The Folk-Urban Continuum and the Rural Proletarian Community

Author(s): Sidney W. Mintz

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THE FOLK-URBAN CONTINUUM AND THE
RURAL PROLETARIAN COMMUNITY'

SIDNEY W. MINTZ

ABSTRACT

The folk-urban construct may not suffice to deal with certain community types, such as that associated
with the modern plantation. Redfield's studies in Yucatan ignored the plantation communities, although
henequen plantations are fundamental to Yucatan's place in the world economy. Studies of Puerto Rican
sugar-cane production suggest that communities of this kind are neither "folk" nor "urban" but rather
distinctive forms of sociocultural reorganization. The formulation of a "plantation type" would make
possible predictions about the sociocultural effects of a particular kind of agricultural organization. The
type could be constructed inductively and tested in field situations. Typologies ought not be discarded but
should be based on emDirical observation and refined as necessary.

It is twenty-two years since the publica- rated in time, the continuum would repre-
tion of Robert Redfield's first work dealing sent the course of history. But, since they
with the "folk society."2 Since that time are ideal types, actual history is not viewed
Redfield has elaborated the concept consid- as an essential of the construct.
erably,3 his students have used it as a theo- Redfield states that it was his aim
retical jumping-off place in their research,4
to seek through this method of comparison of
and a body of articles and studies, critical of differently affected communities some general
the concept, has accumulated.5 knowledge as to the nature of society and of
The folk-urban concept is by now so well its changes.... [The] conclusions are generali-
known that there is little need to review its zations on many particular facts. The assertions
premises here other than most briefly. Folk are "on the whole" true. To reach these con-
clusions it is not necessary to report the history
society and urban society are conceived of
of any one of the communities: they may be
as polarities at opposite ends of a continu- compared as if they all existed at the same
um. Were these polarities viewed as sepa- moment of time.'
1 The writer is indebted to John V. Murra,
As Miner and Foster have recently point-
Julian H. Steward, Elman R. Service, and Eric R.
Wolf for much of the thinking and discussion which
ed out,7 the folk society and the urban socie-
led to this article. The writer alone is responsible ty have a very abstract relationship to social
for this particular formulation. reality, since each is a synthetic compound
2 R. Redfield, Tepoztlan (Chicago: University of 6 N. Gross, "Cultural Variables in Rural Com-
Chicago Press, 1930).
munities," American Journal of Sociology, LIV
3R. Redfield, "The Folk Society and Culture," (March, 1948), 348-50; M. Herskovits, Man and His
Works (New York: Knopf, 1947), pp. 604-7; 0.
in Eleven Twenty-six, ed. L. Wirth (Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, 1940); "Culture Changes in Lewis, Life in a Mexican Village: Tepostlan Re-
Yucatan," American Anthropologist, XXXVI, No. 1 studied (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1951),
(1934), 57-59; The Folk Culture of Yucatan (Chi- pp. 432-40; J. Steward, Area Research: Concepts and
cago: University of Chicago Press, 1941); "The Folk Methods (New York: Social Science Research Coun-
Society," American Journal of Sociology, LII (Janu-cil, 1950), pp. 111 and 113; S. Tax, "World View and
ary, 1947), 292-308; A Village That Chose Progress Social Relations in Guatemala," American Anthro-
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950). pologist, XLIII, No. 1 (1941), 22-42; H. Miner,
"The Folk-Urban Continuum," American Sociolog-
4E. Spicer, Pascua: A Yaqui Village in Arizona
ical Review, XVII, No.5 (October, 1952), 529-37; G.
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1940);
Foster, "What Is Folk Culture?" American Anthro-
H. Miner, St. Denis: A French-Canadian Parish
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939);
pologist, LV, No. 1 (1953), 159-73.
J. de la Fuente, Yalalag: Una villa Zapoteca Serrana 6 The Folk Culture of Yucatan, p. 342.
(Mexico: Museo Nacional de Antropologfa, 1949); 7 "The Folk-Urban Continuum," op. cit., p. 529;
etc. "What Is Folk Culture?" op. cit., pp. 160-62.

