Pancho Villa Research Articles

Was postdevelopment too much? Autonomous struggle, academic coloniality & the radical roots of the pluriverse

ABSTRACT Where did postdevelopment thought go? Was its anti-development message too much for academia? While acknowledging some overlap between postdevelopment and mainstream academic decolonial thought, we argue that postdevelopment, and its conceptualization of the pluriverse directly challenges extractivism, statism, and capitalism or, in a word, development. After discussing aspects of mainstream decolonial thought, seven main points of postdevelopment criticism are reviewed and debunked. We demonstrate that resistance and ‘attack’ are enduring feature of postdevelopment praxis from the Zapatistas to the countless other (socio)ecological struggles across the world. Responding to critique, this article presents three postdevelopment practices: the Organización Popular Francisco Villa de Izquierda Independiente (OPFVII) in the Acapatzingo community, Mexico City; the Zone-to-Defend (Zone à Défendre, ZAD) concept formalized in France; and the Global Tapestry of Alternatives (GTA) initiative. The conclusion stresses the importance of postdevelopment and a pluriverse working towards anti-capitalism/statism/extractivism/patriarchal world to avoid (neo)colonial recuperations of anti-colonial/statist struggle.

José Antonio Villarreal and Pocho: A Mexican American Novel and Its Tragic Plot by Roberto Cantú

Reviewed by: José Antonio Villarreal and Pocho: A Mexican American Novel and Its Tragic Plot by Roberto Cantú Rosaura Sánchez and Beatrice Pita ROBERTO CANTÚ José Antonio Villarreal and Pocho: A Mexican American Novel and Its Tragic Plot Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. Cambridge Scholars. 2022. 131 pages. IN THIS MONOGRAPH, Roberto Cantú critically revisits José Antonio Villarreal's novel Pocho some sixty years after its publication and scrutinizes it with an acute critical lens to note the work's literary continuities and discontinuities with respect to what would subsequently become Chicano literary production and literature more broadly in the United States. He reevaluates the novel to situate and recalibrate its place in Chicano/a letters. Cantú counters negative takes by some Chicano critics of Pocho, underscoring their lack of sensibility and understanding of Villarreal's bildungsroman and the particular aesthetic, philosophical, and existentialist concerns therein. As Ramón Saldívar notes in his work on Chicano Narrative, Villarreal's novel Pocho "has always been somewhat of an embarrassment to Chicanos," who decry the assimilationist tendencies of the narrative. Beyond what may be critiqued as an assimilationist bent, however, what is clear is that the novel provides a highly individualist, male-centered perspective—a trait shared with a good many Chicano novels of the 1960s and [End Page 93] early 1970s. Angie Chabram-Dernersesian observes that cultural nationalist narratives are marked by the saliency of a Chicano male subject imbued with a hypermasculinist patriarchal ideology in which male privilege goes unchecked. Likewise remarkable is that although Villarreal rejected being identified as a Chicano and having his work included as part of what he considered minor if not inferior Chicano literature, his novel closely follows similar Chicano narrative motifs: a glorification of Mexican Revolution heroes like Pancho Villa, and a celebration of a womanizing figure like the main character's father, Juan Rubio. Cantú's intervention focuses on countering negative critiques of Villarreal's novel by tracing the process of individuation in the work, rather than by, for example, noting the absence of a collective community perspective. Cantú presents the "identity quest" of Richard, the main character, not as an ethnic or political quest but as an individualist drive to deal with the intersection and mystery of sexuality, religion, and history in the protagonist's lived experience. For Cantú, Villarreal presents Richard as an individual, neither a follower nor a leader; his struggle is uniquely his. Villarreal's work is not oppositional or resistant in conception; he is much more centered on subject formation and individual agency. Cantú celebrates what he terms Villarreal's "stagecraft," his "constant and ingenious" experimentation with form, highlighting the novel's innovative-for-then fragmented structure, as it moves from a temporal/spatial division in its focus first on Juan Rubio's participation in the Mexican Revolution in the early twentieth century and later on the mid-twentieth-century plot concerned with the young Richard's life in rural California. Cantú's literary exegesis of the novel and its "tragic plot" deploys a historical-mythical literary lens, thoughtfully referencing the work of classical Greek dramatists and philosophers; more recent European writers such as Nietzsche, Bakhtin, Sartre, and Joyce; and Mexican writers like Juan Rulfo and—perhaps especially—Octavio Paz. Cantú makes clear that the novel draws deeply from Greek mythology, popular culture, and Mexican history. In 1994 Cantú would publish a Spanish translation of Pocho. The classical Greek motif of tragedy allows Cantú to see two parallel plotlines in the novel's fragmented structure, that of the father and that of the son. The novel is read as a tragic Mexican American family drama, comparable to the Greek struggle involving Dionysus vis-à-vis Apollo. Following Nietzsche's designation of these two central principles in Greek culture, Cantú notes the contradictory tensions within the Rubio family and within the broader community. More specifically, the tragedy in the novel will be linked to the dissolution of the Rubio marriage; the tragedy centers on patriarchy, not a critique of it, but a lament, as it were, of the upheaval resulting from the questioning of male privilege. Cantú, for example, suggests that the mother/wife Consuelo "miscalculates" and plots against...

