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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Serie: Antipode Book Series
- Sprache: Englisch
Producing Mayaland "Producing Mayaland powerfully captures the extent to which the abstract spaces of global capital are infused with colonial fantasies, haunted by uncanny ruins, and plagued by monstrous manifestations of ecological breakdown. Through a compelling account of the maquiladora industry in the Yucatan Peninsula, Claudia Fonseca Alfaro vividly conveys the inextricable entanglements of the capitalist production of space and the coloniality of power." --Japhy Wilson, School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester, UK "In Producing Mayaland, Claudia Fonseca Alfaro finds a unique voice to narrate the contested relations between everyday life, urbanization and the uneven development of capitalism in Motul, Yucatán, Mexico. The remarkable insights of this work emerge from her innovative synthesis of critical urban theory, anticolonialism and 'magical realism'-- all grounded in an imaginative appropriation of Henri Lefebvre's oeuvre on the production of space." -- Kanishka Goonewardena, Professor of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto Critical urban theory and postcolonial approaches are brought together in this compelling book to explore the relationship between colonial legacies, urbanization, and global capitalism in southern Mexico. Producing Mayaland investigates the boom-to-bust story of maquiladoras in the state of Yucatán to shed light on how the built environment was shaped by discourse, imaginaries, and everyday practices. In making sense of this social production of space, the author examines infrastructure constructed to support the maquiladora project and traces the attempts of the state to portray Yucatán as an exotic and business-friendly maquiladora paradise. These practices stand in contrast to the livelihood strategies and life stories of maquiladora workers and residents. Carefully weaving geography, history, and ethnography, the author draws on a wide range of sources to illustrate a central tension in capitalism: its tendency to homogenize while thriving in differentiation. With important insights into an understudied location, Producing Mayaland urges us to understand urbanization in the global South in new ways.
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Table of Contents
Cover
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Series Editors’ Preface
List of Abbreviations
List of Figures and Table
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
A View from Motul, Yucatán
Old Frontier/New Frontier
Tales of Boom‐to‐Bust: Green Gold and Blue Jeans
Producing Mayaland
Instances of Magic
Mobilizing Lefebvre's Triad
Capturing the Production of Space
Chapter Outline
Notes
2 Postcolonizing Lefebvre?
Navigating Eurocentrism
The Rawness of Capitalism
A Postcolonial
Spatial
Approach
Everyday Life
A Planetary Urban Fabric
Notes
3 Maquiladora Paradise
The “Backward South”
The Assets
New World Exoticism
Traces of Abstract Space
Notes
4 The Magical Maya
Dutiful Mayan Workers
Mayan Essence
Cosmic Race: The Demise of the
Indio
Through Abstract Space?
Notes
5 The Zone
The Factory
Sheltering Capitalism
Coloniality of Power and Abstractions at Work
Notes
6 The Maquila Leftovers
Invisible Remnants
A Lesser Evil
Cyclical Relics
Abstract Space, Colonization, and Phantasmagoria
Notes
7 Understanding the Urban in/from Yucatán
Here be Dragons
The Urban in Yucatán
Eliminating Practices of Monster‐Making
Notes
8 Living with the Maquila
Everyday Life and Colonization
Living with Montgomery
Latent Differential Space
Conclusion
Notes
9 Conclusion
Lefebvre Meets Postcolonial Theory
Colonial Legacies
Urbanization
The Unfolding of Global Capitalism
Bibliography
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 6
Table 6.1 Location, area, urbanization rates, and occupancy rates of indust...
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1
Figure 1.1 Map of the state of Yucatán with regional centers and some settle...
Figure 1.2 Maquiladoras operating in Yucatán between 1981 and 2019. Values c...
Chapter 3
Figure 3.1 “Located in Yucatán, the industrial park is found on kilometer 12...
Figure 3.2 “Connectivity to major ports of the United States.”
Figure 3.3 “The best bridge to connect with the world. It's located less tha...
Figure 3.4 Yucatán's proximity to Florida and calculated savings in comparis...
Figure 3.5 “The pier that extends from Progreso into the Gulf of Mexico is a...
Figure 3.6
“Los sindicatos no son tan fuertes como en Centroamérica y el nor
...
Figure 3.7 “Yucatán: Strikes that have broken out.”
Figure 3.8 “Unique Quality of Life. Land of Wonders.”
Figure 3.9 “The Safest State in Mexico. Tranquility to live and do business....
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1 “Mayan women in robotics and community leaders: weaving modernity...
Figure 4.2 “From henequen to maquiladoras: the industrial policy in Yucatán ...
Chapter 6
Figure 6.1 The indistinguishable Motul Industrial Park. Motul, Yucatán.
Figure 6.2 Paved roads with street lightning lead into green nothingness; th...
Figure 6.3 A “for lease” sign supported by rusty poles.
Parque Industrial Yu
...
Figure 6.4 An empty building with a façade inspired by Mexican colonial arch...
Figure 6.5 Possibly a former small parking lot; a square of cement taken ove...
Figure 6.6 An empty building with a well‐kept front garden.
Parque Industria
...
Figure 6.7 An empty building with the old factory names still readable.
Parq
...
Figure 6.8 “Lots for sale” (
terrenos en venta
, billboard) and “warehouse for...
Figure 6.9 “Private property. For sale.” Another sidewalk that flanks an emp...
Figure 6.10 Progreso's annual cargo throughput as a percentage of installed ...
Figure 6.11 Progreso's annual incoming and outgoing containers (TEUs) as a p...
Figure 6.12 Progreso's annual passengers as a percentage of installed capaci...
Chapter 8
Figure 8.1 The dirt path that runs alongside the house where Carlos's parent...
Figure 8.2 The main street in El Refugio.
Figure 8.3 Two
mototaxis
. In the background, Bodega Aurrera (a nationwide su...