136

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FOLK-URBAN CONTINUUM AND RURAL PROLETARIAN COMMUNITY 137

of characteristics lifted out of real social of another. Tax, for instance, has described a
situations. Redfield does not maintain that folklike social situation for Guatemala,
either the ideal folk or the ideal urban socie- where individualization and commercialism
ty can actually be found anywhere in the are well advanced.'0 Spicer has studied what
world. His conception of ideal type is one in he and Redfield regard as a folklike society
which the type is not a reduction of the par- existing on the very margins of an urban
ticular characteristics of many societies to center, and features of both the folk and ur-
those features which they share in common ban types are present in curious juxtaposi-
and which together might make for a neces- tion."
sary and sufficient description of the type Criticism of the folk-urban construct has
wherever it is found; rather, it consists of an come from many social theorists. Her-
enumeration of as many characteristics as skovits, in his critical distinction between
can be abstracted from any number of socie- form and process,'2 attacks Redfield's selec-
ties, preconceived to be folklike, put to- tion of a series of unit characteristics which
gether to form the type. may or may not travel together and which
The folk society is marked by isolation; fail to fit some specific cultural situations.
a high degree of genetic and cultural homo- The most detailed criticism of the folk-
geneity; slow culture change; preliteracy; urban construct has come from Lewis, who
small numbers; minimal division of labor; restudied Tepoztlan some twenty years
simple technology (with every individual a after Redfield's original work there.'3 Al-
primary producer), great functional coher- though Lewis' six points of criticism'4 are
ence (so that every act tends to be related to clear and useful, his most important critical
every other, and the culture shows an almost contribution in the present writer's opinion,
organic quality in the interdependence of its comes in his over-all emphasis on the value
materials and the behavior of those who live of careful historical research in the study of
by it); social organization based on blood culture change. Redfield has never ques-
and fictive kinship; behavior which is tradi- tioned the value of such research but has
tional and uncritical; a tendency to view the sought in his analysis to get at the nature of
inanimate and nonhuman world personally; social change without reference to historical
the viewing of traditional objects and acts as particulars.
sacred; the pervasive importance of magic It is important to note that few of Red-
and religion and, thus, resulting ritual be- field's critics have been willing to accept his
havior in all areas of life; and the absence of primary emphasis on culture types as an
econiomic motives which fail to fit in with, entree to the study of culture change and to
and conform to, all other aspects of life.8 seek to sharpen this methodological tool by
Miner has pointed out that Redfield de- a refinement of the typological system itself.
fines urban society primarily as the absence Rather, the emphasis seems to have been to
or opposite of these characteristics.9 Red- discard typological systems in general, along
field describes three principal processes of with the particular folk-urban formulation.
change from folk to urban: secularization, The purpose of the present article is to sug-
individualization, and disorganization. To gest that typological characterizations can
what degree these processes are interrelated prove useful in social science theory and
has not been made clear, although Redfield
methodology, even though the type to be
has welcomed the work of those who have
described suggests the limitations of the
sought to show in various cases that change
of one kind may take place without change l0 Op. cit., pp. 22-42.
11 op. cit.
8 Redfield, "The Folk Society," op. cit., pp.
292-308. 12 Op. cit., pp. 604-7.
9"The Folk-Urban Continuum," op. cit., pp. 13 Op. cit.
529-37. 14Ibid., pp. 432-40.

