Of Morals and Markets: Social Exchange and Poverty in Contemporary Urban Mexico

• Date: 01 May 2020
• Published date: 01 May 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/0002716220916700
• Author: Mercedes González de la Rocha

26 ANNALS, AAPSS, 689, May 2020

DOI: 10.1177/0002716220916700

Of Morals and

Markets: Social

Exchange and

Poverty in

Contemporary

Urban Mexico

By

MERCEDES GONZÁLEZ

DE LA ROCHA

916700ANN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYSocial Exchange and Poverty in Urban Mexico

research-article2020

Based on longitudinal ethnographic research in

Guadalajara, Mexico, from the 1980s to present, I

argue that there has been a significant change in the

availability of mutual help or support networks for the

economically disadvantaged. As time and income have

become increasingly scarce, people who used to find

support in reciprocal social relationships now find that

support-givers are in no position to provide assistance

for free. Now, people experiencing scarcity find that

they must pay for help formerly available through social

relations. In other words, care within the family, in

contexts of urban poverty, is becoming a commodity. A

paradox arises for those who have fewer resources: they

are excluded by the market economy, and by resorting

to mercantilist values to survive, they are violating

moral principles and norms that exclude them even

more from social exchange.

Keywords: social networks; poverty; provision of care;

monetization of favors

The reach of markets, and market-oriented think-

ing, into aspects of life traditionally governed by

non-market norms is one of the most significant

developments of our time. (Sandel 2012)

This article builds on the premise that social

exchange is crucial for the survival of all,

but particularly the survival of the poorest

families. Since Larissa Lomnitz’s now classic

Mercedes González de la Rocha is a Mexican social

anthropologist at El Centro de Investigación y Estudios

Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS). She is the

author of The Resources of Poverty: Women and

Survival in a Mexican City (Blackwell 1994) and (with

Gonzalo Saraví), Pobreza y Vulnerabilidad: Debates y

Estudios Contemporáneos en México [Poverty and

Vulnerability: Contemporary Debates and Studies in

Mexico] (CIESAS 2018).

NOTE: The completion of this article benefited from

the comments and suggestions of two anonymous

reviewers and the invaluable support of Inés Escobar

González. Her help is an example of household coop-

eration and generosity.

Correspondence: mgdelarocha@gmail.com

SOCIAL EXCHANGE AND POVERTY IN URBAN MEXICO 27

monograph, Networks and Marginality (1977), scholarship has widely docu-

mented the effectiveness and importance of mutual aid, social norms, reciprocity,

and trust in the lives of the poor. Through mutual aid, individuals and households

lend each other money when in need, and relatives and neighbors cooperate in

taking care of children and the sick, sharing resources, and collectively contribut-

ing to the solutions to routine and extraordinary problems (González de la Rocha

1986; Estrada 1995; Bazán 1998; González de la Rocha 1994; Rivera González

2005). In addition to an expansive literature that focuses on social ties and reci-

procity in urban contexts, the importance of mutual aid has also been observed

in the Mexican countryside (Velázquez Galindo 2013) and shown to be a highly

valuable mechanism in systems of reciprocity and exchange among transnational

migrant families in contexts of intense migration (Ariza 2017).

Social exchange is the term used here for the transfer of information, goods,

and services (favors) among friends, relatives, and neighbors. Lomnitz (1977)

insisted that social exchange takes place between people who maintain mutual

ties and are united by social relations characterized by trust, as can be the case in

friendship, kinship, or co-parenthood (compadrazgo). Moreover, favors in social

exchange are neither bought nor sold, and they are typically understood by indi-

viduals to be separate from markets. While favors frequently co-mingle with

money, they are exchanged in networks of social relations according to the

acknowledged principle of social reciprocity, not market exchange. As the strik-

ingly Maussian popular saying goes, “today for me, tomorrow for you” (hoy por

mí, mañana por ti) (Mauss 2000).

Recognizing the paradigmatic importance of social exchange in the survival of

the poor (and the greater prosperity of the nonpoor and privileged; see Lomnitz

and Pérez Lizaur 1993) does not mean rendering it static. Neither is this recogni-

tion an obstacle to observing that, in certain contexts and situations, social exchange

can transform and, indeed, deteriorate. Analysis of the factors and contexts that

hinder the capacity to reciprocate has led scholars to suggest that job insecurity,

poverty, and aging are associated with the weakening of social ties and reciprocal

exchange (González de la Rocha 1999; González de la Rocha and Villagómez 2006;

Rivera González 2006; Rabell 2009; Rabell and D’Aubeterre 2009; González de la

Rocha, Moreno, and Escobar 2016). Montes de Oca (2004) argues that informal

systems of care, within and between families, have come under threat for a number

of reasons, among them demographic change, as a smaller number of children

limits the possibilities for care of aging parents. The result is an arguable crisis in

care once based on systems of delayed intergenerational reciprocity. The house-

hold and social networks, once cushions in times of economic and personal crises,

now face severe obstacles to softening the challenging effects of economic and

demographic change. The erosion of ties is one of the final consequences in the

deterioration of people’s living conditions, one that people try to avoid and manage

by implementing a set of diverse work practices and adaptations to scarcity

(González de la Rocha 1999, 2000, 2001). Within the so-called ocean of resources/

assets (Narayan etal. 2000), two are key to the maintenance of social exchange:

time and money. Money is crucial because, as a good in itself, it flows through

networks in the form of monetary loans, but also as currency mediating the