Guide
Cover Page
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Series Editors’ Preface
List of Abbreviations
List of Figures and Table
Acknowledgements
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
Bibliography
Index
WILEY END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
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Antipode Book Series
Series Editors: Kiran Asher (University of Massachusetts, USA) and David Featherstone (University of Glasgow, UK)
Published
Producing Mayaland: Colonial Legacies, Urbanization, and the Unfolding of Global CapitalismClaudia Fonseca Alfaro
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Producing Mayaland
Colonial Legacies, Urbanization, and the Unfolding of Global Capitalism
Claudia Fonseca Alfaro
This First edition first published 2023© 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data
Names: Alfaro, Claudia Fonseca, author.Title: Producing Mayaland : colonial legacies, urbanization, and the unfolding of global capitalism / Claudia Fonseca Alfaro.Description: First edition. | Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, 2023. | Series: Antipode book series | Includes bibliographical references and index.Identifiers: LCCN 2022053607 (print) | LCCN 2022053608 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119647324 (hardback) | ISBN 9781119647409 (paperback) | ISBN 9781119647393 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119647416 (epub)Subjects: LCSH: Offshore assembly industry–Mexico–Yucatán (State) | Urbanization–Mexico–Yucatán (State) | Built environment–Mexico–Yucatán (State) | Postcolonialism–Mexico–Yucatán (State) | Yucatán (Mexico : State)–Social conditions. | Yucatán (Mexico : State)–Economic conditions. | Lefebvre, Henri, 1901–1991.Classification: LCC HD9734.M43 Y8333 2023 (print) | LCC HD9734.M43 (ebook) | DDC 338.4/767042097265–dc23/eng/20230221LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022053607LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022053608
Cover Design: WileyCover Image: © Claudia Fonseca Alfaro
Series Editors’ Preface
The Antipode Book Series publishes books that engage and strengthen radical geographical ideas and Left politics broadly defined by combining critical theoretical interventions and empirical rigor. While we are open to different forms of substantive, innovative, and imaginative scholarship, we are particularly keen to publish monographs that develop their argument in sustained and situated ways. While the series is rooted in geography and is transnational in scope, neither is it limited to disciplinary scholarship nor does it privilege particular geographical contexts. Rather, we are interested in a broad spectrum of politically engaged scholarship that is in conversation with critical debates across fields, and that might speak to issues posed by contemporary political conjunctures. We particularly welcome submissions from authors from the global South and from backgrounds traditionally under‐represented in the academy. If you have an idea for an Antipode book, whether it is a monograph or an edited collection, please contact the Book Series Editors who are happy to discuss ideas for potential book proposals. For more details about the series, see: https://antipodeonline.org/category/antipode‐book‐series.
Kiran Asher
University of Massachusetts, USA
David Featherstone
University of Glasgow, UK
Antipode Book Series Editors
Vinay Gidwani
University of Minnesota, USA
Sharad Chari
University of California, Berkeley, USA
Antipode Book Series Editors (2012–2020)
List of Abbreviations
AAGR
Average Annual Growth Rate
AMLO
Andrés Manuel López Obrador
BANRURAL
National Bank for Rural Credit
(Banco Nacional de Crédito Rural)
CANACO
National Chamber of Commerce, Services, and Tourism
(Cámara Nacional de Comercio, Servicios y Turismo)
CANAIVE
National Chamber of Commerce of the Garment Industry
(Cámara Nacional de la Industria del Vestido)
CEPRODEHL
Center for the Promotion and Defense of Human Labor Rights
(Centro de Promoción y Defensa de los Derechos Humanos Laborales)
COPARMEX
Confederation of Employers of the Mexican Republic
(Confederación Patronal de la República Mexicana)
EPZ
Export Processing Zone
FONACOT
Institute for the National Fund for Employee Consumption (official translation)
(Instituto del Fondo Nacional para el Consumo de los Trabajadores)
FONAES
National Fund for Social Enterprises
(Fondo Nacional de Empresas Sociales)
ILO
International Labour Organization
IMMEX
Manufacturing, Maquila and Export Services Industry (official translation)
(Industria Manufacturera, Maquiladora y de Servicios de Exportación)
INAFED
National Institute for Federalism and Municipal Development
(Instituto Nacional para el Federalismo y el Desarrollo Municipal)
INDEMAYA
Institute for the Development of Mayan Culture in the State of Yucatán
(Instituto para el Desarrollo de la Cultura Maya del Estado de Yucatán)
INEGI
National Institute of Statistics and Geography
(Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía)
INFONAVIT
Institute of the National Housing Fund for Workers
(Instituto para el Fondo Nacional de la Vivienda para los Trabajadores)
NAFTA
North American Free Trade Agreement
OECD
Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development
PCTY
Yucatán Scientific and Technological Park
(Parque Científico y Tecnológico de Yucatán)
PROFEPA
Federal Attorney’s Office for Environmental Protection
(Procuraduría Federal de Protección al Ambiente)
SE
Economy Secretariat
(Secretaría de Economía)
SECOFI
Secretariat of Commerce and Industrial Promotion
(Secretaría de Comercio y Fomento Industrial)
SEDATU
Secretariat of Agrarian, Land, and Urban Development
(Secretaría de Desarrollo Agrario, Territorial y Urbano)
SEDUMA
Urban Development and Environment Secretariat
(Secretaría de Desarrollo Urbano y Medio Ambiente)
SEFOE
Economic Promotion Secretariat
(Secretaría de Fomento Económico)
SEMARNAT
Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat
(Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales)
SENER
Energy Secretariat
(Secretaría de Energía)
SEP
Public Education Secretariat
(Secretaría de Educación Pública)
SEZ
Special Economic Zone
TEU
Twenty‐Foot Equivalent Unit
UADY
Autonomous University of Yucatán
(Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán)
ZEE
Special Economic Zone (Mexican context)
(Zona Económica Especial)
List of Figures and Table
Figures
1.1
Map of the state of Yucatán with regional centers and some settlements
1.2
Maquiladoras operating in Yucatán between 1981 and 2019
3.1
“Located in Yucatán, the industrial park is found on kilometer 12 of the Mérida‐Progreso road, just 20 min away from the main seaport and 15 min from Mérida international airport, making it a strategic connection spot”
3.2
“Connectivity to major ports of the United States”
3.3
“The best bridge to connect with the world. It’s located less than 56 h by ship and less than 2 h by plane from the east coast of the United States of America. The Yucatán Peninsula is the closest point to Europe in Mexico and a natural platform for the delivery of goods to Central and South America”
3.4
Yucatán’s proximity to Florida and calculated savings in comparison to other locations in Mexico
3.5
“The pier that extends from Progreso into the Gulf of Mexico is among the longest such structures in the world”
3.6
“Los sindicatos no son tan fuertes como en Centroamérica y el norte de México”
3.7
“Yucatán: Strikes that have broken out”
3.8
“Unique Quality of Life. Land of Wonders”
3.9
“The Safest State in Mexico. Tranquility to live and do business”
4.1
“Mayan women in robotics and community leaders: weaving modernity”
4.2
“From henequen to maquiladoras: the industrial policy in Yucatán 1984–2001”
6.1
The indistinguishable Motul Industrial Park. Motul, Yucatán
6.2
Paved roads with street lightning lead into green nothingness; the sidewalks flank empty lots of wild vegetation.
