The Sociology of Mexico: Stalking The Path Not Taken

Abstract

Why did dependency theory fail to take strong root among sociologists of Mexico over the sixties and seventies; and why, in contrast, did Mexico’s sociologists tend to study social movements and the state instead? Using these questions as a starting point, this paper examines the divergent paths of research on Mexico taken by both North American and Mexican sociologists over the past several decades. In seeking the origins of these unique patterns, the paper assesses the nation’s revolutionary history, the institutional training of Mexican and North American sociologists, the corporativist and collectivist structure of politics and society, the social and political activism of Mexican sociologists, and the ruling party’s appropriation of dependency rhetorics for its own political purposes. These unique legacies, in combination with Mexico’s history of rapid and concentrated urbanization, are then examined with respect to their impact on recent and forthcoming research. Among the highlighted studies are those that examine territorially based struggles in cities and regions and their reciprocal impact on identity, collective action, and political power.

Nominal Openness and Epistemic Endogamy in ‘Global’ and ‘Provincialized’ Sociologies

“…Whereas polycentric sociologies have been emerging in some Western regions (Holmwood, 2011), Mexico’s sociological field has mostly gravitated around a single geo-political centre. Unsurprisingly, it is the same institutional space from which Davies (1997) and Abend (2006) take their samples of Mexican sociologists – by analysing, exclusively, publications of authors based at higher education institutions located in Mexico City, Davies (1997) discusses how sociology in Mexico has followed a different path compared to sociology in the United States 7 and Abend (2006) argues that sociological styles of thought in Mexico and the US are rather incompatible. 8 A Mexican scholar has described this geo-political space as a generator of a symbolic domination that does not impose theories and research agendas but makes them ‘attractive and canonical’ for the rest of the sociologists in this country (Aguilar, 1995: 209; see also Farfán, 1995, and Abend, 2006).…”

The Problems of Mexico: An Analysis of a Sociological Discourse

“…I have chosen to investigate the problematisation of Mexican society between 1987 and 2006 for scientific, social, political and economic reasons. By the end of the 1980s, the various debates opposing dependency and modernisation theoreticians had cooled in Mexico (Davis, ). The era beginning in the late 1980s saw the global reorganisation of literature on problems in underdeveloped areas.…”