Toward a Poetics of Chile…in Another Mexico

Research Article| February 01 2023 Toward a Poetics of Chile…in Another Mexico Victor Valle Victor Valle Victor Valle, an emeritus Cal Poly San Luis Obispo professor and former Los Angeles Times Pulitzer Prize winner, writes from those places where food, urbanism, and literature overlap, even when it’s a story about white-collar crime (City of Industry: Genealogies of Power in Southern California, Rutgers University Press, 2009). Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Gastronomica (2023) 23 (1): 65–76. https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2023.23.1.65 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review PDF Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Guest Access Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Victor Valle; Toward a Poetics of Chile…in Another Mexico. Gastronomica 1 February 2023; 23 (1): 65–76. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2023.23.1.65 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentGastronomica Search It snuck up from behind me—that whiff of smoldering weeds, and then the tickle that comes just before coughing. A breeze had again wafted that charred aroma to the middle of the street, all the way from the kitchen window my mom had opened to vent the smoke of chile de árbol pods twisting like burgundy claws on her cast iron griddle. Standing arms-length from her griddle she used as a comal for baking tortillas and toasting spices, she held a dishcloth over mouth and nose to protect herself from fumes strong enough to drive pets away. I did not need to see that scene to see it, or hear my grandfather’s voice to imagine men staggering, choking on the chile bushes Francisco Villa’s troops burned just inside the cave’s mouth to smoke out his enemies. In the distance, I saw a firing squad, a puff of smoke, and men... Send Email Recipient(s) will receive an email with a link to 'Toward a Poetics of Chile…in Another Mexico' and will not need an account to access the content. *Your Name: *Your Email Address: CC: *Recipient 1: Recipient 2: Recipient 3: Recipient 4: Recipient 5: Subject: Toward a Poetics of Chile…in Another Mexico Optional Message: (Optional message may have a maximum of 1000 characters.) Submit ×

Women in Battle

The 1910 Mexican Revolution began in protest against Mexican President Porfirio Diaz's dictatorship, unequal land distributions, and economic inequality. Split between the Diaz’s Federal army and the Rebels, led by Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata. Considered to be one of the most important events in modern Mexican history, the war glorified the men that fought for their country. Yet, some of the most important members were the women of the Mexican Revolution. Split into two groups, some women worked as camp-followers, Soldaderas, and others joined their male counterparts in the fight, known as Soldadas. Many of the women joined willingly to be with their husbands or for the opportunity of work and freedom, but many were forcibly taken and made to become soldaderas. The roles of the women of the Mexican Revolution were so prominent that their image was twisted in a way that romanticized and sexualized them to promote Mexican Machismo and Mexican Pride. It is the intention of this paper to explore the significant roles that the soldaderas played during the Revolutionary War.

