Billie R. DeWalt, “Alternative Adaptive Strategies in a Mexican Ejido: A New Perspective on Modernization and Development,” Human Organization 38, no. 2 (Summer 1979), 134-143.
“The point here is that peasants confronted with a variety of new techniques and practices do not think of their choices as being ‘traditional’ or ‘modern’ behavior. Instead new items are simply being added to their cultural repertoire — their major means of coping with the natural and social environment in which they live. ‘Modern’ and ‘traditional’ ways of life are not mutually exclusive but together comprise potentially useful means of adaptation. (Development and modernization may be seen as types of adaptive processes, types that generally imply some degree of outside stimulation and some degree of ‘progress.’) Peasants may therefore be expected to selectively choose only those introduced techniques that they feel may be useful in helping them to better adapt to their particular situation. When the anthropologist can detect patterns in the ways in which these elements are combined, s/he can talk of adaptive strategies.”
This corroborates Roberto Gonzalez’s contemporary findings.
Notes
- 134 – “The search for those factors that explain why some individuals are willing to change their ‘traditional’ behavior and opt for new ways of life has been a popular subject of research in sociology, rural sociology, anthropology, psychology, and the other disciplines concerned with the study of human behavior. Literally hundreds of articles and books about the process of modernization or development have appeared in the past several decades, perhaps reflecting the potential applied significance of such research in accomplishing sociocultural change. In recent years, however, there is an increasing realization that too often terms such as modernization and development are defined too ethnocentrically.”
- “The purpose of this paper is to suggest that we may avoid many of the problems and biases inherent in some of our concepts by viewing change in societies as an adaptive process. I will show how my research in an agricultural community in the Mexican central highlands led me to focus on adaptive strategies as a measure of the change occuring in the region. This concept better described the diversification of economic activities that was taking place in response to new opportunities than did either the concepts of modernization or development. My identification of alternative adaptive strategies also led me to see the planned-changed programs in the region in a much more positive light, in contrast with the development agents who believe their projects have failed. Thus, I believe that the emphasis on adaptive strategies is useful for both theoretical and applied purposes.”
- “Modernization, development, acculturation, innovation, adoption, westernization, and a variety of other concepts have been utilized over the years to describe the process by which individuals and societies move from a ‘traditional’ way of life toward one that is different from the way they started out (sometimes phrased as one, some, or all of the following: modern, better, technologically advanced, more complex, more economizing, more rational, more productive, wealthier, materially advanced, or more energy consuming).”
- 135 – “The assault on older views of development, modernization, and the rest is coming from at least two directions. On the one hand are those people who are beginning to realize that traditional and modern are not just end points of a continuum . . ..// The second direction from which the attack is coming is from people who believe (a) that our energy-intensive, high-technology way of life may be coming to an end; and (b) that Third World countries do not necessarily have to follow (and probably cannot follow) the same paths that were taken by the current world powers. The basic point is that there are social cultural, and technological alternatives that should be explored.”
- “The ethnocentrism that is included in most of our conceptualizations and definitions of modernization and development is one of the areas that must be revised in order to include these alternatives as potentially beneficial types of sociocultural change.”
- 136 – “Development agents working in this region have been extremely discouraged. They believe that their programs have achieved little success and cite the now familiar list of negative peasant traits as the cause. According to the change agents, peasants are uncooperative, apathetic, drunkards, suspicious, resistant to change, and lazy.”
- “More importantly, however, people did not seem to be randomly selecting new techniques, but they appeared to be concentrating their investments in certain subsets of items.”
- 137 – “The point here is that peasants confronted with a variety of new techniques and practices do not think of their choices as being ‘traditional’ or ‘modern’ behavior. Instead new items are simply being added to their cultural repertoire — their major means of coping with the natural and social environment in which they live. ‘Modern’ and ‘traditional’ ways of life are not mutually exclusive but together comprise potentially useful means of adaptation. (Development and modernization may be seen as types of adaptive processes, types that generally imply some degree of outside stimulation and some degree of ‘progress.’) Peasants may therefore be expected to selectively choose only those introduced techniques that they feel may be useful in helping them to better adapt to their particular situation. When the anthropologist can detect patterns in the ways in which these elements are combined, s/he can talk of adaptive strategies.”
