Desert Patriarchy: Mormon and Men-nonite Communities in the Chihuahua Valley

Abstract

Desert Patriarchy: Mormon and Mennonite Communities in the Chihuahua Valley. By Janet Bennion. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2004. Pp xvii + 207, preface, acknowledgments, photographs, maps, chart, notes, bibliography, index, $45.00 cloth) In the promisingly titled Desert Patriarchy, Janet Bennion, descendant of Utah Mormon setders and self-described rat, explores the intersection of gender dynamics and religious fundamentalism in three contemporary separatist religious communities in Mexico. Two are settlements of Utahns of differing Mormon belief - Colonia Juarez (founded in the late nineteendi century) and Colonia LeBaron (founded in the early twentieth) - while the third, Capulin, is Old Colony Mennonite community formed by conservative Mennonites who came from Manitoba in the early twentieth century. The author's thesis, that a harsh desert environment plays a central role in supporting religious patriarchy, particularly the subjugation of women, proves elusive. Her field research is directed toward exposing patriarchy in the two Mormon communities, the Old Colony Mennonites serving mainly for comparison. Overall, the reviewers find that while Bennion's writing style is easy to follow and the information interesting, Desert Patriarchy presents so many factual and methodological problems that it is unlikely to further our knowledge. It is difficult to fathom how ethnographer could expect to conduct significant and sensitive field research on three different groups in one summer, yet this our author did, in 1999, assisted by three undergraduate anthropology students. Through interviews and participant observation with a limited number of individuals, Bennion forges idiosyncratic that is written, as Bennion notes, using the self-reflexive ?,' to help the reader understand the components of the communities studied and the factors involved in their adaptation to desert (xiii). She presents herself as both anthropologist and outsider. As she puts it, am posing here as the interpreter of the culture, offering my own vision of what I saw based on my experiences with the natives (xii) while claiming a heavy reliance on the natives' voices, through narrative (xi) . It is not clear to the reader what the communities and individuals Bennion studied were told about her public interpretation of their lives and motives. Her descriptive commentary may be intended to give voice to her field consultants, but it seems overwhelmingly to reflect her own impressions. Some quite complex cultural situations and dynamics are too sweepingly summed up. Critical insights into communities are often left hanging, with litde to substantiate them, and at times they almost appear to communicate a lack of respect for the people being studied. While Bennion claims to be insider in the Mormon faith, she makes too many doctrinal and cultural mistakes to be considered insider by active members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon). A temple is not used, as she claims, for Sunday worship (118); a widower marrying again does not call his wife his handmaid (115); marrying into certain families does not provide an instant place in the kingdom in this life or the next (112). The church views the Saints in Colonia Juarez as it does Latter-clay Saints elsewhere in the world - not as fanatical or lhe most devoted and valiant (120). As to Colonia LeBaron, the author devotes much time to its religious doctrine, but fails to say that the people who live there are not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. …