Geographical Perspectives on Social and Economic Change in Mexico and Latin AmericaAuthor(s): Colin ClarkeSource: Area, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Jun., 1985), pp. 176-179Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20002183 .

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176 British-Mexican Symposium

Geographical perspectives on social and economic change in Mexico and Latin America

Report on a British-Mexican symposium devoted to the above topic held at the National Autono mous University, Mexico City, 17-22 September 1984

This symposium was supported jointly by the Institute of British Geographers, the British Council, and the Faculty of Geography at the National Autonomous University, and was organised by Colin Clarke and Silvana Levi de L6pez. Fourteen British geographers and nine

Mexicans presented and discussed papers grouped into three themes, ordered by scale and ranging from the macro to the micro-Latin-American development; Mexican rural problems; urbanisation in Mexico.

Latin-American development

A telescopic view of continental development problems in the recent past, with projections into the twenty-first century, was presented by John Cole (Nottingham) in his account of ' Latin

America 1945-1985-2025: performance and prospects'. He argued that the doubling of Latin-American population by 2025, the world's inelasticity of demand for Latin-American non-fuel minerals, the burden of importing agricultural products, and the absence of power resources in most Latin-American countries together conspired to produce the likelihood of

massive future ' denaturalisation ' of the environment. Historically, mineral resource exploitation has been the basis for development in many

Latin-American countries. Even today, as David Fox (Manchester) showed in his paper on 'Mining and development in Latin America', the bauxite countries of Surinam, Guyana and

Jamaica, the copper-producing nations of Peru and Chile, and Bolivia with its tin can all fairly be described as mineral-dependent. But mining countries and mining companies are often adversaries, and multinational firms avoid locating their smelters and fabricating operations in Third World countries. Not only do mining activities lack within-state forward linkages, but even more than other economic enclaves they are a wasting asset.

More recent among economic developments in Latin America has been the introduction of manufacturing industry-in most instances a post-World War I phenomenon, based on import substitution. John Dickenson (Liverpool), in his study ' Industrial geography, industrialisation and Latin America: some conventional and non-conventional perspectives ', commented that British geographers had sadly neglected Third World industrial circumstances. Moreover, Latin-American industrialisation had only rarely been studied by Latin American geographers, although Brazil and Mexico, in particular, were major producers of manufactured goods on the world scale. There existed enormous scope for research on conventional and unconventional topics: among the latter, he noted small manufacturing workshops, deglomeration, formal sector services, the environmental impact of industrialisation, and jobs for women.

The role of women in development was brought firmly to the fore by Janet Henshall Momsen (Newcastle) in her presentation on ' Gender and geography: a Latin-American perspective '. She pointed to the need to reassess the very foundations of development theory and practice, and argued that we ought to revise both the notion of development as modernis ation based on Western ideas and technology, and the concepts and methods of the social sciences as they apply to ' appropriate ' sexual roles and the division of labour by gender.

Women's fate, she concluded, owed little to biology, much to socialisation, and even more to social relations of production.

This latter theme was pursued by Janet Townsend (Durham) and Sally Wilson de Acosta (Fundaci6n Nemequene, Bogoti) in their work on' Gender roles in colonisation of rainforest: a Colombian case study'. They compared the household division of labour by age and sex in a riverine agricultural village and a nearby colonisation area, and found the unexpected factor of

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British-Mexican Symposium 177

female out-migration confounded their expectations that women's involvement in agricultural production and processing would be both more secure and more time-consuming on the frontier than in the later stages of colonisation.

The forest, not so much as frontier but as resource, was the theme of Arthur Morris (Glasgow) in his paper on ' Afforestation projects in Ecuador: development from below? ' Since

Ecuador's oil boom ended in the late 1970s, forestry has been viewed as an important aspect of integrated rural development. It has also been promoted because of its ecological desirability in heavily eroded, over-farmed regions at high altitude. Forestry in Ecuador, as an example of 'development from below', has been difficult to put into effect, largely because it has required

planners to turn on its head their traditional concept of development; for, to be effective, forestry must be linked to local farming, with individuals making their own decisions about how to manage their own farm-and-forest interests.

In many Latin-American countries, resources are not available to the mass of rural dwellers to manage on their own account, because land has, for decades if not centuries, been engrossed by large estates. Tenurial and other types of reform are therefore crucial to the implementation of social justice, and this topic formed the focus of the presentation by David Browning (Oxford) on 'Geographical aspects of agrarian reform in Nicaragua and El Salvador'. He argued that in each case a development strategy that was as much pragmatic as ideological was essential, and he concluded that a proper appreciation of the solutions to agrarian problems in Nicaragua and El Salvador required as much attention to be given to geographical as to political circumstances.

