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2004 24: 209Critique of AnthropologyMonique Nuijten

MexicoBetween Fear and Fantasy: Governmentality and the Working of Power in

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Between Fear and Fantasy

Governmentality and the Working of Power in

Mexico

Monique Nuijten

Wageningen University, The Netherlands

Abstract The question that guides this article is how to articulate, on the onehand, huge bureaucracies and bewildering governmental techniques, and, onthe other, a regime of rule where power is to a large extent based on money,personal relationships and ultimately violence. An in-depth ethnography ispresented of land conflicts between a peasant community and private land-owners in Mexico. The article shows how, in their fight for agrarian justice,peasants get lost in a labyrinthine bureaucratic world, in which they create theirown magic, fantasies and fetishes. Instead of implementing standardizedprocedures the bureaucracy applies governmental techniques in personalized

ways and on an ad hoc basis. In this context, brokers thrive. This points to theneed for new ways of conceptualizing the relation between governmentality andstate power.Keywords bureaucracy fantasy governmentality peasants power state

Introduction: never-ending conflicts, the state andgovernmentality

The ethnography presented in this article is based on in-depth research ina peasant community (ejido) La Canoa in the valley of Autln in Jalisco,Mexico.1 I carried out research in this ejido and in several governmentagencies during several periods of fieldwork from mid-1991 to mid-1995(Nuijten, 2003a). Since 1995 I have returned to the region several timesfor short visits. During the research I studied in detail a serious landconflict a conflict over lost land in which the ejido had been involvedfor over 50 years. This conflict concerns large tracts of lands that, duringthe agrarian reform, had to be given to the ejido but instead ended up inthe hands of several private landowners. The land conflict of La Canoa isnot a special case. Many peasant communities, or ejidos, that were formed

during the agrarian reform are involved in boundary disputes and areconfronted with illegal invasions of their land. The legal status of a lot ofland in Mexico remains ambiguous and land conflicts can go on for

Article

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decades without resolution (Binford, 1985). At the same time, violentconfrontations and bloody battles over land are quite common.

In this article I argue that the non-resolution of agrarian conflicts is

the expression of an important and much neglected dimension of statepower. The point is that by accepting the de facto possession of land byprivate landholders but by not resolving the case officially in their favour,reference can all the time be made to the possible legal and impartialsolution of the problem; that things will work out in the end if one goes onputting pressure on the formal system, by never giving up, etc. In other

words, as long as the case is not decided in favour of the rich, the belief ina state apparatus, which at least tries to treat its citizens in a correct way,can be kept up. This is in line with iek (1996), who argues that it is notthe civilized public appearance of the state apparatus, but the underworldof unwritten rituals that is the actual life-world. Yet this underworld is onlyable to operate because this image of the human civilized face creates thenecessary sense of distance (1996: 101). In other words, regimes of powerare to a certain degree always based on dirty corrupt practices. Yet, theycan only maintain and reproduce themselves by publicly referring to theimportance of the well-organized civilized state machine and the fightagainst corruption. Lomnitz-Adler refers in this context to the dividebetween the national ideal, wherein the law has universal extension andapplication, and real state power, which is seen as making decisions on a

self-serving and ad hoc basis (2001: 82).This situation leads to several other phenomena that are constitutiveof the regime of power. In order to get bureaucratic procedures for conflictsettlement implemented, peasants are continuously encouraged by officialsand brokers who offer new openings and suggest new possibilities for theirstruggle. These struggles are played out in contexts of obscurity, conspir-acy and threats of violence. It is argued that the incredible stories andfantasies, to which these phenomena give rise, are not a symptom of abackward and traditional society, but are central to the exercise of power.This points to the limitations of governmentality approaches based on

Foucaults notions on the arts of governing. According to studies of govern-mentality, the power of the state rests in the creation of subjectivities andidentities by the routines and rituals of state (Corrigan and Sayer, 1985;Dean, 1999; Rose and Miller, 1992). However, in the Mexican case, insteadof the creation of the client subject, practices of governmentalizationcontribute to the creation of (modern) myths and fantasies. The bureau-cracies produce endless openings, documents, stamps and maps in a be-

wildering world of fantasy. These fantasies, desires and spectacles producedby techniques of governmentality, rather than producing a certain ration-ality and coherence, generate enjoyments, pleasures, fears and expec-tations.

In order to analyse these realities, we need a different approach to thestate. To that end, I use three different dimensions of the state: the idea of

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the state, the state machineand the culture of the state. Following Abrams, thebelief in the existence of a coherent state system is what I call the idea ofthe state. According to Abrams, the state-idea is an ideological artefact

attributing unity, morality and independence to the disunited, amoral anddependent workings of the practice of government (1988: 81). This beliefin the state conceals the workings of relations of rule and forms of disci-pline in day to day life (Alonso, 1994: 381). This also has important impli-cations for the figure of the broker (Gledhill, 1994). The continual searchfor intermediaries and the right connection that can give people accessto the centre contributes to the imagining of state power (de Vries, 2002).So, by searching for the right intermediary and by presenting themselvesas the right connection, both ejidatarios and brokers are implicated in theconstruction of the idea of the state.

