process is required to officially change the designation of
land. The Hunucma ejido had to carve out sections of land belonging to the three groups
and officially change the designation of the land to parcelas with the Agrarian National
Registry (RAN). As with all such changes, the ejido assembly must approve the change
in land tenure. Once the land is titled as an individual parce1a, the ejido assembly must
approve a request, by a two-thirds vote, to allow the land to be privatized; only then could
the land be removed from ejido control and transformed into private property, thus able
to be sold to outside parties. However, this process usually lasts one year and is complex,
_.- ------------
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as the quorum requirements for ejido assemblies and the super-majorities for approval
may not easily be obtained. Yet, in the case of the Hunucma land sales, the process only
took three months. Given the involvement of the governor and Almazan Arteaga's former
role as head of RAN, the speed ofthe land tenure change exemplified, for many,
manipulation of the new rules.
By September of 2005 the controversy was dividing the ejidatarios. Questions
emerged about the role ofthe ejido president in the land sales. Some ejidatarios
supportive of the sales argued that the state's agrarian advisors recommended a low price
for the land. One noted that an agrarian official "wanted a low price for the land, but the
ejido president negotiated for more money." Other ejidatarios, who did not support the
sales, argued that the president actually used the sales to line his own pockets. One told
me that "he [the president] took money from the land speculators, but didn't distribute all
of it." Several ejidatarios claimed he kept a portion for himself. Under pressure over the
land sales and his role in both the initial transactions and the distribution of funds, the
ejido president resigned in September 2005.
With these issues hotly contested throughout the summer and fall of 2005, the
governor (from the ruling PAN) sent his proposal for funding ofthe two-phase
development project to the state Congress. He asked the Yucatecan Congress for over one
hundred million pesos to fund Metr6polisur in September of 2005. But he met resistance
in the Chamber of Deputies. PRJ deputies began challenging the project publicly. They
called for an investigation into the PANista' s approach, questioning the legitimacy and
legality of the entire project. The proposal was rejected on a party line vote. All ten PRJ
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members, and the three other non-PAN members, rejected the proposal, with the twelve
PAN representatives voting yes. (Massa 2005). But the Governor did not give up. He
stated he had a "Plan B." He would continue to work with business people, other social
sectors, and Congress to raise the funds for the project.
At this point it was not clear what the outcome would be for the ejidatarios. The
main criticisms ofthe project centered on the legality ofthe land sales and the price paid.
Had insiders manipulated the new rules to push through the project? Had local elites
conspired to make millions of pesos through shady deals? The PRI was beginning to
champion the ejidatarios' cause in Yucatan, perhaps to regain the support of their once
loyal rural base, hoping to combat the growing electoral victories of the PAN in Yucatan.
Clearly, though, political and economic considerations were driving the debate. The
upcoming ejido elections were pitched as a referendum on the land sales and whether
they were legitimate.
Internal Mobilization Against the Land Sales
Debate about the project continued as 2005 ended. In January of2006, attention
was re-focused as the Zapatistas, part of the Other Campaign for the coming presidential
elections, arrived in the region. Subcommandante Marcos and the delegation of
Zapatistas were touring the country, listening to the problems that people had and
drawing attention to the way indigenous people were being treated. In Yucatan, Marcos
went to Chablekal, just north of Merida, to meet with Yucatecan ejidatarios and learn
about their problems. The Zapatistas listened as indigenous people spoke of land being
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bought up everywhere around the expanding urban zone. An ejidatario from Oxcun, near
Hunucma, raised concerns about ejido land sales. He said that the land in Oxcun was
being purchased for a larger road connecting Merida and Hunucma, where the new
airport would be built. Marcos railed against the continuing injustices, comparing them to
the great Maya fight in the Caste War. Noting that the struggle for ejido land and
indigenous justice was not over, he invoked the tradition ofboth Emiliano Zapata and the
Maya (Henriquez and Gomez 2006).
The Zapatista delegation also held a public rally in the central square of Merida,
which I attended. This was the same location where ejidatarios had gathered in the 1960s
and 1970s to protest unfair henequen policies. But the crowd of approximately five
hundred people was markedly different than during those past mobilizations. Near the
stage set-up for Marcos' speech, journalists, students, and tourists held the prime spots.
Marcos himselflooked less like a revolutionary leader than a well-manicured symbol of
one. His fatigues were clean and looked freshly pressed. His military belt was stocked
with cell phones and a walkie talkie. Marcos again railed against the government and the
harsh treatment of the proud Maya. He charged the government with committing "fraud
against the people" and stealing the land. The crowd was energetic, but his speech did not
command thousands of rural workers and indigenous people. While his appearance was
significant, it appeared to represent the start of something in Yucatan rather than the
apex. In the months following the Delegation Zero stop in Yucatan, the controversy over
land sales, particularly in Hunucma, only grew.
