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de Trabalho 7 In this paper, I shall discuss the concept of difference with regard not only to the research process but also to the focus of my particular research. I am presently writing my PhD thesis on ‘Health, Reproduction and Identity’ and here I concentrate particularly on the themes of motherhood in relation to family planning programmes. The
case study for my work is the indigenous municipality of Amatenango del
Valle in Chiapas where the data for this research was collected during
1998 and 1999. Fieldwork included in depth semi-structured interviews,
observation and quantitative data collected via the household questionnaire
survey. I begin with a brief description of this community, before presenting
some of the problems I confronted during fieldwork and the paper ends
with a discussion of motherhood and family planning. Amatenango
del Valle Amatenango
del Valle has been a well-studied community, having attracted anthropological
research in the 1950s when June Nash first began research there, basing
her book ‘In the Eyes of the Ancestors’, published in 1970, upon this
research. The community is in the highland zone of the state of Chiapas.
The town centre is located a few metres from the Pan-American Highway
twenty-five miles southeast of the town of San Cristóbal
de las Casas, approximately 2,000 metres above sea level. In 1995, (the
most recent figures) the population stood at
stood at 6,775 (3, 287 male and 3, 488 female) (INEGI, Chiapas Tomo II,
1996; 591). The first language is Tzeltal and this is commonly spoken
within the home. The majority of the women speak good Spanish (although
some of the older women speak only Tzeltal). This is particularly unusual
for indigenous women of the region as in the majority of other communities
women are effectively mono-lingual and, even in cases where they are bilingual,
they lack the confidence to converse in Spanish[2].
However, in contrast to many indigenous communities of the region, since
the construction of the highway, it has maintained much contact with surrounding
non-indigenous communities, particularly San Cristóbal
de las Casas and Comitan. The pottery making tradition of the women of
Amatenango has facilitated this contact. Not only do women frequently
travel to these surrounding towns to sell their products but they are
often also visited in their homes by buyers and, increasingly, by tourist
groups. As a result, the women of Amatenango are notoriously powerful
within the community and the home. However, it must be stressed that this
is relative to the lack of power exercised by women in comparable situations
in other indigenous communities and not in comparison with mestizo women.
Women’s
roles are still very much restricted, although developments can clearly
be seen to have been made since the first research carried out by Nash.
In particular, the development of women’s co-operatives to facilitate
the merchandising of their pottery has led to increased public activity
of women. However, this is often very much resented by the men. In the
1970s, the leader of one co-operative, a woman named Petrona, sought to
become the municipal leader, la
presidente. In reaction to her presumptuousness, she was shot and
murdered. Her murderer was never found. Although most people believe they
know who it was, they will never comment openly. Her very desire to be
president, however, reflects the great difference between women of Amatenango
and those of other communities, where it would be unthinkable for a woman
to even conceive the idea of being president. For many years after Petrona’s
murder, fear then halted the activities of many women’s co-operatives.[3]
However, they appear to be recovering somewhat these days, although many
women are still reluctant to admit to taking part. Despite an obvious
good supply of products to the co-operative, only 15% of women state they
are members of the co-operative. The
economic power of the women and their pottery making skills has certainly
had their impact upon their community. Amatenango, although noticeably
experiencing poor standards of living by western or even average Mexican
standards, is characterised merely as ‘poor’ and not ‘very poor’ as are
all other indigenous communities of Chiapas. Every house in the municipal
centre has piped water and there is drainage, although only 31.67% of
households have a latrine. In the settlements outside of the centre, there
is no piped water but there is a nearby clean water supply in the river
coming from the mountain. There is an electricity supply to houses, although
cuts in power are frequent and often politically motivated. [4]
Despite
changes that have occurred in the last half-century, Amatenango remains
a traditional community, holding on to the principles of its culture and
beliefs that have been maintained for centuries. The women still always
wear the traditional dress of a white huipil[5]
with a brightly embroidered square of mainly red silk or cotton thread,
a red faja[6] and a heavy blue cotton
skirt. Many of the younger women, however, now choose to wear the brighter,
shorter costume of the neighbouring community of Aguatenango, frequently
receiving the traditional Amatenango outfit for their wedding. The religion
is predominantly Catholic, although there have been a number of conversions
to Evangelism and unlike other municipios,
such as San Juan Chamula[7],
the Evangelists and the Catholics have been able to live together[8].
