Vivienne Bennett
California State University, San Marcos
My presentation focuses on two types of grassroots activity in Mexico urban popular movements (UPMs) and territorially based organizations of poor urban women. In the first half of my presentation, I review the evolution of urban popular movements in Mexico during three phases. The first phase, starting in the early 1970s and continuing throughout the decade, responded to the crisis of housing and public service infrastructure in Mexican cities. The primary goal of the urban popular movements in the 1970s was housing; the primary strategy was land invasions. The second phase, from 1980 to 1985, is characterized by the spread of UPMs into many states and cities, and by the confederation of local UPMs into a national organization (CONAMUP). The third phase, after 1985, is characterized by a wave of new movements in Mexico City, and by a crossover from purely neighborhood organizing to electoral politics, with UPM leaders being elected to important government posts. During the first and second phases traditional gender roles were replicated in the internal organization of the movements women were major participants in the movements, but never leaders. In the third phase, women created new UPMs and are the leaders.
In the second half of my presentation I focus on territorially based organizations of poor urban women, specifically collective action by neighborhood women. Because women are traditionally the managers of the household and of the day-to-day life of the family, they have also become the managers of poverty. Their role as managers of poverty has come to include collective action, as the only way to resolve certain hardships imposed by poverty. Collective action, or protest actions, organized by women are carried out in public spaces available to women streets, plazas, neighborhoods; and use strategies shaped by class and gender. Collective actions by women rarely result in the formation of lasting formal organizations. As the Mexican government cuts social spending urban militance by poor women is likely to increase, worsening conflictual relations between the government and the urban poor.