Productive reproduction strategies and new reconfigurations of the peasant economy in Manuel Ávila Camacho, Cuapiaxtla, Tlaxcala

Abstract

The various agricultural policy changes adopted by Mexico over the past 30 years have not positively impacted the country's rural areas, making it crucial to highlight the local and traditional production methods that sustain social and economic life. The main objective of this research is to characterize the principal agricultural production processes, the evolving roles of families, and the local approaches to resolving the problems that hinder or limit their reproduction. The study was conducted in the community of Manuel Avila Camacho, in the municipality of Cuapiaxtla, Tlaxcala, where small-scale agricultural activities have historically been practiced and where a shift in regional dynamics has been observed in recent years. A qualitative methodology with an exploratory scope was employed, consisting of four months of ethnographic fieldwork that documented the reproduction strategies of peasant families. This was supported by semi-structured interviews with various local stakeholders, using a snowball sampling technique with discriminative exponential data collection. The community continues to resist, maintaining its traditional forms of family and peasant economy, even as private capital encroaches upon the surrounding area, controlling the market for products and labor, privatizing natural resources, and commodifying available labor. Families maintain a unique way of managing their human and economic resources, and migration occurs as a survival strategy and a means of restructuring productive and social dynamics that seek to coexist, making them highly vulnerable.