Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement: Rethinking Thuggery: Landed Elites and Geographies of Agrarian Violence in Chiapas, Mexico

博士论文研究改进：重新思考暴行：墨西哥恰帕斯州的土地精英和土地暴力地理

• 批准号: 9900641
• 负责人: Michael Watts
• 金额: $ 1万
• 依托单位: University of California-Berkeley
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1999
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1999-07-01 至 2000-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9900641&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Improvement; Rethinking

During previous times when small-scale producers attempted to seize control of land from large-scale landowners in developing nations, the landed elite generally responded by using violence to evict the "squatters" from the disputed parcels. In the Chiapas state of Mexico, for example, violent reactions characterized peasant insurgencies in the 1970s and 1980s. This history made it all the more surprising when, in the wake of peasant seizure control of about ten percent of the privately held agricultural land in the state during the 1994 Zapatista uprising, most affected landowners instead sold the disputed property to the state government, which in turn made it available to the peasants. This dramatic shift in the use of violence by landowners whose property rights are directly challenged provides a context for this doctoral dissertation research project. Through interviews with large landowners, an extensive survey of economic production, narrative analysis, and mapping of violent incidents, the doctoral student will examine the rise and fall of the landowners' economic power, changing political support for their use of violence against land invaders, and the landowners' complex understandings of violence. This project will contribute new understandings at a variety of scales. It will provide new insights into the dynamics of social change in contemporary Mexico, placing special emphasis on southern Mexican groups that previously have received little attention. It also will provide a new framework for conceptualizing long-standing debates regarding the connections between property relations, agrarian transitions, and violence. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.

在以前，当小规模生产者试图从发展中国家的大型土地所有者手中夺取土地控制权时，土地精英们的回应通常是使用暴力从有争议的地块中驱逐“棚户区居民”。例如，在墨西哥恰帕斯州，20世纪70年代和80年代的农民叛乱以暴力反应为特征。这段历史使事情变得更加令人惊讶，在1994年萨帕蒂斯塔起义期间，农民夺取了该州约10%的私人拥有的农业土地，大多数受影响的土地所有者转而将有争议的土地出售给州政府，州政府反过来将其提供给农民。产权受到直接挑战的土地所有者使用暴力的戏剧性转变为这一博士论文研究项目提供了背景。通过对大地主的采访，对经济生产的广泛调查，叙事分析，以及暴力事件的地图绘制，博士生将研究地主经济权力的兴衰，改变对土地侵略者使用暴力的政治支持，以及地主对暴力的复杂理解。这个项目将在不同的范围内促进新的理解。它将为当代墨西哥社会变革的动态提供新的见解，特别强调以前很少受到关注的墨西哥南部群体。它还将为将关于财产关系、土地过渡和暴力之间的联系的长期辩论概念化提供一个新的框架。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立研究生涯。