Indigenous Attitudes and Ethnic Identity

Construction in Mexico
Todd A. Eisenstadt*
American University

Challenging primordialist positions commonly held in Mexicos policy debate

over relations between indigenous groups and the state, this article confirms
the instrumentalist position that ethnic identities may be readily shaped. Using
findings from a recent survey in Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Zacatecas, the author
concludes, after distinguishing individual- from collectivity-oriented attitudes,
that indigenous and non-indigenous respondents are similarly individualist. Important differences were found, however, on a second dimension distinguishing pro-state respondents from those who were more communally-oriented.
Indigenous respondents, particularly in Oaxaca, were found to possess more
statist orientations than non-indigenous respondents. The author asserts that
decades-old state policies to assimilate indigenous communities may be partially responsible, and that disillusionment with these policies and state-led
repression in Chiapas may explain attitude differences among indigenous
respondents.
Desafiando las visiones primordialistas comnmente apoyadas en Mxico durante los debates de poltica pblica sobre las relaciones entre los grupos polti* The author acknowledges funding from the United States Agency for International Development Cooperative Agreement 523A-00000003000 with the University of New
Hampshire, American University, and the Centro de Investigacines y Estudios Superiores
en Antropologa Social (CIESAS). Survey co-authors Araceli Burguete of CIESAS-Sureste
(San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico), and Mara Cristina Velsquez, an independent scholar
then affiliated with CIESAS-Ithsmo anthropology institute (Oaxaca, Mexico) also contributed to survey implementation, as did Francisco Muro of the Universidad Autnoma
de Zacatecas. Raul Bentez-Manaut, Roderic Camp, Wayne Cornelius, Soledad Loaeza, Peter Lewis, Shannan Mattiace, Ashutosh Varshney, Peter Ward, and Steven Wuhs commented
on presentations and drafts of this paper, and Viridiana Ros Contreras provided able research assistance. Needless to say, all interpretationsand any errorsare the authors
alone.

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos Vol. 22, Issue 1, Winter 2006, pages 107129. ISSN 0742-9797
electronic ISSN 1533-8320. 2006 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Presss Rights and Permissions website, at www.ucpress.edu/journals/rights.htm.

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cos y el estado, este artculo confirma la posicin instrumentalista de que

la identidad tnica puede ser voluntariamente adoptada. Usando hallazgos de
una reciente encuesta en Chiapas, Oaxaca y Zacatecas, el autor concluye, despus de distinguir las actitudes individuales de las colectivas, que los encuestados indgenas y no-indgenas son similarmente individualistas. Se encuentran
importantes diferencias, pero en una segunda dimensin que distingue a los
encuestados pro-estatales de los que tienen orientaciones comunitarias. Los
indgenas consultados, particularmente los de Oaxaca, tienen orientaciones
ms estadistas que los no-indgenas (o sea ms orien-tados haca el estadogobierno). El autor argumenta que dcadas de viejas polticas pblicas estatales para asimilar a las comunidades indgenas pueden haber producido parcialmente estos resultados, y que las desilusiones por estas polticas y la represin
estatal en Chiapas pueden explicar las diferentes actitudes entre los indgenas
encuestados.

The rise of ethnic mobilization in Latin America is being attributed increasingly by social scientists to changes in the constructed identities of
rural indigenous groups. In contrast to previous generations of scholars
the primordialistswho argued that ethnic identity was ascribed at
birth, Latin Americanists are joining a broader movement which considers ethnic identities as flexible and changing rather than given and
static. Proponents of the malleability of ethnic identities range from
constructivists like Fredrik Barth (1969) and Walker Connor (1994),
who believe that ethnic identity is malleable albeit rooted in strong social, political, and even psychological facts, along with instrumentalists like Michael Hechter (1986) and Paul Brass (1985, 1997) who argue that a substantial portion of the content of ethnicity is based in
appeals to mobilize groups as much as in objective cultural traits or
markers. Brass ascribes agency to ethnic elites who provoke and foster identity, in a claim consistent with other scholars who also underscore the subjectiveness of boundaries and the generation of identities by discrimination from outsiders (as well as from within). He argues
that once it is recognized that the processes of ethnicand class
identity formation and of intergroup relations always have a duel dimension of interaction/competition with external groups and of an internal struggle for control of the group, then the direction for research
on ethnicity and on the relationship between ethnic groups and the
state are clear (1985: 33).
In Mexico-based scholarship, revisionist anthropologists like Rus
(2002) and political scientists like Trejo (2004) claim thatconsistent
with claims by Pallares (2002) and Yashar (1999) about other parts of

