Sons of Peasants on the Beach: Vendors in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

Abstract

Purpose

To summarize the shocks and stresses that peasants in Mexico have been subjected to since the 1940s and to examine the responses of sons of peasants working as semi-informal beach vendors in Cabo San Lucas as to what they define as the worst problems of the peasantry in their hometowns.

Methodology/approach

This chapter offers an analysis of the responses of 32 sons of peasants interviewed on Medano Beach in Cabo San Lucas in October of 2012 partially as concerns whether they would like to be peasants themselves and as to what they define as the worst problems of the peasantry in their hometowns.

Findings

Twenty-five of the thirty-two vendors interviewed would be happy to be peasants. According to all of the vendors, the overwhelming problems facing the peasantry were primarily droughts or floods (related to climate change) and lack of government aid (related to neoliberalization).

Social implications

The peasantry in Mexico is being and has been marginalized both by a number of stresses and shocks, currently identified by some of those at risk as factors related to climate change and neoliberalization.

Citation

Diana Wilson, T. (2017), "Sons of Peasants on the Beach: Vendors in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico", Anthropological Considerations of Production, Exchange, Vending and Tourism (Research in Economic Anthropology, Vol. 37), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 205-229. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0190-128120170000037010