Zapotec science: Farming and food in the Northern Sierra of Oaxaca, Mexico

This dissertation is an analysis of farming and food practices in Talea de Castro, a Zapotec community in the Northern Sierra of Oaxaca. It traces the historical development and diffusion of knowledges and techniques employed in the cultivation, processing, and preparation of maize, sugarcane, and coffee--and the meanings that farmers attach to these crops. Sierra Zapotec farming and foodways are viewed in terms of (1) villagers' notions of living matter and "nature"; (2) science (the knowledges brought to bear on farming); and (3) technology (farming implements and techniques).;An important question is the degree to which agriculture in the Sierra might be seen as a means of attaining goals that are qualitatively different from those characterizing the "factory farming" of industrial societies. Specifically, evidence indicates that Talean farming is geared to ensuring household maintenance (mantenamiento) and reciprocal relations. These concepts, along with notions of high food quality, the personification of nonhuman actors, the normality of physical labor, and humoral ("hot"/"cold") balance, appear to underlie the practice of farming in the Sierra. It may be that the dominant economic models used to assess factory farming are inadequate for analyzing Zapotec agriculture.;Talean farming and other farming systems--all of which might be considered sciences--are interrelated to the extent that they feature crops, agricultural techniques, implements, and theoretical concepts that have been borrowed from other places over hundreds or even thousands of years. The boundaries separating Sierra farming from other farming systems may well be blurring and overlapping more than ever before. For example, even as Talean farmers incorporate chemical fertilizers in the production of maize, some "modern" scientists seek to incorporate intercropping into "Western" farming systems. Such cases appear to render conventional boundaries separating "Western" from non-"Western" farming, or "traditional" from "modern" agriculture, problematic. The dissertation concludes with an analysis of the "two-way" relationship between "Western" agricultural systems and those from "Other" places, focusing specifically on how they have continued to inform each other in the present.