Monocropping and the Ecuaro: Features and Lineages of Agricultural Modernization in San Miguel Zapotitlán, Mexico

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29340/en.v8n15.392

Keywords:

agricultural modernization, , green revolution, monocropping, intercropping, new farmers

Abstract

This article explores the arrangements between humans, non-humans, and the more-than-human that have resulted from the modernization of agriculture in the ejido of San Miguel Zapotitlán in the town of Poncitlán, Mexico, since the 1950s. The photographs capture a kind of farming with a lineage that combines the green revolution with the practices and knowhow of rural dwellers. Besides pointing to the affinities and tensions between traditional and modern, local and global, and autonomy and dependency, the article shows how monocropping (corn and wheat) coexists with intercropping (ecuaro) and spirituality in agriculture. Additionally, they capture how commercial and subsistence farming require a certain “way of looking”: a close observation of the environment by traditional rural dwellers that new farmers are eager to incorporate.

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Author Biography

  • Rubén Cruz Díaz Ramírez, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana

    Rubén Cruz Díaz Ramírez received his PhD in Social Anthropology from the Universidad Iberoamericana. He is currently doing postdoctoral research at uam Iztapalapa. In his academic career he has been dedicated to historical and ethnographic research on various aspects of socio-technical transformations, as well as the imaginaries of progress, modernization and development in several localities of the municipality of Poncitlán, Jalisco. His current work deals with the anthropology and techno-environmental history of Poncitlán, with emphasis on San Miguel Zapotitlán.

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Published

2025-03-20

How to Cite

Monocropping and the Ecuaro: Features and Lineages of Agricultural Modernization in San Miguel Zapotitlán, Mexico. (2025). Encartes, 8(15), 293-304. https://doi.org/10.29340/en.v8n15.392