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.