Eisenstadt, Ethnic Identity Construction in Mexico

109

Latin Americaauthoritarian state corporatist regimes1 of the early and

mid-twentieth centuries granted state benefits to peasants, prompting
otherwise disenfranchised indigenous groups to seize upon opportunities to reorganize as peasants to petition the state for resources. Class
rather than indigenous identity emerged as the most salient social cleavage in most rural areas of Latin America, especially as nation-building
efforts permeated remote areas in the mid-twentieth century. As this
process unfolded, governments defined roles for agrarian elites and their
subjects, who were pacified through receipt of subsistence help from
the government in exchange for desisting in rebellions and accepting
authoritarian regimes built on class lines defined primarily in terms of
land ownership.
These scholars challenged more static, primordial views of ethnicity and ethnic groups, such as that cited by Lpez y Rivas, for whom an
ethnic group is a stable group of people who have in common relatively enduring characteristics of culture (including language) and psychology, as well as a unity of conscience . . . (Bromley as quoted in Lpez
y Rivas 1995). The 1994 Zapatista rebellion seems to have extended what
had been a scholarly debate into the policy realm (see Bentez Manaut,
Selee, and Arnson article in this issue of MS/EM). Claiming that ethnic
identity was at least partially fixed and that Chiapas Mayan-descended
communities and their allies from the traditional left were rising up
against centuries of discrimination, the Zapatista rebels launched their
insurgency seeking to draw attention to their case that Mexican government institutions needed to adapt to indigenous peoplesexpressions of
citizenship and grant them greater autonomy for self-government.2 In
favoring indigenous identity over class identity, the Zapatistas reinforced an already-emerging trend, by the early 1990s, of indigenous rights
promotion elsewhere in the Americas, such as in Bolivia and Ecuador
(see Van Cott 2000; Brysk 2000).3
Some recent ethnic research in Mexico on the Zapatistas (such as
1. Corporatism, as applied to the Mexican case by Reyna and Wienert (1977: 161)
is a means of political control emphasizing mobilization of unions requiring governmentsanctioned membership. In Mexico, official mobilization was utilized by the ruling party
to replace class conflicts based on redistributive demands. In the countryside, this meant
compulsory participation in local branches of the official peasants union, forced registration of winning traditional non-partisan uses and customs candidate slates with the
official Partido Revolucionaria Institucional (PRI), and cooptation by state governments
of rural squatters by offers of land if the deals could be sealed quietly.
2. This indigenous rights case was made forcefully after 1996. The Zapatista uprising started primarily as a class- rather than ethnicity-based movement.
3. This connection between the Zapatistas and more contemporary indigenous movements is drawn in international media. See for example, Indigenous People in South America. A Political Awakening, (2004) and Hayden (2004).

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Incln 2004 and Trejo 2004) does follow more instrumental theories
about the construction of ethnicity. However, rather than focusing on
individuals and their choices, much Zapatista-related research, and the
policy debate led by the Zapatistas, seeks to reassert the collectivity as
unit of analysis. These scholars study mobilizations, rather than individual attitudes and their propensities for mobilization. They and other
innovative scholars of Chiapas recent social movements (such as Harvey 1998 and Prez Ruiz 2000) do consider relations between movements, leaders, and followers, consistent with Brassassumption that ethnic appeals by elites drive indigenous social movements such as the
Zapatistas. They are pushing to better document the causes of political,
social, economic, and now ethnic movements, and to more rigorously
differentiate roles of ethnic elites and followers in the shaping of social
movements.
While the Zapatista rebellion offers a famous demonstration of the
power of appeals to indigeneity and ethnic autonomy, the success and
worldwide publicity of the Zapatistas seems to have prompted a selection bias in much of the scholarship on Mexicos indigenous movements. In the far more numerous cases when indigenous groups do
not mobilize to air longstanding grievances and publicize what often
has been systematic discrimination by the state, why do they not mobilize? And in contrast to all the consideration about how political elites
frame issues to catalyze movements, how might one study whether and
when potential movement followers decide to cast their lot with
would-be leaders?4 That is, instead of always documenting instrumentalism from above, can evidence be amassed of instrumentalism
from below?
By most accounts, individuals may consciously decide to be Indians
rather than peasants in given circumstances, but the process and mechanisms of this decision are not drawn out. In other words, the all-important changes in individual attitudes which lead them to choose ethnic identity or not, take place in a black box. Most of the literature
does not even consciously draw out the strategic individual choices contributing to peoples decisions to adopt indigenous rather thanor in
addition topeasant identities. In fact, in most existing literature, es4. The late Mancur Olson and his followers pioneered some clever studies to elaborate The Logic of Collective Action (1971) and how movement participants seek side
payments and obey selective incentives. However, if one assumes that ethnic collective
actions have any basis at all in objective cultural markers, or even interior identity and
psychic structure, or blood-ties, or chemistry, or soul (Connor 1994: 204), and seek to
engage those who do believe that at least some of the movement-propelling passions are
real, then there must be more causing the movement than just generic collective-action
incentives.

Eisenstadt, Ethnic Identity Construction in Mexico

111

pecially the social movements literature which dominates the field, emphasis is on consciousness-raising by movements after they have established indigenous collective identities. The preceding step, movement
formation and crystallization, is underspecified.
This article tests the instrumentalist argument within the Mexican
context, using a survey research approach which seeks to differentiate,
through the construction of latent variable clusters, individually-oriented
from collectively-oriented respondents and pro-state, corporatist respondents from those whose views are more traditional and communallyoriented; in other words, as a first step towards understanding the
propensity for mobilization of prospective ethnic movement members,
but in environments where they have been mobilized and in environments where they have not been mobilized. The article argues, upon
demonstrating remarkable similarities between the 2,186 indigenous and
3,194 non-indigenous respondents in the representative sample from
three Mexican states, that respondents attitudes are quite similar. However, when askedin terms of concrete cases rather than more abstract
attitudeswhich authorities they would seek out to resolve particular
practical problems, indigenous respondents inclined more often and decisively towards indigenous authorities and institutions, while nonindigenous respondents more tentatively selected state authorities and
institutions.
Based on an unprecedented survey of 5,280 respondents in the
highly indigenous states of Chiapas and Oaxaca, and non-indigenous Zacatecas, this article refutes the primordialist position, demonstrating that
indigenous respondentslike their non-indigenous comparison group
freely interact with the state to fulfill basic universal human needs, and
assume individual (as well as communal) responsibility for their conduct
in society. The article suggests, through initial descriptive analysis of the
survey results, that factors other than ethnic identities may have a greater
effect on indigenous (and non-indigenous) respondent views of citizenship ( peoplesperceptions of their roles in political society), and concludes with suggestions for further research to identify how indigenous
identities are formed and shaped.
Case Selection and Methods
This article assesses public opinion in Chiapas (28.5 percent indigenous
by linguistic criterion) and Oaxaca, another of Mexicos most rural southern states (47.9 percent indigenous by this criterion), as compared with
Zacatecas (0.3 percent indigenous), another poor rural state, in central
Mexico used here as a control. As elaborated below, I construct three
latent variable cluster sets to compile attitude variables from survey ques-