Parque Industrial Yucatán
. Mérida, Yucatán
6.3
A “for lease” sign supported by rusty poles.
Parque
Industrial Yucatán
. Mérida, Yucatán
6.4
An empty building with a façade inspired by Mexican colonial architecture.
Parque Industrial Yucatán
. Mérida, Yucatán
6.5
Possibly a former small parking lot; a square of cement taken over by crawling grass.
Parque Industrial Yucatán
. Mérida, Yucatán
6.6
An empty building with a well‐kept front garden.
Parque Industrial Yucatán
. Mérida, Yucatán
6.7
An empty building with the old factory names still readable.
Parque Industrial Umán
. Umán, Yucatán
6.8
“Lots for sale” (
terrenos en venta
, billboard) and “warehouse for rent” (
bodega para renta
, small sign below).
Parque Industrial Umán
. Umán, Yucatán
6.9
“Private property. For sale.” Another sidewalk that flanks an empty lot of wild vegetation.
BODEYUC
. Mérida, Yucatán
6.10
Progreso’s annual cargo throughput as a percentage of installed capacity
6.11
Progreso’s annual incoming and outgoing containers (TEUs) as a percentage of installed capacity (300,000 TEUs)
6.12
Progreso’s annual passengers as a percentage of installed capacity (1,000,000 passengers)
8.1
The dirt path that runs alongside the house where Carlos’s parents live
8.2
The main street in El Refugio
8.3
Two
mototaxis
. In the background, Bodega Aurrera (a nationwide supermarket chain), a symbol of Yucatecan urbanity
Table
6.1
Location, area, urbanization rates, and occupancy rates of industrial parks in Yucatán
Acknowledgements
This book would not have been possible without the support, patience, and generosity of several people. I would like to start by thanking my mentors: Guy Baeten, Karin Grundström, Carina Listerborn, Magnus Nilsson, and Per‐Markku Ristilammi. My most sincere gratitude also goes to the individuals that generously accepted to read early versions of this work during my doctoral studies: Maja Povrzanovic Frykman, Steve Marr, María Andrea Nardi, Lina Olsson, and Kirsten Simonsen. I am especially grateful to Mustafa Dikeç, Stefan Kipfer, and Japhy Wilson who provided encouragement and offered many insights that helped shape the manuscript into what it is today.
Malmö University has been my academic home for several years now. I owe much to the MUSA group and the vibrant intellectual community at the Institute for Urban Research. Malin Mc Glinn, Maria Persdotter, and Ingrid Jerve Ramsøy generously offered invaluable advice at various stages. I am also indebted to Adriana de la Peña Espinosa, Defne Kadioğlu, Myrto Dagkouli‐Kyriakoglou, Lorena Melgaço Silva Marques, Mathilda Rosengren, Chiara Valli, and Simone Vegliò.
The research for this project was, in part, possible thanks to a generous grant from the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography (SSAG). The support from Kerstin Sandell and the Department of Urban Studies allowed me to complete the manuscript. Camila Freitas provided assistance in checking copyrighted material and Jasmin Salih did incredible work proofreading the text. (Any remaining errors are my own, of course.) I also want to acknowledge the helpful comments of two anonymous reviewers and the patience of the series editors I had the pleasure of working with, Sharad Chari, Vinay Gidwani, and David Featherstone. The team at Wiley provided thoughtful guidance throughout the process. I am especially grateful to Jacqueline Scott.
The final words of gratitude go to my close friends and family who have always been a source of happiness and support. Thank you Christian for your unconditional love and for never complaining over all the extra housework you had to take over, especially toward the end of this process. And, finally, I am grateful for the little bundle of joy in my life. Sofia, this book is dedicated to you, with all my love.
MalmöMay 2022
1Introduction
[W]e fall into the trap of treating space as space “in itself,” as space as such. We come to think in terms of spatiality, and so to fetishize space in a way reminiscent of the old fetishism of commodities, where the trap lay in exchange, and the error was to consider “things” in isolation, as “things in themselves.”
Lefebvre (1991, p. 90)
A View from Motul, Yucatán
Motul is the center of the world, the tuch (navel) of the universe, or so say its residents. Known as the birthplace of the socialist governor Felipe Carrillo Puerto, famous for its breakfast dish huevos motuleños, and alluring to tourists because of the Sambulá cenote (sinkhole) – Motul is located in the southern Mexican state of Yucatán (see Figure 1.1).1 The city has 23,240 inhabitants (INEGI 2010), and it is well connected to other corners of the region. A four‐lane highway links the municipality to the capital and economic engine of the state, Mérida, and to other logistically significant places in the peninsula, such as Progreso, the third most important seaport in the Gulf of Mexico (CentroEure 2014; SEFOE 2011). Motul has been a regional center since the nineteenth century, when it was known as the “pearl of the coast” (Buenfil y Méndez 2011; Dzul Sánchez 2015), and continues to be prominent even today. The city provides “urban” services (i.e. education, transport, healthcare, retail, and finance) to 35 comisarías (villages) and neighboring municipalities in a radius of up to 20 km (COESPY 2013).2 The pearl of the coast is also notable for the existence of Montgomery Industries, the biggest employer in the city and the largest maquiladora factory in Yucatán.3 Montgomery manufactures jeans and other denim products for clients in the United States, Italy, and Japan, and it has been operating under the special duty‐free tax regime of the Mexican maquiladora program since it was inaugurated in 1995. A survivor of calamities such as hurricanes (e.g. Isidore in 2002) and economic downturns (e.g. 9/11 and the 2008 financial crash), the factory is a remnant of the state's maquiladora boom‐to‐bust chapter, the period between 1990 and 2001. This short interval saw Yucatán become one of the fastest growing regional economies among member countries in the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development; it also signaled the definite ending of henequen, a type of agave that, as a sought‐after commodity, had sustained Yucatán's economy for more than a century (OECD 2007). In Motul, Montgomery is regarded as a company that has left a mark in the fabric of the city and that continues to be vital for the economy. Local residents, motuleños, have the perception that everyone either has worked there or knows someone who has. The company is considered by some inhabitants as the driving force that “detonated” the local economy in the last few decades and helped Motul transform from a rural to an urban society – a watershed in the history of the city. Others, such as maquiladora workers and ex‐workers, are less enthusiastic when talking about economic growth but recognize that Montgomery brought job opportunities close to home. Regardless of what they perceive makes the factory important, motuleños agree on one thing: “Motul was one before and after Montgomery,” as phrased by the city's mayor (Interview from 30 November 2015).