Governmental institutions are made up of diverse sets of practiceslinked to the political system. Abrams calls this the state-system, a palpablenexus of practice and institutional structure centred in government andmore or less extensive, unified and dominant in any given society (1988:82). Because of the specific characteristics of the Mexican bureaucracy Idecided to call it the hope-generating machine. Ferguson (1990) talksabout the anti-politics machine referring to the depoliticizing effects ofdevelopment institutions in Lesotho. Yet, in Mexico, one of the mostremarkable aspects of the bureaucracy, rather than its tendency to depoliti-

cize the relationship between people and the bureaucracy, is its hope-generating capacity. In part, this generation of hope is related to apresidential system in which a new president takes office every six years,heavily criticizes former programmes and introduces new projects, oftentogether with new institutions. But this hope-generating characteristic ofthe bureaucracy is also based on the fact that the bureaucracy offers endlessopenings, and that officials are always willing to initiate procedures. Thebureaucracy as a hope-generating machine gives the message that every-thing is possible, that cases are never closed and that things will be differentfrom now on. The bureaucracy never says no and creates great expec-

tations. On the other hand, many promises are never fulfilled.With the culture of the state I refer to the practices of representation

and interpretation which characterize the relation between people and thestate bureaucracy and through which the idea of the state is constructed.This takes the study of the state beyond the apparatus of government toshow how the magic and power of the state are formed in everyday dis-cursive practice (Tsing, 1993: 25).2 It is also present in the reading andinterpretation of speeches, official acts, programmes and documents by theejidatarios. Official stamps and documents can acquire symbolic meaningsbeyond their administrative functions and become fetishes in landconflicts. An important aspect of the culture of the state is the atmosphereof opacity, distrust and conspiracy, which always surrounds conflicts, nego-tiations and dealings with the bureaucracy, especially in conflictive cases.

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In sum, the culture of the state is the construction of the idea of theMexican state through techniques of mapping, fetishization, interpretationand speculation or, in other words, it is the cultural inscription of the idea

of the state (Alonso, 1994: 381).

Predicament of a land conflict and obscure enemies

I will now present part of the continuing struggle of the Mexican peasantcommunity La Canoa for the lost land.3 The conflict dates from the estab-lishment of the ejido La Canoa in 1938, when the villagers receivedapproximately 1800 hectares (ha) of mountainous land and 400 ha ofarable land for 77 families. At that time, certain lands that had to be trans-ferred to La Canoa ended up in the hands of some private landowners.Because of the scarcity of arable land in the ejido, the ejidatarios would

very much like to recover this land. Over the years the number of house-holds has increased substantially and today most households in the villagehave no access to ejido land. Today there are 196 households in the villageLa Canoa, while the ejido La Canoa has only 97 members (ejidatarios).Many villagers combine their life in the village with migration to the UnitedStates (Nuijten, 2003b).

Different tracts of land were involved in the conflict of the lost land.

Most of the private landowners who illegally possess parts of the lost landlive in the regional town Autln. Some of them acquired the land in 1938,while others inherited the land or bought it at a later stage. One of theowners of the land is Hctor Romero, a former head of the public securitypolice in Autln. He is not a pleasant person to have as an enemy as thepolice in general have a very bad reputation in Mexico. Another unpleas-ant enemy, who possesses disputed La Canoa land, is the lawyer SalvadorMendoza. Lawyers are generally distrusted by the ejidatarios (as well as bymany other Mexicans) but this is especially true in this case, as he is associ-ated with assassinations in the region. Jos Luna, head of the regional

association of horticulture producers, is another of the many people whotoday possess part of the lost land. Although the influence of certainpeople at regional, state or national level may undoubtedly be present, theactual dynamics of power always remain highly opaque. Who is pulling thestrings at different levels, and who influences the officials of the SRA(Secretaria de la Reforma Agraria/Ministry of Agraian Reform) at whichmoments remains unclear.4

Obviously, thesepequeos propietarios deny that they illegally possess theland and many of them said that they were tired of the continuing accusa-tions of the ejido La Canoa. The ejidatarios realize that the way in whichthese men oppose the ejidatarios attempt to get this matter resolved is bybribing the bureaucracy and through their political connections inGuadalajara and Mexico City. Besides money and politics, there is also the

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threat of violence. The stories about these enemies give enough cause forspeculation about the bloody revenge that is to be expected if La Canoa

were to be successful in their efforts to recover the land. Many people in

the village have been murdered for lesser causes.From the very moment the ejido was established the ejidatarios have

demanded that the Agrarian Institute later the SRA resolve this conflict,without significant results so far. The struggle with the SRA has focused ontwo elements. First of all the ejidatarios have requested that the SRA deliverthe definitive map of their ejido. The ejido La Canoa has many provisionalmaps and maps of the extension of the ejido (in 1942 the ejido received asmall extension grant) but in order to prove their claims they need thedefinitive map of the endowment. In the second place, the ejidatarios havedemanded that the SRA measure the lands they have in their possessionand compare this with two other official SRA documents which clearlyindicate the borders of their ejido and the total number of hectares theyshould possess, namely the presidential resolution of the endowment(Resolucin Presidencial de la dotacin) and the act of possession and markingof boundaries (Acta de posesin y deslinde). So far, their pressure on the SRAhas had little result: they never received the map nor was their land evermeasured. However, the SRA did not resolve the conflict in favour of thepequeos propietarios either. The conflict was simply never resolved. Forthe ejidatarios this meant that they kept hoping and fighting for what right-

fully belonged to them. For the pequeos propietarios it meant that allthese years they were confronted with accusations from the ejido andformal SRA procedures which they had to counter.

During certain periods, core groups developed in the ejido, which tookup the fight, and then, when nothing was achieved, these groups dissolvedagain. Over the years numerous ejidatarios of La Canoa have actively partici-pated in this struggle. In this way, the lost land has become important inshaping a collective memory of struggle. The period that was best remem-bered was that when Macario Paz was ejido commissioner (19769). At thattime, the ejidatarios received help from a lawyer who belonged to the

Communist Party and most ejidatarios fighting for the lost land becamemembers of this party. The lawyer never asked them for any money and theejidatarios could always stay at his home. As their enemies seriously threat-ened them, the ejidatarios erected a big cross on the hills near La Canoa (inorder to enlist the support of God). During this period an SRA engineer wassent to measure the ejido lands. The ejidatarios protected him day and night.He was crippled and sometimes they had to carry him to certain parts. He

worked well but he never finished the job. The ejidatarios have never seenhim again. After some time the lawyer also disappeared. Some time later he

was found dead in a ravine with bullet wounds. Then things slowed down.The ejidatarios tried to get help from other places, the CNC (ConfederacionNacional Campesina/National Peasant Confederation) and the Liga deComunidades Agrarias, but didnt achieve much in those years.