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tions.5 Indigenous respondents were oversampled (by the linguistic criterion, for which census data guided sample selection by indicating
where indigenous citizens were concentrated), but the municipalities
were otherwise selected randomly, as were the statistical tracts, localities, households, and respondents (but with a replacement rate of at least
20 percent each at the level of localities, households, and respondents).
The overall margin of error is less than + 2 percent,6 although it can be
higher within particular question categories.
The search for two indigenous states to sample led to Chiapas and
Oaxaca because they are among Mexicos most indigenous populations, but also because of contrasting histories of state permeation of
traditional communities. Chiapas has been characterized as an area of
strong indigenous communal identity, social polarization, and enduring
state-society conflict, settled by large landowner outsiders who have marginalized indigenous communities since colonial times (Collier and
Quaratiello 1994; Harvey 1998). The Zapatista Rebellion made conditions
in Chiapas the subject of national debate, culminating in the historic passage in 2002 of a constitutional amendment granting Mexicos indigenous peoples partial autonomy. The amendment was ratified by nineteen states, but has remained largely unimplemented.7
Oaxaca is known for a development pattern respectful of indigenous
autonomy (Daz Montes 1992: 101103, Lpez Brcenas 2000, 267308),
but also for fierce inter-village conflict, especially in indigenous areas
(Dennis 1987; Greenberg 1989). As if to reinforce the reputed harmony
5. The survey was designed by the author, Araceli Burguete of CIESAS-Sureste, and
Mara Cristina Velsquez, affiliated with the CIESAS-Isthmo anthropology institute, and administered in Spanish and six indigenous languages, between June 2002 and Feburary 2003.
The author devised the sampling technique, which sought to identify a representative sample of respondents over eighteen years old in at least three urban census tracts (AGEBs
in Mexico) and/or rural communities (localidades) per municipality in between twentytwo and thirty municipalities each in Chiapas and Oaxaca, and Zacatecas. Burguete,
Velsquez, and Francisco Muro of the Universidad Autnoma de Zacatecas supervised conduct of the surveys by trained interviewers, most of whom were bilingual (Spanish and
indigenous languages) university students. The survey over-represented indigenous respondents by sampling 50 percent from indigenous majority-communities and 50 percent
from non-indigenous majority communities in Chiapas and Oaxaca, but randomly generated the other strata (statistical tracts, blocks, and households for municipalities with more
than 4,000 residents, and localities and resident lists for localities with fewer than 4,000
residents, for which statistical tracts are not kept) for the three states, based on 2000 population data (see the three bibliographic entries for the Instituto Nacional de Estadstica
e Informtica 2002). While several substitutions of municipalities and sub-municipal localities were required, these were not widespread.
6. This margin of error holds with a 95 percent confidence interval.
7. According to Gonzlez Oropeza (2004: 1), only San Lus Potos has enacted implementing legislation since the constitutional amendment.

Eisenstadt, Ethnic Identity Construction in Mexico

113

there between state government and indigenous localities, state authorities in 1995 codified acceptance of indigenous customary law, called
usos y costumbres, in the selection of local leaders.8 Although local,
municipal-level variance merits consideration and will also be introduced
in future presentations of the data, in general terms, Oaxacas less mobilized, less polarized relations between indigenous and non-indigenous
citizens contrasts with conditions of high mobilization and polarization
in Chiapas.
Defining the ethnic boundary of the population boundary of those
considered to be indigenous is a complex task. Indigeneity may be
defined by linguistic categories (which is how Mexicos census has defined the category since 1895), or by self-identification (acknowledged
by demographers such as Serrano Carreto, et. al. 2002: 1720, as an important but problematic complement to the linguistic criterion). After
observing less robust response patterns from self-identity9 and finding
linguistic identity to be more consistent with environmental conditions
that scholars have tended to correlate with indigeneity (such as shared
histories and cultures, rural economies and remote locations which reinforce cultural, social, and sometimes biological markers), this study settled on that form of identification.
Dependent Variable Construction
Two sets of attitudes are tested through the construction of latent variable clusters measuring the degree of a respondents association with
an individual view of identity (defined mostly in relation to oneself ) versus a collective view of identity (heavily influenced by group percep8. The Oaxaca state government recognized the longstanding practice in traditional
communities of selecting leaders through routes other than partisan local elections. For
example, supporters of given candidates were asked to line up behind their candidate,
local mayors were selected via municipal plebiscites where at least some citizens were
empowered to vote, or decisions were made behind closed doors by a tribal Council of
Elders. As of 1995, these practices assumed a legal status for local mayoral selection in indigenous majority municipalities (418 out of Oaxacas 570 municipalities as of 1998), and
political parties have been banned from participation. Eisenstadt and Ros Contreras (2005)
argue, based on systematic evidence from 1995, 1998, and 2001, that the new system has
actually increased election conflictiveness.
9. Respondents were asked whether they considered themselves primarily to be:
Mexican, Chiapanecan/Oaxacan/Zacatecan, or part of an indigenous group. There was
a 50percent overlap between the linguistic and self-identified samples, but the linguistic
definition was ultimately used as: 1) it yielded more robust statistical patterns, implying
that was a better standard by which to measure indigenousness, 2) it yielded about 20
percent more respondents and thus greater potential variation in the statistical analysis,
and 3) as the Mexican Census standard, this measure allowed for better independent confirmation of results.

