Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-sjtt6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-17T05:12:39.508Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Neoliberalism, Gender, and Property Rights in Rural Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2022

Sarah Hamilton
Sarah Hamilton*
Affiliation:
University of Denver
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The Mexican Constitution was revised in 1992 to foster privatization of agrarian reform lands. Legal inheritance protections for spouses were removed, and individual title holders (85 percent male) obtained rights to sell land formerly considered family patrimony. State disinvestment contributed to economic crisis in the land-reform sector. This longitudinal study of four communities in northern and central Mexico explores the counterintuitive effects of agrarian law, customary inheritance norms, and women's changing roles in household economies and community sociopolitics on the material and ideological bases for women's entitlement to land. Quantitative and qualitative data show that women's rights to land under customary inheritance norms were upheld locally and that women's control of family land increased along with growing responsibility for production and community activism. Women's property rights were enhanced rather than eroded as families and communities struggled to meet the economic and social challenges posed by the neoliberal agenda.

Type
Research Reports and Notes
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , 2002 , pp. 119 - 143
Copyright
Copyright © 2002 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

Field research was supported by the Ford Foundation and the University of Pittsburgh Environmental Policy Studies Program. Completion of the research was facilitated by travel grants from the Office of International Research and Development at Virginia Tech. The author gratefully acknowledges the collaboration of Nancy Leigh Johnson, Billie DeWalt, David Barkin, Ivonne Sánchez Vásquez, and Juan Vigueras Bernardino.