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Ejidatarios opposing the land sales were working with a legal advisor, William
Santos Saenz, to contest the February 2005 assembly and fight the state's project. Santos
Saenz was an outsider, a resident of Merida. But he aided the ejidatarios in pursuing a
legal strategy within the new agrarian institutions and in building a movement against the
sales. Many residents of Hunucma opposed his involvement. They called him a
"foreigner," "party-activist," and "Zapatista-operative." One ejidatario claimed that
Santos had "a personal agenda... and was using the ejidatarios to gain national and
international attention." While the exact nature of his connection to either the left-leaning
PRD or the Zapatistas and Delegation Zero were never clear, his involvement was highly
controversial.
Nevertheless, the grievances against the state over the February 2005 assembly
led some ejidatarios to file a formal complaint with the agrarian tribunal, the judicial
body responsible for agrarian matters. Working to nullify the land sales, Santos Saenz
filed papers with the agrarian tribunal on behalfof about one hundred ejidatarios in
January of2006 (Rodriguez 2006). They claimed that they were not paid a fair price for
their land by Almazan Arteaga, and were entitled to more money. Further they pointed to
what they saw as a number of inconsistencies during the sale process. The ejidatarios
wanted the governor to pay them a fair price, or else nullify the deal and return the lands.
One ejidatario working to over tum the land sales said he "wanted the false assembly to
be found illegal and the land returned to the people." Several others echoed his concerns.
In March of 2006, the ejidatarios were faced with an upcoming election to select a
new ejido president. Two challengers vied for power, Marcelino Mex Cauich and Juan
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Antonio May Chay. Mex Cauich represented the side opposed to the land sales and was
being advised and supported by Santos Saenz. May Chay had voted to approve the land
sales. Supporters of Mex Cauich accused May Chay of being hand-picked by the
governor, aligned with the speculators, and receiving five thousand pesos as a bribe. A
local resident claimed that, before the election, May Chay had gone to Merida to get
"instructions from the Governor" and was "directly connected to the government." In
response, May Chay said he was "defamed in the press and there were protests in the
streets over my being paid off by the government." He denied these claims and pursued
legal challenges for the attack on his reputation.
As the election approached, tensions ran high. There were accusations that the
governor was using state resources to interfere with the process and garner support for
May Chay. One ejidatario noted that "There are statements from ejidatarios and their
families who welcomed the official candidate [May Chay] into their homes, that he gave
them support [money] for their vote in his favor this Sunday and offered more resources
ifhe wins" (Be Palma and Chable 2006). May Chay, previously seen riding an older
bicycle, was seen days before the election in a brand new Nissan Tsuru automobile (Mis
Coba 2006a). He claimed he "won the lottery," and hadn't received any money from
outsiders. He was also accused of being an intermediary between Almazan Arteaga and
the ejidatarios, "offering them [the ejidatarios] money to sell their land."
On the day of the election, there were arguments in the streets over who was listed
as an official ejidatario and thus had voting rights. Some argued that friends ofMex
Cauich who were not ejidatarios were allowed to vote. May Chay said that the election
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was fraudulent "because of who was allowed in the ejido assembly. There were
irregularities in the list of names with non-ejidatarios on the list." He further stated that
"some ejidatarios were denied access and could not vote." A skirmish erupted on the
street on the main square outside ofthe ejido office involving supporters of the two
candidates. Verbal exchanges and a minor shoving match between May Chay's sons and
Mex Cauich's supporters occurred in the late afternoon. The local police stepped in to
reduce the tensions and a period of calm followed as they waited for the votes to be
counted. Ultimately, Mex Cauich won the election on by a vote of238 to 188. The
former president handed over power. (Mis Coba 2006b)
After the election, many wondered how Mex Cauich would proceed. Supporters
of Metr6polisur said they hoped the new ejido president would enter into a dialogue on
the issue to peacefully resolve it. They expressed concern over the confrontational stance
many ejidatarios had taken. Other ejidatarios pressed for resolution to the conflict,
arguing for a more just compensation for the land and a cleaner, more transparent
process. The new ejido president was quoted as saying "we are not against State
development." We just want "respect for the rights of ejidatarios" and "a just price for the
land". He immediately called for a "new dialogue to establish just prices" with the state.
(Cob Chay 2006) Despite the conflicts leading up to the election, it appeared as though
the new president was searching for a peaceful solution. Mex Cauich was not opposing
the idea of selling land building Metr6polisur, simply the unfair process and low prices.
He stated he was "not against the airport, just the process."
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Even after victory in the election that was to serve as a kind of local referendum
on the issue, the construction project was not dead. The ejidatarios wanted the governor
to treat them with respect and talk with them. They wanted fair compensation believing
they were under paid. This materialist claim is logical. Under the new regime, some
people lost because they didn't know the monetary value of their land. So, they legally
challenged the deal to get more compensation. Mex Cauich even admitted that "most
people do not work the land" in Hunucma. The jobs and economic development that a
new airport could bring were still valuable to the new president. All he needed now was
for the governor to meet with him and try to negotiate a compromise.