Prelude to the Columbus Raid of 1916: The Battle of Naco

Prelude to the Columbus Raid of 1916: The Battle of Naco Heribert von Feilitzsch (bio) When “constitutionalist” revolutionaries ousted the Mexican dictator Victoriano Huerta in July 1914, the political situation in Mexico was far from stable. The rivalry between the victorious Mexican rebel commanders Pancho Villa and Venustiano Carranza coincided with the outbreak of World War I. Because of its oil wealth and proximity to the United States, Mexico became a strategic interest in the war. German agents, most notably Felix A. Sommerfeld, Dr. Arnold Krumm-Heller, and Frederico Stallforth, infiltrated the inner circles of the Villa and Carranza factions, as well as the large community of exiled Mexican leaders.1 In the fall and winter of 1914, the imperial German government had not yet decided upon a strategy to use the unsettled political situation in Mexico against the United States. However, as the United States began supplying Germany’s enemies on a massive scale at the beginning of 1915, the German naval intelligence agent Felix Sommerfeld proposed to his German superiors in May to single-handedly create an American military intervention in Mexico.2 Sommerfeld argued that the intervention would cause the American military to consume arms and munitions for its own forces, thus curbing the exploding exportation of military supplies to Germany’s enemies. American military operations along the border with or within Mexico would have also limited the United States to actively participate in the European war on the side of the Allies. Sommerfeld stated to the former German colonial minister turned propaganda chief in Washington, D.C., Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, that he, Sommerfeld, had had the chance to create such an intervention in the winter of 1914–1915, at the height of the border tensions between the U.S. and Mexico at Naco, Arizona.3 The only reason he refrained, declared the agent, was that he was unsure of German intentions. Dernburg wrote to Admiral Henning von Holtzendorff, “Felix A. Sommerfeld had misgivings at the time to force an intervention through [End Page 473] General Villa since he did not know the intentions of Germany towards the United States.”4 Historians have indeed overlooked Sommerfeld’s central role in the standoff at Naco.5 He used his connections to the highest echelons of the U.S. government as well as his status as Pancho Villa’s representative in the United States to precipitate the end to the crisis. One year later, between January and June 1916, after the German government had accepted Sommerfeld’s offer to create a U.S. military intervention in Mexico, the German agent used his experience and connections from Naco to the opposite effect, namely to bring the two countries to the brink of war.6 After the ouster of the common enemy Victoriano Huerta in the middle of July 1914, the rivalry between Pancho Villa and Venustiano Carranza ignited later in the summer of that year.7 The revolutionary factions in Mexico split along several political lines. Pancho Villa, now at the zenith of his power, commanded the largest army of the revolution. Although he personally had no interest in becoming president of Mexico, Villa deeply mistrusted Venustiano Carranza’s commitment to land reform, redistribution of wealth, and constitutional government.8 In 1914, the governor of Sonora, José Maria Maytorena, aligned himself with the fortunes of Pancho Villa against Carranza’s regime.9 The large northern Mexican state played a critical strategic role in the renewed civil war because of the proximity to the United States. Maytorena was less a military man than a cunning political boss.10 After Victoriano Huerta toppled President Francisco Madero in February 1913, Maytorena declared himself against the usurper. He did not await the fate of his colleague in Chihuahua, Governor Abraham González, who was brutally murdered by Huerta’s henchmen. Rather, Maytorena fled to Tucson, Arizona, and from there to Los Angeles. He returned to Sonora in July 1913 and reclaimed the governorship after the forces of Álvaro Obregón liberated Chihuahua from Huertista control. Widely regarded among revolutionaries as a coward, the Sonoran politico now depended largely on the military power of Obregón’s army. Even while in exile the governor only...

Militarized interstate manhunts, “absent/presence” and the spectral logic of the U.S. war on terror: The Ballad of Pancho and Bin Laden

The decade-long search for Osama bin Laden—in which a manhunt was conducted as part of a full-scale war—was a watershed moment for US foreign policy in the twenty-first Century. Bin Laden was not simply elusive, but ephemerally ghost-like. Similar Militarized Interstate Manhunts (MIMs) are also deeply ingrained in the security politics of the US at its Southwestern border. Specifically, the militarized cross-border pursuits of Pancho Villa in the 1910s and The Apache Kid in the 1890s, serve as analogs to the “War on Terror,” especially regarding the allegedly-novel chasing of “ghostly” targets. Building on Jacques Derrida, we explore the role of an “absent/presence” by analyzing the claims of the ghostliness of the target in the context of concurrent claims about the unprecedented nature of events. These cases highlight the importance of the “absent/presence” in making military manhunts thinkable, and explain how the pursuit of “spectral” bodies authorizes exceptional military acts that would otherwise be violations of state sovereignty.

The Mexican Revolution's Wake: The Making of a Political System, 1920–1929

The Mexican Revolution's Wake: The Making of a Political System, 1920–1929

“A True Newspaper Woman”: The Career of Sadie Kneller Miller

ABSTRACT This article examines the life and career of Sadie Kneller Miller, a journalist who enjoyed a thirty-year career as a baseball reporter, national and international correspondent, and photojournalist at the turn of the twentieth century. Her many accomplishments include being one of the first women to cover a sports beat for a newspaper, covering armed conflicts in Spanish-controlled Morocco, and obtaining exclusive interviews with figures such as Pancho Villa. Miller’s career was also distinct in several important ways from those of most women journalists of her time, particularly in how she negotiated her professional ambitions with traditional gender roles. Miller earned a prominent contemporary reputation and left behind a rich collection of print and visual journalism, but her career has largely been lost to posterity. Using an unexplored and unprocessed archival collection, this article reconstructs Miller’s career, emphasizing her most significant work in each journalistic function she performed, and shows the ways Miller both challenged and conformed to norms and expectations of women journalists of the period.