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Resuming the fight against the pequeos: LicenciadoSalazar

Under the presidency of Salinas (198894) new hopes were raised that

agrarian problems in Mexico would be seriously addressed. PresidentSalinass discourse on modernization and his speeches on the eradicationof corruption in the SRA had a considerable impact. For many ejidos this

was the moment to take up their unresolved conflicts with private land-owners (Musante, 2002; Torres, 1994).

The executive committee of the ejido La Canoa that took office in 1991convened several meetings to talk about the missing map and how theejidos should deal with the problem. However, nothing spectacularhappened until September 1992 when Lupe, the ejido treasurer, had a talk

with the parish priest of the church in Autln. Father Lpez told her thathe knew a lawyer in Guadalajara who could probably help them. By chance,the lawyer would be coming to Sayula, a town nearby, the followingMonday.

On Monday a delegation from La Canoa went to Sayula and met thelawyer Salazar, who arrived with several bodyguards. Father Lpez waspresent as well and the ejidatarios from La Canoa were cordially invited toan abundant meal with meat and fish. Salazar listened to their story andsaid that he had a lot of experience with agrarian matters and that he couldcertainly help them. He assured them that La Canoa would get the land

back and he promised that he personally would take care of their case. Headded that it would rain money in La Canoa as it was a large tract of landthat they would recover. At this occasion they gave him 2.5 million pesos(US $830) from the ejido funds as a down payment.

Some time later Salazar made clear that he wanted more money fromthe ejidatarios. Not for himself, as he explained, but to bribe officials in theSRA. The ejidatarios know from experience that nothing can be done

without bribes and they were eager to pay him 11.5 million pesos (US$3800). Salazar wrote a letter about the case of La Canoa, which would besent to President Salinas. The ejidatarios were very happy with the letter.

They liked the fact that the Mexican President was addressed and in thisway incorporated into their struggle. During this visit to Salazars house,the ejidatarios were impressed by the security measures that were taken.They had to pass several doors, which were immediately locked with keys.Together with the bodyguards they saw in Sayula, they interpreted this asa clear indication of the fact that Salazar was an important man who hadmade many enemies in his fight for the poor ejidatarios. Salazar said thatthe matter would be settled in a couple of months.

On several occasions Salazar said that he needed more money and theytook money to him in Guadalajara three more times. By the beginning of1992 they had paid him 23 million pesos (US $7600). In January 1993,Salazar told Lupe that he had finally obtained the definitive map of theejido La Canoa. He would come to the ejido to measure the land and see

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whether the borders of the ejido coincided with the map. He also had theofficial letter of the land transfer, signed by the Mexican President.However, Salazar never arrived. The ejidatarios were summoned by Salazar

to come to Guadalajara several more times, but always without results.Ejidatarios who had been very enthusiastic and hopeful about Salazar inthe beginning were now losing faith. However, they had no clear ideasabout what exactly was going on. Over a long period, people were not sureabout Salazar and were moderate in their opinion about him.

Father Lpez also got into trouble because of his involvement in thiscase. He was known as a politically involved priest and already had enemiesamong the elite in Autln. On several occasions, the bishop had warnedLpez to stay out of politics. The private landowners in Autln soon learnedthat Lpez was helping the ejidatarios of La Canoa and he was told to stopthis interference, adding that he was playing with gunpowder. But hepromised the ejidatarios that he would use his personal relations with LosPinos(the presidential residence) to help them further.

Their unflagging efforts had indeed not been in vain and finally asurveyor from the SRA office in Guadalajara received orders to go to LaCanoa and do the measuring work in the ejido. Several times he gave theejidatarios a date but he never showed up. Finally, on 25 November 1993,

when nobody really expected him to come, surveyor Serrano did arrive.Serrano convened a meeting in the ejido and said that they had given him

ten days for the job. He would start the measuring next Wednesday and allthe neighbours of the ejido had to be formally informed by then. Theejidatarios also had to organize teams to carry the measuring instrumentsaround in the fields and clear some paths if necessary. The ejidatariosmade the necessary preparations but Serrano did not return the next week.Some time later, the ejidatarios heard that Serrano had died of a liverdisease. For the ejidatarios, however, Serrano was added to the long list ofSRA engineers who had vanished after they had started a measuring jobin La Canoa.

Conspiracy, contradictory information and hard data

As nothing seemed to work out well, mutual distrust as well as mutual accus-ations reigned among the ejidatarios. They blamed each other for every-thing that went wrong and insinuated that others had their own privateagendas against the interests of the ejido. Not even relatives were to betrusted. An important component in their strategies was secrecy. Infor-mation leakages were a main danger, as the private landowners coulddirectly undermine anything La Canoa had accomplished. However, plentyof other reasons, besides traitors who passed information to the enemy,could always be found to explain why things went wrong. For example,somebody could argue that they had not reacted in time to certain letters,

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or that the commissioner had signed the wrong document. A commoncritique was also that they had not paid the engineer enough, or had nottreated him well enough.

In their conspiracy theories the ejidatarios also speculated about thelocation of evil. Some ejidatarios considered the SRA office in Guadala-

jara to be the main problem and thought that, as long as everything wasarranged through Mexico City, it would be all right. Some also commentedthat the documents and the maps in Guadalajara were falsified and that thetrue documents were still in Mexico City. On other occasions it was saidthat the real documents were in Guadalajara but that the officials refusedto hand them over. The continuous stream of contradictory messages theyreceived from different sides fomented all these speculations.

In this process it is normal for ejidatarios to handle contradictory infor-mation. Never discarding any option (even the most extreme ones) andnever being completely sure about the position of anybody is an importantattitude. The point is not that the ejidatarios believe everything officialsor brokers tell them. Rather, in this labyrinth they construct a certain logic,

which helps them to stick together and decide how to go on. But they neverhold on to their own theories strongly. They quickly change ideas andnever seem surprised about anything.