Yet the governor refused to negotiate with the ejido leadership, saying the land
sales had already occurred. The governor's office repeatedly released statements noting
they were "the legal owners of the land" and the deal was "irreversible".4 Further, the
agrarian agencies working with Hunucma (PA and RAN) refused to acknowledge Mex
Cauich as the legal victor. They argued that an agrarian official and a notary had to be
present at the election for it to be legal. According to one agrarian official, the agrarian
agencies (PA, RAN) considered the former president, who had resigned in September, to
be the officially listed and recognized president ofthe ejido. They argued that Mex
Cauich had not been legally elected and was thus not formally recognized. This point
became highly contentious. Despite claims that the government was not recognizing the
new election as valid, evidence existed that the government was recognizing Mex Cauich.
A representative for the governor's office released a statement saying the change in ejido
4 See, for example, Dean Salazar (2006), Ferraez Garcia (2006).
184
leadership would not interfere with the project as the government legally owned the ejido
land (Dean Salazar 2006). Implicitly, then, the governor's office signaled that it
recognized the new leader. Further, newspaper accounts of the ejido assembly referred to
agrarian officials who were present at the assembly and ran the election.
The failure to fully recognize Mex Cauich as the president angered many
ejidatarios. Interviews with several ejidatarios after the election illustrated that they
thought the process was fair and Mex Cauich had won. Even those ejidatarios who did
not support Mex Cauich's stance on the land sales believed the process had been fair and
held him as the legitimate president. One ejidatario said "the election was a clean and
democratic process...Without a doubt, I think it is bad that the new president is against
the airport project" (Diario de Yucatan 2006). Another ejidatario said the election was
"transparent" and looked forward to working with the new president on the airport
project "for. the benefit that it will bring to the community" (Ibid). The ex-president, who
had resigned over problems with the land transactions, even turned the key to the ejido
office over to Mex Cauich.
Despite problems with the land sales and the controversy over the election, by and
large the materialist claims of the ejidatarios, and the general goal of finding a way to
bring jobs and economic development to Hunucma, were at the forefront. Yet
simultaneously many ejidatarios began to question the idea of selling land that belonged
to them, land that was their patrimony. One ejidatario noted that the land was a patrimony
"even after henequen ended, people still worked the land, it had value to them." When
this man spoke of the land as a patrimony, his wife touched her heart, one ofthe few
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emotional gestures made during the two hour interview. Another ejidatario invoked the
land as a patrimony and said "what effects the ejido impacts thousands of other people
who depend on the ejido land, other members of the family." The idea ofthe land as a
patrimony was meaningful to many of the ejidatarios. One specifically noted that "there
are many people who do not work the [ejido] land but have rights ... and the ejidos must
join forces where the patrimony oftheir children is being taken." Another community
member, invoking similar themes of legacy and right, stated "the essence of the ejido is
that everyone shares in the fruits, not owns the land."
The statements about the land as a legacy and right of families and the community
are in some tension with the materialist claims of Mex Cauich and other ejidatarios.
Several opponents to the land sales stated that their main concerns were over the unfair
process and the low price paid. However, under the surface, there was also a clear sense
of entitlement to the land, a kind of inalienable right. It was in these conversations about
the land that we can begin to see the transformation of the materialist discourse as
residents began to consider multiple values and meanings attached to the ejido.
Conflicts over government policies and the distribution of material resources were
not new and the ejidatarios had historical legacies of mobilization to draw upon. The
ejidatarios opposing the land sales progressively began to engage external actors, forming
coalitions with other ejidatarios and political activists, including national campesino and
indigenous organizations. In doing so, they utilized an old tactic from the henequen era:
building a movement to counter the state by reaching out to other aggrieved parties.
Historically, a shared social class position, as henequen ejidatarios, was central for
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political mobilization. A materialist base, the common victims of corrupt land acquisition
policies, would once again provide the link for members of the movement, but
increasingly the movements aims were framed on cultural grounds. Involvement with
external activists gradually introduced a new discourse to the ejidatarios of Hunucma,
one that stressed their common cultural identity as indigenous people. This discourse
became fused with the existing materialist and processural claims, creating a sense of
cultural unity among different actors.
Alliance-building and Cultural Re-framing
With the ejidatarios being blocked by the agrarian agencies and the government,
they worked to keep their cause alive. They legally contested the institutional process of
land tenure changes through the courts, but they also normatively challenged the
economic outcomes by appealing to public opinion. They did this by appealing to the
left-leaning newspaper, Por Estof, for coverage oftheir cause, by staging protests at
agrarian offices, and reaching out to other ejidos to form alliances. In building their
movement, the ejidatarios also began to adopt a new discursive framing for the conflict.
Influenced by external activists, such as Santos Saenz, the leadership was increasingly
exposed to an indigenous frame for their struggle, one that transcended the processural
and material grievances they were making. Modifying this new language, the ejidatarios
turned the external discourse into one that resonated with their local and historical
expenences.
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Por Esto! became a kind of unofficial voice for those opposed to the land sales.
The newspaper regularly devoted space to the cause, often multiple pages to the situation
in Hunucma. At one point the ejidatarios even thanked the reporters for helping to keep
their cause alive. In May of 2006 a reporter for the newspaper was detained by the
authorities. Over the next several months, their offices were bombed three times. While a
link between these incidents and the coverage of the controversy in Hunucma was never
officially proven, many residents in Hunucma believed it was retribution from the
governor. One ejidatario, part of the front for the defense ofthe land of Hunucma, said he
"was not surprised" and believed that "the repression of the government is carried out
against any person who defends their rights" (Lopez Quintal 2006a).