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138 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

folk-urban continuum. The delineation of thus bring about a very distinctive social
this type, the modern plantation, may prove and cultural reorganization. The henequen
of some interest, since the most impressive plantation brought something quite new to
application of the folk-urban construct, that Yucatan, something which conceivably
of the study of four Yucatecan communi- might not fit at all on the folk-urban con-
ties,'5 did not include a study of a henequen tinuum. Merida, "the one real city of Yuca-
plantation, even though henequen produc- tan,'9 may indeed be "dominant . . . in the
tion is the backbone of the Yucatecan econo- economic, political, and social life of Yuca-
my, according to Redfield.'6 The only com- tan,"20 but "henequen . .. is the money
ment regarding the possible choice of one of crop of Yucatan; . . . henequen determines
these plantation communities is made in a the role of Yucatan in the world economy.
footnote to chapter i of The Folk Culture of . . . The important change in the economic
Yucatan where Redfield notes that "the life of Yucatan since the Conquest occurred
difference between a community of hacienda in the second half of the nineteenth century,
employees and a community of independent when henequen became a commercially im-
farmers ... would be of importance in any portant crop."'"
study planned with immediate reference to For the present argument a study of a
the practical social and economic problems henequen plantation might have proved of
of Yucatan."''7 particular theoretical value, because Yuca-
The present writer feels that a study of a tecan plantations have always been manned
community of plantationl8 employees might by Yucatecans. If there are distinctive social
have had considerable theoretical value, and cultural features which flow from the re-
quite apart from practical social and eco- organization of life which this writer feels
nomic problems. This is not merely a ques- the plantation system entails, then the
tion of pick-and-choose in community ethnic continuity of the people subject to
studies. The plantation represents a special this change is very important. Frequently,
kind of industrial organization. Many of the plantation development has brought about
features of life generally associated with the importation of labor with a culture
"urban," "Western," or "modern" society, quite distinct from that of the local inhabi-
such as a wage-labor pattern, standardized tants. In such cases the differing character of
wage rates, and industrialization, are intro- social life and culture might be explained by
duced through plantation organization and reference either to the effects of the system
seem to produce particular sociocultural ef- itself or to the antecedent culture of the mi-
fects. Yet the people are not affected in grants. In the case of Yucatan, the relatively
terms of an "urban" or "Western" complex pure ethnic continuity of the population in-
but rather in terms of the impact of specific volved in plantation development minimizes
innovations. The plantation system may the operation of differing ethnic elements as
factors in social and cultural change. The
15 Redfield, The Folk Culture of Yucatan; R. Red-
plantation system itself could be analyzed as
field and A. Villa R., Chan Kom: A Maya Village
(Washington: Carnegie Institution, 1934); A. Villa the source of change, the differences in cul-
R., The Maya of East Central Quintana Roo (Wash- ture between milperos and plantation em-
ington: Carnegie Institution, 1945). ployees as the results of the imposition of the
16 The writer is indebted to John V. Murra for plantation system. But, unfortunately, no
this singular insight.
anthropological study of a henequen-pro-
17 The Folk Culture of Yucatan, p. 370.
ducing plantation community can be found
18 I prefer the term "plantation" to "hacienda"
in this connection. According to a typological in the literature.
scheme for these various forms of large landholding There may be some value in discussing
organizations now being developed, the Yucatecan
henequen-growing farm organizations are planta- 19 The Folk Culture of Yucatan, p. 19.
tions and not haciendas. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid., pp. 6, 7, passim.

