Rural industrialization as development strategy: cooperation and conflict in co-op, commune and household in Oaxaca, Mexico

Cooperative rural industrialization is an important objective for many rural communities, yet few have achieved success. Evidence from the Chinantec community of Santa Cruz situated in the Sierra Jarez of Oaxaca, Mexico, suggests that village-level conflicts over resource access and intra-household cross-gender disputes over labor allocation are in part responsible. Although the production co-op must recruit labor from co-op member households and gain access to village-owned common resources, co-op members cannot compel participation, but must negotiate with households for use of women's labor and with village authorities for use of raw materials for co-op projects. The co-op had greater success at resolving household disputes than communal village disputes. Cooperative men were able to negotiate changes in household labor allocation to concord with the needs of development project production although only after satisfying women's demands for a women's co-op project. Village communalism, however, proved much less tractable to cooperativist pressures. It is argued that despite significant barriers, adoption of labor-enhancing technologies in a co-op framework is the most practical avenue for the majority of marginalized communities. Using analysis of temporal and spatial work patterns coupled with methods of political economy, geographers may be able to make a major contribution to rural development theory and practice.