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tions),10 and whether the respondent more readily considered him-or

herself statistsassociated more with the Mexican state (as per much
of the literature arguing for a more corporatist construction of state-society
relations)or communalists(as per arguments favoring indigenous
autonomy from the state) identified more with traditional communal
groups outside of the states official corporate organizations for channeling mobilization.11 Each respondent was sorted into one bivariate category on each of the two dimensionsindividualist or collectivist
and statist or communalist. The ultimate objective was to compare
indigenous and non-indigenous positions on a two-dimensional model
similar to that used by Inglehart and Baker (2000) to differentiate Western or modern worldviews (which here correspond to a composite
individualist/statist category) from indigenous or traditionalones (corresponding to a composite collectivist/communalist category). However,
prior to testing the two-dimensional composite, I compared indigenous
and non-indigenous respondents on the one-dimensional individualistcollectivist and statist-communalist classifications.
In all, three sets of dependent variables were tested: modal attitude
clusters measuring the degree of collectivism versus individualism,
statism versus communalism, and the bivariate two-dimensional combination of these into statist/individualist and communal/collectivist
categories. The null hypothesestested here at the level of descriptive
statisticswere: 1) that indigenous respondents fall into the collectivist
modal cluster rather than the individualist cluster with much greater frequency than their non-indigenous cohort, 2) that indigenous respondents
sort into the communalist cluster more than into the statist cluster, and
3) that the combined, two-dimensional cluster would reinforce these
trends. Analysis disconfirmed all three null hypotheses.
The premise behind these distinctions was that if culture was to be
viewed as the structure of meaning through which people give shape
to their experience (Geertz 1973: 312), then views about relations
between the individual and society, and between an individuals com10. The cluster was composed of the following four questions: 1) Poverty Exists in
Mexico because individuals do not strive hard enough to get ahead; 2) People have the
responsibility of following ideas of the community, and not question them much; 3) Ones
identity as an individual is more important than the groups one belongs to; and 4) It is
more important to teach children a good sense of the history of their people than a good
sense of self-confidence.
11. The cluster was composed of the following four questions: 1) Mandatory communal work is not legal; 2) It is better to help collaborate for the good of this place than
to pay taxes to the government; 3) The government should always be above the laws or
customs of indigenous communities; and 4) The indigenous people are the true stewards of Mexicos land.

Eisenstadt, Ethnic Identity Construction in Mexico

115

munal loyalties and membership (and relations to broader circles of

community, from the individual and his/her immediate family, to neighborhood or kinship groups, to the locality, to the nation-state) are a crucial and tractable component of ones political culture and socialization.
The eight questions chosen to place each respondent along the fourquestion collectivist-individualist continuum, the four-question statistcommunalist continuum, and the eight-question combined continuum,
were selected as the combinations of twenty eligible questions establishing the most robust cluster analysis extremes (called modal clusters), and offering sufficient variance with regard to these categorical
dependent variables.
Questions for the two collectivist-individualist clusters sought to
measure perceptions about abstract relations between the individual and
society (e.g., Ones identity as an individual is more important than the
groups one belongs to . . . and People have the responsibility of following ideas of the community, and not question them much) in a manner intelligible to indigenous and non-indigenous respondents alike. The
statist-communalist questions sought to consider general attitudes (e.g.,
It is better to help collaborate for the good of this place than to pay
taxes to the government), as well as those particular to indigenous communitiesbut about which non-indigenous respondents would also
likely have formulated opinions (e.g., The indigenous people are the
true stewards of Mexicos land).
Similarities Between Indigenous
and Non-indigenous Respondents
For the collectivist-individualist continuum, a two-cluster model was
found to fit the data better than three- or four-cluster models (Standard
R2= 0.708 with classification log-likelihood -20100.31).12 Some 94.5 percent of the linguistically indigenous respondents were sorted into the
individualist modal cluster, while only 89.8 percent of the non-indigenous
respondents were sorted into that category. As reported in Table 1, the
average difference between indigenous and non-indigenous respondent
percentages in each cluster varied by less than one percent.
The difference between states in percentage of respondents sorting
each of the two categories was also negligible.
When the process was repeated to identify the statist and communalist modal clusters, a two-cluster model was again found to fit the data
12. As with all the latent variable analyses presented here, Latent Gold version 3.0
was used to divide the sample into modal clusters and then assign each case to its most
proximate modal cluster.

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Table 1: Measuring Individualism Versus Collectivism

Ethnic Identity
and Its Derivation
Chiapas linguistic
indigenous
Oaxaca linguistic
indigenous
Average Pct
Indigenous
Chiapas linguistic
non-indigenous
Oaxaca linguistic
non-indigenous
Zacatecas linguistic
non-indigenous
Average Pct
Non-indigenous

Pct in Individualist
Cluster

Pct in Collectivist
Cluster

1206

92.6

7.4

979

96.7

3.3

2186

94.5

5.5

808

94.1

5.9

852

95.3

4.7

1534

95.5

4.5

3194

95.1

4.9

Note: Sample includes 2,186 indigenous13 and 3,194 non-indigenous respondents.

