Envisioning Power in Mexico: Legitimacy, Crisis, and the Practice of Patrimony

In his early work, Eric R. Wolf made provocative arguments about the genealogy of power in Mexico. Yet once he broadened his interests to peasant studies and the history of capitalism, he never returned to make a sustained examination of power in Mexico. This article extends Wolf's insights into an analysis of the current political and economic situation in Mexico. I focus on the practice of categorizing objects as the inalienable property of a given collective, such as a city, region, institution, or nation. These possessions – often referred to as patrimonio (patrimony) – are understood to have been handed down from prior generations and intended to be handed down in turn to future generations. I look at this mode of characterizing property in the areas of subsoil resources, collectively held land, and “cultural properties.”