succeed and therefore must be guided by the institutions of the State and the
market in order to achieve development.
When the Government is associated with the ideas of modernity and development, the theology of social intervention is constructed, which is based on
reason and scientific knowledge as the only ways to combat social needs and evils.
Thus, institutions are positioned as the only vehicle capable of creating possible
solutions, because they have the means to implement these processes.
In short, we can see how the Government and its institutional arms have taken
charge of transmitting to society these ideologies about groups in situations of
disadvantage, thus legitimizing their own forms of intervention. However, it is
important to point out what we call the dual character of the Mexican Government,
which on the one hand generates social disenchantment about the ineffectiveness
of its agricultural policies, and on the other hand is understood as the only body
capable of redeeming all those wishing to pursue the course of development.
16.3 Poverty and Nature: The Crisis of the Mexican
Countryside
In reaction to this desire for the creation, in local contexts, of structural and
functional conditions that might lead to conditions such as well-being or human
and social development, various methodologies and theoretical models have been
developed that support such conditions; thus, there exists a wide range of possibilities when we speak about experiences related to the topic of development, in
which participants, discourses, implications, goals, and destinations have found, in
the domain of doing many possibilities for experimentation.
In these experiences and experiments, nature has been taken into account as one
of the central factors in the implementation of interventions. The management that
has existed for decades in the rural sector in Mexico reveals the different processes
of understanding of nature that have existed; from the pre-Hispanic societies which
combined agricultural knowledge with the ritual cycle of their vision of the cosmos, to the modern farmer who, in addition to possessing ancestral knowledge,
successfully uses fertilizers and agrochemicals.
As we mentioned previously, the vision that is held regarding nature responds to
a rationality in which the human species understands its place within its environment; this rationality leads humankind to position itself through a set of discourses
and practices that establishes the type of use and management to be employed,
produces very specific results; from units of domestic production intended for
personal consumption, to units of intensive management where production is
designated for national and international marketing.
Between these two settings, there is a remarkable distance in terms of technological resources, human resources, risk factors, uncertainty regarding the
process of production, and contingencies pertaining to sales. However, far from
462
A. Vázquez-Estrada and A. Terven-Salinas
market in order to achieve development.
When the Government is associated with the ideas of modernity and development, the theology of social intervention is constructed, which is based on
reason and scientific knowledge as the only ways to combat social needs and evils.
Thus, institutions are positioned as the only vehicle capable of creating possible
solutions, because they have the means to implement these processes.
In short, we can see how the Government and its institutional arms have taken
charge of transmitting to society these ideologies about groups in situations of
disadvantage, thus legitimizing their own forms of intervention. However, it is
important to point out what we call the dual character of the Mexican Government,
which on the one hand generates social disenchantment about the ineffectiveness
of its agricultural policies, and on the other hand is understood as the only body
capable of redeeming all those wishing to pursue the course of development.
16.3 Poverty and Nature: The Crisis of the Mexican
Countryside
In reaction to this desire for the creation, in local contexts, of structural and
functional conditions that might lead to conditions such as well-being or human
and social development, various methodologies and theoretical models have been
developed that support such conditions; thus, there exists a wide range of possibilities when we speak about experiences related to the topic of development, in
which participants, discourses, implications, goals, and destinations have found, in
the domain of doing many possibilities for experimentation.
In these experiences and experiments, nature has been taken into account as one
of the central factors in the implementation of interventions. The management that
has existed for decades in the rural sector in Mexico reveals the different processes
of understanding of nature that have existed; from the pre-Hispanic societies which
combined agricultural knowledge with the ritual cycle of their vision of the cosmos, to the modern farmer who, in addition to possessing ancestral knowledge,
successfully uses fertilizers and agrochemicals.
As we mentioned previously, the vision that is held regarding nature responds to
a rationality in which the human species understands its place within its environment; this rationality leads humankind to position itself through a set of discourses
and practices that establishes the type of use and management to be employed,
produces very specific results; from units of domestic production intended for
personal consumption, to units of intensive management where production is
designated for national and international marketing.
Between these two settings, there is a remarkable distance in terms of technological resources, human resources, risk factors, uncertainty regarding the
process of production, and contingencies pertaining to sales. However, far from
462
A. Vázquez-Estrada and A. Terven-Salinas