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Peasants and Workers in Latin America

PURPOSE AND SCOPE



This course will examine the history of Latin America as seen from the perspective of workers and peasants, drawing mostly from the experiences of people in Mexico and Central America. While the history of the nation-state continues to have a central place in the study of this region, during the last two decades historians and other social scientists have begun to pay special attention to the formation and experience of the “popular”sectors. This course will introduce students to many of the principal themes in the study of workers and peasants. These themes are as varied as reality itself and range from economic issues that affect the social structure of a country to the participation of peasants in revolts and revolutions.


We will examine aspects of the region’s economic history, paying special attention to the organization of land and labor and how these themes relate to the structural creation of social classes. We will also explore more open-ended aspects of the varied forms of peasant and worker political mobilizations and participation and how they have affected the formation of the Nation-State in these countries. The course will further consider how peasants and workers have had different experiences based on ethnic, gender, regional, or national differences. We will also examine some case-studies of popular culture. All of these discussions will be carefully framed in the context of the popular-elite relations, and the history of the nation-state and supra-national forces.


 


REQUIREMENTS




    

  • Determination of Grade:

      

    • Half your grade will be determined by your class participation, weekly written work and attendance. Students will prepare weekly 2-3 page discussions papers on the readings and participate in presentations of the assigned materials. Sometimes these short assignments will be a summary or discussion of the readings. Other times I will ask you to answer specific questions. 
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    • The other half will be determined by a take home exam based on our class readings. This essay will be described on a separate sheet later in the semester. There will be no outside reading or research required for this course, only careful, consistent engagement with the assigned materials. Weekly assignments are due on the Thursday of the week the materials are to be discussed and/or presented.
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BOOKS FOR THIS COURSE




The following books have been ordered by the bookstore. Other readings will be available in a reading packet which will be made available to you for individual copying.






    

  • Friedrich Katz, ed. Riot, Rebellion and Revolution: Rural Social Conflict in Mexico. Princeton University Press.
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  • Aviva Chomsky and Aldo Lauria-Santiago, eds. Identity and Struggle at the Margins of the Nation-State: The Laboring Peoples of Central America and the Hispanic Caribbean. Duke University Press.
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  • Kevin J. Middlebrook. The Paradox of Revolution: Labor, the State, and Authoritarianism in Mexico.
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  • Daniel James and John French, eds. The Gendered Worlds of Latin American Women Workers. Duke University Press.
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  • Peter Winn. Weavers of Revolution: The Yarur Workers and Chile’s Road to Socialism. Oxford Univ Press.
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  • Leigh Binford. The El Mozote Massacre: Anthropology and Human Rights. University of Arizona Press.
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COURSE ORGANIZATION AND SCHEDULE




Week 1: [Jan 19, 21] Introduction: Theory, Class and the Historiography of Working People in Latin America


    

  • Francisco Zapata, “Towards a Latin American Sociology of Labor,” Journal of Latin American Studies 22,2 (May 1990): 375-402
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  • Ira Katznelson, “Introduction,” Working-Class Formation, 3-45
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  • Emilia Viotti da Costa, “Experience versus Structures: New Tendencies in the History of Labor and the Working Class in Latin America – What Do We Gain? What Do We Lose?” International Labor and Working Class History, Fall 1989 no. 36, 3
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  • Introduction in Chomsky and Lauria-Santiago
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  • French and James in French and James
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  • Charles Bergquist, Labor in Latin America: Comparative Essays on Chile, Argentina, Venezuela and Colombia, chap. 1
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  • Katz, chap. 1
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Week 2: [Jan 26, 28] Peasants—19th Century: Production and Politics


    

  • John Tutino, “The Revolution in Mexican Independence,” Hispanic American Historical Review (Nov. 1998)
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  • Lauria-Santiago in Chomsky and Lauria-Santiago
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  • Charlip in Chomsky and Lauria-Santiago
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  • Arnold J. Bauer, “Chilean Rural Labor in the Nineteenth Century,” American Historical Review
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  • Katz, chap. 4
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  • Friederich Katz. “Labor Conditions on Haciendas in Porfirian Mexico: Some Trends and Tendencies.” Hispanic American Historical Review. 54,1 (February 1974): 1-57.
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Week 3 [Feb 2, 4] Peasants—19th Century: Politics and Revolt


    

  • Florencia Mallon, “Peasants and state formation in Nineteenth-Century Mexico: Morelos, 1848-1858,” Political Power and Social Theory, 7, 1988
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  • Peter Guardino, “Barbarism or Republican Law? Guerrero’s Peasants and National Politics, 1820-1846,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 75:2 (May 1995): 185-214
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  • Florencia Mallon, “Exploring the Origins of Democratic Patriarchy in Mexico: Gender and Popular Resistance in the Puebla Highlands, 1850-1876,” in Fowler-Salamini ed., Women of the Mexican Countryside
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  • Katz, chaps. 8,9,10
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Week 4 [Feb 9, 11] Peasants and Rural Workers—20th Century


    

  • Catherine C. Legrand, “Informal Resistance on a Dominican Sugar Plantation During the Trujillo Dicatatorship,” Hispanic American Historical Review (1995) 75:4.
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  • Carr in Chomsky and Lauria-Santiago
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  • Chomsky in Chomsky and Lauria-Santiago
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  • Miller Klubock in French
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  • Barry Carr. “Identity, Class, and Nation: Black Immigrant Workers, Cuban Communism and the Sugar Insurgency, 1925-1934,” Hispanic American Historical Review.
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Week 5 [Feb 16, 18] Peasants and Workers in Revolution I


    

  • Katz, chaps. 11-16
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  • Forster in Chomsky and Lauria-Santiago
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Week 6 [Feb 23, 25] Peasants and Authoritarian States I


    

  • Alvarenga in Chomsky and Lauria-Santiago
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  • Turits in Chomsky and Lauria-Santiago
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  • Binford, chaps. 1-5
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Week 7 [Mar 2, 4] Peasants and Authoritarian States II


    

  • Binford, chaps. 6-10
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Week 8 [Mar 16, 18] Workers and Industrialization


    

  • French and James in French and James
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  • Lobato in French and James
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  • Weinstein in French and James
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  • Veccia in French and James
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Week 9 [Mar 23, 25] Urban Workers and Politics


    

  • Berquist, Labor in Latin America, chap. 2
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  • Levenson-Estrada in French and James
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  • French in French and James
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Week 10 [Mar 30] Peasants and Workers in Revolution II


    

  • Winn, chaps. 1-9
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Week 11 [April 6, 8] Peasants and Workers in Revolution III


    

  • Winn, chaps. 10-end
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  • Joel Stillerman, “The Paradoxes of Power: The Unintended Consequences of Military Rule for Chilean Working-Class Mobilization,” Political Power and Social Theory, vol. 12 1998: 97-139.
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Week 12 [April 13, 15] Workers, Nationalism and Populism I


    

  • Middlebrook, chaps. 1-3
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Week 13 [April 20, 22] Workers, Nationalism and Populism II


    

  • Middlebrook, chaps. 4-end
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Week 14 [April 27, 29] Race and Ethnicity/Peasants and Workers




    

  • Gould in Chomsky and Lauria-Santiago
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  • Farnsworth-Alvear in French
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  • Chomsky, Aviva, “Afro-Jamaican Traditions and Labor Organizing on United Fruit Company Plantations in Costa Rica, 1910.” Journal of Social History, 28,4 (Summer 1995): 837-855
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