Figure 1.1 Map of the state of Yucatán with regional centers and some settlements.
Source: Victoria M. Jiménez Esquivel. Reproduced with permission.
The maquiladora is considered as the trigger, if not the main factor, of the transformations that Motul has seen in the last 30 years. For instance, connectivity to Mérida improved; new neighborhoods were constructed; modes of transportation were transformed; modern food such as pizza became available; and nationwide supermarket, pharmacy, retail, and bank chains arrived. Maquiladoras have left a mark at the state level as well. The expansion of the industry prompted, for example, huge investments in infrastructure (e.g. roads network and airports). The factories also led to an increase in formal employment, transformations in commuting habits, and changes in migration patterns. Having been important players in the recent economic history of Yucatán, motuleños are proud of the development of their city, but truth be told, theirs is far from an extraordinary story in the context of globalization.4 However, if we were to borrow a pair of postcolonizing glasses and were to look at Motul – perhaps not as the navel of the universe but as a center – what could the city teach us about global capitalism and urbanization? What could we learn about how the global in global capitalism actually unfolds at the level of the everyday? What could be said about the influence of the region's historical context and colonial legacies? The aim of this study is to explore precisely these questions through the case of Montgomery Industries in Motul but taking in the wider context and history of the maquiladora boom‐to‐bust chapter in Yucatán. Before we begin, let me shed light on the significance of this approach.
Old Frontier/New Frontier
Maquiladora (or maquila for short) is a unique term to describe a factory throughout Latin America and the Caribbean that imports materials or equipment duty free in order to assemble or manufacture products for their subsequent export. However, the services offered by this type of Export Processing Zone (EPZ) are far from remarkable (Engman 2011; McCallum 2011; The World Bank 2008).5 Described by Werner (2016) as the “global factory” that fills the “seemingly endless store shelves” in the global North, what I refer to as the Zone – following the work of Bach (2011) and Easterling (2012) – is a common instrument of global capitalism that exists to provide a space for capital to operate under special tax regimes, concessions, subsidies, or regulations. The Zone can exist in one of many permutations in addition to EPZs, for example, as a Special Economic Zone, Free (Trade) Zone, Exclusive Economic Zone, or Economic Development Zone. The use of different names not only is a matter of preference but may imply differences in size and variations in regulations, concessions, and subsidies offered by the host country.6 Despite the distinctions, Zones share a dominating characteristic and purpose. These are enclaves that ensure the fluid circulation of capital and goods and sustain global supply chains (International Labour Organization 2014; The World Bank 2008) through localized strategies of “reterritorialization” (Bach 2011) carried out by governments to create “zones of exception” that, according to Roy (2011a), “both fragment and extend the space of the nation state.” The history of the Zone is centuries old. For scholars like Bach (2011) or Easterling (2012), the precursors of the modern Zone are the free ports of antiquity and the entrepôts of the colonial period of European expansionism. Early Zones – like Mayaguez, Puerto Rico (1951); Shannon, Ireland (1959); or Kaohsiung, Taiwan (1965) – are prime examples of the first experiments in combining features of industrial estates and free trade zones to promote export‐oriented economic growth (cf. The World Bank 1992, 2008).
Mexican maquiladoras were created by the government in 1965 as assembly plants that could only be located on a 20‐km strip along the border with the United States (Iglesias Prieto 1997; Plankey Videla 2008). The intervention was a response to rising unemployment levels in the northern border caused by the end of the Bracero initiative – an agricultural guest‐worker scheme for Mexican laborers willing to travel to the United States that ran between 1942 and 1964 (Núñez and Klamminger 2010). As such, maquiladoras were part of the Border Industrialization Program, which, in addition to promoting trade, aimed at increasing living standards (Alvarez‐Smith 2008). In 1972, the Mexican government transformed the maquiladora experiment into a nationwide scheme, legally allowing maquiladoras to be set up anywhere in the country (Sklair 1989; Zarate‐Hoyos and Albornoz Medina 1999). Despite the ease in restrictions, by 1985, only 10% of all maquiladoras in the country could be found in non‐border locations (Alvarez‐Smith 2008). Mexico's accession to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 and the devaluation of the peso the same year changed all this (Bair and Gereffi 2001). Economic reforms taken by the state in the 1980s – switching the Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI) policies of previous decades for the Structural Adjustments or neoliberal reforms suggested by actors such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – had paid off, making Mexico attractive for foreign investment by the 1990s (Dussel Peters 2003; Harvey 2005).7 Mexico became known as a country that could offer stable macroeconomic conditions (Dussel Peters 2003) and advantages over other manufacturing sites: a highly productive and low‐cost labor force, preferential tariffs and quotas for American companies, transport and communications infrastructure of acceptable quality, and geographical proximity to the United States (Spener et al. 2002). By the year 2000, the Mexican maquiladora model had boomed, becoming the engine running a big chunk of the economy: 29% of the country's gross domestic product and almost 50% of all manufacturing exports came from maquiladora activities (Bendesky et al. 2004).8 It was in this context that maquilas came to Yucatán, first as a hesitant wave and then as a tsunami, transforming the state into the new frontier of the maquiladora industry – at least for a while.