References

KIRSTEN, APPENDING 1992 De la milpa a los tortibonos: La reestructuración de la política alimentaria en México. Mexico City: Colegio de México and UNRISD.Google Scholar
ARIAS, PATRICIA 1994 “Three Microhistories of Women's Work in Rural Mexico.” In FOWLER-SALAMINI AND VAUGHAN 1994, 159–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ARIZPE, LOURDES, and BOTEY, CARLOTA 1987 “Mexican Agricultural Development Policy and Its Impact on Rural Women.” In Rural Women and State Policy, edited by Carmen Diana Deere and León, Magdalena, 67–83. Boulder, Colo.: Westview.Google Scholar
BAITENMANN, HELGA 1998 “The Article 27 Reforms and the Promise of Local Democratization in Central Veracruz.” In CORNELIUS AND MYHRE 1998, 105–23.Google Scholar
CORNELIUS, WAYNE A. and MYHRE, DAVID, EDS. 1998 The Transformation of Rural Mexico: Reforming the Ejido Sector. La Jolla: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego.Google Scholar
DEERE, CARMEN DIANA 1986 “Rural Women and Agrarian Reform in Peru, Chile, and Cuba.” In Women and Change in Latin America, edited by Nash, June and Safa, Helen, 189–207. South Hadley, Mass.: Bergin and Garvey.Google Scholar
DEERE, CARMEN DIANA, and LEON, MAGDALENA 1987 “Introduction.” In Rural Women and State Policy, edited by Carmen Diana Deere and León, Magdalena, 1–20. Boulder, Colo.: Westview.Google Scholar
DEERE, CARMEN DIANA, and LEON, MAGDALENA 1997 Women and Land Rights in the Latin American Neo-Liberal Counter-Reforms. Michigan State University Working Papers on Women in International Development, no. 264. East Lansing: Michigan State University.Google Scholar
DEERE, CARMEN DIANA, and LEON, MAGDALENA 1999 Mujer y tierra en Guatemala. Guatemala City: Asociación para el Avance de las Ciencias Sociales en Guatemala (AVANCSO).Google Scholar
DEERE, CARMEN DIANA, and MAGDALENA LEON, ELIZABETH GARCIA, AND JULIO CESAR TRUJILLO 1999 Género y derechos de las mujeres a la tierra en Ecuador. Quito: Consejo Nacional de las Mujeres (CONAMU).Google Scholar
DE JANVRY, ALAIN, GORDILLO, GUSTAVO, and SADOULET, ELISABETH 1997 Mexico's Second Agrarian Reform: Household and Community Responses, 1990–1994. Transformation of Rural Mexico Series, no. 1. La Jolla: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego.Google Scholar
DEWALT, BILLIE R. 1998 “Household Welfare in Four Rural Mexican Communities: Neoliberal Reforms and Adaptive Strategies.” Paper presented to the Latin American Studies Association, 24–26 Sept., Chicago, Illinois.Google Scholar
DEWALT, BILLIE R., and MARTHA W. REES, WITH ARTHUR D. MURPHY 1994 The End of Agrarian Reform in Mexico: Past Lessons, Future Prospects. Transformation of Rural Mexico Series, no. 3. La Jolla: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego.Google Scholar
DEWALT, BILLIE R., DEWALT, KATHLEEN M., ESCUDERO, JOSE C., and BARKIN, DAVID 1987 “Agrarian Reform and Small Farmer Welfare: Evidence from Four Mexican Communities.” Food and Nutrition Bulletin 9, no. 3: 46–52.Google Scholar
DEWALT, KATHLEEN M., DEWALT, BILLIE R., ESCUDERO, JOSE CARLOS, and BARKIN, DAVID 1990 “Shifts from Maize to Sorghum Production: Nutrition Effects in Four Mexican Communities.” Food Policy 15: 395–407.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ESCOTO, JORGE 1993 El acceso de la mujer a la tierra en Guatemala. San José: Fundación Arias and Tierra Viva.Google Scholar
FOWLER-SALAMINI, HEATHER, and VAUGHAN, MARY KAY, EDS. 1994 Women of the Mexican Countryside, 1850–1990. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
GATES, MARILYN 1993 In Default: Peasants, the Debt Crisis, and the Agricultural Challenge in Mexico. Boulder, Colo.: Westview.Google Scholar
GATES, MARILYN 1996 “The Debt Crisis and Economic Restructuring: Prospects for Mexican Agriculture.” In Neoliberalism Revisited: Economic Restructuring and Mexico's Political Future, edited by Otero, Gerardo, 43–62. Boulder, Colo.: Westview.Google Scholar
GOLDRING, LUIN 1996 “The Changing Configuration of Property Rights under Ejido Reform.” In Reforming Mexico's Agrarian Reform, edited by Randall, Laura, 271–87. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
GOLDRING, LUIN 1998 “Having Your Cake and Eating It Too: Selective Appropriation of Ejido Reform in Michoacán.” In CORNELIUS AND MYHRE 1998, 145–72.Google Scholar
GONZALEZ MONTES, SOLEDAD 1994 “Intergenerational and Gender Relations in the Transition from a Peasant Economy to a Diversified Economy.” In FOWLER-SALAMINI AND VAUGHAN 1994, 175–91.Google Scholar
