Negotiating borders: Social relations, migration processes and social change in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Abstract

The investigation of the relationships between migration processes and the reconstructions of social identities and of social relations within local, national and international contexts illustrates how social change in an Oaxacan community in Mexico is a complex, multi-faceted process. This study examines how migration processes and social change shape and are shaped by people and practices in specific historical moments interacting dialectically with broader social, economic and political structures. By paying greater attention to the quotidian and to the choices that people make as they go about their daily lives, the heterogeneity and multiplicity of community members' subjectivities and experiences are highlighted. Gender, ethnicity, race, age, class, sexuality, and religion are examined as crucial variables in processes of social differentiation and in the social reproduction of gender/racial/class hierarchies in which women and men are situated. The research applies the concept of hegemony to demonstrate that power is not separate from meaning; the social construction of meanings plays an important role in the creation of consent, collaboration or resistance. Community members have internalized their own domination through hegemonic processes, reproducing the dominant social order, yet they frequently challenge their own particular social locations within this social order. Migration processes and the globalization of communication and consumption in advanced capitalism have played key roles in these processes. New experiences and information technologies have led to a redefining and re-presenting of meanings and practices which have had negative and positive impacts on individuals, on families and on the community.