Selling Mexico’s Robin Hood: Pancho Villa and His Public Relations Campaign to Target the Press and Public Opinion

Francisco “Pancho” Villa was not just a military general or quasi-politician, but also a practitioner of public relations. By close observation of his actions and words, as recorded by primary sources, this study explores his strategies and tactics to build support among three specifically targeted audiences: the people of Mexico, American war correspondents, and the people of the United States. By examining secondary literature about public relations and about Pancho Villa’s life, this study finds evidence of his practicing public relations as we understand it today. This analysis is enriched through the use of primary documents from the archives of Byron C. Utecht at the University of Texas at Arlington, who interviewed and observed Villa.

Return of Los Navarros: Championship Edition

Return of Los Navarros: Championship Edition Enrique Calzada Varela (bio) “Oh! There’s a right hook! Followed by a straight shot to the kidneys.” “That one right there hurt him, Jim,” adds Clide “the Junkyard Dog” Brown, the ex-heavyweight-champ-of-the-world-turned-analyst for the network. The announcer of the fight, Jim Limply, continues berating the airwaves like the berated belly of the contender. “El Charro is hurt!” shouts Jim into the microphone like a hungry impatient patron yells into a malfunctioning drive-thru intercom. “Left, left, right to the body! Williams is pouring it on now!” “El Charro is in trouble. The punches are getting through his defense,” says the Junkyard Dog. “There’s a cut on El Charro’s eyebrow now! He’s absorbing tremendous shots,” adds Jim passionately. “He needs to get off the ropes if he plans on sticking around, Jim,” interjects the Junkyard Dog. “Right hook to the jaw. El Charro is stunned! Left, straight right, right hook to the face!” Miguel El Charro Navarro is on the ropes. Literally. He’s been losing the bout since the bell rang way back in the first round. He has two rounds left to turn it around. His dream of becoming the undisputed middleweight champion of the world, like his long-deceased grandfather, flees with every punch he receives. El Charro leans back on the ropes and bounces on them like a swinging punching bag as he attempts to dodge the barrage of fists flying his way. Another shot catches his temple. Then another one finds its mark on his left cheek. His face is red and getting swollen. Blood from his eyebrow splatters in all directions with every punch landed on his cut. “El Charro is helpless to stop the shots from middleweight champ of the world Williams! He’s pouring it on! Ten seconds left! There’s the bell. Saved by the bell! What action! What a round for Williams! This is what championship boxing is all about!” Jim enthusiastically relays to the TV audience. [End Page 220] “El Charro is losing this fight,” adds the ex-champ. El Charro lowers his gloves from the front of his face. He hesitantly breaks his defensive stance and, like a frightened turtle peeking out from its shell, lifts his head to see if the coast is clear. He sees his trainer Chucho Martinez chaotically waving him back to his corner with a bloody white towel. Step by wobbly step, like a borracho on his third bottle of mescal, he staggers back to his corner and collapses onto the small wooden stool awaiting him. Williams jogs back to the opposite corner like a smug blonde who has just completed a five-minute mile. He gracefully takes a seat on his little wooden stool too. His trainer and a cut man surround him paparazzi-style. Splashes of cold water flung from Chucho’s cupped palm hit El Charro’s chest and face in a futile attempt by his trainer to pull him back into the moment. “Despiértate, carajo!” his trainer yells at his face. El Charro only shows hints of life when cold water is run down his trousers by his cut man Egoriño. Egoriño is a hunched old man of 101 with surprisingly thick, slicked-back white hair for his age. He was also his grandfather’s spit-bucket holder as a kid. Miguel, before he became El Charro, used to ask Egoriño, repeatedly, to retell him the stories of his grandpa’s fights. He used to like to hear the stories of how his great-grandpa fought in the Mexican revolution by day alongside Pancho Villa and how he fought the toughest boxers in all the land by night. He was a raider of government palaces, a plunderer of corrupt money, an arsonist of military strongholds, and a ravager of the boxers. ________ “Así empezó,” Egoriño would often start his stories. “Peleándose con los hombres de su banda. Después de la guerra, encontró éxito en el cuadrilátero, como lo había encontrado en la sierra.” If not for Egoriño’s stories, Miguel, El Charro, wouldn...

