Peasant and nation: the making of postcolonial Mexico and Peru 9780520085053, 9780520914674, 9780520085046

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
List of Maps (page xiii)
Preface (page xv)
Acknowledgments (page xxi)
1 Political History from Below: Hegemony, the State, and Nationalist Discourses (page 1)
PART 1 INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES, NATIONAL GUARDS, AND THE LIBERAL REVOLUTION IN THE SIERRA NORTE DE PUEBLA
2 Contested Citizenship (1): Liberals, Conservatives, and Indigenous National Guards, 1850-1867 (page 23)
3 The Conflictual Construction of Community: Gender, Ethnicity, and Hegemony (page 63)
4 Alternative Nationalisms and Hegemonic Discourses: Peasant Visions of the Nation (page 89)
PART 2 COMMUNAL HEGEMONY AND NATIONALIST DISCOURSES IN MEXICO AND PERU
5 Contested Citizenship (2): Regional Political Cultures, Peasant Visions of the Nation, and the Liberal Revolution in Morelos (page 137)
6 From Citizen to Other: National Resistance, State Formation, and Peasant Visions of the Nation in Junín (page 176)
7 Communal Hegemony and Alternative Nationalisms: Historical Contingencies and Limiting Cases (page 220)
PART 3 ALTERNATIVE NATIONAL PROJECTS AND THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE STATE
8 The Intricacies of Coercion: Popular Political Cultures, Repression, and the Failure of Hegemony (page 247)
9 Whose Bones Are They, Anyway, and Who Gets to Decide? Local Intellectuals, Hegemony, and Counterhegemony in National Politics (page 276)
10 Popular Nationalism and Statemaking in Mexico and Peru: The Deconstruction of Community and Popular Culture (page 310)
Notes (page 331)
Index (page 451)

Citation preview

Peasant and Nation

A CENTENNIAL BOOK One hundred books :

published between 1990 and 1995 bear this special imprint of the University of California Press. We have chosen each Centennial Book as an example of the Press's finest publishing and bookmaking traditions as we celebrate the beginning of

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Founded in 1893

Peasant and Nation The Making of Postcolonial Mexico and Peru FLORENCIA E. MALLON

University of California Press

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England

© 1995 by the Regents of the University of California A different version of the materials contained in chapter 3 appears in Heather Fowler Salamini and Mary Kay Vaughan, eds., Creating Spaces, Shaping Transition: Women of the Mexican Countryside, 1850-1990 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1994). The materials on Cajamarca contained in chapter 7 appeared earlier in Steve J. Stern, ed., Resistance, Rebellion, and Consciousness in the

Andean Peasant World, Eighteenth to Twentieth Centuries (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987). Sections of the arguments in chapters 1, 3, 4, and 9 appear in a different formulation in Gilbert Joseph and Daniel Nugent, Everyday Forms of State Formation: Revolution and the Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico (Durham: Duke University Press, 1994). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mallon, Florencia E., 1951Peasant and nation : the making of postcolonial Mexico and Peru / Florencia E. Mallon

p. cm. “A Centennial Book”—P. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-520-08504-3 (alk. paper). — ISBN 0-520-08505-1 (alk. paper ; pbk.) 1. Mexico—Politics and government—19th century. 2. Peru—Politics and government—1829-1919. 3. Peasantry—Mexico—History—19th century.

4. Peasantry—Peru—History—19th century. 5. Political culture—Mexico—History—19th century. 6. Political culture—Peru—History—19th century. 7. Nationalism—Mexico—History—19th century. 8. Nationalism—Peru—History—19th century. I. Title.

F1231.5.M34 1995

972’.04—dc20 93-34677 CIP

Printed in the United States of America

987654 3

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

For Steve, enduring source of inspiration; and

for Ramon and Ralph, who root me to each unfolding day.

When you play the fiddle at the top of the state, what else is to be expected but that those down below dance? Karl Marx There are many stories, Both old and new; What is true? Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the contribution provided by the General Endowment Fund of the Associates of the University of California Press.

List of Maps xiii Preface XV

Acknowledgments Xxi 1 Political History from Below: Hegemony,

the State, and Nationalist Discourses 1 PART 1 INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES, NATIONAL GUARDS, AND THE LIBERAL REVOLUTION IN THE SIERRA NORTE DE PUEBLA

2 Contested Citizenship (1): Liberals, Conservatives,

and Indigenous National Guards, 1850-1867 23 3. The Conflictual Construction of Community:

Gender, Ethnicity, and Hegemony 63 4 Alternative Nationalisms and Hegemonic

Discourses: Peasant Visions of the Nation 89 PART 2 COMMUNAL HEGEMONY AND NATIONALIST DISCOURSES IN MEXICO AND PERU

5 Contested Citizenship (2): Regional Political Cultures, Peasant Visions of the Nation,

and the Liberal Revolution in Morelos 137 6 From Citizen to Other: National Resistance, State Formation, and Peasant Visions of the

Nation in Junin 176

7 Communal Hegemony and Alternative Nationalisms: Historical Contingencies

and Limiting Cases 220 PART 3. ALTERNATIVE NATIONAL PROJECTS AND THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE STATE

8 The Intricacies of Coercion: Popular Political Cultures, Repression, and the Failure

of Hegemony 247

xii / Contents 9 Whose Bones Are They, Anyway, and Who Gets to Decide? Local Intellectuals, Hegemony, and Counterhegemony in

National Politics 276

10 Popular Nationalism and Statemaking in Mexico and Peru: The Deconstruction of

Notes 331 Index 451

Community and Popular Culture 310

Maps 1. Mexico and the general area of study Xvi

2. Peru and the general area of study xvii 3. The Sierra Norte de Puebla and environs 24

5. El Sur 146

4. The Sierra Norte de Puebla 26 6. The State of Morelos (Cuernavaca

and Cuautla Morelos districts) 151

7. The Mantaro Valley region and Comas 177 8. The southern Mantaro Valley and Ayacucho 192

9. Areas of guerrilla influence, Cajamarca 231

X11

Preface

This book attempts the comparative archaeology of popular political cultures in Mexico and Peru (see maps 1 and 2), and the reinsertion of those cultures into so-called national political history. Having worked on this project for the past twelve years, I have learned through experience how difficult and daunting such a task can be. Had I known at the outset what I know now, I might well have decided to work on something different. I’m glad I did not know. To bring this book to fruition, I had to accomplish four large tasks beyond the actual comparative archival research. First, I had to learn enough about the historiography of Mexico, a new region for me, to allow me to make a coherent contribution to existing debates. Second, I found I needed to learn

enough about postmodernism and poststructuralism—and their use in the fields of anthropology and literary criticism—so that I might do a credible job of analyzing popular political cultures and discourses. Third, I needed to rethink existing historical and theoretical categories on nationalism and state formation. And fourth, I found it necessary to rethink the art and method of comparison so that it became possible to compare widely differing case studies and types of data. I have accomplished none of these tasks to my own satisfaction. When first engaging the historiography on nineteenth-century Mexico, I felt like a bibliographical extraterrestrial. I often made mistakes because I was not familiar with the region’s most elementary historiographical rules. Sometimes, though, I found that my lack of knowledge could also be a strength. I asked new questions because I was operating from a different set of assumptions, because I had not yet learned the ways of the nineteenth-century Mexicanist. This was not always the best historian’s etiquette, and it has made it more difficult for me to engage effectively or intelligently the work of specialists much more knowledgeable than myself. But it may be easier for neophytes to ask fresh questions. With all the attendant costs and benefits, then, switching research specializations has extended my tenure as a neophyte.

XV

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