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Subject:      Davis on Eber, WOMEN & ALCOHOL IN A HIGHLAND MAYA TOWN
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H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by [log in to unmask] (December, 1995)
 
Christine Eber. WOMEN & ALCOHOL IN A HIGHLAND MAYA TOWN: WATER
OF HOPE, WATER OF SORROW. Austin: University of Texas Press,
1995 pp. 303.
 
Reviewed by Kate Davis, University of California Berkeley, for
H-Latam <[log in to unmask], [log in to unmask]>.
 
        _Women & Alcohol in a Highland Maya Town: Water of
Hope, Water of Sorrow_ is a well-written feminist analysis of
culture, tradition, gender, and alcohol use within a Highland
Chiapas community. Eber states that her research was guided by
two primary questions: "How is women's relationship to alcohol
changing in Chenalho, and how are Pedranas handling their own
and others' drinking problems?" (p.3) While her focus is on
women in particular, her efforts to contextualize the study
within the historical, cultural, and spiritual framework of an
indigenous community broadens her work by providing a basic
understanding of community life as a whole.
 
        Eber's method of feminist analysis which includes
symbolic systems, historical materialism, and social
construction of gender provides a solid, but not rigid,
research framework which she uses quite masterfully. One of
the most intriguing and ultimately effective aspects of this
book is the choice of storytelling as the vehicle for
presenting her research and analysis. This platform allows her
to give voice to the women she worked with in Chenalho. While
that voice is filtered through Eber's own personal and
professional assumptions and experience, it is nevertheless a
sincere and quite effective attempt. Eber does not pretend to
be an "objective"  participant-observer. Rather, she includes
her own thoughts, feelings, and actions which gives the reader
a three-dimensional perspective of the relationships Eber had
with the women she studied. Eber's methodology and literary
style added depth to the analysis of a very complicated
cultural, social, and economic system.
 
        One of the main themes evident throughout the book is,
of course, alcohol. Eber's analysis of the dialectical role of
rum is excellent. Rum is a powerful substance within the
context of traditional spirituality while it destroys people's
ability to follow a path that demonstrates understanding of
their god's desires for individual and community behavior. Rum
is empowering and debilitating. Rum is cause and cure. Alcohol
eases the pain of the economic exploitation in which alcohol
was an effective tool of the Ladinos.  Alcohol
created/increased the pain of women and children through
escalating domestic violence. The sale of alcohol (usually by
women) often provided the only source of income for a family.
Economic exploitation of Ladinos contributes to poverty,
violence, alcohol consumption and frustration to a level that
challenges the ability of Pedrano communities to maintain
their culture and reject mestisoization. However, Eber does
make the reader aware that for some in the community,
especially the young, mestisoization is an attractive
alternative to poverty and oppression.
 
        Alcohol is only one of many contributing factors in
cultural, gender, and structural changes occurring in Highland
communities. Ladino domination of indigenous peoples sets up
an increasingly intolerable imbalance of power. Power
struggles between Pedranos, Ladinos, and mestisoized
indigenous people occur with increasing frequency. There are
also internal power struggles within the community in which
land and women are symbols of the struggle over autonomy and
freedom from Ladino exploitation. As Pedranos become more
powerless and aware of that condition, they turn with greater
frequency to domestic violence which jeopardizes family and
community structure as well as the health and lives of women
and children (200). Economic instability in Mexico contributes
to the significant re-definition and re-situating of
traditional gender roles when women are forced to become
breadwinners in whole or in part (69).
 
       In the chapter on "Traditions, Religion, and Drinking"
Eber's analysis of the spiritual, religious, economic,
political, and cultural aspects of Catholic Action,
Protestantism, and Traditionalism is especially powerful.
Protestant churches offered Pedrano communities entry into a
capitalist economic system (217), improved living conditions,
and required abstinence from alcohol. With the help of priests
and nuns, Catholic Action lay leaders "organize their
communities into small groups which identify and study the
sources of their economic exploitation and political
oppression, and develop strategies to confront these (223).
Nuns (madres) work with women to place their "agenda within an
overall economic and political liberation context" (226)
without stressing the radicalism within feminist theology.
 
        I found the comparison/contrast between the alcoholics
in the indigenous community and Alcoholics Anonymous in the
U.S. a bit disconcerting. While I find cross-cultural
comparisons important and useful, a comparison between the
wealthiest country and one of the poorest communities in the
world was, for me, ineffective. Near the end of the book Eber
states that AA does exist in San Cristobal. It would be more
useful to know whether AA in Mexico was successful in helping
indigenous people stop drinking. Was the group in San
Cristobal strictly Ladino? Did AA groups reach out to
indigenous communities? If there were no meetings, groups, or
outreach services to the Highland Chiapas communities then why
was AA used as a point of comparison/contrast?
 
        This book is an important contribution to studies of
indigenous communities and especially gender issues within
those communities. It is clearly analyzed, artfully written,
and perceptive. Perhaps one of the central contributions of
this work is the lesson Eber credits Pedranas with teaching
her. "[T]ake women's concerns out of a western framework of
individual rights and put them into their framework of
community and cultural survival." (242) This same advice is
especially useful when studying and analyzing different
cultures, ethnicities, and races. It is also one of the most
difficult tasks of a researcher, but one that is crucial to an
attempt to give voice to the people we study and work with.
 
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