The saint of the town is Santa Lucia whose fiesta (holiday)
in December is celebrated with great festivities. However, many beliefs
date back to before colonisation and are combined with the official Catholicism.
Hierberos or curanderos, the local healers still play an active role in society
and undertake many ceremonies of protection and healing. Their power is
maintained by the overriding belief that ill health or misfortune is caused
by envidia (envy) on the part
of others and this provokes witchcraft to be utilised in order to damage
the spirit and thereby cause ill health or even death. In
comparison with many other indigenous communities, Amatenango is well
equipped in terms of public services. The town has a small health centre,
which is situated in the colonia (neighbourhood) named La
Grandeza, about a fifteen minute walk from the centre. The centre
is staffed by one doctor and two nurses, all female. From Monday to Friday,
it is open from 8 am until 1 p.m. and then again from 3 until the last
patient has left. At the weekend one of the nurses is present to deal
with medical emergencies. There are two primary schools, one monolingual,
teaching in Spanish, and the other bilingual with teaching in both Tzeltal
and Spanish. There is also a kindergarten and a small secondary school.
Although
it is partly because of its accessibility in terms of its situation on
the Pan-American highway, one of the reasons Amatenango is so well equipped
is because traditionally it has been a government voting community with
a PRI local government. As such, it has been rewarded for its loyalty
(Reding, 1994) with such services and with governmental schemes such as
PROCAMPO[9]
and PROGRESA. The last local government was, however, the PRD, the left-wing
opposition party, often associated with supporters of the EZLN, although
in the election of October 1998, the PRI again gained control, taking
over the presidency in January 1999. Although these changing results may
be seen as reflecting national trends (after, for example the election
of Cardenas to the governorship of Mexico City), much of Amatenango’s
politics has little to do with the national political parties but rather
reflects opposing families and kin-groups playing out their historical
disputes[10].
The
research process and difference The
sample group of 37 women interviewed during the course of my fieldwork
of Amatenango del Valle display a marked consistency in many demographic
respects. This consistency is unremarkable when their traditional subsistence
and pottery production lifestyle and the tight knit constant community,
which forms their world, are considered. There is no great differentiation
in material wealth, geography, history, or occupation, for example. Nevertheless,
the group of women represent a varied sample in other respects. They are
of varied ages, marital statuses, family constructions and personal circumstances.
The aim in my thesis is to find consistencies in representations of their
own varied experiences of health and reproduction which might then, despite
these variations, be understood to relate to women’s gender and ethnic
identities formulated in the context of their social and economic world.
All
the women who were interviewed in-depth had previously been interviewees
for the questionnaire survey. For the questionnaire survey, I had initially
used the snowball technique to approach possible interviewees. I employed
the oldest daughter of the family with whom I lived in the community to
introduce me to neighbours and extended family members.
I found this to be a very effective method. Not only was I introduced
me to the majority of my interviewees (given that Amatenango del Valle
is such a close knit, constant community, one family can be the key to
vast number of others via family and social contacts) but also being introduced
by a member of the community meant that there was a greater level of trust
than if I had been a mere stranger approaching them. However, when these
contacts began to wane, I found it increasingly more difficult to find
potential interviewees precisely for this reason and much time was spent
touring houses to persuade women, often in vain, to take part in the survey. At
the second stage of the process, I used a combination of techniques to
identify and approach potential interviewees for in-depth interviews.
On the one hand, I used the snowball technique, asking women known to
me to suggest which of the women with whom I had previously completed
the questionnaires might be interested in being subjects for in-depth
interviews. Secondly, I ‘followed-up’ upon the questionnaires, revisiting
homes of women who had seemed particularly interesting during the questionnaire
stage and who had been keen for me to return. I was not necessarily as
free as may be ideal to select a sample based on the research aim criteria
as the availability and willingness of potential candidates naturally
limited me. In addition, much of the interviewing was conducted in mid
to late 1998 in the run-up to the October elections, which increased suspicions
of strangers asking questions. However, as far as possible, I aimed to
find representatives of each of the following criteria: A/.Married women with children who use methods
of reproductive control; B/ Married women with children who do not use
methods of reproductive control; C/ Widows D/ Separated women E/ Never married women By
creating such categories, however, albeit merely as a useful tool of research,
I was perhaps in turn playing a role in creating
my own research results. One of the difficulties of conducting research
in such an environment is my own alien identity. I am a white, middle
class, educated woman from the Western world. As such, I bring to research
my own assumptions and pre-sumptions. In presuming that these categories
are valid, I am presuming that these identity markers make sense not just
to me, but, more importantly, to the interviewees, to the women, themselves.
