The Romance of Democracy : Compliant Defiance in Contemporary Mexico

The Romance of Democracy gives a unique insider perspective on contemporary Mexico by examining the meaning of democracy in the lives of working-class residents in Mexico City today. A highly absorbing and vividly detailed ethnographic study of popular politics and official subjugation, the book provides a detailed, bottom-up exploration of what men and women think about national and neighborhood democracy, what their dreams are for a better society, and how these dreams play out in their daily lives. Based on extensive fieldwork in the same neighborhood he discussed in his acclaimed book The Meanings of Macho, Matthew C. Gutmann now explores the possibilities for political and social change in the world's most populous city. In the process he provides a new perspective on many issues affecting Mexicans countrywide.

Gutmann's supremely engaging ethnographic writing underpins a rich analysis of what working class Mexicans are doing and thinking when they participate, or fail to participate, in social movements, party politics and the electoral process. An exemplary demonstration of how anthropological research can enrich the study of political life.—John Gledhill, Max Gluckman Professor of Social Anthropology and author of Power and Its Disguises: Anthropological Perspectives on Politics

Writing with a poet's ear for spoken language, a novelist's vision of story line and plot, a historian's sense of time and period, and, most of all, an ethnographer's vision of people and place, Gutmann gives us a rich, nuanced slice of contemporary Mexico, as he has lived it and absorbed it. From his vantage point in a colonia popular he unpacks Mexican national culture and politics as they are lived and expressed in daily life. Steering between the swamps of cynicism and utopianism he presents a welcomed and realistic portrait of contemporary Mexico and its contradictions.—Michael Kearney, author of Reconceptualizing the Peasantry: Anthropology in Global Perspective

This ethnographic study of popular politics is exceedingly lively and valuable. Gutmann demonstrates the usefulness of both top-down and bottom-up studies that, when taken together, give us the most complete and meaningful picture possible.—Judith Adler Hellman, author of Mexican Lives

A new book by Matt Gutmann is a gift. He writes of Oscar Lewis and agency resistance and politics, and tacos and beer, with the same fervor and understanding. This is ethnography as a poetry of life. I am delighted to see Gutmann return to Santo Domingo and explore what democracy means in the colonia. I just hope I get to go with him next time.—Miguel Centeno, author of Blood and Debt: War and the Nation-State in Latin America

The appearance of this insightful and penetrating book could not have been better timed. Just when Mexico struggles to create an authentic democracy, Gutmann analyzes with great skill the fabric of Mexican social life that is being transformed.—Thomas Skidmore, co-author of Modern Latin America

The Romance of Democracy offers wonderfully accessible neighborhood accounts of Mexican politics and popular nationalism in the age of NAFTA. This book, Gutmann's second on the working poor of Santo Domingo in Mexico City, brings to life individual expressions of ambivalence toward gringolandia to the north and weary cynicism about the possibility of real political change at home. Throughout, Gutmann interweaves reappraisals of globalization, democracy, the culture of poverty, and agency and resistance with his intimate conversations on politics and daily life in Santo Domingo.—Kay Warren, co-editor, Ethnography in Unstable Places: Everyday Lives in Contexts of Dramatic Political Change and
Indigenous Movements, Self-Representation, and the State

Miguel Centeno

A new book by Matt Gutmann is a gift. He writes of Oscar Lewis and agency resistance and politics, and tacos and beer, with the same fervor and understanding. This is ethnography as a poetry of life. I am delighted to see Gutmann return to Santo Domingo and explore what democracy means in the colonia. I just hope I get to go with him next time.

Preliminaries......Page 1 Contents......Page 10 Preface......Page 16 1 Compliant Defiance in Colonia Santo Domingo......Page 32 2 The Children of Oscar Lewis......Page 57 3 1968 The Massacre at Tlatelolco......Page 92 4 For Whom the Taco Bells Toll......Page 104 5 Crossing Borders......Page 128 6 Rituals of Resistance, or, Diminished Expectations after Socialism......Page 140 7 Chiapas and Mexican Blood......Page 174 8 Engendering Popular Political Culture......Page 189 9 UNAM Strike......Page 223 10 Political Fantasies......Page 238 Notes......Page 264 Glossary......Page 280 Bibliography......Page 284 Index......Page 312 The Romance of Democracy is an ethnographic study of popular politics and official subjugation in the world's most populous city: a detailed, bottom-up exploration of the lives of residents of a poor working-class neighborhood of the Mexican capital; and an examination of how, when, and why they seek to change their political worlds, and how, when, and why they participate in or eschew the politics of politics. An insider perspective on contemporary Mexico, this text examines the meaning of democracy in the lives of working-class residents in Mexico City in 2002. It provides a detailed, bottom-up exploration of what men and women think about national and neighbourhood democracy