The ejidatarios themselves were becoming much more militant in their stance
against the land sales. Increasingly they compared their own struggle to that in Atenco.
The residents of Atenco, near Mexico City, successfully, and violently, blocked efforts by
the federal government to use some of their land to build a new airport. Land from the
ejido in Atenco and five other nearby ejidos was going to be used for the project. The
community members who resisted in the protracted struggle with the government became
known as "macheteros" because they carried large machetes during their protests and
road blockages. In May of 2006 another confrontation with police broke out in Atenco.
While not directly related to the airport project, residents of Atenco claimed police
brutality hadn't waned and they were under attack from the government.
With stories about Atenco and the police brutality wide-spread, ejidatarios began
to liken the two situations. Several ejidatarios said they "would block the construction"
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and they would "be ready with our machetes" to confront the government. The window
for negotiation over the land sales was rapidly closing and the ejidatarios seemed ready to
take matters into their own hands if the governor began construction. Researching in May
and June of 2006, I was advised by colleagues also interested in the situation to watch out
for my own safety. They told me not to travel to Hunucma from Merida (where I was
living) at night and to never travel alone. They feared the police were already watching
my actions. They urged me to ensure that friends in Merida always knew my schedule, so
that ifI failed to return home, they could try and find me. Finally, I was told that ifthe
ejidatarios did take their machetes and confront the authorities, I should leave the area
immediately. The actions and accusations of abuse in Atenco were on many people's
minds.
The ejidatarios also increased their public protests. In June they staged one at the
offices ofthe Attorney General for the Republic5 in Merida. People from Hunucma and a
nearby ejido of Oxcum, where land had also been purchased, denounced state authorities.
Representatives from both ejidos filed a grievance against the governor, Almazan
Arteaga, and the heads of the state-level RAN and PA. In their complaint they accused
the four men of "criminal association, abuse of authority, improper conduct in public
service, intimidation, [and] bribery" (Mis Coba 2006c). The accusations pertained to the
illegal ejido assemblies held in Hunucma in February of2005 and Oxcun in March of
2005, where land sales were approved.
5 Procuraduria General de la Republica
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Aside from the legal strategy, the ejidatarios increasingly sought allies in their
struggle. At the end of April Santos Saenz, Mex Cauich, and other ejidatarios attended a
conference, El Campo en Crisis (the Countryside in Crisis), hosted by the local Merida
chapter of the National Union of Autonomous Regional Farmers' Organizations.6 During
the first day ofthe conference, Mex Cauich and one ofhis supporters (an ejidatario from
Hunucma) sat in the audience while Santos explained the problems they were
encountering. He argued that the state had acted inappropriately, paying little money to
the ejidatarios and "betraying the goals ofland reform and the Revolution". He argued
that "the government had tipped some people off about a mega project and they had
started to buy up all ofthe land around Hunucma and Oxcum." He also noted that the
newly elected leadership was not being recognized. His comments to the sympathetic
audience were supplemented by others expounding on the unfair treatment of indigenous
people in Yucatan.
Speakers from throughout the Yucatan drew attention to their specific problems,
along with state and national trends. One noted that the government "treated the
indigenous people with paternalism." Another criticized the government's land titling
program. He said the ejido land "had no value before, and then after regularization it gets
some value. What suddenly makes the land that seemingly had no value a valuable
commodity for speculators?" He answered his own question. "Some land gets value
because of government plans, like in Hunucma where companies like Cemeto Maya will
6 The Union Nacional de Organizaciones Regionales Campesinas Autonomas or UNORCA is a
confederation of about 280 indigenous and campesino organizations throughout Mexico. They were
founded in 1985 and have state-wide chapters as well as a headquarters in Mexico City.
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make money on the construction of the airport." Another speaker commented on how
"the government was not respecting the Maya and other indigenous local customs and
law." He said "the Mayan culture permeates everything in Yucatan... the Mayan people,
the artisans in Chitchen Itza, and elsewhere, are not asking for work, but for respect and
autonomy to rule themselves."
After the conference in Merida, Mex Cauich and other representatives of
Hunucma attended the 4th Indigenous National Congress (CNI), also in May. The EZLN
and CNI had called for the conference to highlight and combat the growing "war of
conquest" and the "plunder and devastation" of the native land for 513 years (La Jomada
2006). During the height of national presidential campaigning, they hoped to draw
attention to the forgotten people, the campesinos and indigenous people of Mexico, and
their problems. Upon returning from the conference, Mex Cauich commented that
"everywhere the story was the same." Indigenous people were suffering, at the hands of
the government and with the new reforms.
After these conferences, ejidatarios from Hunucma held a meeting with
representatives from the nearby ejidos ofConkal and Dzelchac7• Mex Cauich began the
meeting by saying "the problems that they had in Atenco we now have here."
Representatives from each ejido shared their own stories. In each case, ejidatarios had
experienced a similar problem, with the government buying up their land for little money.
