ABSTRACT
Mexicans experience "crisis" in two distinct ways, as concrete problems of daily living and as a culturally and politically constructed discourse about the experience of "development" and "modernization". Mexican farmers who had crops to sell in 1990 found their prices deflated by the flooding of the markets with cheaper imports. The statistics on the Mexican farming, fisheries and animal husbandry sectors lead to diagnose the development of a general, sector-wide crisis through the 1980s. In the case of Mexico, it is perhaps particularly important to begin with the debate about the economy. For some, everything that has happened under the auspices of neoliberalism presages greater social polarization and a definitive abandonment of the progressive programs enshrined in the ideology of the Mexican revolution. In the new world forged by neoliberalism, the once discredited concept of "marginality" at last seemed to be having its day. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
