Tesis (licenciatura en economía)--Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. / Bibliography: p. [171].

Thesis (M.A.)--University of California, Aug. 1925. / Typewritten (carbon copy). eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Bibliography: 7 l. at end.

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) has in its collection eleven ancient West Mexican ceramic sculptures. Given that the VMFA's West Mexican Ceramic figure collection has not been included in any extensive study, this thesis serves to provide a critical analysis of these figures through a formal and stylistic approach. These analyses are preceded by a brief history of the West Mexican cultures and highlight the artistic similarities and differences between each region. The primary regions under discussion are Colima, Nayarit, and Jalisco which correspond to modern geopolitical boundaries. Primary sources for these discussions are the figures themselves, while various published catalogues serve as comparative sources. Where applicable, iconographical theories are introduced and discussed in conjunction with the formal and stylistic analysis.

Over the past two decades, an interest in how tobacco capitalism works in everyday life has reintroduced a fertile discussion about one of the capitalism's core features: the production of surplus value. Through a case-study of Kentucky and Nayarit, this thesis will discuss how the industry of tobacco, instead of depending on historic-geographical unevenness in the spread of capitalist relations across the world, works with unevenness as part of its own structure. In other words, for the securing of surplus value the tobacco industry relies not on non-capitalist relations of production, but rather on an increasing horizontal and vertical integration of tobacco capitalism. This is evidence of the industry's power to effect a new configuration of relations of production different from the configuration of the industry in previous years: tobacco was a product of state intervention. Nayarit in Mexico and Kentucky in the USA appear to be similar in many aspects, despite their different locations in global capitalism and on the ladder of development. In both places, capitalist relations of production frame life, and a dependence on cheap labour for the working of the tobacco industry is manifested. In both places, neoliberal reforms led to the privatisation of the tobacco industry, whereas before tobacco production was subsidised by the state. Nayarit and Kentuckian tobacco growers and workers have to deal with increasing economic pressures and find themselves looking to diversify income streams. In both contexts, similar racial hierarchies structure similarly gendered divisions of labour in the tobacco industry, both within the workforce and in terms of productive versus reproductive labour. The differences between Kentucky and Nayarit have created a situation in which the same group of Nayarit migrant labourers live with unevenness as part of their life projects, though they are working within the same tobacco industry. The thesis presents rich ethnographic detail about heterogeneous contexts that exist within and are shaped by the same tobacco capitalism, and the way through which unevenness generates migrant labour that creates a durable geographical connection between distinct instantiations of the same tobacco industry.

Ce travail est consacré à l’analyse des chants rituels qui sont exécutés par les Cora (Náyeri) de l’Ouest du Mexique lors de cérémonies appelées mitote. Son point de départ est la situation concrète dans laquelle sont énoncés ces chants. Les actions qui constituent le mitote font l’objet d’une description ethnographique détaillée qui nous a permis de comprendre les spécificités de la participation des exécutants. Celle-ci nous a dévoilé l’existence d’un rapport étroit entre les chants et les actions. Ce rapport – qui est au cœur de la participation des spécialistes rituels – n’implique pas pour autant que les chants sont de simples descriptions des actions accomplies lors du mitote. Au contraire, par leur forme et leur contenu ils sont des composants essentiels de la configuration relationnelle caractéristique du mitote. L’analyse des actions rituelles, de la performance du chanteur et des chants nous a fait découvrir la richesse d’une tradition discursive qui n’est pas simplement liée à l’action rituelle mais qui en est partie intégrante. Pour compléter cette analyse, nous présentons dans un second volume la transcription intégrale des chants énoncés au cours d’un mitote. / This research is devoted to the analysis of the ritual chants performed at the mitote ceremonies of the Cora (Náyeri) people of the West of Mexico. We will start from the concrete situation in which these chants are performed. The actions that constitute the mitote will be exposed through a detailed ethnographic description that will allow us to understand the particularities of participation in ritual. Through these pages, we will discover the correspondence between chants and actions. This relation – known to be at the heart of the activity of ritual specialists – doesn’t mean that the chants of mitote are simple descriptions of the actions accomplished on it, and therefore a superfluous element. On the contrary, because of their form and their content, these chants appear as essential constituents of the relational configuration that characterizes mitote. Through the analysis of ritual actions, of the singer’s performance and of the chants themselves, we will explore the richness of a discursive tradition that is not just related to ritual action but also makes part of it. To complete this study, we include in a second volume the integral transcriptions of the chants performed in a mitote.