Agronomic evaluation of corn (Zea mays L.) genotypes in the warm dry region of Chiapas, Mexico

Objective. To evaluate the agronomic behavior of corn (Zea mays L.) experimental genotypes in three contrasting environments in the Central region of Chiapas, Mexico. Design / methodology / approach. The experiments took place during the 2016 spring-summer agricultural cycle at Francisco Villa, Villaflores (730 m); San Luis, Suchiapa (600 m) and Ocozocoautla (800 m), at the Central region in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. At the three assessed sites, the climate is warm subhumid with rains in summer and intra-stival drought during the second half of July and the first half of August. The genotypes XT-5614, XT-3402, XT-5610, XT-5612, XT-5627, and BG7415W from the Biogene Company were evaluated, which are used in commercial crops at the Center of Chiapas. All genotypes showed viability greater than 90%. Three experimental sites were evaluated, in a randomized complete block design with four replications. The experimental unit consisted of four 5 m long rows 0.8 m apart. The useful plot was formed by two central furrows. The evaluated variables were: days to male flowering (DMF), days to female flowering (DFF), plant height (PH), cob height (CH), cob length (CL), cob diameter (CD), rows per cob (RC), grains per row and grain yield (YLD) at 14% moisture. These were analyzed with an analysis of variance (ANOVA) and for the genotype x environment interaction (GEI) the additive main effects and multiplicative interaction model (AMMI) were used, with the SAS statistical software and the GEA-R software. Results: The combined analysis of variance detected differences between genotypes (G) for most of the variables except in grains per row. and days to male and female flowering; there were significant differences between environments (A) for all variables, while for the GEI, there were significant differences for the number of rows per cob. The CV was 1.26 (DFF) at 10% (YLD), which indicates an acceptable control (<20%) of the experimental variability. The results indicated genetic variation between evaluated genotypes, which allows the selection of the most outstanding ones. The evaluation environments showed differential effects and this condition is necessary for the evaluation of germplasm for a genetic improvement process. Study limitations/implications: Cob height registered acceptable values given that short plants favor rotting in hot climates when weeds are present before harvest. The flowering of the genotypes was considered acceptable and was earlier (55 d) at the Suchiapa site. Findings/conclusions: Among the assessed genotypes there were significant differences for grain yield, plant height, cob height, cob length and the number of rows; the genotype-by-environment interaction was not significant. The XT 5627 and XT 5610 genotypes showed higher stability, and the former showed higher grain yield. The highest yields were recorded in the environment from Francisco Villa, Villaflores, at the Frailesca region, Chiapas.

Las lecciones de Fernando de Fuentes

Ensayo sobre de uno de los precursores del cine mexicano de llamada “Época de Oro”, Fernando de Fuentes, formado en la clase media ilustrada del porfiriato, deviene es uno de los más agudos críticos de la Revolución Mexicana que busca con sus temas definir en el cine “lo mexicano”, de manera paralela a lo que se hacía en la pintura o en la literatura. Destacan entre sus cintas Prisionero 13, ¡Vámonos con pancho Villa! y El compadre Mendoza. El autor de este artículo fue uno de los más destacados analistas del cine mexicano.

DIVERSIDAD DE HONGOS QUERATINOFÍLICOS EN SUELOS DE CLIMAS CÁLIDOS DE MÉXICO

<p><strong>Background. </strong>Soil constitutes the main reservoir of microorganisms, as well as the greatest source of biological diversity, a group of organisms abundant in the soil are fungi, which can perform various functions, and can exist in any type of environment, including warm ecosystems. The keratinophilic fungi group etiological agents of human dermatomycosis (dermatophytes and non-dermatophytes) that are established in the main causes of dermatological consultation in Mexico. <strong>Methodology. </strong>In order to determine the diversity of this group of fungi, soil sampling was carried out in the regions: Cerro de las Noas de Torreón, Coahuila (TC) and in the Francisco Villa community of Iguala de la Independencia, Guerrero (GUE); for the isolation and identification of keratinophilic microorganisms, the Vanbreuseghem keratin hook technique, microcultures and biochemical tests were used. On the other hand, soil pH was determined. The ecological determinations applied were the Shannon H index and the Sorensen CC index. <strong>Results. </strong>From the total of samples obtained (9) in TC 44% (4) was positive for dermatophytes, 88.9% (8) for non-dermatophytic keratinophilic fungi of which <em>Chrysosporium</em> was dominant and 55.6% (5) for actinomycetes, while, in GU of the 9 samples obtained in 55.6% (5) of these were identified dermatophytes, In 100% (9) non-dermatophytic keratinophilic fungi dominating <em>Fusarium</em> and <em>Chaetomium</em> and in 1% (1) actinomycetes. The pH value of soil samples on CT was 7.6 and 7.5 in GU. The Shannon diversity for TC H: 2.13 and for GU H: 2.49. The Sorensen index reported a CC: 68% similarity between the two communities. <strong>Conclusion. </strong>According to the results obtained it can be seen that the diversity of keratinophilic fungi etiological agents of dermatomycosis is dominated by non-dermatophytes, observing that despite the environmental differences are able to adapt in various environmental conditions.</p>

