Broken Agency and Gender Revisited

After our class discussion of Laveaga's Jungle Laboratories, I reflected more on the issues/topics we addressed in class in relation to my primary critique of the book's lack of focus on female Mexican peasants--sadly, I find my thoughts always seem clearer *after* class.

In the epilogue, Laveaga states "Just as the white lab coat became a global symbol of the pristine spaces occupied by doctors, scientists, and researchers, the mythical lab coat of progress linked to barbasco became in rural Mexico an emblem for potential rural metamorphosis." [228] She goes on to say that, "By incorporating phrases, chemical terms, and actions reserved for the educated elite, root-picking peasants subverted their traditional social role." [230] Essentially, because of barbasco's viability in the production of hormones and its subsequent global demand, rural farmers who knew where to find the yam were elevated above a social class they would otherwise have been stuck in seemingly permanently. It is no wonder that even forty or fifty years later, barbasceros (men) still reminisce fondly about the "good old days" while giving Laveaga their testimonies. But hold on a moment, where are the voices of the women? They are being literally silenced by their husbands (the barbasceros), and because these oral reports form the basis of Laveaga's research, by the historian herself. I find this somewhat unforgivable given Laveaga's status as a female historian of Latin America. I think she played it safe by more or less consciously sidestepping this issue, but the result is a book that makes a facile point--that rural Mexicans could organize themselves without the help of meddling outsiders--while ignoring something more compelling.

As far as peasant agency, Laveaga states, "we learn that regardless of presidential mandates the deeply entrenched rural social networks determined who learned the true nature of barbasco and who did not." [231] Again, we are left wondering, who *did* learn the true nature of barbasco? Was it Mexican peasant women who may or may not have known that the purpose of their efforts and the efforts of their husbands was to render unto science a natural resource with abortive/contraceptive properties? Were Mexican women ignorant, unwilling, coerced? Or were they forced to keep quiet for the greater good of their husbands and their families?

Mexico

Gabriela Soto Laveaga’s Jungle Laboratories: Mexican Peasants, National Projects, and the Making of the Pill diverges from most of our previous forays into commodities history. Laveaga profoundly grounds us in the local whilst simultaneously exploring the outside agents effecting broad change. This is really one of the first works to delve into local politics of commodity production. That is to say, this story is about Mexicans and Mexico, and, moreover, about cultural evolution. As Kent noted very well in his post, boiled down further, this work centers on the core of people interacting with the gathering, trade, and refinement processes of barbasco. In essence, Laveaga synthesizes multiple analyses (scientific development, politics, and development) to offer a multi-perspective view of Mexican life throughout this period.

Analogous to what Appadurai and his co-authors proffered in The Social Life of Things, Laveaga’s work demonstrates the existence of a clear “life-cycle” for barbasco. That is to say, she illustrates the evolving uses, desires, and needs attached to an obscure Mexican yam. Jungle Laboratories is effectively presented as an arch: barbasco beings its life as an insignificant jungle legume, then scientific discoveries give it purpose, then it becomes a sought after resource, a replacement is found, and finally it returns to its past obscurity as a jungle root.

Overall, this work reintroduced me to Appadurai’s line of thinking. That is to say, Laveaga effectively shows how human interaction with thingies can dramatically impact cultural evolution; and, further, how investigating these thingies can yield the nuances of cultural evolution.

Jumping the shark

Now, Jumping the shark may be a bit of an over simplification, but...

While reviewing this examination of Mexico’s role in the development of pharmaceuticals, Gabriela Soto Laveaga’s book Jungle Labs, I could not help but think of the “Jumping the Shark” metaphor for this industry. Here we have an industry that is producing, and creating a lifestyle for its laborers, in a global market with the workers and students urging the government assistance in developing protections for the indigenous industry and when the goverment steps in the industry growth curve displays a rapid incline and an equally rapid decline, no matter what the state run industry did it was unable to prevent other players in the industry from producing a synthetic product and render the Mexican production irrelevant. Akin to Fonzy jumping the shark (do I need to explain this for you youngsters?); not even he could save "Happy Days".

I think Carol’s statement regarding companies that continually work to thwart monopolies is ultimately what brought in the rapid decline. But, I also believe that the protectionist maneuvering by Echeverria, using exploitation of peasants as a reason to nationalize the steroid industry may have also been a factor. And, prevented Mexico from realizing its desire to rid the nation of its dependency on foreign pharmaceutical companies.