Tales of Boom‐to‐Bust: Green Gold and Blue Jeans
The bumpy maquiladora story in Yucatán starts in 1973, when two maquiladoras began operations in Mérida only to close a year later (Canto Sáenz 2001). The state was at a crossroads. The engine that had sustained the region for almost a century, the henequen fiber economy, was facing its most severe crisis (Quintal Palomo 2010). The creation of a state‐owned company, Cordemex S.A. de C.V., in 1961 had not prevented a continuous downward spiral in yield levels and a decline in production. Despite government subventions, investment in modern machinery, and promises that the quality of life of campesinos (peasant farmers) would improve, the attempts of Cordemex seemed unsuccessful (Canto Sáenz 2001; Yoder 2008). Yucatán has a long and dependent history with henequen (Agave fourcroydes), a succulent plant endemic to the peninsula that had been cultivated at a small scale since before the colonial era. During the late nineteenth century, the big‐scale commercial production of henequen fiber was successfully developed by hacendados (hacienda landowners), responding to an increased demand for binder twine and ropes created by technological advancements in agricultural production and the growth of world shipping (Moseley and Delpar 2008; Wells 2006). By the turn of the twentieth century, Yucatán had become a dominant player in the market, supplying up to 90% of the demand for hard fiber in factories in the United States and Canada (Wells 2006). The success made henequen Mexico's main agricultural export (Zuleta Miranda 2004) and Yucatán's “green gold” (Baños Ramírez 2010). The region was transformed from one of the poorest to “the wealthiest and most industrialized state in the entire country” (OECD 2007). This period (1880–1915), considered the golden age of henequen, came to an end with the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution, when modifications to land tenure forced landowners to distribute substantial portions of their land among the peasant population (Canto Sáenz 2001; Moseley and Delpar 2008). Changes in global markets also accelerated the end to the bonanza, as competing fibers came into the picture, for example, sisal (Agave sisalana), also endemic to the peninsula but harvested and produced by rivals in Kenya and Java, and cheaper synthetic options such as polypropylene (Wells 2006).9 Despite new competitors and the decline in production levels, the Yucatecan henequen industry still had peaks in demand during the Second World War and later the Korean War (Canto Sáenz 2001). However, by the 1970s, Yucatán could no longer ignore its dire economic situation: it was one of the poorest states in the country, and its economy was supported to a large extent by federal subsidies (Moseley and Delpar 2008). Yucatán had been extremely prosperous, but the famous green gold had only stayed in the hands of a few – namely, the casta divina (divine caste), an oligarchy that had failed to distribute wealth among campesinos, a mostly Mayan population that had worked in slave‐like conditions (Canto Valdes 2017).10 After a henequen boom‐to‐bust cycle, the Yucatecan economy in the 1970s found itself in the same spot it had been a century before.
By the 1980s, it had become obvious that a monocrop henequen economy could no longer sustain the state (Baklanoff 2008a). In 1984, the governor at the time, Víctor Cervera Pacheco, launched the Henequen Restructuring Program and Comprehensive Development of Yucatán, a strategy that projected a diversification of the Yucatecan economy toward an industrialized future and that included, among other measures, prospects for the development of a maquiladora industry (Canto Sáenz 2001). After the unsuccessful experiment with maquiladoras in the 1970s, a factory arrived in 1981 – Ormex, a manufacturer of orthodontic supplies – triggering what is considered to be the beginning of the maquila chapter in the state (Canché Escamilla 1998; Canto Sáenz and Cruz Pacheco 2004; Sklair 1989).11 In the 1980s, the government began to organize conventions (Rivas F. 1985) and pay for advertising campaigns to attempt to put Yucatán on the map as “the new frontier” or “the other frontier” of the maquiladora industry in Mexico (Canto Sáenz 2001; Castilla Ramos and García Quintanilla 2006; Sklair 1989). By 1987, 11 maquiladoras were in operation. While this, in part, contributed to the state's vision of a Yucatecan industrial future away from the henequen agro‐industry, maquiladoras were welcomed but not considered a priority.12 At that point, the Yucatecan government was more interested in improving and expanding the existing industries that already played an important role providing goods and services to the entire peninsula (cf. Gobierno del Estado de Yucatán 1983). This might be one of the reasons why, by 1990, only 13 maquiladoras were active. There were also more pressing issues troubling the state. The same year, 1990, the government took the first steps to “reorganize” Cordemex according to market criteria – in line with the wider neoliberal reforms that were being introduced throughout the country. It would not take long before the process was completed and by April 1991, the divisions of Cordemex that had not been reprivatized had been liquidated (Baños Ramírez 2010). This not only represented a great economic loss for the state, but the impacts on the labor force were alarming. For example, 40,000 campesinos formerly employed at Cordemex had lost their jobs by 1992 (Canto Sáenz 2001). In this landscape of unemployment, by 1996, there were reasons to be moderately optimistic. Forty maquilas had begun operating (INEGI 2015a), but the government was still not convinced that maquilas alone could create enough jobs to absorb the large unemployed labor force. A mix of maquiladoras, tourism, and investments in construction were believed to be the solution (cf. Gobierno del Estado de Yucatán 1996).