The ejidatarios created a Coalition for the Defense of Ejido Lands. They shared their
experiences with the new property rights regime and land sales. In particular, they
7 They were also working with representatives of the ejido in Oxcun.
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discussed the low prices paid for their land and the profit the speculators made. The
speakers stressed that they would have to work together to defend their land. As one
ejidatario put it "the land is our patrimony, we have a right to it, and we cannot defend it
alone. We must work together." They continued to argue that the state's land titling
program was a fraud, designed by the government to deprive the ejidatarios of their land.
An ejidatario criticized the outcome of the land titling, noting that "there are people with
ejido land who do not even work it!" Another noted that "we do not need documents to
prove ownership of the ejido, since we are part of it" (Lopez QuintaI2006b).
When the PRD's presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was in
Yucatan during the second week of June 2006 campaigning, he met with Santos Saenz,
Mex Cauich and other ejidatarios to hear about the problems in Hunucma. He promised
to step in on behalf of the ejidatarios ifhe was elected. After that visit, a delegation of
ejidatarios traveled to Merida for Lopez Obrador's campaign rally. They were there to
support his candidacy, hoping he "would return their lands." The ejidatarios were now
trying to draw national attention to their cause, hoping that if their candidate won, he
would end the controversy. In doing so they were also resurrecting a strategy from the
past.
When problems had arose with the government during the henequen era,
ejidatarios from the henequen zone often worked together to press their claims, march on
the state capital, and demand change. These tactics were now being re-deployed. But,
unlike in the past, the institutional structure for such political mobilization no longer
existed. In essence, they had to build a new organization and harness contacts in existing
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civil society movements to mobilize. These shared experiences in interacting with the
government and speculators were a source of commonality amongst the ejidatarios, a way
to link their struggles.
In his analysis of the conflict, the advisor Santos Saenz linked the situation in
Hunucma to historical struggles and invoked traditional Mayan ideas about umbilical
connectedness. He said that "the great Maya people of the past were all linked together
through an umbilical cord" which "connected the Maya cities" and formed "the source of
their strength." He argued that "now the government wasn't respecting the indigenous
rights of the Mayanpueblo". Since the government wouldn't approve the San Andres
Accords8 he said that the ejidatarios were not guaranteed "autonomy in decision-making
based on local usos y costumbres". He said "local practices and customs are not respected
by this government and foreign ideas are forced upon the people." Santos further argued
that many of the institutional reforms in place such as the secret vote and other elements
of government rules pertaining to the ejidos were based on "Western ideas and not the
local traditions of the Maya." Citing Mayan prophecies, he argued that the movement in
Yucatan against the land sales is part of a "change of conscience, one predicted to occur
in 2012" in Maya history. For him, the ejidatarios were drawing on a cultural legacy of
connectedness and inner strength to work together and overcome the unfair treatment
they were once again receiving.
8 The San Andres Accords were negotiated in 1996 as part of the peace process with the EZLN after the
1994 Zapatista uprising. The Accords called for a series of constitutional changes to respect and guarantee
indigenous autonomy, but they were never fully adopted and implemented.
193
It seemed as though Santos, rather than the ejidatarios, invoked these Maya
cultural themes in framing the conflict. In becoming an outspoken advisor for the
ejidatarios opposed to the land sales and for the "legitimate" president, Santos Saenz
framed the land sales as part of an epic indigenous narrative, stretching back to the
conquest and forward to the Zapatistas and the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012. The
ejidatarios largely invoked material concerns and claimed the low price they received for
the land and the corrupt process were the central issues. But Santos framed the struggle as
part of a centuries old Maya conflict, against those who would take this land away. The
ejidatarios did not reject his characterization. At several meetings they emphatically
supported what he said, often nodding in agreement as he laid out his interpretation. But
they did not use the same type of language in describing the situation. Increasingly many
ofthe views Santos Saenz espoused, and the experiences the ejidatarios heard about at
state-wide and national conferences, were shifting their own language. A compromise
with the governor on the land sales no longer seemed a viable option.
A gradual transformation was taking place as the ejidatarios began to link their
views of the land in a framework that resonated with other indigenous people. As noted
earlier, ejidatarios from Hunucma invoked the idea that land was a patrimony, and
inherited right that could not be taken away_ They also began to say that the land was
"given to the people and not individuals" to benefit the whole community. As such, many
believed that all of the ejidatarios, "all sixteen hundred who have rights," should
participate as they had in the past in assemblies.
194
In speaking about the right to land and participation of all members, the
ejidatarios spoke about their traditional "usos y custumbres," usual and customary
practices. Several elements of the pre-neoliberal reform operation of the ejido were being
re-cast as customary practices. The emphasis on all members counting towards quorum
and having a say was one such element. Another was the inalienability of the land,
something they and their children were guaranteed. And the emphasis on having to live in
the area and work the land to have agrarian rights directly conflicted with the new rules,
which permitted ownership of land without that requirement. These elements were found
in the pre-reform agrarian laws and are a largely a legacy of the Revolution; yet they
were easily linked to an historical conception of indigenous practices constituting a local
and Mayan identity.