Spectatorship at the Border: Watching Pancho Villa From a Safe Distance

Spectatorship at the Border: Watching Pancho Villa From a Safe Distance

Materialidades, géneros y muerte: de cómo representar un episodio de la Revolución Mexicana en Pancho Villa toma Zacatecas

Pancho Villa toma Zacatecas (2013), de Paco Ignacio Taibo II y Eko, recupera la batalla de Zacatecas a través de una narrativa gráfica que se mueve entre lo confesional y lo histórico. Su componente visual se encarga de actualizar diferentes tradiciones artísticas y culturales, y cuyas estéticas establecen referencias directas a la idea de muerte. Asimismo, el uso de estas estéticas, a través de diferentes registros materiales y genéricos, contribuye a representar la revolución como un proceso sistemáticamente truncado en la historia mexicana.

El periódico El Pueblo y la propaganda política carrancista (octubre de 1914 - enero de 1915)

Elementos encontrados en el periódico El Pueblo (octubre de 1914 - enero de 1915) muestran la preparación y explotación de una serie de mensajes por parte del grupo revolucionario carrancista, convertidos en directrices y líneas propagandísticas, con los contenidos adecuados para su difusión. Este grupo conoce la utilidad de la prensa y la usa para atacar sistemáticamente a sus enemigos, defender a sus ejércitos, a sus principales generales y, sobre todo, a su líder. Venustiano Carranza, Primer Jefe del Ejército Constitucionalista, y Francisco Villa, Jefe de los Ejércitos de la Soberana Convención, son actores centrales de este conflicto y de la propaganda política en el diario El Pueblo. Alrededor de sus figuras, antecedentes familiares, educativos, culturales y psicológicos, trayectorias y acciones de gobierno o de armas está centrado el peso de la defensa propagandística de Carranza y la denostación de Villa.

Oportunidades para la innovación de sistemas tradicionales de producción agropecuaria: un análisis socioantropológico retrospectivo

Se identifican los principales cambios históricos (1984-2015) en el manejo de los sistemas productivos de maíz (Zea mays L.), frijol (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) y ganadería bovina (Bos spp.) en la comunidad Francisco Villa I, aledaña a la Reserva de la Biosfera “La Sepultura” (REBISE), Chiapas, México, para encontrar puntos de entrada (oportunidades) a procesos de innovación local. Se utilizó el enfoque socioantropológico y de procesos de innovación social con la metodología de la investigación-acción. Mediante el análisis de discurso y los gráficos de tendencia de las variables estudiadas, se demostró que, con base en el análisis de cambios históricos, existen condiciones locales para emprender nuevos procesos de innovación social que pueden mejorar el desempeño de los sistemas de producción agropecuaria.

From Artistic Artillery to Fully Automated Cultural Production

From Artistic Artillery to Fully Automated Cultural Production Andrew Bentley Esch, Shopie. Modernity at Gunpoint: Firearms, Politics, and Culture in Mexico and Central America. U of Pittsburgh P, 2018. 284 pp. ISBN 13: 978-0-8229-6538-1. Sophie Esch’s excellent study offers an unparalleled approach to weapons to confront modernity and, more generally, culture, across a variety of cultural production and national experiences. With the firearm as an analytical trope, Esch seeks to understand cultural responses to political violence, focusing mostly on Mexico and Nicaragua in the periods of 1910–1920, 1979–1990, and the present day, which mark the Mexican and Sandinista Revolutions and their respective legacies in the twenty-first century. Through copious interpretations of literature, music, art, and photography, her study proves to be an engaging read of the symbolic dimensions of weaponry in contemporary Mexican and Central American cultural production. As Esch does well to point out, narratives of war and revolution largely center on people, dates, and cultural histories of places, rather than weapons as the focal point of the modernity enterprise. This occurs both in terms of the development of the nation-state and the neoliberal logic of today’s market economies, such as those that govern narcotrafficking. Thus, her mission is to highlight the firearm’s functional value in violent acts, its commodification and economic value, and, perhaps most importantly, its traumatic echoes. The lucid introduction details the history of the firearm, offering an exhaustive overview of the links between human development and war technology. Esch persuasively challenges the mere categorization of the functional value of firearms to harm and kill, extending her look to their performative significance and firmly situating the discussion of weaponry in the realm of the humanities. Aside from providing an intricate history of arms distribution in Latin America, with weapons from Germany, the Soviet Union, the United States, and later Cuba figuring significantly into the social landscape, she highlights the advent of trains and urban development as other key features of modernity in the region. Further technological advancement and the later introduction of the AK-47, of course, distinguishes the Mexican and Sandinista Revolutions, as well as the Central American armed conflicts, which reached their zeniths in the 1980s. Nevertheless, she lays bare the intrinsic links between Mexico and Central America, which, aside from their proximity [End Page 171] to the United States and each other, are manifested in the fact that guerrilla fighters from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua fled to Mexico in large numbers. Furthermore, leftover weapons from these Central American countries are now props in the Mexican drug war, which shows how “the region still operates under the sign of the rifle” (14), even as Cold War politics recede further into the past. Additionally, Esch resists the Spivakian notion that the subaltern cannot speak, arguing that they do speak when they carry the rifle, even more so when their narratives circulate through cultural production, thus solidifying their images in history. Esch opens the first chapter of her book with a discussion of how men became visible in the political arena of the Mexican Revolution, with the firearm constituting “the prosthesis for citizenship, not de jure but de facto” (48). She also delves into an in-depth analysis of feminine perspectives on the Revolution, as evidenced by Nellie Campobello’s semi-autobiographical 1931 short novel Cartucho. While weaponry is at the fore of the novel set in Chihuahua, Esch also reflects upon such scenes as a dead body left to rot in front of the girl’s home as exemplary of the humanization of war victims, in addition to infantile and maternal gazes on the revolution. Chapter Two displays a symmetry with the first in that it continues the discussion of the Mexican Revolution, this time from the viewpoints of a letrado protagonist and the rebel leader Pancho Villa in an earlier text. The author contrasts sharply with existing criticism of Martín Luis Guzmán’s 1928 novel El águila y la serpiente, which often argues that the novel enforces the civilization/barbarism dichotomy so prevalent in Latin American cultural thought, opining that it documents the implosion of this binary. This notion is...