This becomes especially clear in the example of the map they werechasing after. As we saw, the definitive ejido map is the central object for

the ejidatarios in their struggle and was a common theme in local story-telling. Many ejidatarios told me that this map, which clearly indicates theright ejido borders, existed in former times and several claimed to haveseen it. There were also stories about the way in which the map haddisappeared. In one story, for example, it was said that one influentialejidatario had important documents concerning the ejido, which he keptprivately. He told his wife Lupe that, after his death, she should give thesedocuments to the ejido commissioner. It was said that Lupe gave thesedocuments to Ramn Romero and that later they disappeared, suggestingthat Ramn made the map disappear. There was another story that was

often repeated. In this story it was said that many years ago an ejidatariowent to Mexico City, received the map but lost it on his way back. Therewere also many theories about how to distinguish the real map from theworthless map. The real map had to be signed by the important engineers.However, when I showed ejidatarios maps of the region it became clear tome that most ejidatarios could not read maps. They did not know how tolink the land they knew so well in practical terms with the lines on thepaper.

After some time researching the matter I told the ejidatarios that,according to the official data, a definitive ejido map of La Canoa was nevermade when the ejido was established. This meant that there was no mapthat got lost and that there was no map hidden somewhere in an office.I thought that this was a sensitive finding. However, the ejidatarios did not

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mind hearing another theory. They listened to my findings with interest,but without drawing any conclusions.

Naturally, the fact that people do not agree on the data concerning the

lost land can be explained by the legal and administrative nightmarethey are involved in. In this situation, local stories about the conflict are toa certain degree shaped and changed by interactions and experiences withthe agrarian bureaucracy. But there is a more important point to be madehere. The central point is that in the struggle for the lost land imaginingsplay a central role in trying to gain control over a messy labyrinthinemachine. The ejidatarios focus on the map should be seen as the embodi-ment of the conflict in an administrative artefact. Their concentration onthe map makes it possible for the ejidatarios to establish a relationship withthe bureaucracy; it is a recognized administrative document they can askfor. In this way, the map has become a fetish. Besides making it possible toengage the bureaucracy, the fetishized map also plays an important role inthe local mobilizing of people; it is a material object upon which a collec-tive sentiment is fixed (see Durkheim, 1965 [1912] on fetishes). Althoughthe ejidatarios disagree among themselves about the details of the conflict,the fetishized map can raise feelings of collective interests and makespeople join forces when necessary. In sum, in the relation between clientsand the hope-generating bureaucratic machine in Mexico, maps and docu-ments acquire special, magical meanings, leading to a re-enchantment of

governmental techniques (cf. Comaroff and Comaroff, 1993). Maps, presi-dential resolutions and agrarian documents can all become sacred objects,fetishes or part of a myth. But it is a modern form of mythology; a mythol-ogy which developed in relation to a modern administration (West andSanders, 2003).

The priest visits the head of the SRA in Guadalajara

By now, the ejidatarios had all lost faith in Salazar. When they phoned

Salazar he was never at home, nor at his office. After a while Salazar movedto another house and also changed his telephone number. Salazar wasunreachable. Father Lpez said that he was very sad that Salazar hadbehaved in such a miserable way with La Canoa. Lpez himself had been

warned by the Bishop to stop interfering in agrarian conflicts but he didnot agree with the bishop and wanted to take advantage of the time thatSalinas was still in power. He explained that he had been to school withone of the guards of President Salinas and in this way he was able to arrangecertain things.

In the beginning of 1994, Father Lpez used his contacts in MexicoCity to make an appointment with the head of the SRA in Guadalajara,Pelayo. For the ejidatarios the prospect of meeting Pelayo was very excitingbecause they knew that he was very influential and they hoped that,

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through Father Lpez, he could be pressed to work in the interest of LaCanoa. Father Lpez, Lupe, Ramn and I went to the meeting. FatherLpez explained to Pelayo the reason for his visit. In contrast to the usual

attitude of ejidatarios, the priest was self-confident and gave lengthy expla-nations. He carefully stressed the point that he was the friend of one ofPresident Salinass personal secretaries. Pelayo was a little irritated by allthis talking but remained respectful. Lpez noticed Pelayos impatiencebut went on with his roundabout descriptions. He talked about the lawyer

who had asked for 20 million pesos from the ejidatarios of La Canoa andthen disappeared. When Lpez talked about the problems of La Canoa,Pelayo asked for more precise information. I will present part of thedialogue that followed.

Pelayo: What kind of problems are you talking about?Lpez looked at Lupe to answer the question.

Lupe (insecure): Eh, we have a rezago, a problem . . .

Pelayo (irritated): But does it concern an agrarian action (accin agraria) thatwas never finished or internal agrarian rights? What is the problem about?

Ramn took over and started with much enthusiasm a very unclear storyabout land that was taken away from the ejido.

Pelayo phoned Ramrez and told him to come immediately to the

office.Pelayo: And dont you have any documents with you?

Ramn came to me to get the documents I had with me and I gave him theones I thought were most relevant. Ramrez, the head of the engineers,arrived now. He was very friendly to us and Pelayo gave him the documentsand asked Ramrez: What is this all about?!

Ramrez read the documents and said to Pelayo: This is what we werediscussing lately. They started discussing the matter between the two ofthem in legal terms, which were unintelligible to us. Pelayo read the workorder of Serrano and asked the visitors: And this work has never beendone?

Ramn (vehemently): No, he only came for one day, then he invited all theneighbours of the ejido to a meeting and never came back [. . .] then on thetelephone he offered to do the measuring work during his Christmas holidaybut then we would have to pay for it ourselves!

Pelayo (to Ramrez): This work has never been finished?

Ramrez: No, I wanted to talk to Serrano about it but then the holidays came . . .

Pelayo(to Ramrez): What kind of work is this of these engineers! Issue immedi-ately another work order for another engineer!

Pelayo (to us): We will immediately write a new work order.

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Lupe: Does that mean that they will measure all the ejido land and not only the126 hectares? They are invading us on all sides.

Pelayo: This commission only concerns informative work, which will be sent to

Mexico on the basis of which they will elaborate the definitive ejido map. Wherelies La Canoa, near Autln?

Father Lpez started explaining to him in great detail how to get to thevillage.