Interesting parallel or contrast; when it was attempted to domesticate the tuber they were not able to obtain the high yield of dioscoreas they could get from the wild variation.  This is in contrast to cochineal; the farmers successfully developed a higher quality domesticated or cultivated variety then the wild variation. 

Overall the Laveaga has provided a perspective on the development of steroids I had not considered previously. As Kirsten points out in her post the laborers were not exploited and were able to elevate their station in their society through hard work.

Social mobility at last?

In many ways, barbasco seems to parallel coca. Both were used as a method of making revolutionary medicine. Both were sources of national pride in Mexico and Peru, respectively. Both were toted as the key to modernization. And both held onto some kind of national monopoly in its production. Yet where coca and cocaine led to ruination and marginalization of the native peasants, barbasco seemed to do the opposite; it actually seemed to propel both Mexican nationalism and the common folk.

One key to the mobility, Laveaga asserts, lies in the de-festishing of the yam. In layman's terms, people knew what it was used for. As she demonstrates, those who at least had a working knowledge of what the yam was used for (some kind of medicine rather than an ingredient of soap) had an unspoken advantage over those who were still ignorant. As an example (pg 112), a group of farmers are shown, having absorbed the basics of steroid production, were able to get back on the market after their previous crops had been rejected. In short, there was the possibility of genuine advancement in the industry, especially since the Mexican government was so keen to train biologists to study the plant.

That said, there did seem to be a few strings attached. Bear in mind that this advancement and knowledge only came about when Mexican scientists were on the scene. And they weren't deployed everywhere in the jungle. Laveaga admits this point, noting that advancement didn't occur everywhere in the jungles. Additionally, as Brandon alluded to, the Mexican government only seemed willing to immortalize the common folk when their interests were threatened. It wasn't until the boom of the 50s went sour for everyone in the country did the barbasco and the men who harvested it become politicized. While president Echeverria begin to "curtail the number of permits given to transnational laboratories that 'for decades have exploited' Mexican peasants" (pg 123), I did not see United Fruit levels of mistreatment. Indeed, for a long period, most of the barbasco was handled and processed by nationalized Mexican companies. If there was any mistreatment of the peasants, I would say that it was at the hands of the middlemen who collected the yams.

Gender in the Jungle

Jungle Laboratories is the study of a wild yam in Mexico (viz., barbasco) that led to the development of, among other things, oral contraceptives in the early twentieth century. Its author, Gabriela Soto Laveaga, currently works as an associate professor of Latin America at the University of California San Diego. Aside from being interested in the history of medicine, Laveaga is also concerned with the “social consequences of the global search for medicinal plants” [2], specifically how the knowledge required to locate and obtain barbasco impacted the peasantry of southern Mexico, especially during the 1970s.

In researching the history of barbasco, Laveaga recounts how disorganized the Mexican national archives were, and how she was therefore forced to rely on oral histories obtained from locals who had been involved with barbasco production. Interestingly, she notes the “dearth of female presence in the historical record” [17] in regards to a product used exclusively by woman, i.e., oral contraceptives. Laveaga relates how when she would attempt to interview women about their experiences, her “efforts were often thwarted when the husband came to the door and answered [her] questions” [17]. While barbasco cultivation obviously opened up new possibilities socially and politically for Mexican men, it appears that this was not the case for their female counterparts. Further, President Echeverría’s interest in population control and, by extension, his promotion of the development of barbasco into pharmaceutical contraceptives presents a subtext of Mexican women as quiet victims. Of course, this is not Laveaga’s primary concern, but it does present an interesting background to consider while reading through this text.

