Commodity Cultures, Mesoamerica and Mexico's Changing Indigenous Economy

Abstract

A case is argued for the constitutive role of commodity value (use + exchange + symbolic), and its shifting triangulations, in Mesoamerican and Mexican indigenous culture. This role cross-cuts historical epochs but assumes more pervasive influence historically in proportion to the spread of integrative markets and monetization. Given their commodity value matrix, indigenous direct-producing subjects, yesterday and today, are assumed to economize, regardless of the nature and destination of their labor or products or the particular social relations organizing the latter's disposition. Particular forms of commodity value triangulation require empirical determination at specific spatial/temporal coordinates. Critical evaluations of work by Karl Marx, Guillermo Bonfil, Alejandro Marroquín, Manuel Gamio and Arturo Warman, together with ethnographic material, are used to support the case for the commodity value approach.