Pelayo: Perhaps we will come and visit you one day.

Ramn and Lupe (happy): That would be fantastic!

It was decided that next week an engineer would come to the village tofinish the work. Practical issues were now discussed. Father Lpez gave a

final speech in which he explained that he, as a priest, preferred not tointerfere in these matters, but in these cases thought it was necessary tointervene. Pelayo and Ramrez listened without any expression on theirfaces. Father Lpez extensively and patiently thanked Pelayo and Ramrezand again dropped the names of the people at the SRA in Mexico City andthe office of Salinas, who had arranged this meeting for him. We all shookhands and said goodbye.

The conversation shows several characteristic elements of the inter-action between ejidatarios and functionaries. First the usual questions in

formal legal terminology that the ejidatarios do not understand and thequestion of documents. Then, when reference is made to irregularities onthe part of the SRA office, the functionaries do not react at all. Pelayoblames everything on Serrano; he reacts indignantly to the way the engi-neers have worked, and responds with much action-power: he immediatelyissues new work orders and appoints new engineers. In this way, he suggeststhat the problem is of a technical administrative nature and will soon beresolved. He raises hope by suggesting that he will visit them soon.

Deceit by a surveyor: rituals of rule and resistance

Two weeks after our visit to Pelayo, the next SRA engineer from theGuadalajara office arrived: Castaeda. The executive committee of LaCanoa and the neighbours of the ejido were again summoned to a meetingat the town hall. An attractive young woman, whom nobody from La Canoaknew, arrived at the meeting. After Castaeda had read out his work order,the girl went towards him with some documents, which he silently read, ingreat detail. When Iginio asked the young lady who she was, it became clearthat she was the daughter of one of the families that illegally possess part

of the lost land. After reading the documents the girl had given him,Castaeda asked the ejidatarios a lot of silly questions about the situationof the land he had to investigate. He looked for a long time at the maps

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and then very slowly folded the maps one after the other. Everybody waswatching him in astonishment and the ejidatarios of La Canoa started toget bad feelings about this engineer. Castaeda proposed to take a look at

the fields. While we left the building Castaeda stayed on the staircasetalking with the girl and a man who joined them. The people of La Canoanoticed this and their distrust of him grew. The engineer was apparentlyestablishing good relationships with the enemy. The girl left to get hertruck and said that Castaeda could come with her. The others all followedin other cars.

In the field the atmosphere was very negative. Everybody realized thatthings were going badly. Castaeda was only reading documents and

walking around with the girl in the sugarcane fields. Castaeda and the girlseparated themselves from the ejidatarios and they talked in a confidential

way as if they had known each other for a long time. They started eatingsome of the sugarcane in the field. The 15 ejidatarios from La Canoa stoodin small groups commenting that the situation looked unfavourable. Aftersome 15 minutes, Castaeda said: Lets go and draw up a report. Althougheverybody from La Canoa agreed that the engineer was not doing his job,nobody asked him a question. Castaeda said that he would draw up thereport at the office of Albamex in Autln (the company and home addressof the girls father). So, now a situation was created in which the ejidatar-ios were going to draw up a report at the house of the enemy. At the office

of Albamex it was decided that Castaeda would finish his report on hisown and that he would present it later in the afternoon in La Canoa. Theejidatarios left and returned to La Canoa.

The ejidatarios realized that this time they had been openly taken inby the SRA engineer and only some 15 ejidatarios showed up at the meeting

with Castaeda in the afternoon. They wanted to question Castaedaswork, but they did not know how to do this well. The meeting withCastaeda started in the following way.

Ignacio: The Indians took it in their own hands [referring to the rebellion inChiapas, which broke out at the beginning of 1994], we are not very Indian.

Ramn: It would be good to be Indian, to be taken into account!

Castaeda was chewing gum, had a very disinterested expression on hisface and did not react. The others started complaining about all these engi-neers who always come to the ejido and never finish their work.

Ramn(to Castaeda): How did you see the field, what land are we lacking?

Castaeda: That is something that I have to calculate now.

The ejidatarios gave Castaeda some documents to show that the land of

the Pabelln, where they had been in the afternoon, had been bought bythe SRA for the ejido.

Ignacio: Here it says that the SRA paid for the land.

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Castaeda: I have searched for documents to prove that but I havent foundanything.

Ignacio started a detailed explanation but Castaeda showed no interestand was looking at other papers.

Ignacio: We did not expect you to do only the work you did today.

Ramn started reading out another document that proved their point, butCastaeda did not react and continued reading his own material.

Ignacio: In that case we take up arms, just like in Chiapas!

The ejidatarios started making jokes among themselves and Castaedacontinued reading.

Ramn: El Pabelln is already known in the whole of Mexico; in all the differentoffices, even in Los Pinos [the presidential residence]!

Castaeda now started reading out the report he had written about hisactivities. The report gave a description of the land area. Quarrels aroseamong the ejidatarios about many details in the report. Castaeda tookadvantage of the division among the ejidatarios and accused Iginio ofgiving him false information.

Castaeda: And afterwards they will think that I deliberately made thesechanges. So everybody should know that you gave me this information!

Ramn: The report says nothing about the land that is lacking.

Castaeda: That is a calculation that I now have to make.

Iginio: I do not agree, nothing has been measured!

Castaeda (angry): And havent we been to the fields then?! This cannot bemeasured.

After this angry outburst of Castaeda, the ejidatarios became insecure andchanged their attitude. They started criticizing Iginio. They said that the

work order only talked about a localizacin topogrfica. Iginio himself alsofelt insecure now.

Castaeda: I do what they order me to do.

Vicente Garca (to all ejidatarios): Are we going to sign this or not?

Ignacio Romero: I say yes.

Alberto Alczar: The fear of signing is natural after what has happened, but thisreport does not oblige us to anything.

Ramn: I think it is correct.

Vicente: Some say it is all right, others say it is not.Alberto (to Castaeda): Why does it say five days on the work order?

Castaeda: The other days are for the calculation in Guadalajara.

