ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the Mexican economic crisis and particularly the local conditions in the state of Queretaro. It focuses on the revamped government policy in the Fall of 1983. The chapter argues that when Mexico entered the current period of severe economic crisis, the government's ability to negotiate and redefine the economic model eroded. In an attempt to generate rural employment, the state government encouraged small-scale development including reforestation, agricultural collectives, fruit growing and road building. The social worker's protean job was a contradictory mandate to facilitate the women's efforts to establish the cooperatives, while at the same time to advocate their adaptation to the work discipline of factory life. Rural bienestar was an important aspect of the governor's development plan, with an underlying premise of "rooting the peasant to his environment".
