Zinacanteco women : prediction for change in a mexican village

The attempt is made to identify conditions that allow changes in traditional female roles and to subsequently evaluate local responses in terms of old and new arrangements. The Zinacantecos Tzotzil-speaking descendants of the Maya who reside in the highlands of Chiapas Mexico provide an interesting case study for examining the influence of modernization on womens roles. The case is made that the ability of the Zinacantecos to mitigate the potentially destabilizing forces of modernization rests in part on the extent to which women have been excluded from public life particularly from wage employment and more prestigious social positions. This argument is developed initially by considering "traditional" social and institutional arrangements that inhibit the social participation of women. Subsequent discussion focuses on how the ecological imbalances stemming from population growth could undermine the ability of the Zinacantecos to maintain their traditional culture and ethnic identity. Preservation of their traditional culture is related to the ability of the Zinacantecos to maintain the delicate balance between their resource base their social organization and their environment in the face of increasing population pressure. Zinacanteco men interact more extensively with the dominant Mexican or ladino culture than do women. Their role as a filter for modernizing influences considerably delimits womens social and economic activity domains. The home continues as the bastion of ethnic identity and women are the guardians of that identity.