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Nobody made any more critical remarks and everybody signed the report.Afterwards it became clear that Castaeda had misled the ejidatarios

in several ways. First of all, the work order of localizacin topogrfica of the

field El Pabelln implied that he should have stayed several days to measurethe land. Second, Castaeda had received a second order for more measur-ing work in the ejido, which he never showed the ejidatarios.

This meeting is illustrative of several aspects of the relation betweenejidatarios and officials. First of all, although there is a strong atmosphereof dissatisfaction on the part of the ejidatarios, they preferred not todirectly express their disapproval. At the start of the meeting this discon-tent was indirectly expressed by several references to the armed struggle inChiapas. They do not feel related to the Indian population, but they hadgreat sympathy for the problems these groups had with the Mexican stateand private landowners. Other indirect remarks by the ejidatarios alsomade it clear that they were dissatisfied with Castaedas work. Actually this

was one of the few occasions in which the ejidatarios openly, and in frontof the official himself, questioned his integrity. The ejidatarios dislikedirect confrontations with officials. In this case, obscure agrarian termi-nology was a central weapon of the official. He could easily eliminate theopposition by lying about agrarian procedures and the meaning of certainadministrative terms. When the official pretended to be offended by thedistrustful attitude of the ejidatarios, the ejidatarios quickly lost their confi-

dence and signed the report. It is also significant here that the ejidatariosdo not want to break off relations with the SRA. Even though they distrustofficials, they do not want to spoil the relationship. As it is never clear whatrole each official plays in the obstruction or execution of the proceduresor what his or her role may be in the future, the ejidatarios are very carefulnot to spoil relationships. This also explains the general awe and caution

with which those in authority are treated. They want to continue therelation with the bureaucratic machine. Signing documents is another ofthe acts through which this relation is maintained and through whichejidatarios invest in the idea of the state.

Castaeda, for his part, did not try to establish a friendly atmosphere.All the time he remained cool and distant. He lied about the proceduresand acted offended when they openly criticized him. From the start of themeeting he tried to create dissension among the ejidatarios and tookadvantage of quarrels among them. His hand was also strengthened by thefact that only a small group of ejidatarios came to the meeting.

Brokers, officials and the hope-generating machine

In the context of a decentred bureaucratic machine and the impossibilityof getting effective access to the centre, brokers thrive well. In the brokersthe ejidatarios hope to find people who, unlike them, know the codes and

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invisible ways through the labyrinth. Yet, by searching for brokers withspecial access, the ejidatarios contribute to the imagining of centralizedstate power, in other words, they invest in the idea of the state. The stress

on the importance of formal procedures suggests that there is some logicin the operation of the bureaucratic machine. Yet, in reality, the workingof the bureaucracy is fragmented and dispersed. What gives the machinecoherence are the enjoyments and pleasures, fears and expectations. Itbecomes a desiring-machine (see Deleuze and Guattari, 1988).5

I argue that the centrality of the state is to a great degree brought intoexistence and reinforced by the search for brokers, the reification of maps,the fetishization of documents and procedures, the incredible stories of theintermediaries and the fantastic beliefs of the ejidatarios. The ejidatarios

very much wanted to belief that their brokers were the right connection.In their turn, brokers also invest in the idea of the state by presenting them-selves as people who have privileged access and knowledge. An importantstrategy of brokers is boasting about their relations with influential people.They often claim to have special access to the presidential residence, LosPinos, or even having direct contact with the Mexican President. Thesestories are a form of impression management which people employ toinfluence the systems of meaning surrounding them. Although officialsand intermediaries all have their own personal agendas, it would be simplis-tic to assume that they always deliberately try to deceive the ejidatarios. For

example, Father Lpez was a well-known priest in the region. I have no indi-cation that he was a swindler. My impression was that he did not have theslightest idea about agrarian matters but hoped that his relations wereinfluential enough to help the ejidatarios in their fight for the land. Yet,he also exaggerated his influence and contacts with the Mexican Presidentand often told the ejidatarios about his visits to Los Pinos. In fact, ejidatar-ios as well as brokers give the state a face by writing letters to the Presidentand trying to enrol him in their projects. The idea of the state suggestscoherence, coordination, and consistent top-down working, from the Presi-dent to the bottom. Taussig, following Abrams, poses the question of

whether it might turn out, then, that the fantasies of the marginatedconcerning the secret of the centre are what is most politically importantto the State idea (Taussig, 1992: 132). Isnt it the fantasies of the ejidatariosconcerning the powerful centre that lead to state fetishism and thecultural constitution of the modern State with a big S? (1992: 112).

Many characteristics of the bureaucratic machine contribute to itshope-generating nature. For example, the fact that agrarian cases are neverclosed and that the bureaucratic machine can always be set in motionagain. Although people are never naive, during certain periods they canbecome enthusiastic about new possibilities that are offered to them. Animportant pillar of the hope-generating machine is the presidential system,in which every new president introduces new programmes and proposesimportant institutional changes. Despite bad experiences in the past, the

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introduction of new programmes with every new president always raisessome hopes among the population, as sometimes things are indeedchanged or achieved (see Grindle, 1977). One peculiarity of the Mexican

bureaucracy is precisely its ability to overcome peoples scepticism and,indeed, entice them to start fantasizing again about new projects, hencerecommencing a never-ending cycle of high expectations followed by disil-lusion and ironic laughter (cf. Beezley et al., 1994; Torres, 1997).

The third engineer to arrive at the ejido: Morales

Surveyor Morales was the third engineer to arrive at the ejido during thisperiod. Morales arrived in La Canoa on 15 March 1994. Morales was in his30s and had a pleasant, open attitude towards the ejidatarios. He knewmany details about the land problems of La Canoa and had apparentlymade a thorough study of the case before coming to the ejido. He was theonly engineer who brought the instruments for the measuring. Theejidatarios were delighted with this engineer and had a lot of confidencein him from the start. At his first meeting in La Canoa, Morales told theejidatarios that they should say at the SRA office: If the measuring work isnot done well, we will do the same as the people in Chiapas. . . . Morales

was very capable in his dealings with the ejidatarios and the other parties.