- 137-138 – factor analysis of adaptations — demonstrating ejidatario choices don’t correlate with development programs
- 138 – “Thus, I have found that people are adopting the new techniques introduced into the region in patterned ways. They are not making random choices but are concentrating their investments in logically related sets of items. These patterns of investment that I have termed adaptive strategies are: forage production, animal improvement, fertilizer use, and tractor use.”
- 139 – “Although it is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss these data, my general findings were than an individual’s choice of strategies depended on a complex decision-making process and that the strategies adopted were found to be understandable when ecological, economic, political, social, and other variables were taken into account.”
- “Development agents with whom I have talked believe that their efforts to introduce significant change into the Temascalcingo region have failed. Their greatest frustration has come because the ejidatarios have shown no inclination to form cooperatives. Because of the small landholdings, development agents believe that working lands communally is the best way to improve the corn crop and to sow the forage crops necessary to establish a dairying economy.”
- 140 – “They have seen the demonstration fields of corn with two or three large ears on each plant, they have seen the lush fields of forage crops, and they have seen healthy cows with full udders. The problem does not lie in convincing the ejidatarios of the utility of the techniques that are being made available. It is just that the people do not have the resources to adopt all of the new technology.”
- 140-141 – “This ‘evolutioanry’ form of change has many advantages over a quick ‘revolutionary’ transition to a totally different economic base. The changes occurring now certainly minimize risk. Every ejidatario, without exception, has continued to plant corn. Thus, there is still an opportunity to return completely to the adaptive strategy that has proved itself over the centuries. While they are experimenting with new technology and new economic enterprises, the ejidatarios are maintaining a hedge in case the new unproved and insecure adaptive strategies do not pay off.”
- 141 – “the relatively slow growth in the use of tractors results in a slow displacement of individuals who depend on wage labor in agriculture rather than immediately rendering them obsolete. Thus, although the new opportunities are disrupting traditional economic patterns, the slow rate of change means that many ‘fine-tuning’ adjustments need to be made. These minor adjustments, however, cause little disruption when compared with the major dislocations that would result from ‘revolutionary’ changes.”
- “To sum up, I do not believe that development agents should strive to convert a region to any single adaptive strategy. As Belshaw said: ‘For a key to development is not everybody doing exactly what everybody else is doing. It is precisely in specialized differentiation — once known as division of labor.’ Overspecialization may be just as dangerous in cultural evolution as it is in biological evolution.”
- 142 – “Focusing on adaptation and adaptive strategies avoids the ethnocentrism inherent in the concepts of modernization and development. The latter two terms often carry the implication that ‘traditional’ cultural is no longer viable and that other societies with have to learn ‘modern’ alternatives if they are to survive. In fact, in many change situations it is becoming increasingly apparent that old adaptive forms are still useful and may even be of greater utility than modern alternatives. The much-maligned conservative peasant may be seen as unwilling to give of strategies that have been successful for centuries in favor of half-baked unproven ideas advocated by hot-shot development agents.”
- Notice that he still conceives of traditional strategies as static, as though they haven’t changed for centuries, until now, that they have been introduced ‘alternatives’ by development agents. He can’t conceive that they have been evolutionarily adapting knowledge and tools all along.
- Ends with a prescription for how development agents can become more effective – “Development agents who view their clients’ behavior as an adaptive process in which human choice is a key factor can become much more effective in their work. They can play a crucial role in the following ways:”
- Notice this lines up with “choice” as organizing principle from Stephen Marglin
- “(3) Encourage/discourage the use of adaptive strategies — after determining viability, development agents can then selectively support adaptive strategies. That is, they can provide more information, credit, and technical assistance to people with viable ideas. Those involved in less feasible enterprises should be encouraged to reorient their adaptive choices. This could be done through withholding credit, demonstrating other alternatives, and providing them only minimal assistance.”
