Comments on the Porfiriato (and looking ahead to Module 3)
Thanks for your hard work on our class thus far. I hope you’re able to enjoy a little bit of a break this week — in conjunction with the July 4 Holiday, Module 3 spans a longer timeframe than all of the others. The Reading Tweets and Blog post (there isn’t a discussion) are due this Saturday, July 10.
As a reminder — please add your Medium username to our course spreadsheet if you have not yet done so. By joining our course publication here, you’ll be able to post your blog entries here and we’ll all be able to find your work and respond to it. If you have any questions or need any help with that, please let me know.
I’ve created this post in the way I have to demonstrate a bit of what you can do with Medium for your blog entries. You can combine images, video, and the written word in your blog entries. Please be as creative as you’d like and also do what feels most comfortable to you. If you enjoy making videos to express your ideas, for example, please do so. If you’d rather rely on writing, go that route. This space is for you to reflect on the questions posed in Canvas and to further your exploration of the Mexican Revolution’s history.
Please see the video below for my comments on our discussion of the Porfiriato. Among the issues I emphasize are the definition of 19th-century liberalism, the question of whether Díaz betrayed liberal ideals of modernization? What were the various factors that contributed to Revolution in November 1910?
To go back to a question I raised on Twitter: Gilbert Joseph and Jürgen Buchenau have argued that the socioeconomic and political causes of the revolution that we’ve mentioned and I referenced in the video were “necessary but not sufficient to account for the coming of the revolution. There was still a formidable repressive mechanism at the disposal of the oligarchic regime that had previously forestalled widespread protest and revolt” (Mexico’s Once and Future Revolution, 30). What changed in the years immediately leading up to 1910 that resulted in revolution? (What do you think? Let me know using the Medium annotation feature.)
Switching gears a little, I want to pick up on the question I posed on the discussion board about our authors’ differing methodologies and approaches to the Revolution. Both cover roughly the same period, Porfiriato through Cárdenas, but each has a different set of goals for their respective works.
In short, Castro takes a narrow view to investigate the ways that the new technology of radio influenced the actions and outcomes of revolutionary factions. He roots his analysis in the Porfiriato, at least in part, to demonstrate the continuities that the Mexican state’s administration and oversight of radio — including the people trained to operate and enhance the technology — present a continiuity between the Porfirian, revolutionary, and post-revolutionary years.
In his general synthesis and overview of revolutionary events and outcomes, Gonzales gives readers an overarching narrative of the Mexican Revolution. Following arguments proffered by Alan Knight, he asserts that the Revolution was a *social* revolution due to its “popular and agrarian character” (2). In terms of organization, like Castro he moves chronologically but with a much broader focus on political benchmarks (3).
Castro expects his readers to have at least some familiarity with the events of the Revolution as he focuses on the events and figures involved with the rise of radio. His book presents three arguments: “First, that radio technologies were crucial to certain attempts to centralize state power in Mexico during the Porfiriato. Second, that radio was decisive to the outcome of the Revolution and subsequent plans for solidifying the nation-state. And third, that rebellions during the 1920s pushed government leaders to pursue more authoritarian radio policies and pracitces that, in turn, helped them consolidate their control” (4).
We’ve read enough to evaluate the first argument, but we’ll need to keep the other two in mind as we continue reading his work alongside Gonzales and the documents excerpted in Wasserman. Our Twitter and Discussion comments for Module 2 seem to emphasize the key role of radio as a technology of social/political control and a tool for Díaz and revolutionaries alike. Yet, Castro points out that few scholars of the Revolution have systematically examined the role of technologies (with RR as a possible exception). Why do you think that’s the case? What questions do you have about Castro’s argument thus far? Is he making the case for the centrality of radio to the events of the late-Porfiriato and the Revolution?
(I pose that last question because, although I find Castro’s approach and conclusions to be compelling overall, we should always question and think through our authors’ reasoning and interpretations.)
As I suggested above, please take advantage of Medium’s annotation feature to respond and comment on my post. There are also still a wide range of issues that I didn’t reflect on here that we could discuss in more detail in comments here.