He said that he was a great admirer of Emiliano Zapata, the revolutionaryfighter who demanded land reform in the beginning of the 20th century.The ejidatarios had several informal gatherings with him in which they

expressed their doubts and presented their conspiracy theories about whowas sabotaging them. Morales gave his own views on the matter and said:I am conscious of the fact that there are many interests in this zone that

work in the favour of the private landowners. He acknowledged that it waspossible that pequeos propietarios were now talking to his boss to try torecall his work order. He therefore suggested that the work should be done

very quickly and promised the ejidatarios that he would immediately

inform them if his work order was recalled. He stressed the necessity ofputting pressure on the offices. Morales was only sent to do the measuringof one land area, and he said that as soon as he was finished they shoulddemand that the SRA measure the next part. Morales advised that: Ifnecessary you should go with large groups from La Canoa to the office and

with the women as well. He gave the example of an ejido who arrived witha group of screaming women and explained that that is something they are

very afraid of. He explained that the situation in Chiapas also worked intheir favour as well as the fact that Salinass term was coming to its end.

According to Morales, Salinas wanted to finish most of the projects he hadstarted. He suggested that if necessary, the ejidatarios should look forpublicity in the newspapers and through other channels. So, Morales wasgiving the ejidatarios practical advice to deal with the SRA in a more

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political way. However, he also blamed the ejidatarios themselves for notknowing their own borders well and for quarrelling among themselves.

The measuring of the land took place on a Saturday, together with

some 30 persons from La Canoa. Morales measured the land that theejidatarios actually possess. In that way he could later calculate how muchthey lacked. When the measuring was finished money was collected to buybeer and soft drinks. After the bottles were finished the group broke up.Morales decided to stay in the village and continued drinking with Iginio.In the morning he was invited to a party at another house. From there theytook him to the football game in La Canoa and afterwards Morales left forGuadalajara.

Morales style of operation obviously differed from that of the otherengineers the ejidatarios had been dealing with so far. Morales wasambitious, enthusiastic, and enjoyed being in the field with the ejidatarios.However, we can also see similarities in the way he deals with the politicalside of land conflicts. In fact, he shows the central contradiction in the

working of the state bureaucracy. On the one hand, he acknowledges thepolitical pressures that make the bureaucracy work against the ejido. Onthe other hand, he uses the formalist bureaucratic discourse, which saysthat the case is not difficult at all providing one follows the formalprocedures. Yet Morales puts more stress on the importance of other formsof influence. He suggested the ejidatarios put pressure on the SRA by going

there in large groups with screaming women and looking for publicity.At the end of March, Morales told the ejidatarios that he had finishedthe job and that they should come to Guadalajara. They received aprovisional map, which Morales had elaborated of the land area, butnothing was said about the number of hectares that were lacking, nor aboutthe people who were invading ejido lands. Many visits to the SRA followed.Morales was also elaborating the total map of the ejido but without comingto the ejido and measuring any of the other land. The ejidatarios realizedthat the map that was going to be elaborated would not include the lostland. However, everybody was tired of these years of struggling and they

seemed to come to terms with the idea that they would never recover thelost land.

At the beginning of 1995, Father Lpez was replaced and sent toanother region. Before he left the region he had told Lupe that the ejidoshould be happy with the land they possessed and that they would get intoserious trouble with bloody consequences if they continued this fight. Presi-dent Salinass administration had ended at the end of 1994 and numerousscandals about murders, drug trafficking and stealing by his administrationhad followed his leaving office. Lupe laughed about the hopes they hadhad when Salinas came to power and talked about helping the ejidatarios.

Lupe (about Salinas): He brought the campesinos down, we failed (nos hundi alos campesinos, no pudimos). Salinas also stole from Mexico; I saw that on tele-

vision in the United States; there they say ever ything, here they dont.

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M: Would you try it again?

Lupe: I have no faith anymore, it is impossible to beat the rich ( Ya no tengo fe,contra el rico no se puede). In Chiapas the rich people possess everything.

She made an additional remark about Serranos death.

Lupe: That was a suspicious death . . . he did not return to the village; he gotcirrhosis, they say he worked well . . . perhaps they startled him.

Conclusion: power, fantasy and governmentality

The ethnography presented here is situated in a society where violent inter-

ventions are quite common, but where at the same time a large part of thepopulation live their daily lives in a quiet and relatively independent way.Citizens in Mexico do not live in constant oppression but they know that ifthey hurt the interests of certain influential figures, the threat of unjusttreatment by the state apparatus and physical violence becomes para-mount.

Although in Mexico it is generally acknowledged that power is concen-trated in the hands of regional elites and powerful political families whocan easily bend bureaucratic procedures to their own advantage, the stateapparatus continuously propagates the idea that it operates in a modern,

technocratic, professional manner. In this way, as Lomnitz-Adler puts it, asystematic divide is created between national ideology and actual powerrelations (2001: 82). This leads to the fascinating situation of a society in

which money and relationships are to a large extent determining for whathappens, but where at the same time continuous reference is made to theimportance of formal procedures and the civil order.

One theoretical conclusion that can be drawn on the basis of this studyis that notions of governmentality based on institutional practices withuniform procedures and standardized administrative techniques are oflimited value for the analysis of discipline and rule in Mexico. In theMexican bureaucracy we do not find standard procedures but a bewilder-ing world of labyrinthine offices and infinite administrative measures. Wedo not find the impersonal treatment of the clients of the system. On thecontrary, officials as well as clients try to personalize relationships as thisis considered to be the only form of meaningful and useful interaction. Atthe same time, however, governmental techniques such as stamps, maps,official unintelligible terminology, etc. play a central role in the everydayroutines and rituals of the bureaucratic machine.