The ejidatarios ' conception of customary practices aligned more closely with their
own ejido experience, but did not conflict with Santos' framing in Mayan historical
terms. The practices that ejidatarios invoked in contesting the land sales fit within the
narrative of respecting traditional practices of agrarian communities in Mexico. This
national discourse, associated with the Zapatistas and the eNI, was being articulated in a
local context, one which allowed the ejidatarios to link their struggles with those of
indigenous people in Yucatan and throughout Mexico.
It was here that materialist and processural claims about the conflict began to take
on cultural tone. The ejidatarios opposing the land sales were beginning to reframe their
grievances as violations ofpast practices. In place of the class-based identity rooted in
their economic role as henequen workers, new linkages were being formed. Struggles
195
against the government and private interests taking control of ejido lands were being used
to forge coalitions in defense of the rights of indigenous people. As one ejidatario from
Hunucma put it, "As ejidatarios who eat pozole we should be united for the defense of
our lands" (L6pez Quintal 2006c). Pozole is a pre-Columbian stew the indigenous people
made with maize. Invoking it in this context explicitly links the ejidatarios to a Mayan
past and invokes them as people of the land and of maize.
Despite failing to annul the land sales through the agrarian tribunal and failing to
have Mex Cauich recognized as the legitimate president of the ejido, many ejidatarios
persisted in working against the land sales. About 150 people, including several of the
movement's leaders in Hunucma and representatives from other ejidos, peacefully
marched on government offices with Santos Saenz in mid-July of 2006. They were now
aligned with the Popular Cultural Movement of Yucatan (MCP), an organization
affiliated with the CNI and the Zapatistas, specifically part of the Other Campaign. The
ejidatarios of Hunucma were working with members of ejidos in Caucel and Oxcun to
contest the unfair government practices. During the protest, 39 people were arrested in
what was characterized as a violent assault on the peaceful activists. According to
reports, those jailed were denied access to lawyers and many were forced to sign
confessions. By August the conflict was turning more violent. Government workers were
sent to Hunucma to begin work on Metr6polisur. About 100 ejidatarios were also there to
fight them, machetes in hand.
Ultimately the ejidatarios were successful. In 2007 a new Governor was elected,
Ivonne Ortega Pacheco, a member of the PRI. She ended Metr6polisur and promised to
196
work with the ejidatarios to uphold their rights and autonomy, to respect them in
decision-making about land. After two years of struggle, and with the PRI returning to
power, it seemed as though the movement had succeeded. What had began as a series of
materialist claims against the government ended with the revival of an indigenous
identity unifying ejidatarios. They found a new basis for political mobilization, one that
linked them nationally with a broader left-wing indigenous movement. In doing so the
institutional disagreements became framed as violations of customary practices, a key
goal of the Zapatista movement.
Conclusion
In 1937 the Hunucma ejido was created as part of Cardenas' populist vision.
Throughout the post-Revolutionary years of henequen production, the state and federal
government increasingly battled for control ofthe sector. Corruption and mismanagement
often resulted in federal intervention and control, but henequen production and sales
continued their downward spiral. To ensure a rural base of support, PRI administrations
poured billions of pesos into the beleaguered sector to buy off dissent. Organized through
the PRI's campesino wing and paid fixed and uniform wages by government-controlled
agencies who directed henequen production, ejidatarios mobilized along social class
lines. They were constructed by the state as a rural proletariat, but one that extracted
concessions to maintain their loyalty.
When the neoliberal property rights reforms were implemented in Yucatan, this
looked like a place where things might go smoothly. In Hunucma, many ejidatarios were
197
no longer primarily employed on the land. The henequen industry had busted and the
institutions that had led to organizing around a social class identity were gone. The
ejidatarios were now scattered, working in maquiladoras on the peri-urban periphery or in
Merida. There was little resistance to the land titling program. But only a few years later
conflict engulfed Hunucma. Mid-wifed by corruption, the state's acquisition ofland
through intermediaries catalyzed a new social movement. Increasingly ejidatarios from
Hunucma found allies in other ejidos, as re-concentration ofland in the expanding urban
zone was becoming a widespread phenomenon. Cultural entrepreneurs used the scandal
in Hunucma to critique the neoliberal institutional transformation as are-colonization
process. With supporters in left-wing indigenous movements and peasant organizations,
the ejidatarios appealed for public support and legally contested the process. Increasingly,
the alliances they formed both locally and nationally highlighted the shared experiences
of indigenous ejidatarios, victims of neoliberal reforms. Institutional and cultural legacies
were recast and articulated with a broader peasant and indigenous movement aligned with
the Zapatistas.
The coalition the ejidatarios formed and their movement against the development
project was neither pre-ordained nor inevitable. The process itself was transformative and
reveals the creativity oflocal actors. The land sales were initially challenged along
material and processural grounds. But interactions with external actors, like Santos
Saenz, framed the grievances as a centuries old conflict between the Maya and their
conquerors, usurping land that belonged to the people. These discourses became fused in
Hunucma. Ejidatarios re-interpreted their sense of patrimony, rules about voting rights,
198
and norms of membership derived from working the land as customary practices. They
also revived and redeployed habits of mobilization and militancy. In short, the ejidatarios
of Hunucma creatively adapted existing, but often latent, cultural and institutional
resources to successfully contest the new property rights regime.
