Yucatán in an Era of Globalization ed. by Eric N. Baklanoff, Edward H. Moseley (review)

Book Reviews YUCATÁN IN AN ERA OF GLOBALIZATION. Eds. Eric N. Baklanoff and Edward H. Moseley. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2008, p. 192, $26.95. This interdisciplinary collection by SECOLAS colleagues explores multiple dimensions of change taking place in Mexico’s southeast region. The work represents a follow-up on Yucatán: A World Apart (edited by Edward Moseley and Edward D. Terry, University of Alabama Press, 1980): a collaborative work rooted in the idea that the Yucatán constitutes a unique and “separate society” (i). As such, it raises the question of whether the state, the region, the communities, or the people have been able to maintain that uniqueness. The Yucatán is clearly a laboratory for studying the impact of globalization . As occurred to varying degrees throughout Mexico, since 1982, as co-editor Eric Baklanoff details in the introduction, the Yucatán has undergone dramatic economic and social changes. Triggered by the decline of the state-supported monocrop (henequen) economy, the debt crisis and neoliberal reforms, the state’s economy has diversified into the production of poultry and pork in the countryside, commerce and cruise ships through the modern port of Progreso, a booming tourism industry capitalizing on the region’s great archaeological patrimony, and Mexico ’s second maquiladora frontier producing largely textile goods for the US market. Before examining the pattern and the impact of these changes at various levels, historians Edward Moseley and Helen Delpar offer the reader historical context, brilliantly summarizing in just a few pages hundreds of years of history, detailing the nature of the social and economic structure rooted in henequen production, the state’s ties to the rest of Mexico, and the impact of the Revolution. In a fine, yet rare example of interdisciplinary scholarship, the following studies by anthropologists, economists, geographers, and historians go on to explore the various dimensions of change. Geographer Michael Yoder examines the changing landscape of the Port of Progreso, documenting “the spatial effects of capital accumulation through time” (64). The economist Baklanoff traces the development of the maquiladora industry, “the most dynamic component of Yucatán’s economic expansion during the 1990s” (101). The historian Moseley takes up this theme later on in a short, yet imaginative essay that juxtaposes the community of Tixkokob in the Yucatán with a small town on the Tallapoosa River in Alabama. Brought together by the downsizing of the Russell textile industry in Alabama and the opening of its maquiladora operation in Mexico, the chapter highlights the variable impact of globalization on the two sides of the border. Complementing and deepening these historic and economic assessments of change, the remaining chapters by anthropologists and cultural experts explore the impact of these changes on the people and the communities. Luis Alfonso Ramı́rez traces change among the state’s 79 The Latin Americanist, October 2008 entrepreneurial elite, highlighting in particular how “the position of Yucatecan enterprises began to deteriorate as national corporations sought to advance to the southeast, integrating their operations into national markets ” (86). Paula Heusinkveld and Alicia de Cruz shift the attention to the impact of these multiple economic changes on local communities and people’s identities. Drawing on extensive interviews with the local Maya community in Tinum, Heusinkveld assesses the impact on local customs arising from the shifting employment patterns and the wages brought into the community by mainly males working in Cancún. De Cruz similarly analyzes the impact of tourism on social fragmentation in the community of Chom Kom’s, detailing the conversion of the Maya culture into a commodity that “can be sold, negotiated, advertised, promoted, and packaged” (143). Kathleen Martı́n and William Martı́n González further explore the troubling impact of tourism on local communities. Noting that “Maya people have had no voice in the development of a tourism in which they and their ancestors are marketed as the central attraction” (177), they develop an alternative model that is “locally based, locally planned, and locally managed” (176). Yucatán in an Era of Globalization is both rich in detail and broad in its approach. Its interdisciplinary focus brilliantly captures the multiple strands of globalization, blending both top-down and...