Mexican rural problems

Unlike the Central American republics, Mexico underwent a radical revolution in the second decade of this century and, thereafter, instituted a land reform that continues in a fluctuating fashion up to the present. Mexico is also set apart from most other Latin American republics by the fact that it is oil-rich-and one of the region's major debtor nations. However, Guillermo

Gonzilez (Autonomous University of the State of Mexico) in his analysis of' Agrarian policies and the economic crisis in Mexico' claimed that the origin of the present Mexican economic crisis was to be found less in recent government oil mismanagement than in agrarian policies dating back to the 1940s. Large landowners have been able to secure court orders to protect their holdings, in excess of the legal maximum, against squatter invasions; peasants have had to

work away from their tiny plots to secure a livelihood; agricultural output has increased during the last two decades, yet at a rate way below population growth; prices of agricultural produce have been pitched low to subsidise urban dwellers; and financial and technological resources have been channelled away from the land-reform sector towards the most efficient producers.

Mexican rural life, then, is undermined by lack of capital, population growth, a flawed land reform, the decomposition of the peasantry by migration, and the penetration of the country side by cheap manufactured goods. But many government agencies have attempted to improve the infrastructure and quality of life in rural Mexico, as Carmen Reyes (Direcci6n General de

Geografia) revealed in her account of 'The use of geographical information in education planning: a case study of the state of San Luis Potosi'. Maps were produced of educational deprivation, and an attempt made to find optimal locations for new high schools. Two import ant conclusions emerged: data were lacking for in-depth planning; such data as there were, were often insufficiently used for educational and other planning purposes.

The use of geographical information systems implies that there is an objective spatial reality. Jose Luis Chias (National Autonomous University), however, focused on the geography in

men's heads in his ' Regional perception in the Bajio '. The Bajio, lying between the great cities of Mexico and Guadalajara, was the cradle of the independence movement and remains the granary of Mexico. But surveys revealed that, while three-quarters of the inhabitants recognised the regional expression, only one-quarter realised they were living in the Bajio! Lack of present-day awareness of the region among its inhabitants was explained by the Bajio's subordination to Mexico City, by the centralising policy of the national government, and by the recent penetration of the Bajio by US agribusiness.

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178 British-Mexican Symposium

In contrast to the Bajio's affluence, Colin Clarke (Oxford) concentrated on part of a backward state in his paper on 'The price of the lack of progress: livelihood systems, settle

ments and levels of living in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca'. Peasants in this mountain basin pay the price of their isolation and lack of progress in poverty, illiteracy and poor amenities; yet small plots of land provide a basis for subsistence for those who would otherwise have none. Oaxaquenios emphasise social solidarity at the expense of economic development; and community solidarity, coupled to the very lack of material progress, protects them from the attentions of outside predators. It is this sense of community identity that keeps peasants (whether Zapotec-speaking or not) on the land; to leave the community is tempting but perilous, as the swollen proletariat of Oaxaca City testifies.

The medical implications of low levels of living among people who are peripheral in spatial, social, cultural, economic and political terms was confronted by R Mansell Prothero (Liverpool) and Jeffrey Davenport (Royal Grammar School, Lancaster) in their paper 'The geography of health in South-East Mexico'. They concentrated on the epidemiology of Chagas disease, which is endemic in the state of Chiapas. The disease is transmitted by an insect when it takes blood meals from human beings and wild and domestic animals. Solutions depend on reducing the possibilities for animal scavenging around settlements, and on explaining to the inhabitants that the vector is not a harmless pest. The authors concluded, however, that essen tial improvement in standards of health and housing could only be successful if set in a broader framework of infrastructural changes involving education, medical facilities and general amenities.

The issue of rural economic development and the role of industrial development in that process-also in the state of Chiapas-were discussed by Sofia Puente Lutteroth (National Autonomous University) in 'Industrial development in Southern Mexico and its implications for the system of central places'. She showed that industrial activity was devoted to food preparation and textile production, and concluded that half the employment was in small-scale enterprises engaging two or fewer operatives; small-scale industry was dispersed and desperately lacking incentives.

In view of the stagnation of much of the Mexican rural economy, it is not surprising that rural population (growing at more than 3 per cent per annum) has looked for better living standards in the cities, especially Mexico City. Mercedes Cirdenas Boyasbek (Autonomous

University of the State of Mexico) examined Toluca, a town close to Mexico City, in her account of' Permanent migratory movements in Mexico '. She showed that migration had had a major impact on Toluca's population growth, inflating the demand for services and housing, eating up cultivated land, especially by illegal settlements, and placing enormous strains on communications. Government investment to encourage decentralisation away from Central

Mexico seemed to be the way of curbing the processes of urban agglomeration.