And, as I quickly discovered, that was a mistake. In interviews, I realised
that the categories were beginning to merge. In particular, widows, separated
women, and never married women gave themselves, or were given by others,
whichever of these identities they decided and this seemed not so relevant
as the fact that, at that moment in time, they were effectively ‘single’
whatever the reason. For example, I interviewed one woman who told me
she was a widow at the beginning of the interview, and towards the end
began to describe how her husband had deserted her for another woman.
And there were other similar examples for women of the other ‘categories’.
This could of course be somewhat confusing! However, I soon realised that
I had to relearn how I looked at relationships and priorities – it was
not the categories in which I sought to place women that was important
but rather the categories in which women placed themselves. The
same was true for certain issues which were brought up in interviews.
Perhaps the most difficult was the issue of domestic violence, which we
construe in certain, extremely negative, terms in the Western world. For
women in Amatenango, domestic violence is ‘punishment’ for not being a
good wife or a good mother. This is obviously extremely difficult to swallow.
On occasion, I heard commentary from (male) workers in the development
field which suggested that because the women did not openly challenge
domestic violence, then it was acceptable because of ‘cultural difference’
and this should not be interfered with by ‘outsiders’. However, I would
debate this point. I often heard women refer to their neighbours having
‘luck’ if their husbands did not drink, and therefore did not beat them,
and would advise their daughters that when looking for a husband they
should also look for men who did not drink. Although they would also refer
to women’s ‘crimes’ when they did get beaten, this did not mean that the
domestic violence was acceptable to them, but rather the unacceptability
was expressed in different, perhaps more subtle, forms. In effect, I was
having to learn a different language, not just linguistically in trying
to grasp Spanish and Tzeltal, but also culturally. The key concept to be drawn from these problems is that of difference. One of the problems of previous feminist debates is that they tended to universalise the experiences not only of developing nations and poverty but also of women whatever their cultural and ethnic background. They took little account of issues of identity and how this may change the relationship differing cultures and the individual women within them have to their gendered roles, such as that of motherhood, or issues such as domestic violence. It is necessary to question the notion of the category of ‘women’ in order to understand that ‘gender interests’, or for that matter ‘women’s roles’, are not necessarily identical, or expressed in similar ways, across culture, class and ethnic boundaries. Certain feminisms, particularly second wave feminism, put into play a notion of the universal women or of a general oppression of women, of a generalised ‘patriarchy’. This, however, is unhelpful. As Moore states; ‘...there can be no universal or unitary sociological category ‘woman’, and therefore ..there can be no analytical meaning in any universal conditions, attitudes or views ascribed to this ‘woman’ - for example, in the ‘universal subordination of women’ and the ‘oppression of women’. The term patriarchy is deconstructed. This does not mean that women are not oppressed by patriarchal structures, but it does mean that the nature and consequences of those structures have to be identified in each instance and not assumed.’(Moore, 1988;189) Any study of indigenous women must be firmly situated within their social and historical context, explicitly the colonial experience of marginalisation and their experience of indigenous cultures. Indigenous women’s self perception may be based more upon an understanding of themselves as constituted as part of their individual cultural history and community which operates as a nation more concretely than any relationship to the Mexican nation-state and so perhaps than seeing themselves as Mexican women, or even sharing a universal identity as ‘women’. Particularly for indigenous women, their identity may be forged upon historical experience based upon their exclusion from Mexican nationhood and any material benefits this may have brought. This then brings into play another issue for a white, middle-class, educated researcher such as myself, that of power relationships. Obviously this is inherent to a certain degree in any interviewer-interviewee relationship. However, in an environment, where racism and exclusion have been key experiences, this is a yet more crucial factor in the interview process and one which I cannot claim to have resolved. The only way in which I at least attempted to resolve this issue was get to know the community, and more importantly, for them to get to know me, as well as possible. In this way, I hoped that I would be a ‘person’ rather than, or at least as well as, the ‘researcher/expert’. I also hoped that they would learn my inadequacies and they certainly did. A higher education at British universities may equip you for many tasks but it certainly did not make me proficient in making tortillas or stripping kernels from corn. I had to learn these tasks and my friends in the community had to be the teachers (often with much hilarity!). Aside from the practical tasks, I learnt that my own education was only one sort and there are many other, equally valid, education systems. I hoped that this would level out the inequalities between myself and my interviewees, although this was perhaps naïve and it is no doubt impossible to erase centuries of inequality so simply. However, in a sense, I was attempting to level out inequality by emphasising difference. The interviewees I give here a brief description of the lives and socio-economic circumstances of a few of my interviewees, concentrating particularly upon their health and factors