For Latent Gold 3.0 latent variable cluster, standard R-squared was 0.708 and classification log-likelihood was -20100.31. The non-response rate was below 1 percent. While
a five-category Likkert scale response was elicited by each question, the agree and
strongly agree categories, and the disagree and strongly disagree categories were
conflated in data analysis, as the distinctions were found to be too subtle for some respondents. Hence, the three response categories for each variable were agree, disagree,
and the residual (neither agree nor disagree/do not know/no response). The more individualist response was in each case coded as 1, the more collectivist response was
coded as 2, while the residual category was coded as 0.

better than three- or four-cluster models (Standard R2= 0.948 with classification log-likelihood -19686.88). Indigenous respondents were also
much more likely than their non-indigenous counterparts to be sorted
into the statist category in the statist-communalist cluster. As reported in
Table 2, the average difference between indigenous and non-indigenous
respondent percentages in each cluster varied much more than in the
individualist/collectivist scale.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, indigenous respondents were
more statist than inclined to their traditional communities, at least with
regard to the survey questions, which sought to address social issues for
which indigenous and non-indigenous respondents would have formulated attitudes upon which to draw. More abstract spiritual and religious
13. The sole linguistically indigenous respondent in Zacatecas has been excluded
from state-by-state analysis, but included in the pooled overall average data.

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117

Table 2: Measuring Statist Versus Communalist Attitudes

Ethnic Identity
and Its Derivation
Chiapas linguistic
indigenous
Oaxaca linguistic
indigenous
Average Pct
Indigenous
Chiapas linguistic
non-indigenous
Oaxaca linguistic
non-indigenous
Zacatecas linguistic
non-indigenous
Average Pct
Non-indigenous

Pct in Statist
Cluster

Pct in Communalist
Cluster

1206

80.8

19.2

979

95.3

4.7

2186

87.3

12.7

808

65.5

34.5

852

88.1

11.9

1534

40.4

59.6

3194

59.5

40.5

Note: Sample includes 2186 indigenous and 3194 non-indigenous respondents. For Latent Gold 3.0 latent variable cluster, standard R-squared was 0.948
and classification log-likelihood was -19686.88 The non-response rate was usually
below 5 percent, but went as high in one question as 24 percent. While a fivecategory Likkert scale response was elicited by each question, the agree and
strongly agree categories, and the disagree and strongly disagree categories
were conflated in the data analysis, as the distinctions were found to be too subtle for some respondents. Hence, the three response categories for each variable
were agree, disagree, and the residual (neither agree nor disagree/do not know/no
response). The more statist response was in each case coded as 1, and the more
communal response was coded as 2, while the residual category was coded as 0.

questions were not raised, as these were considered to be well within

the purview of traditional community jurisdictions but outside the
scope of the state. Two of the questions in this four-question cluster suffered non-response rates approaching 25 percent,14 but overall, the sorting between clusters one and two generated much greater variance on
the statist-communalist dimension than on the individualism-collectivism
dimension.
Indeed, some 87.3 percent of the indigenous respondents were sorted
into the statist cluster, while only 59.1 percent of the non-indigenous respondents fell into this category. The 27 percent difference between the
indigenous and non-indigenous respondents was doubled when the least
14. These were: Mandatory communal work is not legal, and It is better to help
collaborate for the good of this place than to pay taxes to the government.

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Table 3: Clustering Statist-Individuals and Collectivist-Communalists

(eight questions from tables 1 and 2 ordered into two clusters)

Ethnic Identity
and Its Derivation
Chiapas linguistic
indigenous
Oaxaca linguistic
indigenous
Average Pct
Indigenous
Chiapas linguistic
non-indigenous
Oaxaca linguistic
non-indigenous
Zacatecas linguistic
non-indigenous
Average Pct
Non-indigenous

Pct in
Statist-Individualist

Pct in
Collectivist-Communalist

1206

79.6

20.4

979

95.1

4.9

2186

86.6

13.4

808

65.0

35.0

852

87.8

12.2

1534

40.1

59.9

3194

59.1

40.9

Note: For Latent Gold 3.0 latent variable cluster, standard R-squared was 0.945 with a classification log-likelihood of -39747.34. The non-response rate was usually below 5 percent, but
went as high in one question as 24 percent.

statist of the survey states, Zacatecas (some 40 percent statist), was compared with the most statist, Oaxaca (over 90 percent statist). These remarkable differences convey a strong pattern with several possible explanations, which may not be readily answered here but raise important
questions for future research. Perhaps Mexicos corporatist state (deemphasizing traditional indigenous communities and seeking to link indigenous citizens to formal state structures) played a more prominent
role in Mexicos indigenous zones, and particularly Oaxaca. The state
is indeed known to have commanded a much bigger and more constant
presence in rural Chiapas and Oaxaca than in Zacatecas, through its indigenismo project launched in the 1930s to de-emphasize traditional
cultures and assimilate indigenous citizens into the state (see for example Gutirrez 1999; Daz-Polanco et al. 1979; Warman 2003). However, recent prominent tensions between the state and civil society in
Chiapas which produced extensive outbreaks of violence decades prior
to the Zapatista rebellion, may explain Chiapas respondents disenchantment with pro-statist attitudes and turn more to a pro-communal
perspective.
The process was repeated a final time to test both the individual-