National Identity, Awareness, and Ownership of Barbasco

Jungle Laboratories:  Mexican Peasants, National Projects, and the Making of the Pill (2009) by Gabriel Soto Laveaga presents an argument of national identity and ownership, all of which is surrounded by the barbasco yam.  It is a dance between ownership that invvolves the Mexican government (especially the Echeverria government of the 1970s) and its accompanying scientific community, its pharmaceutical company Proquivemex, and the transnational pharmaceutical corporations.  These players further fight for who will sway the decision for the Mexican compesinos, or the Mexican peasant class.  The Mexican government wants the compesinos to understand that the commodity they are digging up in Southeast Mexico is of the benefit for the Mexican people.  The government wanted to cultivate a sense of national awareness of the importance of the barbasco, as well as its contributions to Mexican leadership in hormone-progesterone pharmaceutical market.  Laveaga aruges, "So, why were urban Mexicans suddenly interested in barbasco and its pickers in 1974?  After decades of virtual obscurity, domestic and international forces led the government to shift its focus from the science of the yam to the men and women known as barbasqueros, pickers of barbasco... the price of medications, Mexico's technological dependence on pharmaceutical companies, growing urban unrest, increasing concern with overpopulation, and expanding rural discontent.  Taken together they lay bare an attempt by the Mexican government to gain control over a recalcitrant citizenry while outmaneuvering a strategically powerful foe:  pharmaceutical companies" (115).  The Mexican government wanted to bring the peasant barbasco pickers at the forefront of a national debate in order to turn the tide against outside agents, namely the transnational pharmaceuticals.  The Echeverria government utilized populism to gain favor of its citizenry, especially the barbasqueros in placing the barbasco market specifically under Mexican identity and ownership.  Lacheaga further writes, "...Echeverria became an ardent supporter of peasants, workers, and students.  His behavior, often described as megalomaniacal or mercurial--he publicly and openly embraced peasants and bowed his head in support at stories of land-tenure abuse--confounded political colleagues and angered investors, but it charmed Mexico's unemployed and landless" (118).  Echeverria wanted to engage the public openly in support of their situation while at the same time locking in support for nationalistic awareness, identity, ownership for a product that held importance to the Mexican economy, with the lower classes being those that picked it.

But what of Proquivemex, Mexico's answer to the intrusion of Transnational pharmaceutical markets?  The Mexican company wanted to assist the compesinos by educating them the importance of their role in the broader schemes of how the commodity and its later synthetics worked.  Laceaga states, "The guiding principle for Proquivemex's social goals was that pickers had to understand the uses for barbasco before they could have complete autonomy over their labor process.  In the words of Proquivemex's first administration, transnational pharmaceutical companies took advantage of barbasqueros ignorance to pay them less than they deserved...  Teaching campesinos about barbasco would be a grassroots movement of social mobilization--ironically propelled by the government--to empower campesinos against middlemen and, ultimately, pharmaceutical companies" (144).  They wanted to enlighten and uplift the compesino's for better wages for their effort in producing a product that would benefit the Mexican people and their relationship/identity as well as ownership with barbasco.  The efforts in education would curtail the use of 'middlemen' and outside factors, namely transnational companies.  The sources deployed by Lacheaga, beyond her extensive interviews and archival research, displays the use of training pamphlets distributed by Proquivemex to demonstrate that, such as Figure 22 on page 145, that Mexico was in first place and leader in the hormone production.  This signifies that they wanted to empower them to assist in Mexico's goals with the commodity and by extension nationalizing barbasco, as well as giving control, ownership, and national identity to Mexico.  Where Proquivemex rises, it does fall, primarily in the prices it quotes.  Lacheaga notes that to solve the problem, they had to lower prices as to increase demand, breaking off from buying barbasco from peasants during peak seasons, or require loans (154).  Evaluation of the price was a considerable problem for Proquivemex, especially in its attempts (with hints from the government) to raise the price to assist Mexican citizenry.  Moreover, despite the praises of the government to assist the peasant compesinos, the monograph is more top-down in methodology and agency in that the main players (or actors) are still centered in government and the pharmaceutical companies in having the primary say in what happens with barbasco--the peasantry simply need to be swayed or more-so motivated as to assist in the greater demands of the government and Mexican-branded pharmaceutical businesses.  Yet, something I am tackling is where then does this compare or contrast with, say, the narrative of cocaine with Gootenberg in terms of agency?  The agency still falls with those lower class persons within the Andean region, despite the outside forces and actors such as middlemen, cartels, and transnational governments.  The monograph from Lacheaga gives ample support for the peasants but it is the Mexican government and their medical entities (pharmaceutical company) and the transnational companies that have more authority, although the peasants have a rather strong role.  It is my hope and intent that this can be better addressed and clarified during class discussion.

Jungle Labs

Jungle Laboratories written by Gabriela Soto Laveaga included everything, from political attempts of control to social importance to the empowerment of rural peasants. The thoroughness was sometimes a little overwhelming, but it was interesting none the less. As with many of the books we’ve read so far, Soto Laveaga gives readers a sense of liberation for peasants as it allowed them to “[use] the barbasco trade to crave out new positions foe themselves in the countryside” (226). She makes it her duty to write about these peasants, rather than the motivations of companies who finance the pill. We see the necessity of their expertise come into play as the plant’s popularity increased throughout the mid-1900s, including Russell Marker, an American chemist who first synthesized steroids.

