Social Welfare in the 1990s in Mexico: The Case of "Marginal" Families in the Mazahua Region

Keywords: social welfare, PROGRESA, social control, Mazahua, women poverty, as beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder pobreza, como la belleza, esta en los ojos de quien la percibe --Mollier Orshansky(1)IntroductionThe increase of the proportion of households in extreme poverty in Mexico, which are located mainly in rural and indigenous areas, reflects the social impact of the structural adjustment policies carried out in the 1980s, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), counter-reforms to constitutional Article 27 (the agrarian reform law), and, in general, Mexican neo-liberal policies of the last decade. In order to address this situation, President Ernesto Zedillo's government has turned to the welfare state model--despite the general orientation of a diminished state role in social policies--by implementing a social emergency program aimed at improving the for the personal development and productive agency of the members of poor families, so that the use of these opportunities enhances their standard of living and their general social integration (PROGRESA, 1997: 1).The purpose of this paper is to assess, on one hand, to what extent the procedures set forth in the Program of Education, Health and Nutrition (PROGRESA), which respond to a social well-being policy, try to benefit the families without knowing either their reality, or the logic of those strategies of subsistence. Also, on the other hand, to assess how that Program becomes a mechanism of social control to promote the development of human capital for the growth of a liberal economy.My ethnographic fieldwork in the Mazahua community of San Miguel de la Labor, within the municipality of San Felipe del Progreso in the of Mexico, allowed me to observe several changes in the domestic dynamics and in the individual and collective behaviour of those who where selected and became beneficiaries of PROGRESA during the program's first stage.The article is divided in three parts: in the first part, I discuss theoretically the role of the State and the adaptation of social policies oriented towards the assistance of marginal societies within the contexts of economic liberalization, policies which also correspond to the design of the external mechanisms of social control. This section supports my analysis of the instrumentalization of PROGRESA in the second part of the article, underlining above all the internal mechanisms of the program's fulfilment. Finally, in the third part, I describe the program's social outcome.Official Discourses: State, Poverty and Social WelfareMore than any other factor, the crises of the 20th century, characterized by an atmosphere of generalized social and economic instability, have led to the consolidation of a benefactor or welfare State. According to Heclo (1981: 35), the associated perception of instability, vulnerability, and risk ensures that the objectives of the welfare state (security, invulnerability and freedom) seem adequate for regulating the functioning of both society and the economy. Following Shalev (1983) this apparent complicity has a well-defined role: to protect capital through a perception of social security. Shalev holds that the welfare state appears, rapidly grows and is structured to develop labour to increase capital accumulation, even under regimes that subscribe to social-democratic ideals (1983: 11). Therefore, social policies aimed at protecting the interests of labour, such as education, health and nutrition, even if they are not the only policies of the welfare state, are at the heart of public interest. In other words, social policies are those that furnish social security or establish programs that favour target populations (Meny and Thoeing, 1989: 374).In the 1990s, the crisis of the state--a term that has been extensively used in the last 20 years to explain situations of inequality, marginality and social change--seems to threaten the bases of a social protection system considered by the population as a guarantee of economic prosperity. …

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