concerning motherhood. This will locate the discussion about family planning and motherhood, in the context of the continued theme of ‘difference’, with which I will end this paper. One of the most important women interviewees was Luisa. Luisa is the wife and mother of the family with which I stayed. She was important as a personal supportive friend throughout my fieldwork in Amatenango but also, being a talkative, intelligent and open woman as an invaluable source of information on the lives and attitudes of women. She had completed primary education. At the time of the fieldwork she was 42 years of age and she lived in a household of 10 (11 including myself). She had married at 16 and still lived with her husband, Mariano, of the same age. All of her children are living and she had had 10, 4 boys and 6 girls, with ages ranging from 24 down to 18 months. She did not use contraception, frequently commenting ‘a ver que dice Dios’ to see how many children she would have. For her, it was testament to her good mothering skills that not one of her ten children had died. Although she, herself, claimed never to have been ill up until that point, in the summer of 1998 whilst I was staying there, she became ill with severe pains in her abdomen and lower back. This was diagnosed as a collapsed uterus. Luisa, and her eldest daughter, Nicolasa were the primary producers of pottery in the household, although Nicolasa’s was of a higher standard and attracted more regular marchantes (regular buyers) from further afield. The house consisted of one room constructed of concrete (a small second wooden room added on the side to accommodate me), with a tiled roof and concrete floor. As with all living arrangements in Amatenango, the kitchen, containing the traditional fireplace for cooking, was separate from the living quarters and, for Luisa’s household, consisted of a small adobe (mud) building with a tiled roof (with only the space between the walls and the tiles for smoke to escape). The household had also recently come into possession of a latrine, in a small concrete outbuilding. In comparison with many families in Amatenango, their living standards were relatively high, with a reasonable stock of land and, given their advantageous position near the centre of the town, a good trade in pottery. Another important interviewee was Evangelina, the daughter-in-law of Luisa. She had married Jose at eighteen and was now twenty-two, with an eight-month old daughter, Silvana, of whom she was very proud as she had waited so long to become pregnant. She had had a difficult experience in birth, being one week in labour. She did not use contraception and had completed primary education They had lived with Luisa’s family until two years previously when they had moved to a plot of land given to them by Mariano (her father-in-law) in the barrio of Pie del Centro ( a fifteen minute walk from the centre of Amatenango) and constructed their own wooden house with one room and a separate wooden kitchen room. Carolina was one of the most interesting and open interviewees in terms of health problems and contraception. She was also a young woman, of twenty years of age, and had been married to Evangelina’s brother since the age of fifteen. She lived in the centre of Amatenango in the most impoverished circumstances of all of the interviewees. The one-roomed house was small, again with a separate kitchen, both roughly constructed of wood. She had one daughter, aged four, but had had two other children which had died. She had used birth control in the past but had had many associated problems. She suffered from health problems connected to malnutrition. She did produce pottery for sale but it was of a poor standard as her mother had not been from Amatenango and so she was learning as an adult, instructed by her mother-in-law. Carolina’s story: Her most overriding concern was to be able to have another healthy child. When asked if she would like to have more children, she describes how others have died and places her failure to do so very much in the context of her cultural beliefs and her economic circumstances: ‘I already had another child but it died. From then on, it has been hard for me to have another. I can’t get pregnant because of the ‘envidias’ (the envies) My second child was almost born at seven months because of an orange which I saw and didn’t buy. Later when I ate it, my pains started but they passed and the child was born at nine months. He died half an hour after birth…he didn’t cry when he was born. I went to the clinic and they told me that it was already his time to be born, but even so he died. Two of my children have died. The second was taken at three weeks after birth, he died. Because of envy, the curandero (witchdoctor) said. Both the curandero and the clinic gave me a lot of medicine, creams, drops and injections. Now I am three months pregnant again but I feel weak, my head hurts and I don’t have any appetite. I have been to the clinic. They tell me I am weak and that I need vitamins but there is no money to buy them. I am afraid that it will not be raised. My husband says that he is going to get hold of the money to go to the curandero so that it is born and from there it will be raised.’ She showed me a photo of herself at age fifteen where she was noticeably a great deal plumper. At twenty, she now looks dangerously thin. On one visit she asked me to read to her a document which the local clinic had given her. It was an appointment card to go for a blood test in the hospital in San Cristobal as it was suspected that she had chronic anaemia. I asked her if she would go. She gave me a variety of reasons why she would not, including lack of money for the bus trip and being scared to go alone. I offered to give her the money to make the trip and, if she would like, that I would accompany her. She agreed. However, at the agreed time, she did not appear. I later spoke to other members of the community who said that she was probably afraid to go to the hospital and that perhaps her husband objected to her making the trip. When I asked her myself, she said that she was now going to visit the curandero who would be able to cure her. As this, and the narrative above reveal, illness is understood in a very specific cultural context and other health services are negotiated around such belief systems. However, the reluctance of women to seek out ‘Western’ healthcare as opposed to ‘traditional’ does not relate to ignorance but rather to differing understandings of the world and visions of themselves, and others, within this world. These understandings are equally as valid as those of the Western world. Family Planning, Motherhood and Difference The difference in conceptions and values also exists in the sphere of family planning. There is a great push towards family planning not only in Amatenango but in the whole of Chiapas. It is slowly being taken up, mainly as a result of PROGRESA, the current governmental health programme which concentrates upon increasing women’s participation in primary healthcare. The numbers in Amatenango are still minimal with only 18.92% of women between the age of 16 and 45 reporting usage. Of these, 28.57% have been sterilised. Nevertheless, the topic is now much discussed amongst women and debated between themselves as to whether or not they should be limiting their family size, effectively restricting their motherhood role. In fact, the ‘hotness’ of the topic amongst the women themselves was my primary reason for undertaking this study. However, as the above descriptions of interviewees reveal, within the traditions of indigenous culture in Chiapas, the majority of women’s worth, not only from the community’s perspective but also from her own perspective of her-self, comes from her role and identity as a mother. Although Eurocentric feminist values may lament this ‘limited role’ seeing it in terms of Western family values and possibilities for women, and viewing family planning as a means to increase women’s options, it is sad that women’s own desires for self-fulfilment in motherhood should be limited in this way. Here too it is important not to impose assumptions about the implications of motherhood and family size and to stress difference. For indigenous women in Chiapas, having fewer children is not going to impart greater life-choices. Obviously, it would reflect positive steps towards women’s equality, should they have greater life-style choices and choose family planning as a means to have the option and freedom to participate to a greater degree in society. However, this is not the reality in this context. The increasing usage of methods of family planning methods reflects an acceptance at individual level of the assumption of a causal relationship between poverty, population and development. However, family planning is unlikely to increase the family’s overall economic circumstances. They will not suddenly be given more land, and particularly more productive land needed, a better healthcare system, a more adequate educational provision or clean water and electricity. They may have a little more money in the short term to provide for themselves and the children they do have. However, in the longer term the outlook is bleaker as, in old age and infirmity, there will be fewer offspring to help with the continuing work in the field and help support them. Equally as importantly, women may be deprived of the social and cultural significance of motherhood. There, of course, are obvious health risks associated with repetitious, closely spaced pregnancies. Therefore, if family planning for the purposes of spacing pregnancy were implemented and information disseminated to explain the need on this basis, before a choice is made, this would obviously be beneficial. However, it is anecdotally reported the most frequent form of contraceptive for indigenous women in Chiapas is sterilisation[11]. This occurs after the woman has had the number of children that the family considers they can afford, need or want. Nevertheless, she is likely to have started her pregnancies at a very young age. She is likely also not to have spaced out her pregnancies using other contraceptives and so not have avoided the associated health problems, in particular anaemia, which is also associated with poor diet. Garza Caligaris and Cadenas Gordillo report such ‘institutional coercion’ in family planning, particularly as a result of the ‘1986 State Programme of Family Planning in Chiapas’, has been facilitated by ‘ethnic oppression, monolingualism and illiteracy’. (Garza Caligaris and Cadenas Gordillo, 1994; 97) (My translation). According to their findings, many women have had abusive experiences in Unidades Médicas Rurales (Rural Medical Units), which in addition to the enforced sterilisations remarked on above, included the insertion of IUDs immediately following birth, refusals to remove them, the application of injectable contraception by deceit, or in spite of contraindications. Even in situations where women may make choices, ‘complete and adequate information’ is not always given, thereby making it difficult to ‘take an informed decision’. (Garza Caligaris and Cadenas Gordillo, op cit; 97). (My translation) And certainly that was the feeling that came through in my interviews both with the women and the doctor in the local health centre. There seemed to be a great deal of misunderstanding and confusion, particularly about possible side-effects and motivation, and the doctor appeared to dismiss this as ‘ignorance’ on the women’s behalf, rather than inadequate information and, also, difference in knowledge systems regarding health, illness and motherhood. Conclusion These
reports are disturbing and perhaps indicative of the ideology in which
family planning programmes in Chiapas are based. The control of reproductive
rights should be based upon consensual, autonomous and informed choice
to facilitate women’s control over the own bodies and families’ rights
to choose the number of children they wish to have. Perhaps universally
these decisions are never truly autonomous of societal pressures nor taken
by women without co-ercion from other family members and interested parties.
