Sponsor
Portland State University. Department of Geography
First Advisor
Martha Works
Date of Publication
Winter 4-10-2014
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (M.A.) in Geography
Department
Geography
Language
English
Subjects
Corn -- Mexico -- Oaxaca Valley, Subsistence farming -- Mexico -- Oaxaca Valley, Land use -- Mexico -- Oaxaca Valley, Migrant agricultural laborers -- Economic aspects -- Mexico -- Oaxaca Valley
DOI
10.15760/etd.1668
Physical Description
1 online resource (viii, 136 pages)
Abstract
Subsistence maize production has long been a dominant economic activity of households in Santiago Apóstol, a Zapotec community in the Central Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. A baseline study from 1973 documents a regionally pervasive form of household level agriculture whereby cultivators prioritize land for subsistence maize above commercial crops. Since then, much has transformed the face of rural Mexico, including migration to the United States. Migration accelerated beginning in the 1970s as a response to government disinvestment in maize, but it may also be a new force of cultural and economic change impacting agriculture. The question arises, has migration modified longstanding subsistence agricultural practices centered on local varieties of rainfed maize? If not, what might explain the continuities and changes in agricultural practice observed? Ethnographic land use and maize consumption surveys among 19 migrant headed households conducted in Santiago Apóstol in the summer and winter of 2012 indicate that mean production of maize remains equivalent to that documented in the late 1960s, suggesting that migration has not engendered a generalized shift to commercial crops. Potential explanations for the persistent use of rainfed, local maize among migrant headed households are drawn from a mixed methods methodology involving triangulated analyses of household economic data, land tenure arrangements, perceptions of environmental change, participant observation, and archival research. Triangulated analyses allow speculation on linked human environmental changes in the landscape that may have reinforced use of a traditional, rainfed grain crop.
Rights
In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Persistent Identifier
http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/11215
Recommended Citation
Gladstone, Fiona Joy, "Safety in Maize: Subsistence Agriculture in a Zapotec Migrant Town" (2014). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 1669.
https://doi.org/10.15760/etd.1668