Where the Dove Calls
eBook - PDF

Where the Dove Calls

The Political Ecology of a Peasant Corporate Community in Northwestern Mexico

  1. 266 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Where the Dove Calls

The Political Ecology of a Peasant Corporate Community in Northwestern Mexico

About this book

Thomas Sheridan's study of the municipio of Cucurpe, Sonora, offers new insight into the ability of peasants to respond to ecological and political change. In order to survive as small rancher-farmers, the Cucurpeños battle aridity and one another in a society characterized by sharp economic inequality and long-standing conflict over the distribution of land and water.

Sheridan has written an ethnography of resource control, one that weds the approaches of political economy and cultural ecology in order to focus upon both the external linkages and internal adaptations that shape three peasant corporate communities. He examines the ecological and economic constraints which scarce and necessary resources place upon households in Cucurpe, and then investigates why many such households have formed corporate communities to insure their access to resources beyond their control. Finally, he identifies the class differences that exist within the corporate communities as well as between members of those organizations and the private ranchers who surround them.

Where the Dove Calls (the meaning of "Cucurpe" in the language of the Opata Indians), an important contribution to peasant studies, reveals the household as the basic unit of Cucurpe society. By viewing Cucurpe's corporate communities as organizations of fiercely independent domestic units rather than as expressions of communal solidarity, Sheridan shows that peasants are among the exploiters as well as the exploited. Cucurpe¤os struggle to maintain the autonomy of their households even as they join together to protect corporate grazing lands and irrigation water. Any attempt to weaken or destroy that independence is met with opposition that ranges from passive resistance to violence.

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Yes, you can access Where the Dove Calls by Thomas E. Sheridan in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Mexican History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Contents
  2. List of Illustrations
  3. List of Tables
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. Introduction: The Corporate Control of Scarce Resources in Peasant Societies
  6. 1. Donde Canta la Paloma: Cucurpe in Historical Perspective
  7. 2. La Vida Cucurpena: Modern Agrarian Society in Cucurpe
  8. 3. La Tierra No Muere: Agriculture and Water Control
  9. 4. El Ganado Le Da la Vida: Livestock Raising
  10. 5. Mineros y Mescaleros: Nonagrarian Economic Activities
  11. 6. Ganaderos y Comuneros: Economic Inequality and the Organization of Resource Control
  12. 7. Capitaiistas y Boishevikis: The Ideology of Resource Control
  13. 8. Los Comuneros: The History and Structure of the Comunidad of Cucurpe
  14. 9. Los Comuneros: The Functions of the Comunidad of Cucurpe
  15. 10. Conclusions: The Political Ecology of the Comunidad of Cucurpe
  16. Reference Material