Three years later, things had taken an unexpected turn: the maquiladora industry had become the developmental vision of the state. It is not hard to see why this came to be. By January 1999, the number of maquiladoras had reached 74; by the year 2000, 109; and by 2001, 131 (see Figure 1.2). To put this amount in percentages, between 1990 and 2001, the growth in the number of factories had been 1007% – mostly in garment maquilas (Biles 2004; Castilla Ramos and Torres Góngora 2010). Newspaper anecdotes captured the frenzy of the moment. For example, in 1999, the president of the CANAIVE (a garment chamber of commerce) was quoted saying there were so many unfilled job positions in the garment industry in Mérida that if a plant with 300 workers suddenly closed, all 300 people would have jobs “in less than two hours” (Diario de Yucatán 1999c). In the year 2000, the city of Valladolid had to “import workers” from surrounding villages since the unemployment rate was 0% in the city (Diario de Yucatán 2000c). These were not isolated examples but representations of what was happening throughout the state: the unemployment rate in Yucatán was 1% in the year 2000 (Gobierno del Estado de Yucatán 2000). Even though maquiladoras had continued to be concentrated in the north of Mexico, Yucatán had become one of the states that had the highest number of new plants in Mexico's interior (Baklanoff 2008b). The decline then came as unexpectedly as the boom began. After the highest peak of 2001, the number of maquiladoras fell drastically the following two years, stabilized, had a slight peak in 2008, and then continued its trend in dropping every year (see Figure 1.2). Between the years 2001 and 2003 alone, about 18,876 jobs were lost, which represented 30% of the posts that had existed in 2000 (Castilla Ramos and García Quintanilla 2006). As of 2019, there were 55 maquiladoras operating in Yucatán, employing 24,048 workers (INEGI 2020a). Yucatecan maquiladoras continue to produce what has been common since the mid‐1990s: garments (mostly jeans) and textiles for clients in the United States. This is followed by jewelry and, to a lesser extent, orthodontic supplies and electronic accessories (Becerril et al. 2012; SEFOE 2010). Important maquiladoras that arrived to the state during the boom period and survived the decline include Maquiladora Lee (located in Izamal) and Hong Ho (in the city of Valladolid) – both garment manufacturers – and Montgomery Industries, the most important blue jeans producer in the state.
Figure 1.2 Maquiladoras operating in Yucatán between 1981 and 2019. Values captured as of January in the years 1990–2006 and 2008–2019. The value for 2007 is from July.
Source: Adapted from Canché Escamilla (1998), Canto Sáenz (2001), Canto Sáenz and Cruz Pacheco (2004).
Producing Mayaland
There are several approaches to the scholarly exploration of Zones. Examples include studies carried out within sociology, economic geography, political economy, and development studies based on Global Commodity Chains (GCC), Global Value Chains (GVC), Global Production Networks (GPN), or World‐System frameworks. A second set of examples include the approaches developed within cultural geography and anthropology, such as Arjun Appadurai's “follow the thing” approach or Anna Tsing's “ethnography of global connection” (Bair 2014; Beyer et al. 2020). There is a vast body of work in English on maquiladoras within the Mexican and Central American context. For example, there are studies of the maquiladora genesis (Iglesias Prieto 1997; Sklair 1989), unacceptable labor conditions (Bickham Mendez 2002; Prieto and Quinteros 2004), labor‐related social movements (Knight and Wells 2007; Williams 2003), community unionism (Collins 2006), transnational cooperation networks (Bandy 2004), workers' perception of their wages and working conditions (Horowitz 2009), gender and subject formation within the factory floor (Cravey 1998; Iglesias Prieto 1997; Salzinger 2003; Wright 2006), and life stories of workers based on ethnographic approaches (Broughton 2015; Fernández‐Kelly 1983). Despite its location outside the traditional maquiladora border region, academic studies of the Yucatecan maquiladora phenomenon also exist to a moderate extent. In Spanish, the work of Beatriz Castilla Ramos, Beatriz Torres Góngora, Othón Baños Ramírez, and Rodolfo Canto Sáenz is important to highlight. In English, scholars like Eric N. Baklanoff, James J. Biles, Maria France Labrecque, and Manuel Navarrete have made significant empirical contributions.
Inspired and informed by the interventions of this body of work within ethnography, human geography, and political economy – but guided by the aspirations of postcolonial approaches and critical urban theory – Producing Mayaland takes a different approach. I question the lack of attention thus far given to spatial transformations, urban processes, and racializing practices and suggest these are important to understand with more nuance the maquiladora phenomenon in Yucatán. With 50% of its population considered Mayan (Gobierno del Estado de Yucatán 2019), Yucatán is a state that has been historically judged to be underdeveloped, poor, indigenous, and only partially linked to the circuits of capital (therefore in need of more economic integration) because of its location in the southeast of Mexico. Against this background, a colonial perception of modernity, a capitalist vision of development, and a classical understanding of the urban–rural divide have seen the state carry out policies that racialize and marginalize. Comprehending these processes is vital to understanding the local unfolding of global capitalism. With this in mind, in this book, I begin my analysis with abstractions and then zoom in to the level of the everyday. I explore how the state built infrastructural veins to support maquiladoras, and I highlight how it tried to sell the idea of Yucatán as an exotic, business‐friendly paradise where Magical Mayas, the suitable workers of the land, await. I then tell the story of how people in the city of Motul (mainly maquila workers and ex‐workers) experienced the boom, bust, and then decline of the maquiladora industry in their state. I give snapshots of how it was to live within the sphere of influence of Montgomery Industries, how people's everyday changed, and how their city transformed. This approach allows me to show how global circuits of capital emerge from its centers and materialize into the local, increasing our knowledge about one of the many underbelly cities that support the commodity chains of global capitalism – what Choplin and Pliez (2015) call the “inconspicuous spaces of globalization.” There is also a bigger tale in this book. This study is an analysis of the relationship between colonial legacies, urbanization, and global capitalism. I hope to show how capitalism exists in tension between a tendency to homogenize and a propensity to thrive in differentiation. Through the power of abstract space, capitalism attempts to make everything homogenous, but at the same time, it cannot refrain from operationalizing local difference. Abstract labor and abstract space hide this homogenization/differentiation tension through twists that I call instances of magic.