            Soto Laveaga was careful to illustrate these rural Mexicans’ increased sense in identity. Although conditions were laborious and payment was low, pickers could climb socially. In other words, they had the potential to start out as a barbasco gatherer and become skilled experts at negotiating agreements with those financially involved. This new found identity allowed for many Mexicans to become advocators of economic reform. Although they failed to set up a Mexican state-run company, readers see a different type of individuality progressing. Unlike the other books we’ve read, these peasants weren’t exploited for their hard work. They rose in their ranks and experienced a social revolution.   

Campesinos

Laveaga really wants to show how the campesinos had agency, that by having the expertise to locate the barbasco they could gain power. However, her examples seem to be exceptions. Her work does the best job so far of really telling us what it was like to be a "picker" down to the dirt and the fear of snakes, the difficult long days necessary to turn in the root before it starts to rot. But she goes on to explain that even Echeverria's attempts to "eliminate the vices of paternalism" (148) excluded many of the campesinos. To participate in the SRA meetings representatives had to be "ejidatarios" or landed campesinos. And the poorest of the poor were excluded because their communities were too remote and inaccessible.

Papaloapan Agency

The path to modernization and national identity is a long and complex road; local, traditional, national and global influences mix, tending to produce varied results.  Gabriela Soto Laveaga tackles such a path twentieth century Mexico took in her book Jungle Laboratories: Mexican Peasants, National Projects, and the Making of the Pill.   Several important points the author focuses on is that 1) early barbasco collection was decentralized and provided the campesinos and barbasqueros a path to a better living (of course the work was hard), 2) the desire to grow “Mexican” scientists was a matter of national pride and 3) political opportunists entered the game late and set the stage for the downfall of the barbasco industry.

Laveaga’s book is first and foremost about people, specifically the people of the Papaloapan jungle region of southeast Mexico.  Her interest and heart were for the poverty plagued campesinos or farmers/peasants of an area of Mexico where modernity had basically bypassed.  Every chapter gives the reader a glimpse into their initial condition in the 1940s, the opportunities in the 50s and 60s, the politics of the 70s and the wind down of the state run 80s.  This book is about the people of the southeast jungle.  Of course many other people interacted with the people of the region be they Americas, Mexican political leaders, students and scientists, but these other actors gave focus to the outside influences on the people of the Papaloapan.  

Throughout the book she seemed to refrain from tag anyone as necessarily bad, but did point to the nature of exploitation, be it from transnational’s or the Mexican government’s political manipulations.  One group did get good press - the new and growing Mexican scientist/chemist community that barbasco encouraged.  I would say Laveaga considers the growth of the scientific community as one of the lasting legacies of the barbasco era.  

It is this third area, the need for the state to continue the 1910 “Mexican Revolution” through the creation of new social order in southeast Mexico, a barrier to the transnational exploiters and nationalizing the process where the author enters a relatively white washed version of social history.  I agree with Joseph’s blog that even though the state played an integral role in the story of barbasco, she tended to reserve criticism where it should have been leveled.  

Overall, this book is book in describing a local commodity bursting forth onto the global scene, but this author tends to use the commodity as a tool to tell a social and political story.  Ascribing agency to the people of the people of the Papaloapan region is her main point, but she conveniently leaves too much of the larger context out of the story.

One Commodity in Modern Mexico

            Gabriela Soto Laveaga combines two narratives in Jungle Laboratories: the first describes the development of synthetic steroids essential to contraception and cortisone; the second narrative is about the impact of pharmaceutical production on Mexican peasants, campesinos.  Campesinos provided pharmaceutical companies with an inexpensive raw material, barbasco, which contains diosgenin, the chemical basis of progesterone.  Initially a Mexican company, Syntex, discovered the chemical process that turned diosgenin into progesterone, but immediately following this discovery international pharmaceutical companies came to Mexico to purchase and process barbasco to create a variety of medical products.  The history of the campesinos who located and dug up barbasco and brought it to collection points where it could be sold is a history of the social structure of rural Mexico, the changes to the countryside that resulted from Mexico’s efforts to industrialize in the twentieth century, and most importantly from Laveaga’s perspective, how involvement in the production of chemical products changed the Mexican peasants who were a first link in a vast commodity chain.