199
CHAPTER IX
CONCLUSIONS
The cases of Mani and Hunucma suggest the importance of cultural and identity
construction processes through time and the ways that enduring bases of such regional
identity constructs can become re-invigorated and reworked through new political and
historical junctions. Ethnic identity was embedded in milpa production as performed on
cornrnunalland in Mani. Population pressures, falling orange prices and a mobilization
regional citrus-producers association should have sparked an indigenous movement to
contest the neoliberal regime, according to structuralist logic. In Hunucma, by contrast,
state organization of the henequen sector pushed milpa production off the land and
treated the ejidatarios as wage workers. The proletarianized ejidatarios of Hunucma
disengaged from the ejido when henequen production ended, and had every reason to
abandon the old institutions of the ejido and old cultural practices ofmilpa and
Mayaness. Read off of structure, one would have expected little resistance to neoliberal
property reform in Hunucma. Yet in that ejido, peasants remobilized against land sales
and embedded their movement in national indigenous efforts. Structuralists cannot
account for these outcomes because they ignore agency. The ejidatarios were creative and
adaptive, making use of historically-situated cultural and institutional resources as they
responded to the imposition of new rules and practices.
200
The big changes in Mani were actually quite small. A gradual evolution of land
tenure and agrarian practices began in the 1960s with targeted state resources for local
infrastructure development. Few participated at first. Then more did. The debt crisis and
falling orange prices in the 1980s led many people to migrate and use remittances to
support their families. This strategy proved valuable when the neoliberal reforms were
enacted as it provided resources to buy land. In thinking about historical changes that
impact future strategies, the rise in temporary migration became unexpectedly important
in the neoliberal era.
The case of Mani also presents evidence of institutional blending, mixing old and
new rules. The irrigated parcelas were a valuable legacy from the pre-neoliberal reform
era. The new rules did not induce privatization ofthe individualized land in part because
benefits of the past forms of economic organization. The institutional benefits of ejido
association outweighed the potential benefits ofprivatization. Water rights were available
through the irrigation units. And the transaction costs were lower for local land sales than
for privatized sales.
Similarly, the existing milpa practice was not rejected, as cornmunalland was
maintained. Despite concerns over availability, community members can broadly access
communal land for milpa production and as a source of firewood. The association of
cornmunalland and the milpa is crucial to understand this outcome. The milpa is
embedded in ritual knowledge and Mayan ceremonies, part oflocal identity. Cultural
identity, defined as practices, collective memory and rituals which link people and
provide a cornmon language and set ofbeliefs, operates as a resource here. It constrains
201
behavior, making complete individualization (or privatization) undesirable. But culture
didn't trump commercial production on irrigated parcelas. The neoliberal ejido in Mani
reflects both economic and cultural needs.
The neoliberal property rules produced insecurity over land availability, limiting
the path to ejido membership and ending land redistribution. Manienses instrumentally
acted to preserve access to land, buying parcelas. Yet many participated in the land
market to fulfill a generational obligation to provide land. In doing so, they began to
envision the irrigated parcelas as fulfilling patrimony, as opposed to a more generalized
concept of "land." For some Manienses the definition of a cultural imperative -
patrimony - was being transformed by the interaction, even as it was contested by actors
who shared similar cultural orientations but divergent structural positions and interests.
In terms of neoliberal ejido reform in Mexico, the case study of Mani poses
challenges. The reforms were designed to catalyze privatization ofland and greater
investment. However, ejidatarios may pursue a different route, using the new rules to
preserve existing practices. As a catalyst for private investment, the ejido reform project
of the 1990s may fail to produce the predicted outcomes.
In Hunucma, prior experience in cross-ejido organizing in the 1960s and 1970s
left legacies of alliance formation. When ejidatarios contested the land sales, they drew
on these experiences, reached out to other ejidos, and engaged the national discourse and
resources of the CNI and La Otra Campagfia. As henequen wage workers, ejidatarios
shared a social class position. Material grievances once again framed their outreach. They
found other ejidos where land had been bought cheaply - and with questionable use of
202
the new institutional rules - and reached out on material lines. Repeatedly the ejidatarios
from Hunucma and their allies in other ejidos used the same line "a square meter of ejido
land costs less than a coke" reflecting their material grievances.
The ejidatarios also used the new rules, legally contesting the land sales through
the agrarian court and fielding a candidate in the ejido elections. Working with outside
activists through campesino and indigenous networks, ejidatarios began to reframe their
grievances. The process ofland sales violated past practices of membership,
participation, and rights. These concerns over the institutional process of ejido land sales
were cast as attacks on usual and customary practices.