However, in Chiapas, these decisions are further complicated and problematized
by poverty and the oppression experienced by indigenous groups. The push
towards family planning and limiting the motherhood role may also have
to do with the spreading of Western ideologies of family values, parenthood
and nuclear families and the cultural imperialism this implies rather
than any altruistic intentions. (see Furedi, 1997). One of the most important
aspects of any discussion of population control or motherhood is to recognise
the cultural specificity of reproductive decisions – the role of ethnic
identity particularly – and, as with the research process itself, not
to place Western cultural values upon situations where they are wholly
inappropriate. Bibliography Furedi, Frank, (1997), Population and Development, Polity Press Garza
Caligaris, Anna María,
and Bárbara Cadenas Gordillo, (1994), “Anticoncepción y Derechos Reproductivos
en los Altos de Chiapas”, Anuario
IEI, IV, 1994, Universidad Autónoma de Chiapas de Estudios Indígenas,
San Cristóbal de las Casas, pp. 93
– 100 Moore, Henrietta, (1988), Feminism and Anthropology, Polity Press Nash, J. (1970). In the Eyes of the Ancestors: Belief and Behavior in a Mayan community, Yale University Press. INEGI,
(1996), Conteo de Poblacion y Vivienda 1995: Resultados Definitivos: Tabulados
Basicos, (Aguascalientes, Mexico, Instituto Nacional de Estadistica,
Geografia e Geografia). [1] The Gender Institute and London School of Economics and Political Science [2] When I initially began fieldwork it was in two Tzotzil communities of San Andres Larrainzar and Chenalho and, when undertaking the questionnaire survey, it was necessary to have a translator. Although in many cases it became obvious that the women could understand the questions in Spanish they preferred to answer in Tzotzil. In Amatenango, however, the questionnaires were undertaken in Spanish, translation only occasionally being necessary for some older women. [3] June Nash originally brought this history to my attention, which was then followed up in informal conversations with women in Amatenango. [4] The PRD supporters (often a byword for Zapatista supporters in the region) refuse to pay their electricity bills as they claim the bills to be too expensive. Therefore, the supply of electricity to ALL households is periodically cut off, often for a couple of days at a time. [5] The traditional blouse. [6] A long woollen scarf-like corset which is wrapped around the top of the skirt. [7] San Juan Chamula is a strongly PRI supporting municipal authority near San Cristóbal de las Casas, known for its intolerance of other religions and those supporting other political parties. [8]
In San Juan Chamula and other municipios,
evangelist conversions are not acceptable and many evangelists have been
ejected from the community, resulting in the rise in slum communities
on the outskirts of San Cristóbal
de las Casas. In Amatenango del Valle, however, although there was some
original tension and continued suspicion, representatives of the two religions
remain in the community albeit concentrated in different areas of the
town. [9] The governmental scheme to provide individual peasant farmers with resources for fertilisers and seeds etc. to promote their crops. [10] The present supporters of the PRD generally all live in one particular region of the municipal centre and the PRI supporters on the other. In addition, it is reported that those who run the local PRD faction are, or are related to, people who were ejected from the PRI because of fraud. [11] Reports made by the Grupo de Mujeres and the nuns of the voluntary hospital at Altamirano. |