The local roots of community transformation in a Nahuatl Indian village.

Data are used from a Nahuatl Indian community in the Valley of Mexico to challenge the premise that the social organization of Mesoamerican peasant societies is an inevitable barrier to socio-economic change. An argument is made that because of the dual nature of peasant society at least two models for behavior will exist in a given community. In concentrating on internal and external changes in the last twenty-five years, it is shown how alternative cultural patterns, i.e. cargo system and modern political leadership, are manipulated by the community and its leaders to selectively implement change and pave the way for modernization