Lessons From America’s First ‘Professor President,’ Woodrow Wilson, for America’s Second ‘Professor President’ (Whenever That May Be)

Of all American Presidents, Woodrow (PhD 1886, Johns Hopkins; lecturer and professor for 24 years, 1886-1910, at Cornell, Bryn Mawr, Wesleyan, New York University, Princeton) is the only one who had been a career academic, professorial intellectual prior to entering politics; and his-pre-Presidential electoral political career was only two years (Governor of New Jersey) prior to assuming the Presidency. While other persons have been elected after having served short-terms as professors, Woodrow was America’s first, and so far only, real “Professor President.” Examining American politics as we approach the elections of November, 2018, we have seen the American electorate turn against both career politicians, and, in the accusations surrounding Republican Trump, a turn against individuals wealthy from investments. Considering that wealth from investments enriches many leading Democrats, this is an issue that affects not only Trump’s Republican Party, but also the Democratic Party. Thus the American people may find it wise to put into the Presidency a person whose life proves a character that has neither a desire for personal vast power, nor a desire for personal vast wealth. Such a person might well be a career – as Woodrow was. As we peer forward past the 2018 elections into the 2020 Presidential campaign year, and to subsequent election years, the most electable Presidential candidate likely will be found in the ranks of today’s Professors, to become America’s second “Professor President,” after the first one, Woodrow Wilson. In two prior papers on SSRN, the author has examined Professor President Wilson's conduct at the end of World War I. This present paper examines many actions by the from the outset of his Administration, including: 1913, March 18: Refuses to Commit the United States to Interfere in the New Republic of China Despite the Request of American Investors. 1913, April 6: Welcomes the New Republic of China “Into the Family of Nations.” 1913, October 27: Declares Policy Limitations on the Use of American Military Power, Which Continue Today, More Than 100 Years Later. 1914, April 6: Apologizes to Colombia for T. Roosevelt’s Actions Regarding Panama, and Offers to Pay Colombia $25 Million; T. Roosevelt Prevents Senate Ratification of the Treaty Throughout Wilson’s Admin-istration Because Refuses to Withdraw the Words of Apology. 1914, April 9: Restoring Democracy in Mexico Wrecked by Taft: Tampico, Veracruz, and Mexican Dictator Huerta’s Arms-Ship the Ipiranga. 1914, August: 59 Million English-Speaking People and 252 Million People of India – More Than 300 Million People – Are Put to War by British King-Emperor George V, Without Those 300 Million People Having Any Vote. 1916, June: Americans Invade Mexico Because Pancho Villa Invaded the U.S. 1917, April: Popularity Among Americans for Fighting in World War I. 1917, May: Communicating to Americans Reasons to Fight, and for the Draft. 1917, May: Ruins His Chance to Promote Democracy in Russia After the Abdication of the Czar, Serving Britain and France, But Leaving Democracy in Russia Vulnerable to 1917, October: Lenin the Bolshevik/Communist, Now In Charge of Russia, Implements His Long-Planned Mass-Murder Program to Create Mass Terror. 1918, September: Documents Purportedly from the Bolsheviks/Communists. 1919 Postscript: Why a Popular War Led America to Dislike War. More than half the paper is in the section Wilson Ruins His Chance to Promote Democracy in Russia After the Abdication of the Czar, Serving Britain and France, But Leaving Democracy in Russia Vulnerable to Lenin. This is a study in how to promote democracy in previously anti-democratic cultures - and how to ruin the chance, through misjudgments and temptations to be too supportive of yet other cultures, that are not inclined to promote democracy anywhere else. Throughout the paper, the focus is on lessons that America's second Professor President can learn from America's first Professor President. The paper examines Wilson's admirable ideals, and his often-flawed efforts to implement those ideals. Also noted periodically is how Wilson's true protege, Franklin Roosevelt, kept all the ideals, and, having learned from his mentor's implementation errors, found a way to bring to reality what Woodrow envisioned but was unable to make real.