HAMILTON, SARAH 1991 Economic and Nutritional Correlates of Commercial Agricultural Development in a Mexican Ejido. M.A. thesis, University of Kentucky.Google Scholar
HAMILTON, SARAH 1998 The Two-Headed Household: Gender and Rural Development in the Ecuadorean Andes. Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
HAMILTON, SARAH 2000a “Blood, Sweat, and Tears: Gender and Entitlement to Land in Ecuador, Guatemala, and Mexico.” Paper presented to the Latin American Studies Association, 16–18 Mar., Miami.Google Scholar
HAMILTON, SARAH 2000b “The Myth of the Masculine Market: Gender and Agricultural Commercialization in the Ecuadorean Andes.” In Commercial Ventures and Women Farmers: Increasing Food Security in Developing Countries, edited by Spring, Anita, 65–87. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HENDRIX, STEVEN E. 1993 Property Law Innovation in Latin America with Recommendations. Land Tenure Center Paper no. 149. Madison.: Land Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin.Google Scholar
INEGI (INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE ESTADISTICA, GEOGRAFIA E INFORMATICA) 1995 Axochiapan, Estado de Morelos: Cuaderno Estadístico Municipal, Edición 1995. Aguas-calientes: INEGI.Google Scholar
IDB (INTER-AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK) 1995 Women in the Americas: Bridging the Gender Gap. Washington, D.C.: IDB and Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
ISAAC, CLAUDIA B. 1995 “Class Stratification and Cooperative Production among Rural Women in Central Mexico.” LARR 30, no. 2: 123–50.Google Scholar
JOHNSON, NANCY LEIGH 1997 “Rural Financial Markets and Agricultural Development: An Analysis of Land Tenure and Credit Reform in Mexico.” Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota.Google Scholar
KATZ, ELIZABETH 1999 “Gender and Ejido Reform.” Draft report prepared for the World Bank Ejido Study. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. Available via the Internet at <http://wbln0018.worldbank.org/external/lac/lac.nsf, select Gender, select PublicationsxGoogle Scholar
MARRONI DE VELAZQUEZ, MARIA DA GLORIA 1994 “Changes in Rural Society and Domestic Labor in Atlixco, Puebla, 1940–1990.” In FOWLER-SALAMINI AND VAUGHAN 1994, 210–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MORRET-SANCHEZ, JESUS C. 1992 Alternativas de modernización del ejido. Mexico City: Instituto de Proposiciones Estratégicas and Editorial Diana.Google Scholar
MUMMERT, GAIL 1994 “From Metate to Despate: Rural Mexican Women's Salaried Labor and the Redefinition of Gendered Spaces and Roles.” In FOWLER-SALAMINI AND VAUGHAN 1994, 192–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MYHRE, DAVID 1998 “The Achilles' Heel of the Reforms: The Rural Finance System.”: In CORNELIUS AND MYHRE 1998, 39–65.Google Scholar
NASH, JUNE 1986 “A Decade of Research on Women in Latin America.” In Women and Change in Latin America, edited by Nash, June and Safa, Helen, 3–21. South Hadley, Mass: Bergin and Garvey.Google Scholar
PEREZ PRADO, LUZ NEREIDA 1998 “Gender, Agricultural Transformations, and Natural Resource Use in the Tierra Caliente of Michoacán, Mexico.” Culture and Agriculture 20, no. 1: 3–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ROBLEDO RINCON, EDUARDO 2000 “Intervención del Lic. Eduardo Robledo Rincón, Secretario de la Reforma Agraria en el Banco Mundial, Washington, D.C., 23 de febrero de 2000.” Available via Internet at <http://WBLN0018.Worldbank.org/Networks/ESSD/icdb.nsf/D4856F112E805DF4852566C9007C27A6/4421FAE238D4C8E9852567EC005A0162#orden>..>Google Scholar
ROTHSTEIN, FRANCES ABRAHAMER 1995 “Gender and Multiple-Income Strategies in Rural Mexico: A Twenty-Year Perspective.” In Women in the Latin American Development Process, edited by Bose, Christina E. and Edna Acosta-Belén, 167–93. Philadelphia, Pa.: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
STEPHEN, LYNN 1994 “Accommodation and Resistance: Ejidatario, Ejidataria, and Official Views of Ejido Reform.” Urban Anthropology 23, nos. 2–3:233–65.Google Scholar
STEPHEN, LYNN 1997 Women and Social Movements in Latin America. Austin: University of Texas Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
STEPHEN, LYNN 1998 “Interpreting Agrarian Reform in Two Oaxacan Ejidos: Differentiation, History, and Identities.” In CORNELIUS AND MYHRE 1998, 125–43.Google Scholar
ZAPATA MARTELO, EMMA 1996 “Modernization, Adjustment, and Peasant Production: A Gender Analysis.” Latin American Perspectives 23, no. 1: 118–30.Google Scholar