National indigenous organizations, which arose in the aftermath of the 1994
Zapatista rebellion, had been pursuing autonomy for agrarian communities, respect for
usos y costumbres - usual and customary practices. After working with local and state-
wide allies for months, representatives of the Hunucma ejido attended the National
Indigenous Conference (CNI). Upon returning they remarked that "everywhere it is the
same." The institutional irregularities in the land sales were not only legally problematic,
now they were violations of local practices, linked to cultural identity. Usual and
customary practices of the past became a resource, one that pointed to historical cultural
resources.
Prior to being organized as henequen wage workers, the Mayan peasants in
Hunucma struggled to claim hacienda land as their own. In a state relatively free of the
large-scale violence that engulfed other parts of Mexico during the Revolution, the Maya
in Hunucma were mobilized and militant. Ethnic identity became latent during the
203
henequen era, as milpa production and Mayan ceremonies faded. But this identity could
be re-invoked, linked to long-term oppression dating back to colonialism. When
ejidatarios in Hunucma found similar stories and new ways of framing their grievances,
they could draw on a stock of past experiences to revive ethnic identity. The resurgence
of ethnic identity in Hunucma illustrates the impact of the Zapatista opening.
Communities without a history of mobilization around indigenous identity might
increasingly align with movements for local autonomy to contest unfair practices.
Mobilization around ethnic identity appears to be on the rise, not only in Mexico.
Perhaps the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the dominance ofneoliberal economic
policies have made socioeconomic resistance an unsuccessful mobilizational strategy.
Cultural resistance may be the most viable option for oppositional organizing. The switch
to indigeneity as a frame for resistance could be conceived of as a clever use of
mobilizational rhetoric in an anti-Marxian time. However, this view reduces ethnic
identity, and other non-class based forms of identity mobilization, to an instrumentalist
use by aggrieved parties. Why cultural identity becomes invoked in the process of
resisting neoliberal reforms and how the process transforms local conceptions of identity
must be empirically detailed.
In both cases ejidatarios creatively drew on institutional and cultural resources.
They used elements of the new rules, drew on identity, and acted on material interests. In
doing so, they produced unexpected outcomes - rule tinkering and cultural mobilization.
The comparison of these two cases illustrates several important things about institutions
in general, and neoliberal reforms in particular.
204
As an institution, the new property rules were subjected to contestation. In
Hunucma contestation was direct, as ejidatarios found the new rules violated practices
and challenged their legitimacy. The situation was different in ManL Ejidatarios tinkered
with the new rules, blending elements of the past with the imposed reforms. They did not
directly contest the validity ofthe neoliberal regime, but they also did not accept all
elements of the reforms. A land market arose without privatization.
The property rights regime was composed of several pieces. Ejidatarios could
appropriate elements they supported, while rejecting those they didn't. Rather than
unified wholes that rise or fall as one, the neoliberal property rights regime was
composed of elements that could be selectively used as they were adapted to local needs.
For neoliberal reformers, this comparison raises some fundamental issues. First,
behavior will not always follow institutional changes. Actors are willful and creative, and
can adapt imposed structures. Even behaviors that appear to conform to those intended,
such as the land market in Mani, may actually arise for different reasons. Neoliberal
institutions may be judged by the kinds of outcomes they produce. While the people in
Hunucma appeared to have accepted the new reforms, they ultimately contested the new
rules. Perceptions ofunfaimess in outcomes can have unanticipated results. Rejection of
neoliberal institutions can reactivate latent cultural identity and serve as the basis for
mobilization. In both cases ethnic identity was a relevant factor. This suggests that the
neoliberal emphasis on individual autonomy and freedom may be at odds with communal
conceptions of how society is organized and what goals should prevail in economic
decision-making.
APPENDIX
SELECT DATA SOURCES
Sources of archival data
Archivo General del Estado de Yucatan
Asuntos Agrarios
CORETT
INDEMAYA
Instituto Nacional de Estadisticas, Geografia y Informacion (INEGI)
Procuraduria Agraria (PA)
Registro Agrario Nacional (RAN)
Agrarian Agency interviews
Asuntos Agrarios - Merida, Yucatan
INEGI
Procuraduria Agraria - Merida, Valladolid, Tekax
Registro Agrario Nacional - Merida, Yucatan
Mani Demographic Categories
Age
Young (18-30) - not married - 5
Middle (30-59) - married, children at home - 20
Older (60-?) - adult children, some with own families - 5
Rights-Holders & Land Use
Ejidatario without a parcela - 6
Ejidatario with aparcela - 2
Parcelario (parcela but not an ejidatario) - 2
Campesino (no parcela, no ejidatario, agricultural work) - 3
Unknown or no agricultural work - 12
Biological Sex
Female - 10
Male-20
205
Political Party
PRJ supporter - 2
PAN supporter - 7
PRD supporter - 2
Unknown!Ambivalent - 19
Ejido Leadership Role
Held Positions - 4
No Official Positions in Ejido - 16
Unknown - 10
Migration to U.S.
Migrant - 8
Non-migrant - 6
Family member migrated - 17
Unknown/Regional migration only - 16
Religion
Leader (priest or hmen) - 3
Participate in Maya rituals - 21
No participation in rituals - 0
Unknown participation - 9
Catholic - 13
Protestant - 1
Unknown Affiliation - 16
206
207
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