Eisenstadt, Ethnic Identity Construction in Mexico

119

collective and the statist-communalist dimensions simultaneously. Here,

a two-modal cluster combined model was also found to fit the data best
(Standard R2= 0.945 with classification log-likelihood -39747.34). This
time, 70.5 percent of the cases overall were sorted into the statist/
individualist cluster and 29.5 percent were sorted into the collectivisttraditional/communalist cluster. The two high non-response questions
from the statist-communalist cluster were also incorporated into this
eight-question cluster, but the two-dimensional models fit to the case
patterns was still very strong, greatly exceeding that of the sorting into
individualist-collectivist modal clusters, and nearly equaling that of the
statist-communalist modal clusters. As reported in Table 3, the average
differences between indigenous and non-indigenous respondent percentages in each cluster were remarkably close to those in Table 2.
The similarity in frequencies between the models summarized in
tables 2 and 3 presents a pattern of correlation, confirmed by the very
strong Pearson correlation between them of 0.987 (as compared to a
very weak correlation of the classifications presented in tables 1 and 3
of 0.070). These patterns suggest that the variance driving the composite model was derived almost entirely from the statist-communalist dimension; the individualist-collectivist dimension was of little significance.
Contrasting Evidence Favoring
Frequent Recourse to Traditional Authorities
The remarkable similarity in attitudes between indigenous and nonindigenous respondents derived from clusters aggregating general and
hypothetical questions does not hold when measured through more contextually grounded and empirically based questions. For example, a series of questions asking respondents which authority they turn to first
to resolve a series of problems ranging from the theft of farm animals to
land tenure conflicts to loans for business start-up did yield more predictable results. Indigenous respondents were on average quite decisive
and four times more likely to turn to traditional or private authorities
than to the government, while non-indigenous respondents were ambiguous and only twice as likely to seek traditional or private authorities.15
The mean values reported in the Go to Government First and Go
to Traditional-Private Authorities First columns ignore important distinctions between indigenous and non-indigenous respondents; mainly
that non-indigenous respondents were routinely much more ambiguous.
15. No distinction was drawn between levels of government, as the emphasis of the
question was to distinguish between traditional/communal authorities and formal government (i.e. the State).

5.7
8.3
10.3
10.5
19.2
18.0
18.8
13.4
7.3
12.4

7.0
12.2
13.7
20.2
27.8
29.8
33.3
16.7
8.8
18.8

Go to Government First
NonIndigenous
Indigenous
38.7
34.9
33.8
32.4
24.3
25.6
20.1
31.1
34.1
30.6

91.9
85.2
84.7
74.3
66.6
67.1
57.8
81.4
86.3
77.3

Go to Traditional
Authorities First
NonIndigenous
Indigenous
55.6
56.8
55.8
57.1
56.5
56.4
61.1
55.5
57.5
56.9

1.1
2.5
1.6
5.5
5.6
3.1
8.9
1.9
5.0
3.9

Other (uncertain or
no response)
NonIndigenous
Indigenous

Note: Since little variance was expected in Zacatecas where respondents did not have the context to have formulated opinions about traditional authorities, these questions were not asked there.

Farm animal robbed

Wood stolen/deforested
Land tenure conflicts
Pollution of forest
Post-birth health problems
Education of children
Loans for business start-up
To investigate a rape
For access to water spring
Average Pct by Category

Issue

Chiapas and Oaxaca Only (N=3,845)

Table 4: Authorities Sought First to Address Given Problems

Eisenstadt, Ethnic Identity Construction in Mexico

121

An average of 57 percent of non-indigenous respondents did not know

which authorities they would seek out first to address the nine issues
raised, or did not answer, as compared with 4 percent of the indigenous
respondents. Much of the apparent indecisiveness of non-indigenous
respondents may be due to the fact that, although the questions were
worded sufficiently generally as to allow respondents to state whether
they would turn first to state or traditional authorities (without specifying that traditional authorities were indigenous), the questions seem
to have better fit considerations of instrumental indigenous respondents,
whereas non-indigenous respondents were at a loss to even consider nonstate options.
Indigenous citizens were more decisive and utilized the range of
recourses available to them, favoring traditional authorities by a wide
margin, but they alsoand this is crucial in establishing the case for
instrumentalismturned to formal government authorities more frequently than non-indigenous respondents. These results, while preliminary, debunk the stereotype of the isolated but pastoral indigenous
communities who keep to themselves and maintain government institutions at arms length. Neither group expressed great enthusiasm about
seeking assistance from the government first, although indigenous respondents sought the government as first responder at a higher rate than
non-indigenous respondents (12 percent for non-indigenous respondents, as compared with 19 percent for indigenous respondents).
While further analysis is required, it would appear that indigenous respondents have more readily-formulated answers to questions about
solving social and economic problems as they may more routinely face
such problems because of discrimination16 and the greater likelihood
that they live in poverty and isolation. These respondents were predisposed to solving such problems via traditional routes first, although they
were less averse to using state institutions than their non-indigenous
cohort.
Just as they had revealed themselves, through their attitudes, to be
like everyone else (here, their non-indigenous comparison group)
rather than ascriptively different on ethnic grounds, the indigenous respondents revealed themselvesin their relations with problem-solving
16. For example, between 1974 and 1988, fully 49 percent of the repressive acts in
Chiapas documented by Burguete and Montero Solano (1989 typescript) were undertaken
directly by government authorities (who were also known to hire the thugs and vigilantes
who committed many of the other 51 percent of the repressive acts). The authors of this
study documented some 195 deaths from repression over these sixteen years, concentrated in the states indigenous region. Numerous repressive acts were also committed in
Oaxaca to be sure (see for example Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, 1996) but
they were less systematic and also involved inter-village conflicts.