Urbanisation in Mexico

Although it is tempting to think of Mexico as a rural country, there are few parts of the Third World that have experienced urbanisation on such a scale. Most Mexicans are now urban dwel

lers, and Mexico City, with more than 16 million inhabitants, is certainly the largest city in the world. It is important not to be bewitched by a city's uniqueness, however, and vital to try to tease out features common to all developing-world cities, as Stella Lowder (Glasgow) attempted in 'Property and property transactions: a key to Third World city structures? ' She argued that large-scale controllers of land and money dominate the urban scene, but that it is crucial to recognise the importance of small-scale transactions. They have always been under played in government and commercial circles, but are crucial to an understanding of the spatial organisation of the city, even though they often involve illegality.

In contrast to the conventional wisdom of the 1960s, when Latin American governments were prone to demolish settlements of illegal tenure, the mood today favours the upgrading of existing low-income settlements and the provision of sites with services. In 'Self-help housing and state intervention: illustrated reflections on the petty commodity debate', Alan Gilbert (UCL) argued that positive improvements-vocally demanded by the urban poor-were nor

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British-Mexican Symposium 179

mally achieved through infrastructural provision, and that regularisation, though costly to the inhabitants, was not accompanied by the incursions of large-scale capitalists.

Government interest in housing is but one aspect of a more general concern for social welfare, and Peter Ward (UCL) explored this theme in a Mexican context in his study 'Papering over the cracks: the politics of social welfare during three administrations'. He showed that although there has been a considerable increase over time in the real-cash allocation to social welfare, the benefits funded by a buoyant economy in the 1970s have been limited; the absolute number of people totally without social welfare provision in 1984 was

much higher than a decade earlier. Moreover, welfare has been dispensed via a multiple-tier system, which has given the best service to the least needy: it is impossible not to conclude that in Mexico welfare exists more to manipulate the electorate than to ameliorate poverty.

Notwithstanding this conclusion, it is important to investigate closely the pattern of govern ment investment, as Arturo Macias (Guadalajara) did in 'Public investment and urban development in Mexico'. Two tendencies emerged: on the one hand, considerable sums were committed to solving Mexico City's problems; on the other, government money was expended on medium-sized towns, especially on infrastructure and agro-industry. But in neither case were the investments the result of a specifically urban policy.

The theme of concentration versus decentralisation was taken up by Boris Graizbord (El Colegio de Mexico) in his study entitled 'A look at the process of urbanisation and recent

metropolitan growth in Mexico'. He foresaw that Mexico City's population growth would soon level out. Moreover, he expected that medium and small cities would begin to play a much larger part in national life, thereby stressing horizontal linkages between settlements of equal size, rather than the verticality of present-day connections which express the domination of

Mexico City. Although future processes and patterns may emphasise decentralisation, Mexico City

continues to provide a classic case of unplanned hypercephalism, as Adrian Guillermo Aguilar (National Autonomous University) showed in 'Politics and urban planning in the Federal

District: evolution and present-day situation'. Only since 1980 has urban planning been linked to national policy, and even this achievement has been vitiated by political meddling,

manipulation of planning decisions in favour of the upper classes, and the absence of explicit controls to curb physical expansion where illegal settlements have been involved.

Marxist assertions about the role of the state in, and the labour cheapening aspect of, self-help housing was scrutinised by John Makin (Heriot-Watt) in his study 'The poor and their housing in Third World Cities: an examination of the validity of some common assertions in the light of the evidence from Mexico City'. Although governments may see housing as a

means by which their outgoings can be reduced, they have permitted high standards of servic ing to be extended to self-help settlements. Furthermore, the general tendency for the rate of profit to fall may imply that it is capital and not labour that is losing out, even if the poorest of the poor continue to suffer most.

More than half the built-up area of Mexico City is accounted for by illegal settlements squatter plots or illegal subdivisions of various types. In recent years, as Ann Varley (UCL) showed in her paper 'Agrarian law and urbanisation in Mexico City', illegal settlements have spread across ejido lands on the outskirts of the capital, thus transgressing communal properties based on the principle of the social right to land embodied in the land reform. Once more in

Mexico, the dominance of private advantage over public utility has subverted the ideals of the Mexican Revolution.

Each paper stimulated a wide-ranging discussion in Spanish, in which the participants were joined by Mexican university teachers and students, who audited the sessions. The interchange of ideas was an enormous success, and the participants have agreed to publish the papers as a collection in Mexico. The British delegation very much hopes to host a return symposium in September 1986, when it will attempt to match the excellent organisation and warmth of

welcome provided by Silvana Levi de L6pez and her Mexican colleagues.

Colin Clarke University of Oxford

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