Before I expand on the meaning of instances of magic in the next section, I would like to situate the theoretical framework from which I develop my argument and the contributions that this book offers. I start from the postulate that it is fruitful to study global capitalism through its connections to the urban process and the premise that every mode of production produces its own space and reproduces itself through space (Harvey 2006; Lefebvre 1991). Lefebvre's (1991) theory of space – in addition to his concepts of the urban (Lefebvre 2003) and planetary urbanization via the work of Neil Brenner and Christian Schmid – helps me to reflect on the relationship between capitalism and urbanization. However, mindful of both Eurocentrism and the local context, I complement the Lefebvrian lens with a postcolonial approach.13 While Lefebvre enables me to uncover the production of space, a postcolonial strategy allows me to, first, analyze the archeology of the colonial scripts present and, second, understand capitalism through an acknowledgment of “historical difference.” I draw on the work of Chakrabarty (2000) and Roy (2016a, 2016b) to establish the difference between global and universal when studying capitalism and urbanization. As argued brilliantly by Roy (2016a), it is vital to consider that while capitalism might be global in scope, it is not universal in the way it unfolds. I complement my understanding of capitalism through Quijano's (2000) coloniality of power – a concept that insists traces of colonial domination continue to perpetuate its effects even in places where colonialism as an official political order has been eradicated. Coloniality of power is not a thing of the past but one of the organizing principles behind capitalism, enabling racial distributions of labor and the continuous coexistence of different modes of production. The coloniality of power framework allows me to ponder on a certain rawness of capitalism and helps me reflect on how racialization, gendering practices, violence, and colonization play a role in its unfolding. Finally, to have access to robust tools that help me understand the particular colonial scripts and legacies in Mexico, I rely on a broader coloniality toolkit – an understanding of the postcolonial condition from a Latin American perspective (cf. Moraña et al. 2008).14
Producing Mayaland contributes to the field of maquiladora studies by deepening our understanding of the role that racializing practices have in subject formation and by expanding our knowledge of the impact that maquiladoras have on the urban and built environment. In addition to its contribution to maquiladora literature, this book advances three areas: Lefebvrian scholarship, urban studies, and postcolonial urban theory. First, the study attempts to strengthen the understanding between space, difference, and everyday life – concepts that have been studied separately in previous appropriations of Lefebvre's work; in this sense, the work is thus framed within the “third wave” of Lefebvrian thought (cf. Kipfer et al. 2008a). Second, the book offers valuable insights into the continuous debate of “the urban question”: What is the urban? What is the relationship between the so‐called urban and rural? How do we study the particularities of “the urban”? From a Lefebvrian perspective, the book contributes to the study of urbanization at a global scale, and by providing an additional empirical example of the usefulness of planetary urbanization within the context of the global South, it contributes to the current debate unfolding within the field of urban studies.15 In taking this approach, I also avoid what Angelo and Wachsmuth (2015) have criticized as “methodological cityism” – an analytical and empirical approach where the traditional understanding of the city takes precedence over other aspects of urbanization – and instead recognize that “the city as a site” is something different to “urbanization as a process.”16 Third, the book contributes to the project of postcolonial urban theory. In addition to avoiding methodological cityism, the book rejects the idea of the city as a transparent, clearly demarcated, and coherent site of research that is mostly found in the West or in the megacities of the global South. In my approach, I acknowledge and address the need to construct theory about cities that were not forged by the industrial revolution and are outside the Anglo‐American and European heartland (Parnell and Robinson 2012; Roy 2009). Through this movement, the book contributes to what Sparke (2007) calls “mapping back,” which consists of presenting the human geographies of the global South in “more grounded, embodied and accountable ways.”17 As a form of “repossession” (Sparke 2007), this practice is reminiscent of what Rabasa (1993) calls “decolonization of subjectivity” – dismantling canons of truth and creating counternarratives in order to destabilize “the dominance of Western institutional fictions.”
Instances of Magic
To interpret the analytical significance of the material explored in the book, I rely on what I call instances of magic. These are (i) moments where it becomes evident there is a tension between capitalism's propensity toward homogenization and differentiation and (ii) occasions where we can detect how abstract space or colonial legacies veil, and sometimes obscure, the everyday and the daily. In short, cases of these instances of magic offer us a window to understand how a reality ruled by the rationality of capital is produced. The colonial legacies that shape Yucatán will be explored throughout the study, and a short discussion of capitalism will be developed in Chapter 2. Here, it is important to give a brief explanation of abstract space. In contrast to the inclination to understand space as something that gets filled with things or an object where events simply unfold, Lefebvre (1991, p. 26) famously proclaimed, “(social) space is a (social) product.” A society does not inhabit space but forges spatial practices and representations, appropriating and producing its own space. In other words, a society's mode of production, along with the social relations of production and reproduction, creates “the rhythm of daily life” – thereby shaping signs, codes, culture, and the built environment, for example. Space is “at once a precondition and a result of social superstructures” (Lefebvre 1991, p. 85) and, as such, is produced by social reality: productive forces, means of production, technology, knowledge, division of labor, demographic pressures, the world market (e.g. commodities and capital), and so forth. This means that a capitalist mode of production will create capitalist space in a continuous self‐reinforcing process. However, it also implies that a noncapitalist mode of production can create its own space and vice versa (i.e. a noncapitalist space can create its own mode of production). In Lefebvre's view, a problem is that the true nature of space is concealed from our eyes, and we come to think of it as innocent, neutral, or independent. What needs to be remembered is that space is an abstraction, shielded by the illusions of “transparency” and “natural simplicity” (Lefebvre 1991). Theorizing through a Marxist perspective about the role that the commodity plays in capitalism, Lefebvre argues that space is fetishized because it hides the concrete and abstract labor embedded in its production and obscures how it facilitates the flourishing of capitalism. When space turns into a commodity, Lefebvre calls it abstract space – or the medium that enables the “capitalist processes of production, distribution, and consumption” (Stanek 2008, p. 76). As the space of capitalism, abstract space is the dominant form of space. It is the space of power, where the state puts governmental strategies into effect (turning the production of space into a political tool). With abstract space often comes violence: the forces of abstract space, as enablers of capitalism, seek to mold in their image and do so by reducing the obstacles and resistance they encounter. However, abstract space has no power in itself; it is always collectively produced by someone or something. According to Lefebvre (1991), there are certain groups in society that have more power to produce space, but no single entity (e.g. the state) or individual is the sole agent of the production of space. Consequently, unpacking how space has been produced is difficult. As I will explain in the next section, Lefebvrian theory offers a method to attempt to de‐fetishize space, but what is important to highlight at this point is the interplay between instances of magic and abstract space. In an analysis of the production of space like the one carried out in this study, instances of magic are moments when the fetishism of abstract space becomes clear in our eyes.
