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

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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.