Ecological Intervention,‬ Migration, and Otomí Life in the Northern Mezquital: The Paradox of Rurality in Modern Mexico

• In Event: Rural Networks and Modernizing States: Rethinking The Precariousness of Rurality in Latin America.

Abstract

Beginning in the 1920s, and coming into their own by the late 1930s, three massive, intrusive, yet well-meaning reform programs in Mexico’s Mezquital Valley were undertaken simultaneously: the expansion of the wastewater irrigation networks, agrarian reform through the creation of ejidos, and the social development programs by indigenista academics such as Manuel Gamio. As each of these reform programs relied on one another, they cannot be considered separately, but rather as three branches of the state which had never before had such reach within Otomí communities. These interests were combined in 1951 with the creation of the Patrimonio Indígena del Valle del Mezquital, a special inter-governmental body—once again, the first of its kind in the country. This official mediating board between the state (national and state-level) and Otomís, however, was eventually disbanded in 1990 after allegations of corruption and clientelism had plagued the association for more than a decade. The demise of the PIVM also brought an end to the three-tiered reform program.
Rather than dismissing these experiments in environmental “correction” and applied anthropology as failures of “high modernism,” the essay will examine two sides of the same coin. First, I will explore how Otomís used the state-building programs during the Social Revolution to their advantage and created one of the most productive agricultural regions in Mexico, while it also encouraged caciquismo. Second, I will look at how this same region has come to be a major center of migration to the US. Despite the fact that the Mezquital is now the home of the world’s largest wastewater irrigation zone, many campesinos have turned to seasonal chain migration as a home-grown method of holding on to one’s terruño and way of life. The paradox of Otomí migration to urban areas in Mexico and the US to make rural life possible underscores the complexities of urban-rural relations between regions and natinos which this panel seeks to explore.

Author

• Johns W Graham, Yale University