Changing Contexts for Harmony versus Adversarial Models

Violence within villages is intimately connected to the violence between villages, which in turn develops in a context of warfare among different political entities. This long history goes back to the Mixtec conquest of the Zapotec and later the Aztec conquest, and followed by the Spanish conquest and centuries of colonial control.

Nader's research shows that the Zapotec of Talea are all too well aware of these issues, and this is why they focus on keeping conflict within the village. When con­flict spills beyond the village boundaries then Mexican government officials and lawyers take over, to everyone's loss and expense. The Zapotec of Talea use the “harmony model” of conflict resolution as a way to restrict the encroachment of ex­ternal power in “a political ideology that is counter-hegemonic” (Nader 1990: 307). The local court officials of Talea “are vigilant in disputes that threaten the whole. Their tolerance for contentiousness and litigiousness is generous as long as the bounded community is protected. For this reason the communities are peaceful though not conflict free” (1990: 313).

Nader's analysis of a harmony ideology that emphasizes reconciliation applies to the village that I studied, but I would add that in addition to the village court, respect for godparents is an important instrument for maintaining a harmony ideology of re­solving disputes before they spread.

Since I first came to the village in 1977 the rate of change has been accelerating. Earlier there were no locks on doors, few patios had gates that closed, and crime of any sort was unusual. Only barking dogs guarded the houses and livestock. There was no market and the only transportation was a bus that arrived once in the morning and once in the evening. The only outsiders who arrived during the day were the elementary school teachers and occasional street vendors who were familiar to eve­ryone. If a stranger entered the village, such as a visiting health officer, people no­ticed and commented to others so that eventually everyone found out. I soon learned that there was never any anonymity or privacy. But this also meant that the village was extremely safe at all hours of day or night.

When I visited the community in 1996 I found a dramatic change in the atmos­phere of the village. Everyone has locks on their doors, and many have iron gates to secure their house patios. Buses enter the village several times a day, and a few young men have cars used as taxis. This is very convenient for travel to and from the city, but it means that outsiders are more prevalent. Outsiders are renting or buying property and living in the village. Meanwhile, more of the village's youth have left to work in Oaxaca City or Mexico City, and even more have migrated to the United States to work. People complain about the presence of outsiders, and the ways in which living in the United States has influenced those who have returned to the vil­lage. Robbery and assault are much more common.

In particular, one incident stands out. Every year for the patron saint's fiesta a modern band, or conjunto, plays tropical music in front of the town hall. In the past this dance was open for all the villagers to come and watch. Men, women, and chil­dren all attended, standing around on the edges of the basketball court that was trans­formed into a dance floor.

This incident reveals an increasing fragmentation in this small village as out­migration and in-migration increase and the mass media and schools teach that the source of knowledge and meaning lie beyond the village in the city. Back in the early 1970s, Selby heard people in another village complain that “the children have no respect or manners any more and that it is impossible to teach them because they listen too much to the schoolteachers... they don't even know how to say ‘hello' to their godfathers any more” (Selby 1974: 4). I have heard the same complaints in the past, but imagine what people are saying now!

In other areas of Oaxaca it has been noted that “the separation of religious from civil hierarchies in indigenous communities and the increasing secularization of for­mal political decision making” have meant that “women lost their most formal re­maining link to institutional community politics” (Stephen 1991: 159).

This has also been the pattern for the village where I worked, but the more recent trend I see is the weakening even of life-cycle sponsorship for women, and for men as well. The larger political and economic problems of the Mexican nation impinge upon this small village in terms of land scarcity, inflation, tax increases, unemploy­ment, fear of violence, religious conversion to Protestantism, and population move­ments. All this has contributed to the instability of the village, and undermined the traditional authority of both godfathers and godmothers. At a big rock event that is screened off from the public there is no role for godmothers to intervene on behalf of community values, since older women are no longer able to attend as part of the au­dience.

What appears to be occurring is a basic shift in the way people perceive and re­spond to conflict and violence. According to Nader, “changes from harmony to con­frontational or adversarial law models and back have been documented by historians for a number of societies” (1990: 304).

The adversary process and style were henceforth used as a political and economic legal strategy” (1990: 304-305).

The evidence suggests that the harmony ideology of Zapotec communites sup­ports a strong role for godmothers as mediators who uphold community values and resolve problems before they reach the courts, but in a changing system where an adversarial model of competing individual interests is promoted, the godmother’s role is severely undercut. Godparenthood ties are diminished by the flux in popula­tion, as both godchildren and godparents leave the community either temporarily or permanently and create sponsorship ties elsewhere. But even within the village, the godmother’s ritual authority no longer carries over into the political sphere with the same strength as in the past.