            The history of barbasco as a commodity shares features with several books we have read previously.  Initially Mexico appeared to have a monopoly on a valuable commodity.  Campesinos searched for and dug up barbasco because they saw this activity as their best opportunity to provide for themselves and their families.  As Laveaga demonstrates, certain rural Mexicans derived a relatively high standard of living through the barbasco trade.  These were the people who recognized the value of the yam to pharmaceutical companies, who had the organizational skills and capital, trucks, to collect the yams from large numbers of workers and take the yams to the initial processing centers.  At processing centers knowledgeable Mexicans managed the workers to follow a production process that created diosgenin granules which could be shipped to pharmaceutical laboratories where further processes turned the diosgenin into medicinal products.  The rural Mexican people who most benefitted from barbasco were the middlemen whose activities came between the barbasco gatherers and the pharmaceutical companies.  When the government began a program of organizing the campesinos who found barbasco, they attempted to educate the campesinos and eliminate the influence and power of the middlemen.  The government’s efforts at social reorganization were only partially successful.  Ultimately, as we have seen with other commodities, new sources for diosgenin were discovered.  Soy grown in multiple sites, especially China, became an important source of diosgenin.  Corporations continually seek new ways to thwart monopolies of supply, lower production costs, and enter lucrative markets in an attempt to earn profit.  Beet sugar provided the French economy with a way to overcome the financial loss of its valuable sugar-colony, Haiti.

            The political history of Mexico during the time of barbasco activity is naturally intertwined with Mexico’s involvement in industrial pharmacology.  One strand of Mexican politics attempted to provide Mexican peasants with the benefits of the revolution through land distribution and nationalization of industry.  The first president to attempt these goals was Lázaro Cárdenas, 1934-1940.  As Laveaga explains, Luis Echeverría, 1970-1976, adopted a populist program not unlike that of Cárdenas.  During Echeverría’s presidency Mexican students and the Mexican media became aware of the barbasqueros, the campesinos who gathered barbasco.  The low price the pharmaceutical companies paid them for barbasco was decried in the press as an example of foreign imperialism.  The barbasqueros became a symbol for Mexican nationalism and for the exploitation of Mexico, especially at the hands of the United States.  Echeverría utilized this popular sentiment to create a parastatal industry, Proquivemex, one that would regulate the collection and sale of barbasco and establish a Mexican corporation that would produce inexpensive medical products to sell within Mexico.  Additionally his government established a union of barbasco pickers, UNPRB, to enhance the livelihood of these people and to secure their support for his administration.  The key to improving the lot of barbasqueros was to eliminate the middlemen who reaped most of the gain in the process of getting diosgenin to the pharmaceutical companies.

            The second main strand of Mexican political history, and of course there are more than merely two strands, is the major effort of the Mexican government to promote industrialization.  Laveaga mentions several major infrastructure projects, dams in southern Mexico which provided electricity for Mexico City and other urban areas.  These dams displaced large numbers of campesinos.  The state also promoted export-related agriculture and cattle ranching in an effort to enhance the economy.  These events limited the job options for the very people who eventually became the barbasqueros and help to explain why campesinos searched for and dug up barbasco.  When the barbasco trade was reduced because of competition from outside Mexico and reduced barbasco supplies within Mexico, the barbasqueros had few job alternatives.

            Echeverria’s successors in the 1980s faced a very different economic and political environment.  The promotion of infrastructure, development of industry, and grants to the poor were financed by borrowing.  Mexico announced in 1982 that it would not be able to service its debt.  This was the beginning of the Latin American debt crisis that forced foreign commercial banks, many in the United States, to refinance loans.  It was the time when the IMF stepped in to assist debtor nations and impose strict financial controls as a condition of receiving loan extensions and new funds.  In 1989 Proquivemex was dissolved although it lived under the direction of the members of the UNPRB for a few years with minimal success.  The populist programs of Echeverría were subordinated to a pro-business growth strategy meant to overcome Mexico’s international financial problems.

            Laveaga provides the reader with a view of what the life of barbasqueros was like, and how increased knowledge of the pharmaceutical industry enhanced the ability of some of these people to participate more effectively in the modern Mexican economy.  She also demonstrates that top-down, state attempts to control the countryside were not able to completely change the dynamics of the social hierarchy that existed there.  Jungle Laboratories contains more embedded history of the country of the commodity’s origin than many we have read. This is a very interesting book with much more of value than is apparent in this essay.