Yet, as Comaroff and Comaroff argue, the routinization and ritualiza-

tion of bureaucratic practices always require careful and situated reading(1993: xxiii). Interesting in this respect is the work by Heyman (1998) who,in his study of undocumented immigrants at the MexicoUS border, pointsout that the state effects are not necessarily located in control and direct

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repression but in double-edged, successful, but entrapping conspiracies toviolate the law (1998: 158). The diverse (contradictory) and sometimeslimited effects of techniques of governmentality have also been stressed by

several other authors. Some have pointed out that governmental tech-niques always encounter populations who have already been integrated

within political systems in a variety of ways (Thomas, 1994) and that staterituals recombine with representations of the state that are already in circu-lation (Pigg, 1997: 281). These authors show that techniques of govern-mentality do not necessarily constitute an effective means for controllingand disciplining populations. Although I agree with this, here I want tofollow a different theoretical line of reasoning.

In my view, there are different ways in which governmentality tech-niques can form part of a certain rationality of rule. For example, inMexico, bureaucratic rituals contribute to the creation of fantasies andconspiracies, which lead to forms of self-regulation in the sense thatdifferent citizen subjects and national identities become stabilized. In my

view, these processes of subjectivisation bring the individual to bindhimself to his own identity and consciousness and, at the same time, to anexternal power (Agamben, 1998: 5). Agamben is right when he points outthat a limitation in Foucaults work is that it remains strangely unclearabout the point at which the two faces of power sovereign power andbiopolitical power converge. In other words, it is not made explicit how

the processes of governing which produce subjectivities based on self-regulation become articulated with external powers and states of domi-nation (1998: 5). Thus, I argue, that in Mexico, techniques ofgovernmentality are part of a ritualized world of bureacuratic practices thatsupports a system of domination. Sovereign power and biopolitical powerare articulated through fantasies about access to the centre of control, fedby governmental techniques.

In the case of La Canoa, the bureaucratic state machine controls thepeasants by continuously giving them hopes of resolving their land conflictsin a legal manner, and in this way restraining them from taking justice in

their own hands. In this way, the hope-generating governmentalitymachine is articulated with the sovereign power which is ultimately basedon physical violence and forms of exclusion (Agamben, 1998). At the point

when the creation of hopes by the bureaucracy is no longer sufficientlyeffective, and when peasants no longer want to engage in these incrediblefantasies, the latter are confronted with threats, murders and other formsof violence. At that point, the peasants are pushed out of or, in other

words, excluded from the regular system.The fantasies of getting effective access to the powerful centre of

control are central here. As iek from a different theoretical perspec-tive argues, the real working of power:

. . . resides in the very notion of conspiracy, in the notion of some mysteriousagency that pulls the strings and effectively runs the show, that is to say, in the

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notion that, behind the visible, public power, there is another invisible powerstructure. (iek, 1996: 96)

Using this perspective for Mexico, de Vries argues that power:

. . . works through the political use of stories, gossip, desires, spectacular imag-inations and fantasies by means of which heterogeneous actors can recognizethemselves as political subjects, thus playing an active yet unacknowledged rolein the imaginary construction of a powerful political center. (2002: 923)

Conspiracy theories, fantasies and desire around the hidden masterobscure what are in reality much more de-centred practices of power(Abrams, 1988; Rubin, 1996). In the case of La Canoa, the ejidatariosbecome encapsulated in the workings of power by theorizing about theright connection, the places of evil and how to reach the centre, in termsof the Mexican President, who would be able to resolve their problems.This theorizing and looking for the one who pulls the strings is inspiredby their fantastic desire for agrarian justice, in this way hiding the realityof power relations which are certainly hierarchical but also diffuse and frag-mented, without clear coherence and a centre of control.

Notes

1 For the sake of privacy, the name of the village and the names of all the peopleappearing in the ethnography have been changed.2 In this context Lomnitz-Adlers work is interesting (Lomnitz-Adler, 1992: 4).

However, I differ from Lomnitz-Adler in his use of the notion of the culture ofthe state. According to Lomnitz-Adler, the state represents national society andas such is a major player in the construction of the culture of social relations.In this line of thinking, the culture of the state is the intimate culture of thestate apparatus. In opposition to Lomnitz-Adler, I do not conceive of the stateas an actor or entity with its own culture. In my analytical framework, theculture of the state is the way in which this mighty actor or neutral arbiter isimagined through administrative procedures, stamps, maps, theories aboutpower and the belief in the right connection.

3 The main part of the research was financed by WOTRO (The NetherlandsFoundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research). The continuation ofthe research project is financed by the KNAW (The Netherlands Academy of

Arts and Sciences).4 I found one document in the archives of the Ministry of Agrarian Reform in

which a SRA engineer, who had started measuring work in La Canoa, wasexplicitly told by the head of the SRA in Guadalajara to stop the work immedi-ately, as serious problems were arising with private landowners in the region.

5 Several authors use the metaphor of the desiring-machine introduced byDeleuze and Guattari (1988). In his study on the working of the developmentbureaucracy in Lesotho, Ferguson points out that his use of the machinemetaphor is motivated not only:

. . . by science-fictional analogy, but by a desire (following Foucault [1979,1980] and Deleuze [and Guattari, 1988]) to capture something of the way

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that conceptual and discursive systems link up with social institutions andprocesses without even approximately determining the form or definingthe logic of the outcome. (Ferguson, 1990: 275)

In Deleuze and Guattaris view, the machine is made up of thousands of un-coordinated actions and does not have a centre of control. The consistency andpower of the abstract machine are desire; it is a desiring-machine (Goodchild,1996: 5051).

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Monique Nuijten is senior research fellow at the Royal Netherlands Academy ofArts and Sciences at Wageningen University, the Netherlands. At present she isinvolved in a research project on community organizations and forms oflocalglobal governance in Mexico, Peru and Brazil. She has published on landreform and the law, organization in development, participatory approaches andthe different dimensions of state power. Her latest publication is Power, Communityand the State: The Political Anthropology of Organisation in Mexico(London: Pluto Press,2003). Address: Rural Development Sociology, Wageningen University, Holland-seweg 1, 6706 KN Wageningen, the Netherlands. [email: [email protected]]

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