To understand the theoretical potential of instances of magic, I would like to situate the concept within a wider intellectual tradition. My inspiration to develop the concept came from JanMohamed's (1985) notion of “magical essence” and McNally's (2012) interpretation of the monstrous and fantastic in the work of Marx (i.e. Marx's propensity to use depictions of monsters to illustrate how capitalism works).18 Thinking with the context of realismo mágico (magical realism) – the literary style associated to Latin American literature and criticism that mixes the fantastic and the realist (Bravo 1995; Hutcheon 1995) – also influenced the theoretical framework used in this book. While the literary origins of magical realism are important, in this book, I mostly follow the understanding developed by the Lefebvrian scholar Merrifield (2011, p. 12), who gives a Marxist twist to the concept:
Magical Realism has as its muse actual reality, yet converts this often stark reality into fantasy, into fantastic and phantasmal subjective visions that become more real than objective reality itself. These visions are like little fibs that bizarrely tell the truth, that invent new truths or lay bare truths we somehow relate to, almost instinctively, almost without being able to see them.
Throughout the book, I provide examples of “fantastic and phantasmal” visions and “fibs that bizarrely tell the truth” – not because there is an absolute truth out there with a capital T, but because there are imaginaries and “common‐sense” logics that only become visible as something subjective when laid bare. These are the instances of magic that hide the logic of capital and only become unveiled through an analysis of what lies behind it. This approach answers McNally's (2012) call, who argues there is a need to develop a “capitalist monsterology,” that is, the study of “the monstrous forms of everyday‐life in a capitalist world‐system.” If the role of critical theory is to expose how capital hides its own monstrosity under a cloak of normality, then “disruptive fables of modernity,” “de‐familiarizing techniques,” and “ways of seeing the unseen” are needed (McNally 2012). With its juxtaposition of the fantastic and the real, magical realism can serve as inspiration to carry out a capitalist monsterology. There are empirical examples of this approach. For example, Wilson and Bayón (2017) develop the concept of “fantastical materializations” as a critical tool to expose the “uncanny dimensions” of capitalism in the case of the Manta‐Manaus project in the Ecuadorian Amazon. In an example closer to this study, I would argue Wright’s (2006) Disposable Women and Other Myths of Global Capitalism uses the concept of “the myth” in a way reminiscent of magical realism. According to Wright (2006), who draws on Roland Barthes, a myth uses “fantastic characters” or “extraordinary figures” to explain and validate social reality in a depoliticized way. Wright finds examples of mythification in the way female workers are constructed within EPZs in Mexico and China. The narrative surrounding the Zones establishes that a character, a third world woman, exists in an “amorphous region,” the third world, and set ups the rule of how this “third world woman should look, act, and be treated” (Wright 2006). The myth also decides her fate, which is disposability. Through this approach – the mix of the fantastic and what appears to be real – Wright criticizes the logic behind the myth. The word “magic” in instances of magic serves as a tool to highlight the fantastic, the hidden, the bizarre “truths,” and the myth‐making that occurs in the place I refer to as Mayaland.
There is something else to highlight about the usefulness of thinking through magical realism and the need to rely on the idea of Mayaland when Yucatán could simply be used. While magical realism can be a powerful narrative strategy to tell a type of story that puts “fantasy” and “reality” into sharp contrast, the concept also embodies a tension that, in this case, is productive. Pratt (2008a) has argued that magical realism exhibits traces of essentialism and exoticism in the way Latin America is portrayed.19 Chanady (2008), who agrees with Pratt, illustrates this point with two examples. Alejo Carpentier, a Cuban novelist and one of the precursors of the literary movement, coined the expression lo real maravilloso, “marvelous reality,” to refer to what he considered were the incredible things found in the continent in terms of “luxuriant vegetation, imposing geography, [and] ethnic diversity” (Chanady 2008, p. 429). Gabriel García Márquez, another member of the movement, claimed that the “Latin American continent is more marvelous than any fiction” (Chanady 2008, p. 433). These statements, which attempt to explain the uniqueness of the Americas vis‐à‐vis magical realism, actually mirror the Eurocentric myths of what is called the “invention of America.” Authors like O’Gorman (1995 [1958]) and Rabasa (1993) have argued that, contrary to the belief that America was “discovered,” it was actually “invented” through the eyes of European colonizers. The invention of America began as soon as Christopher Columbus stumbled upon the continent in 1492 thinking he had reached the West Indies. America was formulated and described through a European gaze that could only understand what it saw through prejudices and a sense of superiority. What occurred is that the idea of America came into existence as things materialized in the fantasies of the conquerors: unheard‐of, marvelous, exotic flora and fauna; a benevolent climate; a feminized landscape that could be named and penetrated; the noble savage, the Indio20; and perhaps even the Earthly location of paradise (Rabasa 1993). This is the exoticism attached to the “New World” that is sometimes reproduced via magical realism. Through the use of Mayaland, I seek to highlight the instances of magic in the study that reflect the exoticism and “marvelous reality” that can be found in understandings and descriptions of Yucatán. New World exoticism can be glimpsed in these depictions and, for this reason, it is important to establish a conceptual difference between Yucatán and the mythical place Mayaland. As we will see in the chapters that follow, Mayaland is a region where there are enigmatic creatures like Magical Mayas, cosmic Indios, ghosts, white elephants, dragons, swallows, and flamingos; and wondrous places like cenotes, pyramids, blue moons, old frontiers, new frontiers, and paradise‐Zones.
Mobilizing Lefebvre's Triad
I began this study with an eye on Lefebvrian theory – without knowing that the postcolonial component would become essential. Long before my readings of critical urban theory were informed and shaken by fieldwork, I was already facing a tremendous task: carrying out an analysis of the production of space is nothing less than the opening of Pandora's box, a researcher's nightmare of basically trying to study the totality of existence. As I previously mentioned, Lefebvre's solution to challenge abstract space is to appropriate the production of space. However, before this can be done, abstract space needs to be exposed, decoded – the fetishism destroyed. In order to do this, Lefebvre (1991) proposes a tool, what he calls a “two‐fold conceptual triad,” to explore the inner mechanisms of space and, in turn, open the possibility to imagine how to produce something else, for example, differential space (cf. Harvey 2006; Merrifield 2006). Lefebvre's triad can be imagined as a triangle where each corner is composed of two elements or moments
