This page tells you a bit about the research I do in Mexico. I find it fascinating, challenging, fun, and at times even exasperating, but immensely rewarding.  

I began working in the village of Ocotillo in the state of Colima in 1984, when I spent seven months getting to know rural Mexico. When I returned in 1990 to spend an entire year, I found drastic changes that had affected people in rural villages. I am especially interested in agriculture and agrarian problems. How have people coped with Mexico's economic crisis? What strategies have people used to resist and challenge the omnipresent forces that exploit them? In what ways do they organize and appropriate power for themselves?

My focus is on sugarcane growers. There is one sugar mill in the state of Colima where I work and five mills in the state of Michoacan where I expanded my research interests in 1997. Cane production in Mexico began in the 16th century and was central to the colonial economy. Over the centuries, peasants became linked to sugar haciendas which exploited their land and labor. Did you know that the Mexican revolution began in a sugarcane area where peasants, under Emiliano Zapata, revolted to overthrow the hacienda owners?

Relations between mill owners and cane growers have been characterized by conflict. The battles still rage today over access to credit for production, the price of the cane, and so forth. What interests me is how these relations have changed since the Mexican government decided to privatize all of its sugar mills. Many mills were sold to private investors who wanted to make quick profits and cared little about the social well-being of cane growers. Others want the sugar to use in their soft drink (Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, etc.) and food processing (cookies, cakes, etc.) industries. Well, peasant cane growers have not fared so well, although things began to improve somewhat in the mid-1990s. In 1997, UMM students and I researched four different sugar mills and found important differences among them. While Colima cane growers had improved economically, those in other areas were worse off. Poorer still are landless workers who harvest the sugar cane. Cane cutters (see the photo) are often indigenous people hired to do the most difficult work in all of Mexico--they are paid about $4 or $5 dollars a day.

Then there are the mills that were closed down during the privatization process. If you take a look at my office door you will see a poster made by ex-mill workers and cane growers from Puruaran, Michoacan. I interviewed them in 1996 and learned that when the mill was shut down, many were left without employment. Some migrated to the U.S., but usually returned for lack of work. So people of the town formed a social movement and illegally took over the mill and produced sugar themselves. The angered owner called in the police, who arrested and jailed the leaders of the movement. The mill owner placed guards in the mill from 1993-1996 to prevent another takeover. Yet, there was another mill seizure in 1996 and townspeople forced the police out of the mill. They guarded it until 1998, but the owner refused to reopen the mill, claiming it was unprofitable. As a result, the community suffered from unemployment, malnutrition, increasing crime rates, and many stores closed for lack of business. Many people were forced to migrate from the community, often going to the U.S.

In 1998, workers repaired the mill and conducted another illegal cane harvest, against the wishes of the mill owner. They had poor results, but continued to struggle to maintain their source of employment. I worked in this community, examining the impact of mill closure in 1997 and 1998. By 1999, an agreement was reached with the Pascual company, manufacturer of Boing natural fruit drinks, to reopen the mill and process sugar for Pascual. Thus far, the mill owner has not intervened.

However, NAFTA, enacted in 1994, created new problems for Mexico's sugarcane growers. In recent years, bottling companies have replaced sugar with high fructose corn syrup imported from the U.S. The sugar industry in Mexico predicts that the decline in demand for cane sugar will cause more mills to close. Currently, I am pursuing the question, will the conditions that affected cane growers in Puruaran be replicated in other zones?

A Cooperative Sugar Mill/Un Ingenio Azucarero Cooperativa