Zapotec Science: Farming and Food in the Northern Sierra of Oaxaca (review)

Zapotec Science: Farming and Food in the Northern Sierra of Oaxaca. By Roberto J. González. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001. Pp. xii+328. $50/$24.95.

Zapotec Science is an absorbing anthropological study of a contemporary farming community in the village of Talea de Castro, in the Rincón region of the Northern Sierra Oaxaca in Mexico. Roberto González studies agricultural work and how the people of this Zapotec community integrate their subsistence-oriented agricultural practices and beliefs with a self-consciously constrained relationship with wider markets. He explores Taleans' subsistence practices, especially the cultivation of maize and smallholder production of sugar cane and coffee, which are grown for local use and sale. The conceptual theme that unites all production and consumption of food in the village is mantenimiento, or household maintenance.

Mantenimiento is about striking a balance between the amount produced (sufficient to feed the family) and the amount consumed (low enough to protect the productivity of the fields). González shows how the Taleans have incorporated small-scale production of cash crops, especially coffee and sugar, into this understanding of home (including household and farmland) maintenance, such that market production has been integrated into an overwhelmingly subsistence style of production instead of replacing it. He argues for the "modernity" of this lifestyle, for the idea that contemporary agricultural societies in the developing world should not be seen as survivors of a traditional past but as dynamic communities that continually integrate old and new practices and forms of knowledge.

Whether looking at older or newer practices, González shows how mantenimiento informs the technical practices and beliefs that go into raising, consuming, or trading the crops of the village. He explains, for example, how Talean farmers use traditional humoral understandings of agriculture along with the idea of mantenimiento to justify their sparing application of modern fertilizers, in contrast to the recommendations of experts. Elsewhere, González looks closely at the prevailing system of measures used in the village, one based on bodily measurements (for instance, the length from shoulder to elbow) rather than fixed standards, and demonstrates the logic of this system for mantenimiento.

Talean villagers rarely use mass-produced tools, instead opting for locally produced implements built using local measures. Because of the body-defined measurements, these tools are custom-made for the individuals who use them. For people who incorporate much heavy physical labor into their daily lives, such tools are no luxury, but rather a sensible means of maintaining their own ability to work. The persistence of a nonstandardized system of measures, the vitality of local tool-making expertise, and the idea of mantenimiento are therefore tightly intertwined.

González's title was chosen to highlight the systematic knowledge-making of the Talean farmers, which is based on experimental and evaluative practices in the field. While it is reasonable to highlight such practices, his observation that farmers experiment will surprise no student of agriculture, as humans have long engaged in systematic practices of selection and breeding to improve their plant stock. Should these practices be called "science"? González explains that he appropriates that prestige-laden term in order to restore the dignity of local knowledge practices, putting them rightfully on par with the practices of Western science. His defense is thoughtful and provocative, if not entirely convincing, and one sympathizes with his political concerns. Yet, by emptying the term of its history, he threatens to make "science" include everything and explain nothing without providing a perspective on the biases of conventional science and the subtle differences between many knowledge-making practices around the world.

Given that the rest of the book is so well-researched, well-organized, and well-written, the conclusion is a disappointment. González frames it as a "polemical" dialog about larger questions of global food production—questioning, as many have before him, the assumptions that inform factory farming, genetic modification of...