122

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

social institutionsto be predisposed towards traditional institutions but

also flexible (or even instrumental). Counter to the expectations of scholarship on primordial identities (from Geertz 1973 to preeminent Mexican anthropologists like Bonfil Batalla 1996), the survey data show that
indigenous respondents are actually as statist/individualist in their attitudes as non-indigenous respondents, and that they would appear to be
more flexible in the range of institutions to which they will readily turn
in order to solve problems. These response patterns recall Popkins observation, made in another context but applicable here, that village institutions work less well than they [moral economists] maintain, in large
part because of conflicts between individual and group interests, and
that far more attention must be paid to motivations for personal gain
among the peasantry (1979: 17).
These findings offer new evidence for the position that indigeneity
in itself does not make people more susceptible to influence by pressure from their kinship groups, or more likely to make decisions based
on collective identities alone. Rather, the majority of the 2,186 linguistically indigenous respondents, like everyone else, tended to think of
themselves as individuals first, and members of a traditional community
only second. In other words, while ethnicity has some bearing on
whether people viewed themselves principally as statist/individualists
(i.e. a Western liberal view of relations between citizens and their government) rather than collectivist-communalist (referred to by social scientists as agrarian, pre-modern, traditional, or closed communities),
about eight out of ten interviewees, indigenous and non-indigenous alike,
viewed themselves as statist/individualists, according to the category
clusters. These results imply that the instrumentalist position (also referred to as constructivist in its more moderate versions) is more reflective of empirical reality; that individuals choose ethnicity for political expediency as well as for more fixed or given causes (such as when
group identification is a central element in an individuals worldview because of discrimination or oppression by outsiders). The survey results
demonstrate that over 90 percent of the respondents (indigenous respondents included) possess a Western liberal conception of their articulation of interests with the state, based perhaps in part on the states
corporatist conditioning of its subjects via permeation of the countryside in sixteenth century Oaxaca and twentieth century Chiapas, giving
rise to a more subtle question. Are the indigenous social movements to
demand collective autonomy and rights truly expressing indigenous citizen interests, or are they reframing the views of rational individual peasant activists as pleas for indigenous collective rights so leaders can draw
attention to social problems and/or gain power?

Eisenstadt, Ethnic Identity Construction in Mexico

123

Conclusions
The timing of the permeation of traditional communities by state corporatism in Mexico differed greatly in Oaxaca and in Chiapas, as the Oaxacan indigenous population was devastated by the Spanish conquest, but
was then allowed to reorganize into the small, closed communities they
populate today. According to the historian Chance (1986, 180), the
Spaniards were most concerned with replacing Indian structures above
the community level, and in Oaxaca, where these were either tenuous
or nonexistent, a substantial portion of the indigenous sociopolitical organization survived the conquest years. In Chiapas, weak communities
of indigenous citizens were co-opted as peasant groups in response to
state permeation in the mid-twentieth century (Rus 1994; Pineda 2002),
whereas in Oaxaca, this cooptation into the broader state occurred much
earlier. While further research is needed to confirm the cause of difference in the two states, often ignored by the Chiapas-centric social movements studies, it may be that Oaxaca respondents were actually more
individualist, statist, and statist-individualist (remember three separate
cluster classifications were deployed) because state corporatism (the
cooptation of rural citizens by compulsory membership in peasant
unions and organizations which dispensed state patronage) imparted
these values in Oaxaca much sooner than in Chiapas. Another plausible
explanation is that the collective actions against state repression and the
struggle for land in Chiapas fostered communal and collective identities
there (indigenous and otherwise) which were not generated by conditions in Oaxaca.
These differences in the Chiapas and Oaxaca survey responses also
convey a broader point. Over time, these rural Mexicans conceptions
of their ethnic and non-ethnic identities seem to have been manipulated
by state authorities. Accounting for regional differences, it is evident that
other factorsbesides ethnic identitycause attitudes which may be
classified as statist as opposed to communalist and statist/individualist
as opposed to communalist/collectivist. Survey results confirm that indigenous is less a defining trait of respondent attitudes towards individualism, collectivism, the state, and their traditional societies, than
other concomitant circumstances, such as community size, rural poverty,
isolation, and societal conflictiveness, as conveyed by preliminary reporting of demographic information from the survey reported in Table 5.
As may have been expected, indigenous respondents are notably
poorer and more isolated (measured both as a scale of awareness of world
affairs and also as whether the respondent is from an urban or rural area).
Future iterations of this research will assess whether demographic factors

+ 8.9
- 8.8
- 19.4
+ 19.5
+ 13.2
- 13.2
+ 5.2
- 5.2
+ 15.7
-15.7
+ 4.5
-4.5
+ 5.3
- 5.3

85.6
14.6
13.9
86.2
83.6
16.5
58.5
41.6
61.3
38.8
58.2
41.8
53.7
46.4

Indigenous Avg Pct Deviation

from Overall Average
deviation category pct
- 8.9
+ 8.8
+ 19.5
- 19.5
- 13.2
+ 13.2
- 5.2
+ 5.2
- 15.7
+ 15.6
-4.5
+ 4.5
- 5.3
+5.2