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FOLK-URBAN CONTINUUM AND RURAL PROLETARIAN COMMUNITY 139

modern plantation life in another area. The plantation type is the degree to which pro-
plantation is a distinctive form of agricul- duction is "streamlined." Not only are large
tural organization and may, accordingly, holdings a feature, but the control of land,
exhibit distinctive social characteristics. labor, and machinery is centralized, and a
Whether or not this turns out to be the case production discipline similar to that of a
will depend on the rigor with which the vari- large factory is maintained. Heavy capitali-
ation in plantation types is assessed and the zation for fertilizer, pesticide, irrigation,
care with which plantations in different geo- farm machinery, transport, export facilities,
graphical areas, having different histories, and land is customary. A corporation, often
growing different crops, and manned by dif- foreign, operates the enterprise. Most sub-
ferent personnel are studied. Material from sistence activity is supplanted usually by
only a single community is summarized the production of a single cash crop, which
here, and the development of a typological is either exported or at least sold commer-
abstraction will consequently be subject to cially throughout the national economy.24 A
considerable refinement as more compara- credit and stores system may be present
tive work is done.22 which provides commodities for the laborers
but which also serves to tie them to the en-
Since the seventeenth century the planta-
tion has been the dominant method of Euro- terprise. Production is rationalized in every
pean agricultural development in tropical possible manner. Modern cost-accounting
regions. In the earlier periods there was little governs operation costs, and the work sys-
mechanical equipment, even less scientific tem is standardized at the most efficient
cultivation, and labour represented a capital level. Investment is initially heavy, not only
investment in the form of slaves, while land was because modern agricultural methods and
usually a free gift. The present situation is world competititon require it, but also be-
exactly the opposite in almost every respect.
cause the system is no "landkiller," as the
Land is obtained by rent or purchase-although
slave plantation was, and looks to perma-
the price is in some places low-labour is paid
nency as an objective.
money wages, methods of increasing the fer-
tility of the soil have greatly improved, and
The imposition of the sugar plantation
in every industry capital is extensively em- system on the south coast of Puerto Rico af-
ployed. The form of cultivation that may fected the emergence of large numbers of
legitimately be called plantation production rural proletarian communities.25 In these
now represents a permanent investment and a communities the vast majority of people is
long-range interest in a defined area of land.23 landless, propertyless (in the sense of pro-
ductive property), wage-earning, store-buy-
Such a characterization, for Latin Ameri-
ca, appears to apply particularly to sugar ing (the stores being a chain owned by the

and banana crops, only to a lesser extent to corporation, with few competitors), cor-
porately employed, and standing in like re-
coffee and henequen. One measure of the
lationship to the main source of employ-
22Ethnographic studies of plantations, in this ment. These rural proletarian communities
case producing sugar cane, were carried out in Puerto
might also be considered class isolates, in the
Rico by the writer and Dr. E. Padilla Seda in
1948-49, under the direction of Julian Steward and
sense that economic alternatives to wage
John Murra. To the writer's knowledge, these were labor in the sugar-cane industry, other than
the first studies of this kind. They will be published
via migration to the United States main-
in a work under Steward's editorship during 1953.
Since their completion, more studies of the same 24International Labour Organisation, Committee
kind have been initiated. Cf. C. Wagley, "A Typolo- on Work on Plantations, Basic Problems of Planta-
gy of Latin-America Subcultures: A Research tion Labour (Geneva: I.L.O., 1950), pp. 5-10.
Hypotheses" (manuscript).
25 S. Mintz, "Canarnelar, the Contemporary
23I. Greaves, Modern Production among Back-
Culture of a Rural Puerto Rican Proletariat"
ward Peoples (London: Geo. Allen & Unwin, Ltd., (unpublished dissertation, Columbia University,
1935), p. 170. 1951).

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140 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

