We All Put on the Fiesta Together: Interdependence and the Production of Active Subjectivity through Cargos in a Highland Mexican Village

After losing their jobs in Mexico City to neoliberal budget cuts and returning home to the nearby village of Tepetlaoxtoc, residents reinvented their understandings and practices of cargos and fiestas in opposition to a local exclusionary hierarchy and to the expanding urban culture of individualism and materialism. In contrast to urbanites' assumption that they can act on their own, villagers highlight their interdependence and the importance of "putting on the fiesta together." And in opposition to the manner in which the former act upon and value things, villagers emphasize acting upon each other to produce what they truly value: actions and subjective states. I propose that these local conceptualizations of personhood and action contribute to the formulation of a culturally sensitive analytical framework for understanding the practices that are coming to the fore in highland Mexican villages as global capitalism continues to erode the previously dominant structural hierarchies.