Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

This paper analyzes regulated labor migrations with H2-A visas for temporary agricultural workers who migrate to Elba, New York, United States, and the impact it has had on the indigenous community of Comachuén, Michoacán, Mexico. The objective is to document the way in which remittances are invested and the cultural effects they have had on the Purhépecha community. A qualitative methodology was used, supported by an ethnographic method. Field work was carried out in Comachuén and in the agricultural fields of Elba. The results of this study evidence how contracted workers have contributed to meet the needs of their village and have constructed social prestige. The study concluded that the emerging contracted migrations have become a survival strategy for the Purhépechas.

From a sociodemographic and anthropological perspective, Jéssica Nájera, in her book Vivir de ambos lados del Suchiate: trabajo transfronterizo y vida familiar de guatemaltecos en Chiapas [which could translate as Living on Both Sides of the Suchiate River: Cross-Border Work and Family Life of Guatemalans in Chiapas], explores the work and family life of Guatemalan cross-border workers. Her research is an excellent portrait of the specific social and every day forms of reproduction in the shared border of Soconusco, Chiapas, and the border county of San Marcos, Guatemala. The main contribution of this valuable work is that it offers an excellent categorization of cross-border work experiences.

Through an autoethnography in the city of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, the author of the book Los reptilianos y otras creencias en tiempos de covid-19 [which could translate as Reptilians and Other Beliefs during the Time of covid-19] describes and contributes to the knowledge about humankind in one of the most challenging historical events in recent years: the sars-CoV-2 pandemic. It is a text that began at the same time as the lockdown and narrates the domestic dynamics of the author's family and her neighbors with whom she shared during confinement spaces, words of encouragement, and conspiracy theories.

In recent decades in Mexico, there has been an increase in the number of studies on everyday life during historical times and junctures. This fact is linked to an extensive tradition in historiography and other social disciplines interested in increasing the knowledge about populations and human groups that research usually ignores or hides. The book that is here reviewed, La vida cotidiana entre los zapatistas, 1910-1920, explores this topic based on exhaustive work using primary sources consulted in archives located in various states of the Mexican Republic. This research addresses a broad spectrum of topics providing extensive data on the everyday life of the Liberation Army of the South and its surroundings.

Based on the land and labor dyad, Justus Fenner addresses a period of almost 400 years of history of the Chol region in Chiapas. The research consulted numerous archives, journals, newspapers, digital sources, and books. It describes the characteristics of a geographical region that is difficult to access. For this reason, the local inhabitants remained relatively autonomous, particularly in areas distant from the seats of municipalities, such as Tila and Tumbalá. The shift towards an agro-exporting economy started with the arrival of foreign investors in the late nineteenth century, and consequently the local population became servants, day laborers, and idle.

This paper aims to describe the intertwining and tension between two opposing processes, bordering and the resistance to it. A theoretical-methodological approach inspired by Non-Representational Theory was used in order to avoid the representation of these two processes. With this purpose in mind, a case study was analyzed: “Hugs, Not Walls,” an action of resistance carried out on the border between Mexico and the United States. An analysis of how this event unfolded, that is, of the time-framed interactions between multiple bodies, objects, practices, emotions, places, and terrains, demonstrates that the event is subject to intense representation and border regulations, while subversion pathways emerge in unexpected and uncontrollable ways.

This paper aims to analyze the experience of women university students studying at FES Zaragoza (UNAM) who face digital violence, the meaning they attribute to it, and the way in which they cope with it. A study using digital ethnography and narrative analysis from a feminist gender perspective revealed that women university students using digital space consider that: 1) this type of violence has become normalized by society; 2) women face greater conditions of vulnerability than men; and 3) it is necessary to implement personal and collective practices of caring, which allow women to feel safer at the university. The study reached the conclusion that “digital is political,” inasmuch as the digital is permeated by power, in the face of which women university students are organizing in order to transform their gender condition.

In 2019, transcontinental migrants from various African regions drew public attention due to the waiting times they were subjected to at the Southern border of Mexico. Since then, the Mexican government has set up bureaucratic mechanisms to contain transit migration, as well as endorsing waiting lists at the Mexico-U.S. border. This paper examines the effects of waiting times at the southern border (Tapachula) and the northern border (Tijuana) between 2019 and 2021. Findings confirm that waiting compels irregular transit and exposes African migrants to greater state violence. As a result, migration contention practices in Mexico eventually impacted transcontinental populations, moving from only focusing on space-related issues in order to also include the time factor.

A letter written in 1848 by Patricio Correa, the priest of Zinacantán, preserved in the Diocesan Archive of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, refers to a protracted agrarian conflict between Chiapa and Zinacantán that dates back to the 16th century and was still relevant during the 19th century for the peoples of Chiapas. This paper analyzes the territorial configuration of Zinacantán and how it relates to agrarian legislation: the letter presents an historical experience of protracted negotiation between the indigenous peoples of Chiapas and the broader political forces in the legal field, which enabled them to defend their interests and strengthen their territorial strategies, while illustrating the depth of the peoples’ historical memory regarding land.

This paper focuses on analyzing the role played by the local elite in achieving the nomination of Coatepec, Veracruz as a magical village, part of the Magical Villages Program. A qualitative method was used based on semi-structured interviews with public officials, local inhabitants, and members of the Magical Villages Committee. The findings revealed a kind of entrepreneurial monopoly of tourism-oriented management of the village, thus limiting the population’s participation in managing its own heritage. Using the concepts of elite and crony patrimonialism, the paper reaches the conclusion that since its classification as a Magical Village, Coatepec has been promoted by local businesspeople and politicians, who, organized in a public policy network and driven by their interests, limit the social and environmental development of sustainable tourism.