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

这篇论文的研究拨款将支持一名人类学研究生调查农民对国家撤资和墨西哥糖业重新私有化的反应。墨西哥政府最近将其大部分糖厂出售给国家和跨国公司，从而削弱了甘蔗生产商工会和国家之间的关系。这项研究将考察这种撤资对当地农民生产者的影响。有待检验的假设是，信贷分配将更加不均衡，社会经济分化总体上将加剧，地方层面对生产的决策权将减少，国家将在工会和工厂所有者之间进行调解。方法包括对一个村庄的人口普查，对生产者、工会和工厂的参与观察，结构化访谈，口述历史，档案数据。这项研究之所以重要，是因为它将有助于我们理解农村生产者在面对经济机构法人所有制变化时采取的策略。这一知识对于解决第三世界债务重组带来的日益严重的社会问题所伴随的政治动乱至关重要。

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.