ABSTRACT
Rural communities in Mexico are deeply embedded in local, regional, and national politics. Agrarian protest, particularly over issues of access to land and exploitation at the hands of economic elites, peppered the colonial and independence periods. The Revolution of 1910, the agrarian reform carried out in the 1930s, and peasant movements of the 1960s and 1970s attest to the ongoing efforts of rural communities to acquire rights to land and to demand response to poverty and powerlessness from the state. At times, agrarian protest has taken violent forms, but also has often conformed to persistent efforts to make demands on the political system through more conventional means such as marches, strikes, meetings with public officials, and electoral participation.
