THE NEW MEXICAN COMMUNITIES INSIDE THE RURAL SPACES OF USA: RETHINKING THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL TASK

Abstract

I have documented in other works an increase in the migratory flow between Mexico's rural communities and California's agricultural fields, as a result of the growth and reintensification of USA agriculture. I will add in this paper some theoretical and practical reflections about that experience. First, I will apply those ideas that were proposed by Karl Kautsky (1899) and Angel Palerm (1980) on the limits of capitalist agriculture and its dependence on peasant labor sources (non-capitalist). The case of California's agriculture will do for reviving an old discussion on the peasantry and its rol in the development of capitalism. Second, I will apply the ideas of Sidney Mintz, on the analytical usefulness of integrating the production and consumption of agricultural commodities inside the same framework. We will look at the consumption factors that do stimulate the world demand of California's agricultural products that are being produced on the basis of mexican labor. Last, we will propose some questions about anthropological practice and the need of training anthropologists for being able to face up the problems of modern world.