ABSTRACT

The rebellion began on the day that the North American Free Trade Agreement among Mexico, the United States and Canada entered into effect. Therefore explanations of the rural workers’ social world that assume that relations of power/knowledge are always simply unfavourable to them are not worth much. Such explanations fail to account for the intricate relations between the home and the workplace, as well as for insubordinate behaviour, however momentary. In late January 1994 the Autlan-El Grullo local tomato industry was close to disappearing. Of the 1,367 hectares cultivated in 1988, only 150 hectares were now planted with tomatoes. A mere 30 per cent of the 4,735 workers employed in the tomato industry in 1988 were still so employed six years later. The chapter also provides an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.