Intoxicated Identities: Alcohol's Power in Mexican History and Culture

by Mitchell,Tim

• ISBN13: 9780415948135
• ISBN10: 0415948134
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2004-05-04
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

InIntoxicated Identities,Tim Mitchell provides a novel and well-grounded framework for understanding subjective drinking experiences from the Aztecs to the present day in areas as diverse as Chiapas, Chihuahua, Oaxaca, Mexico City, Texas and California. Power drinking plays a crucial role in Mexican religion, politics, fine arts and ritual spousal abuse. Mexico ranks number one in deaths from cirrhosis, and Mexican Americans are twice as likely to be arrested for drunken driving as blacks or whites. With methods and concepts derived from an extraordinary range of disciplines, Mitchell explains how Mexican culture reinforces heavy drinking. He analyzes supply (nationalistic marketing strategies) but emphasizes demand (psychocultural motivations unique to Mexico). He chronicles the joys and sorrows of a borrachera, or drinking binge, and explores this altered state of consciousness on its own terms, not from any temperance or anti-alcohol perspective.

Table of Contents

Time-warping in Tenochtitlan	p. 13
Anthropologists and alcoholics	p. 27
After fifteen or twenty drinks	p. 47
Bodies and memories	p. 73
Alla en al Rancho Grande	p. 91
Death-wish aesthetics	p. 109
Spousal assault rituals, then and now	p. 127
The Pedro Infante generation	p. 149
Thirsty urban nomads	p. 173
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.