This is not an easy book to read. It is certainly not aimed at the casual browser of anthropological literature. Yet with a mixture of perseverance and attention to detail, the reader will find this volume extremely worthwhile in attempting to understand the complexities of anthropological studies of rural Mexico from the end of the revolution in 1920 to the present. In fact, in my opinion, Hewitt de Alcántara's work is a landmark in reviewing and synthesizing the subject indicated in the title.
The author states somewhat modestly that “the pages to come are . . . presented in the hope that they will provide part of the groundwork for a systematic analysis of peasant studies in Mexico” (p. xii). Hewitt de Alcántaras effort is based almost exclusively on published materials, supplemented by interviews or an exchange of written communications between herself and other scholars in the field. Documentation to be found in private and public archives is lacking. The author admits that this information would have been of great value in gaining deeper insight into the social and political forces shaping twentieth-century Mexico. Nevertheless, we are indebted for the many facts and insights with which we are provided.
Each chapter in the book traces the development of competing, albeit often overlapping, anthropological approaches to and perspectives on Mexican peasantry. We progress, thereby, from “Particularism, Marxism and functionalism in Mexican anthropology, 1920–50,” “A dialogue on ethnic conflict: Indigenismo and functionalism, 1950-70,” “Cultural ecology, Marxism and the development of a theory of the peasantry, 1950–70,” “Anthropology and the dependency paradigm in Mexico, 1960-75,” and “Historical structuralism and the fate of the peasantry, 1970-80.” The above chapters are well integrated and, while much of the material is not new, its interpretation is thoughtful and refreshing. The discussion of dependency theory is probably the clearest and most succinct I have encountered.
An innovation in this volume is the attention paid to the contributions of Mexicans to the study of their own rural populations. The majority of the literature written by North Americans on rural Mexico gives due respect to such social scientists as Manuel Gamio, Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán, and schoolteacher-turned- anthropologist Alfonso Villa Rojas. Most other Mexican observers are somewhat pejoratively termed pensadores (“thinkers”). Moisés Sáenz, for example, was indeed a philosopher by training, but contacts with Franz Boas and Gamio (as well as John Dewey and his “action school” at Columbia University) turned his attention to the livelihood problems of the Mexican countryside. Hewitt de Alcántara presents an insightful and sympathetic portrait of this important figure.
The outstanding question raised by this volume is: Have changing explanatory frameworks reflected fundamental changes in rural Mexican society, or have our perceptions of the countryside mirrored a broader range of mental stimuli, making particular ways of looking at rural life more intellectually satisfying? The author concludes that “the first response which comes to mind . . . is that the way anthropologists have approached the countryside at any particular time has been above all a function of the intellectual structure of schools in which they have been trained and not of a random confrontation with life in rural Mexico” (p. 178).