Celluloid Pueblo: Western Ways Films and the Invention of the Southwest by Jennifer L. Jenkins

Reviewed by: Celluloid Pueblo: Western Ways Films and the Invention of the Postwar Southwest by Jennifer L. Jenkins George Porter Thomas Jennifer L. Jenkins, Celluloid Pueblo: Western Ways Films and the Invention of the Postwar Southwest. Tucson: U of Arizona P, 2016. 227 pp. Cloth, $45. Celluloid Pueblo begins with an account of every researcher's dream: Jennifer L. Jenkins's discovery, along with archivists at the Arizona Historical Society, of a trove of uncatalogued silver nitrate films "spliced with masking tape, scotch tape, and, in one case, an archival Band-Aid" (xi). The films, now restored, were shot by the husband and wife team of Charles and Lucile Herbert in Arizona between the 1920s and 1960s; they represent "a time capsule . . . of the Arizona borderlands" with depictions of tourism, landscape, and local communities during a crucial era in the region's development (5). Jenkins has a keen eye for cinematic and ethnographic complexity; she demonstrates both the documentary significance of the films and their complex engagements with perspective, performance, and power. The Western Ways archive (Jenkins names it after the Herberts' Tucson studio) is full of memorable images that transcend western archetypes to reveal a layered complexity: the Grand Canyon, filmed through the window of a Ford Tri-Motor in 1929, takes on a mechanized sublime unavailable to the nineteenth century; two Mexican American cowboys herd cattle along a border that is still an unmarked abstraction, calling to each other in scripted English; a group of Indian children at a mission school boldly reverse the camera's gaze; a Navajo silversmith, frustrated with a pair of tourists pretending to buy a bracelet for the sake of the camera, tells them (and, perhaps, us) in untranslated Diné that "you are lying" (58); in a particularly surreal sequence, a pair of cowgirls ride their horses on the streets of downtown Tucson in 1950 to participate in the postwar consumer boom. [End Page 453] The best chapter, "Framing Race in the Arizona Borderlands," explores a pair of Herbert films about Native communities in southern Arizona filmed on either side of World War II. In a film called Last of the Indian Scouts (1940), contemporary Apache scouts stationed at Fort Huachuca dress up in mock tribal uniforms and reenact their unit's participation in the 1916 Punitive Expedition against Pancho Villa. The expedition involved several hundred buffalo soldiers; in 1940, when the Herberts filmed their reenactments, there were still Black soldiers stationed at Fort Huachuca. We watch the spectacle of Blacks, themselves to some extent still performing Americanness in a still-segregated army, watching the spectacle of enlisted Indian soldiers performing what Jenkins calls "Indianness" (92), all during a reenactment of an invasion of Mexico. Jenkins argues convincingly that the film represents a "double meditation" on racial performativity, in which "the [Indian] Scouts clearly both adapt and challenge contemporary models of Indian identity" (98). Ideally, Celluloid Pueblo would contain a more penetrating account of how the Western Ways films challenge or change our perception of Arizona and northern Mexico; the book does not always attend to its subtitle, The Invention of the Southwest. However, Jenkins certainly accomplishes her main purpose in outlining the value and import of the Herbert archive. Furthermore, as she herself reminds us, her provocative readings of ten of these films just scratch the surface: there are one hundred and thirteen extant reels, many of which will surely warrant further study. This book (including its filmography) provides an excellent account of a new and important archive and will be valuable to students of Southwestern history, border studies, Native American studies, and documentary film. [End Page 454] Erratum An earlier version of this review was published with the book title erroneously listed as Celluloid Pueblo: Western Ways Films and the Invention of the Southwest. George Porter Thomas University of California, Davis Copyright © 2018 Western Literature Association