land, are very scarce. The working people tudes toward the position of women, simi-
not only stand in like relationship to the pro- larities in dress, and other expressions of
ductive apparatus but are also interacting intaste, religion, and so on.28 Needless to say,
reciprocal social relationships with each these similarities do not hold for every single
other and subordinate social relationships to rural proletarian in a given community, but
members of higher classes (such as the man- they are manifestations of unmistakable
agers). The rural proletarian community as- over-all likenesses. In short, while ethnic
sociated with the plantation emerges as iso- homogeneity and geographic isolation are
lated in a very different way from that of the lacking, a very real kind of cultural homo-
folk society. In the later case the isolation is geneity, partly class determined, prevails.
primarily geographic, and the society can be The rural proletarian community is small,
discussed almost completely in terms of it- and daily life has much of a primary-group
self. In the former case the isolation is socio- character. Admittedly, it is vastly different
economic. The rural proletarians form a from that of a migratory hunting band or a
part society, and they are members of a community like Tusik in Quintana Roo.29
class which can be analyzed adequately only Geographical mobility, especially migration
with reference to other classes in the totalto mainland United States, militates against
society, while having minimal opportunities the inner coherence of the rural proletarian
to change their class position in the local community. People frequently leave perma-
community. nently or for long periods. Newcomers enter
Unlike the ideal folk society, which is into the community, usually in search of
ethnically homogeneous, the rural proletarian work. Thus the stability of personnel in such
community may be ethnically heterogene- a community is not high, as in a settled
ous. In Puerto Rican sugar-cane-growing small-farm area. At the same time the idea
communities of the type described here, the that geographical mobility entirely destroys
antecedents are Spanish, West African, andcommunity coherence may be overempha-
Arawak. The material culture of Puerto sized. It would appear that the stability pro-
Rican rural proletarians contains elements vided by common knowledge of differing roles
of all these ancestral cultures. But the com- may to some extent take the place of the
monality of class identity, stabilized over a stability which depends on having exactly
fifty-year period, and built upon a history ofthe same personnel in the same community
pre-occupation sugar haciendas in the re- for considerable lengths of time. Bonds of
gion, makes for a kind of cultural homogene- kinship and of ritual kinship unite relative-
ity. House types are limited in variety and ly large numbers of members of the same
reveal many common features. Food prefer- class. Broadly similar features of life under-
ences are clear cut and strikingly uniform. lie the likeness of behavior of class members.
Spanish is spoken, with some Arawak and Class patterns of learning and behaving may
African terms added; it is a kind of Spanish reduce the cultural stresses caused by high
quite different from that spoken by middle- geographical mobility. Similar conditions of
class merchants or university professors. life which produce similarities of culture
Similarities in life-ways among these rural over large areas may make Dossible inter-
working people extend to child-training 27 S. Mintz and E. Wolf, "An Analysis of Ritual
practices,26 ritual kinship practices (not Co-parenthood (Compadrazgo)," Southwestern Jour-
merely the Catholic system of compadrazgo nal of Anthropology, VI, No. 4 (winter, 1950), 341-
but the particular ways in which this system68.
is employed and standardized),27 political 28Mintz, "Canamelar, the Contemporary Cul-
ture of a Rural Puerto Rican Proletariat," op. cit.
attitudes, attitudes toward the land, atti-
29 Cf. A. Villa R., The Maya of East Central
26 K. Wolf, "Growing Up and Its Price in ThreeQuintana Roo. This village was the folk community
Puerto Rican Subcultures," Psychiatry, XV, No. 4 "type" in the synchronic series of four studies direct-
(November, 1952), 401-34. ed by Redfield in Yucatan.

