Monique Nuijten

Family Property and the Limits of Intervention: The Article 27 Reforms and the PROCEDE Programme in Mexico

In the 1990s the Mexican peasants witnessed the introduction of a new Agrarian Law and the implementation of the land regularization programme, PROCEDE. In this article it is demonstrated that the privatization of previously communally held ejido land did not lead to the promised dynamic land market, nor to an increase in agricultural productivity. On the basis of an. in-depth study of land tenure practices in the ejido La Canoa in Western Mexico, it is shown that the changes of 1992 did not address the main problems of peasant agriculture. The new Agrarian Law legalized practices which, although illegal, had already become quite common in ejidos throughout Mexico. In addition, it is argued that legal security does not necessarily reside in official registration by the state, but can also be based on local recognition of land rights. The main argument of the article is that property consists of complex sets of claims, rights and obligations that cannot be manipulated by forms of state intervention that reduce land tenure predicaments to technical problems.

Between Fear and Fantasy Governmentality and the Working of Power in Mexico

The question that guides this article is how to articulate, on the one hand, huge bureaucracies and bewildering governmental techniques, and, on the other, a regime of rule where power is to a large extent based on money, personal relationships and ultimately violence. An in-depth ethnography is presented of land conflicts between a peasant community and private landowners in Mexico. The article shows how, in their fight for agrarian justice, peasants get lost in a labyrinthine bureaucratic world, in which they create their own magic, fantasies and fetishes. Instead of implementing standardized procedures the bureaucracy applies governmental techniques in personalized ways and on an ad hoc basis. In this context, brokers thrive. This points to the need for new ways of conceptualizing the relation between governmentality and state power.

The perversity of the ‘Citizenship Game’: Slum-upgrading in the urban periphery of Recife, Brazil

This article analyses the effects of slum upgrading on the lives of slum dwellers, especially on their position in society and their relation with the state. It zooms in on the implementation of Prometrópole, a World Bank-funded slum upgrading project in Recife that removes the population from shacks close to rivers to new housing estates. In this project, the state embraces participatory democracy and stresses the growing inclusion of the poor as citizens of the Brazilian nation-state. The question that inspired the article is: ‘How does the “citizenship agenda” employed by the Brazilian state relate to practices of political belonging in the urban periphery, characterized by social exclusion and violence?’ On the basis of ethnographic research, the article concludes that the upgrading of poor neighbourhoods indeed increases feelings of belonging and inclusion among the poor population. At the same time, however, the stress on the responsible citizen and the empty participatory procedures in the project have the perverse effects of side-lining the poor and reinforcing clientelist politics.

Citizenship, the self, and political agency

The articles in this special issue start from the premise that citizenship is more than the legal status of member of a national political community with certain rights and responsibilities (Marshall, 1983). We contend that citizenship is an important and helpful way of framing anthropological enquiry into politics. The authors ask how citizenship is experienced in any given context, and thereby explore how particular political communities and political agency are constituted.

Peasant ‘Participation’, Rural Property and the State in Western Mexico

It is argued here that development studies tend to ignore the ways in which external interventions become embedded within existing fields of power and are influenced by past experiences. This explains to a large extent the failure of many so-called ‘participatory’ programmes. Crucial changes introduced by the Mexican Agrarian Law in 1992 are examined, with particular reference to the impact and grassroots perception of new ‘participatory’ styles of government intervention. The latter process is illustrated by means of peasant–state interaction on an ejido in Jalisco, where ‘local participation’ that is central to government programmes ‘imposed from above’ reinforces stereotypes such as the ‘corrupt’, ‘ignorant’ official and the ‘lazy’, ‘distrustful’ peasant. Accordingly, encounters between state officials and smallholding peasants in the ejido display a combination of trust/distrust and cooperation/resistance.

