Dissertation Research: Peasant Responses to State Divestment and Reprivatization of the Mexican Sugar Industry

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This dissertation research grant will support an anthropology graduate student investigating peasant responses to state divestment and reprivatization of the Mexican sugar industry. The Mexican state recently sold the majority of its sugar mills to national and transnational corporations, thus weakening the relationship between the cane producers unions and the state. The research will examine how this divestment affects local peasant producers. Hypotheses to be tested are that credit will be distributed more unevenly, socioeconomic differentiation will increase in general, local level decision making over production will decrease, and that the state will mediate between unions and mill owners. Methods include a census of one village, participant observation of producers, unions, and mills, structured interviews, oral histories, archival data. This research is important because it will help us understand the strategies rural producers adopt in the face of changes in corporate ownership of economic institutions. This knowledge is critical to the resolution of political unrest attendant on increased societal problems associated with debt restructuring in the Third World.