67.8
32.2
52.8
47.2
57.2
42.9
48.1
52.0
29.9
70.1
49.2
50.9
43.1
56.9

Non-Indigenous Avg Pct Deviation

from Overall Average
deviation category pct

Source: Preliminary descriptive statistics as summarized in Eisenstadt 2004. Items with an average variation between indigenous and
non-indigenous respondents of greater than ten percent have been bolded. Loweducation means respondent did not reach secondary
school. Low poverty means possession of more than two of five material indicators of modernization (whether respondents used cooking fuel other than wood, and whether they possessed running water, electricity, and had permanent roof and a non-dirt floor). Rural is
defined as communities of fewer than 2,500 people by the 2000 census. Conflictive means that respondent had experienced at least one
of the following: religious, municipal governance, political party, and/or resource/environmental conflicts. Low awareness of outside world
is defined as a score of less than 2 on a 6point scale. Low retrospective optimism is defined as a score of less than 4 on an 8point scale.
Low confidence in institutions is defined as a score of less than 3 on a 5point scale. For questions used in constructing the last three
scales, see Eisenstadt 2004.

Education Low
Education High
Poverty Low
Poverty High
Rural
Urban
Conflictive
Non-Conflictive
Outside Awareness Low
Outside Awareness High
Retrospective Optimism Low
Retrospective Optimism High
Confidence in Institutions Low
Confidence in Institutions High

Environmental or Attitude
Scale Variable

Table 5: Scale Analysis Summary of Percent Deviations from Averages

Eisenstadt, Ethnic Identity Construction in Mexico

125

and other attitude scales, such as those summarized in Table 5, have any
bearing on whether respondentsoutlooks are more statist or communalist.
While research on ethnic politics has been piling up for at least a
half-century (Chandra 2001: 7), few empirical tests exist of the instrumentalism hypothesis as direct as this one, and fewer still which query
ethnic subjects themselves, and in their own languages where necessary,17
in order to generate evidence about bottom up assumption of ethnic
identities, which is usually analyzed through top down models of ethnic political entrepreneurs. In the Mexican case, this may be the first largesample non-governmental survey ever administered person-to-person in
a half-dozen languages, and its findings imply that the ethnic component
of peoples environments is less fixed and plays a less permanent role in
shaping their attitudes than the socio-economic and geographic conditions they face. Furthermore, the propensity for linguistically indigenous
and non-indigenous respondents to favor statist/individualist articulations
of citizenship, as opposed to the traditional collective and communal expressions of citizenship usually associated with primordial claims, raises
several questions. How and why did indigenous communities choose to
adopt these attitudes? How did statism-individualism come to trump
more traditional and ethnicity-reinforcing expressions of citizenship?
What conditions and signals allowed leaders, appealing to communalist
and collectivist claims, to succeed in convincing their followers to mobilize? The answer given by historians and anthropologists to these questions is that state corporatist efforts by Mexicos ruling elites to penetrate rural areas and nation-build in even the countrys most remote (and
often indigenous) areas, reconditioned expressions of citizenship in the
post-World War II era. The salience of indigenous autonomy movements
has been controversial even among those they claim to represent, in good
measure because such communalist/collectivist ideals defy the predominant statist/individualist notions, perpetrated by state corporatist
permeation of the countryside, of how citizens should perceive and articulate their interests.
Efforts to decentralize governance in indigenous areas, through inconclusive experiments such as the creation of indigenous governments
in Chiapas or the legalization of usos y costumbres in Oaxaca, may appeal to ethnic identities but be of little practical utility in fostering economic development and political enfranchisement with the state, where
indigenous (and non-indigenous) respondents still seek to fulfill basic
17. Over half the indigenous respondents were surveyed in languages other than
Spanish. Some 660 were interviewed in Oaxacan dialects of Mazateco, Mixe, Mixteco, Zapoteco, and Zapoteco del Valle, while 597 were interviewed in Chol, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, and
Zoque from Chiapas.

126

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

social and economic needs first. While indigenous respondents in remote

areas may have denser networks of social institutions than equally remote non-indigenous respondents, these institutions allow instrumental Indians to maximize their set of choices if they are complemented
by the presence of state resources. In a statement also true of many of
Oaxacas other indigenous peoples, Nagengast and Kearney (1990: 65)
noted that the Mixtecs know themselves as those who originate in lugares tristes (sad places), villages in the Mixteca where food is often
scarce, a decent living is difficult to obtain, and children die of preventable diseases . . . Mixtecs do not glamorize their poverty by claiming that it is traditional.
Instrumental citizens havequite reasonablyadopted the demands
of Indians in an effort to be heard. The story of their marginalization is
an old one, exacerbated over the last decade by cuts in Mexicos social
spending, by the opening of agricultural staples like corn and coffee to
international markets with which Mexicos peasants cannot compete, and
by military occupation of large parts of the Chiapas countryside (see Collier and Quaratiello 1994, for example). However, evidence presented in
this article, subject to further confirmation via future statistical analysis,
implies that a great majority of indigenous citizensat least from those
surveyed in Chiapas and Oaxacaview the world from an instrumental and statist-individualist vantage not altogether different from that of
Mexicos non-indigenous citizens. Rather than limiting themselves exclusively to the use of their own, autonomous institutions, Mexicos instrumental Indians showed a predisposition towards utilizing social and
political institutions of their own construction as well as those provided
by the state. Mexicos Indians by choice may yet succeed in reframing the debate as one allowing them both to maintain their own institutions and to play a greater role in designing those used by the broader
state. Indeed, only by participating on both levels will they continue to
have the choice of which to select first in a given situation.
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