Illegal Practices and the Re-Enchantment of Governmental Techniques: Land and the Law in Mexico

Abstract After the Mexican Revolution (1920–1920) large landholdings were expropriated and handed over to the rural population formally organized in communities known as ejidos. The Agrarian Law stipulated that ejidatarios (members of ejidos) acquired only usufructuary rights to the individual plots allocated to them, and were not empowered to sell or rent them, nor to retain land which they ceased to work. Transactions concerning plots of ejido land, illegal until 1992, were studied in the ejido of La Canoa, a small hamlet in Jalisco. It was found that many ejidatarios migrated, usually to the USA , for periods of years, and rented out their land while they were away. They ran the risk of having their land taken away on the occasion of the periodic Investigation of Use of Plots (IUP) by the Ministry of Agrarian Reform (SRA). However, by putting a relative in charge of the land, and by paying the small annual tax in person, the ejidatario could often avoid this. Other ejidatarios would normally follow the strategy of not raising objections. Sales of land to other ejidatarios also occurred. Although they often disapproved for social reasons, others again found it preferable not to interfere. The ejido assembly would approve such transfers under the pretence that they were ‘voluntary transfers of use rights’, that the land had been abandoned and allocated to the purchaser, or that the purchaser was the vendor’s heir. Officials of the SRA were paid not to make problems, and no sale was ever cancelled. When in 1992 a new Agrarian Law was enacted allowing sales, ejidatarios began to engage in sales in the ‘new way’, through the use of documents drawn by lawyers. Although the measuring and registration of plots, required by the Law as a condition for sales, had not yet occurred, they were confident that the sales would not be cancelled. It is seen that the negotiation, bargaining and execution of illegal transactions were carried out in a discursive context formed by the formal agrarian legislation. The SRA lacked the capacity or information to exercise detailed control over land, and so long as the ejidatarios were not divided among themselves, they could ‘keep the law at a distance’. Governmental techniques were re-enchanted: thus the IUP turned into a procedure for the legalisation of illegal or formally defective transactions; documents such as tax receipts became ‘proof’ of continued residence in the ejido. ‘Shadow procedures’ were created to conceal illegal transactions. It is argued that these illegal land transactions became established in a patterning of processes which may be best understood not as based on a normative order but as a force field in which the patterns emanated from conflict and competition.

Being Negro in Recife Brazil: A Political Aesthetics Approach

ABSTRACT In this article, we explore the role of cultura negra and what it means to be negro for a particular segment of the population of Recife, Brazil. We zoom in on participants in Terça Negra (negro Tuesday), one of the foremost weekly events in the city. For these participants, self-identifying as negro refers not principally to skin colour but to an emancipatory project based on the consciência negra (negro consciousness), the awareness that poor people have in common a history of oppression and discrimination originating in times of slavery. Following the theoretical framing of Jacques Rancière, we argue that what is at stake in cultura negra and the assertion of negro identity is a political aesthetics formed through disagreement with the dominant order. We conclude by stressing the political significance of these zones of egalibertarian practices in the margins.

Political activism and the PAH (Platform of Mortgage Victims) in Spain: the significance of Franz von Benda-Beckmann's work for the study of power, political agency and legal pluralism at the grassroots

This article looks at the contribution of Franz von Benda-Beckmann to the analysis of political agency at the grassroots, especially the ways in which people at the margins and political activists contest existing structures of power. It examines in particular the relevance of von Benda-Beckmanns approach for the analysis of the PAH (Platform of Mortgage Victims) in Spain, a social movement that stands up against the wave of house evictions as a result of the economic crisis and the collapse of the housing market. It is argued that people who have a contested relation with existing structures of power express normative values that differ from state rules. This makes legal anthropology in general, and von Benda-Beckmanns approach of legal pluralism in particular, very relevant to this area of study. Von Benda-Beckmanns thoughts about law and legal pluralism are discussed in relation to grassroots politics. The values of his ideas are highlighted as well as analytical points of departure from his views.

‘When breaking you make your soul dance’ Utopian aspirations and subjective transformation in breakdance

ABSTRACT This article is based on a study of the Naturalz crew, a ‘breaking’ or breakdancing group in Quito, Ecuador. Breaking is commonly analysed as a subculture of resistance. We analyse two – often neglected – dimensions of this resistance: the significance of utopian aspirations and the role of the body in subjective transformation. We argue that participants enact utopian values in breaking, for instance by affirming the value of street life and people from the streets. Furthermore, we see that breaking leads to subjective transformation among its young practitioners and that the body plays a central role in this change of subject position. It is interesting that girls use breaking to rebel against dominant images of ideal womanhood, resulting in changes in gendered subjectivity. Hence, from disempowered, marginalised young people, breakers turn into determined agents with physical strength and emotional resilience.