History and Current State of the Research Program on Communities in Mexico

Abstract

This essay builds a genealogy of the ideas and principles of community studies in Mexico, especially in the Mesoamerican region. It begins with the approaches of classical anthropology and sociology, which developed arguments for constructing ideal-type conceptions of community. These approaches are rooted in the Chicago School of Urban Sociology and were later introduced into Mexico, giving rise to empirical community studies. Studies on the cargo system emerged as the dominant framework, overshadowing kinship studies until the beginning of the twenty-first century, when the link between the cargo system, kinship, and territory became an important subject of study. Subsequently, the discussion turns to a critical feminist approach that deconstructs the patrilineal and functionalist assumptions of the Mesoamerican community and reveals the need for transformation. The essay concludes that building community is one of the last bastions of humanity’s cultural
production.