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FOLK-URBAN CONTINUUM AND RURAL PROLETARIAN COMMUNITY 141

changeability of personnel while maintain- among Yaquis is rare, surpluses are small,
ing over-all cultural uniformity. Redfield and there is little or no capital accumulation
himself has noted that a folklike society may within the village.3'
change its personnel with considerable Rural proletarian communities in Puerto
rapidity and yet retain a high measure of Rico exhibit many features similar to those
consistency. In his introduction to Spicer's found in Pascua. Money is pervasive, but
study of a landless wage-earning community most relationships between villagers are
of Yaqui Indians near Tucson, Arizona, he noncash; credit is common, and interest on
writes: money loaned by one rural proletarian to
One wonders if the interesting . . . system another is unheard of. Blood and ritual kin
... by which relations among members of the ties presuppose certain economic obliga-
society are established and regulated fully tions, but these are not fixed and do not in-
developed only after settlement in Arizona. volve interest, and, if a relationship is
The hypothesis may be entertained that the abused by taking financial advantage of kin-
extension of the sponsor system to include all
folk, the customary obligations of the ties
the community may have been a response to a
may be suspended or discarded. In the case
need for solidarity in a new and alien world.
... It strikes at least this reader that the pres-
of Puerto Rican rural proletarian communi-
ent form of social organization is well adapted ties, these patterns cannot be explained en-
to the situation in which the Yaqui now find tirely by reference to a common cultural
themselves-in that, while security and status heritage but may be due in part to a com-
are provided for everyone, the kinship relations mon class identity.
are, as Dr. Spicer puts it, "generalized," so as In the rural proletarian community (as in
to make it possible for individuals to drop out Pascua), no man is a primary producer.
and the composition of groups frequently to
Every man works for wages and buys neces-
change, as must be the case where men leave
sary commodities at retail stores, supple-
to work in other fields or on other outside jobs.
menting his cash income with certain minor
The looseness of the household groups is an-
other corresponding feature. Pascua social subsidiary economic activities, such as fish-
structure preserves the solidarity of the whole ing, raising a pig or chickens, selling tickets
society while it is so flexible as to allow for on the illegal lottery, etc. Yet, while no man
frequent changes in its personnel.30 is a primary producer, to a surprising ex-
tent every man does as every other, every
In essence, what Redfield has noted here is
man thinks as every other. Again, the curi-
a situation where common knowledge and
ous similarity of the ideal folk society to the
acceptance of roles seem to have compensat-
rural proletarian community is only analo-
ed partly for the loss of homogeneity of per-
gous. The first case rests on treating the
sonnel. The persistence of folklike features
whole society in vaccuo; the second has mean-
in Pascua life is attributed to the folk society
ing only in so far as the community is seen as
background of the people, and their retention
a mere reservoir of manpower. The rural
of these features is remarked upon by Spicer
proletarian community tends to be a class
and Redfield. The homogeneity of these
isolate, its existence predicated on the exist-
landless, wage-earning Yaqui Indians is at-
ence of other classes who own the instru-
tributed to a common cultural heritage. But
ments of production, provide the work op-
the people of Pascua have not only an ac-
portunities, pay the wages, and sell the com-
quired cultural homogeneity but economic
modities to be bought.
homogeneity as well, effected by their com-
The analogy of a rural proletarian com-
mon class status. Spicer notes that in Pascua
relationships with outsiders are mainly em- munity with the ideal folk society might be
ployee-employer, wage-earning ones. Yet the carried even further. Thus, for instance,
exchange of goods or services for money some areas of life are handled in traditional,

30 Op. cit., p. ix. 31Ibid., pp. 36-39.

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142 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

spontaneous, and uncritical ways. The sys- ly by plantation estates; exchange labor,
tem of ritual kinship is a sacred one, used tenancy, and share-cropping have been re-
primarily to bind together contemporaries placed by cash labor; cash is used exclusively
who are of the same socioeconomic group to buy essential commodities; personal rela-
and who live in the same community. This tionships between employer and employed
fictive kinship system is employed to reduce (or between owner and tenant) have been
economic competition and to strengthen supplanted by purely impersonal relation-
bonds of co-operation and, in fact, appears ships, based on the work done, and with a
to reinforce class identity and to hamper standard payment for that work; home
both geographic and socioeconomic mo- manufacture has practically disappeared;
bility.32 consumption commodities have been stand-
There is, however, another side to the pic- ardized; and outside agencies of control and
ture of the rural proletarian community, service-medical, political, police, religious,
evidenced by the ways in which these com- military, and educational-have developed.
munities have come to resemble the urban As a result, the rural proletarian community
pole of the folk-urban continuum. The same associated with the modern plantation sys-
forces which made of its people a class iso- tem exhibits a character which is superfi-
late also revamped and reorganized its way cially folklike in some ways and yet might be
of life. The plantation exists to satisfy needs labeled "urban" in others. But actually such
outside the local milieu-the national or in- communities are neither folk nor urban, nor
ternational market. In the local setting it re- are they syntheses of these classifications.
quires for its successful operation a large They are, rather, radically new reorganiza-
working-class population; a monopoly over tions of culture and society, forming a dis-
the land; a standard medium of exchange tinctive type not amenable to the folk-urban
(money); standardized rates of pay; a purely construction. It is for these reasons that a
impersonal set of relationships between em- study of a henequen plantation in Yucatan
ployed managers and employed workers; might have upset, or at least greatly modi-
means of maintaining control and discipline fied, the sequence from the "folk society" of
over the labor force (in some cases obtained Tusik to the "metropolis" of Merida and
via the extension of credit to workers for back again. To a large degree, it would seem
purchases in corporation retail stores); and that Merida's very existence hinges on the
the efficient regulation of work procedures, continued success of the henequen planta-
usually involving the reduction of tasks to tions. The forces for change seem to origi-
their simplest essentials, any job being easily nate not in the metropolis but in the world
learned, and any laborer therefore easily re- outside, and Merida is important in its in-
placed. In short, the successful plantation termediary relationships with the key eco-
requires all those features of economic opera-nomic area where henequen is produced.
tion which have come to be called rational- The objective of this article is not to criti-
ized, or "high capitalistic," as Sombart puts cize the folk-urban construct in vacuo or,
it.33 with Herskovits, to conclude that "classifi-
The same forces which have molded the cation must not be accorded too prominent
rural proletarian community into an unex- a place in scientific study."34 Classification
pected analogue with the ideal folk society strikes this writer as most necessary in
have also been those which have made it studies of culture change. But the classifica-
more "urban." Independent freehold pri- tion ought to be based on empirical research,
mary production has been replaced uniform- with the types so abstracted that they may
be easily tested, improved, or discarded. It is
32 Mintz, "Canamelar," op. cit.
conceivable that the rural proletarian com-
33 W. Sombart, A New Social Philosophy (Prince-
ton: Princeton University Press, 1937), pp. 11 ff. 34 Op. cit., p. 607.

