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Deep Politics: Community Adaptations to Political Clientelism in Twenty-First-Century Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2022

Turid Hagene  and
Íñigo González-Fuente
Turid Hagene
Affiliation:
Oslo and Akershus University College
Íñigo González-Fuente
Affiliation:
Oslo and Akershus University College
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Abstract

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The specific contribution of this study is to explore how a communitarian lifeworld. prepares the ground for practices of political clientelism without requiring the foundational favor“ noted in other contexts. Based on the encounter between ethnographies from two different communities of the Mesoamerican tradition in Mexico, the article argues that this lifeworld is forged by the habitual ways in which most collective tasks are carried out, that is, by forming and participating in networks. First, we offer a concrete description of the operation of two problem-solving networks of political clientelism in these communities. These networks are considered legitimate since they appear to be part of the communitarian practices. Second, we observe that the state often fails to reach out to the citizens with many social benefits, and we maintain that the problem-solving networks bridge the gap between the citizens and the state. Third, we argue that the ethnographic approach has been of paramount importance in reaching these findings, which are hardly attainable without this method. We consider that the workings of the clientelist networks represent a deep expression of people's communitarian lifeworlds.

Resumen

RESUMEN

El presente trabajo explora cómo el denominado mundo de vida comunitario facilita las prácticas de clientelismo político sin la necesidad de un “favor inicial”, como se ha documentado en otros contextos. Con base en dos etnografías realizadas en diferentes comunidades mexicanas de tradición mesoamericana, argumentamos que el mundo de vida comunitario se construye a través de las formas habituales en las que la mayoría de tareas colectivas son llevadas a cabo por los sujetos: estableciendo y participando en redes. Primero, ofrecemos una descripción pormenorizada del funcionamiento en esas comunidades de dos redes clientelares solucionadoras de problemas. De hecho, estas redes se tienen como legítimas debido a que la población las considera parte de sus prácticas comunitarias. Segundo, observamos que el Estado muchas veces falla a la hora de cubrir las necesidades de los ciudadanos en cuanto a servicios sociales se refiere, y es en esos vacíos que las redes solucionadoras de problemas pueden tender puentes entre ciudadanos y estado. Tercero, argumentamos que la metodología etnográfica ha sido decisiva para alcanzar estos resultados, de manera que ello no hubiera sido posible sin estas herramientas metodológicas. Finalmente; consideramos que el funcionamiento de las redes clientelares es una representación profunda de los mundos de vida comunitarios.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , 2016 , pp. 3 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

The authors are grateful for the constructive and insistent critique of the anonymous reviewers of the journal, which contributed considerably to improve our article. Turid Hagene would also like to thank the following institutions for financing fieldwork: Oslo and Akershus University College, Institute for Comparative Cultural Studies, and the Nansen Foundation.

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