Force of Irony

Winner of the 'Casa Chata Award' for the Best Book of 1994 (Spanish edition)In charting the paradoxical effects of power and knowledge on the everyday life of subordinate people, this book offers a major rethinking of domination and the agricultural labor process. Challenging the belief that ethnography is theoretically weak, the author provides a fresh perspective on rural workers' responses to the development of transnational production systems and the transformations of agrarian structures brought about by the complex interactions of global and local forces. In questioning ingrained assumptions about worker consciousness, the author exposes the naivete of past approaches and the role of power and hegemony in the micro-politics of human relations. This book is obligatory reading for anyone interested in current debates about "resistance," development, and the future of rural societies. Searching for new ways of understanding farmworkers; plunging into the garlic - methodological issues and challenges; tomato work; the politics of tomato work - agribusiness in Autlan history; on worker's power and skills; the force of irony and the irony of power; exploring the opportunities of social change - a theoretical discussion.