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FOLK-URBAN CONTINUUM AND RURAL PROLETARIAN COMMUNITY 143

munity described in association with the hinge on the enumeration of those features
plantation type in the present article may of the plantation which are, in each case, es-
have its counterpart in many other planta- sential to the successful operation of the
tion areas. The underlying assumption here system and on the contemporary culture of
is that a particular kind of economic agri- the people who must live by the standards
cultural organization, the plantation, may which the plantation imposes on local life.
produce predictable changes in culture and Where a feature of operation appears to be
in social organizations. If similar sociocul- essential in one case, and not in another
tural features seem to be correlated with (e.g., standardized wages), a special expla-
plantation organizations in different world nation would be necessary (or perhaps the
areas, it may be possible to posit regular re- "essential" feature will turn out, in fact, to
lationships between the plantation "type" be not essential after all). The resulting type
and the sociocultural forms which appear to formulation would be considered in terms of
accompany it or to be derived from it. The its sociocultural effects on the local commu-
Puerto Rican community described above nities, and some cause-and-effect relation-
has been typologically characterized else- ships between the type and the local cultures
where by the writer.35 It will differ some- might be posited. The type could then be
what from a type characterization for the tested in other areas where the communities
henequen plantations of Yucatan, which were not yet investigated but where the
lack the high capital outlay, magnitude, in- plantation system had all the essential fea-
dustrial development, etc., of one of the tures of the type delineated. Such research
most advanced sugar-cane production and would aim at determining whether the
processing systems in the world. To this posited correlations or causal hypotheses
degree, the way of life on henequen planta- actually stood up; that is, whether the
tions in Yucatan might not turn out to be so typology really provided any predictive
fully at variance with the folk-urban con- power for the observer.
struct as the Puerto Rican analogy would The present for-mulation deals with
lead us to believe. Yet a large number of changes of a certain kind, hinging on the im-
comparative studies of plantations, treated position of a fairly standardized set of fea-
with sufficient historical depth, might pro- tures (such as large-scale production, "as-
vide both a fuller type characterization and sembly-line" industrial organization, wage-
an opportunity to check aspects of culture earning, standardized norms and rates, etc.)
change in a number of relatively like cases. on local cultures, and the results of such an
What is proposed here is that both form andimposition. It ought not to carry the impli-
process be studied via typological constructs cation that change proceeds fixedly or regu-
based on specific field studies, so that like larly along a single continuum or that other
and unlike features may be assessed. The kinds of change may necessarily be analyzed
construction of a plantation typology would by its use.

35 Mintz, "Canamelar," op. cit. YALE UNIVERSITY

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