South Asianist Reflections on Mexican Micropolitics

One of the justifications for the appearance of South Asianist in symposium otherwise devoted to Mexico was the hope, bravely expressed by the organizers in their invitation, that such an individual would somehow be able to put the papers in a framework. This is large expectation, even among symposium panelists, and I must admit at the outset that I have evaded this part of the obligation. The following commentary contains, it is true, some subjective impressions on the differences between the study of rural politics in Mexico and India. But it offers none of the grand systematic synthesis that the phrase comparative framework might suggest. Possibly we have arrived at point in anthropological research where the study of institutions across grand divides of the Mexican-Asian sort will again be valuable in the development of the discipline. But I think much still needs to be done at an intermediate level before we sink back for really long spell in the armchairs. For example, studies of rural political organization in several regions of Mexico, followed by similar studies involving Mexico and other Latin American nations, would properly precede pan-hemispheric parallels and contrasts. The latter are simply too great to provide suitable focus for discussant's commentary on the preceding papers. This is not to suggest that respectable enough anthropological precedents do not exist. The choice of Mexico and India for research strongly appealed to Robert Redfield, apparently. And when I was invited to contribute to this symposium I recalled one of the first anthropological studies I had read as an undergraduate: Oscar Lewis's comparison of social organization in North Indian village (not far from where I eventually did my own fieldwork) and Tepotzlan, Mexican village I take to be not totally unlike those discussed in this symposium. Lewis's study is particularly relevant here because the main anthropological contribution that emerged from his eight months in India in 1952-53 was debate he engendered on the question of factions in village India. I think Lewis misconstrued his

Political science · Sociology · History · Indian History and Philosophy · Social and Economic Development in India · South Asian Studies and Conflicts

• Imperialism and Revolution in South Asia

  Arthur Macewan, Kathleen Gough et al.•Pakistan Forum•1973

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