The complexity of Xilitla can be explained
from the Psychosocial Theories of Conflict and Change. Water vulnerability, job
insecurity, migratory intensity and resilient identity can be explained from
the Theory of Social Belonging, the Theory of Social Categorization, the Theory
of Social Representation and the Theory of Social Identity.
If Local Development is considered as a
network of water, migratory and labor situations oriented to the resilience of
a community, the Theory of Social Belonging (TPS) would suggest that groups
generate a dynamic such that each of its members seeks to adhere to shared
symbols. It is a process of loyalty not only to the groups to which the
individual belongs, but to the groups to which he wishes to belong. In the
process of adherence to a group, people adjust their decisions and actions to
the norm of a group. The transgression of group principles leads to sanctions
that redirect the adherence of the individual to the group.
However, within each group, asymmetric
power relations are developed that make the conflicts that will define
adherence to the norm unavoidable. In other words, belonging to a group
symbolizes a membership that is renewed each time the conflict defines the
propensity or aversion to the norms which, by the way, are redefined through
asymmetric relationships. The conflict activates the change from one group to
another and with it, the conformity or innovation of the norms. As conflicts
intensify, regulations discourage asymmetries between members. In the course of
time and in the course of the rules, individuals renew their vows to configure
new groups [1-15].
Social psychologists have developed the
Social Categorization Theory (TCS) to explain homogeneity within a group and heterogeneity
in reference to other groups. It is a perceptual bias that explains endogenous
conflict of interest or social change. In the case of regulations, people
adjust their principles, decisions and actions to a group prototype. The
assignment of a role by the group makes the individual more inclined to adhere
to, even defend, the statutes of the reference group. It is about the formation
of an individual's self-concept in reference to the prototypical norm of the
group. In this sense, TCS explains two processes: depersonalization and
ethnocentrism. That is, in their desire to join a group, each individual
reduces their expectations to the norm of a group and exalts the normative
principles of the group to which they belong or want to belong.
Although social categorization explains
cohesion, cooperation and influence, it also explains conflicts of interest and
innovation. The group dynamics is such that it requires constant changes for
its preservation. Conformity guarantees the preservation of values, beliefs,
perceptions, attitudes and even knowledge, but conflict drives the development
of new asymmetric relationships and with it, competition and innovation.
Therefore, a minority is able to dissuade another minority and persuade a
majority.
In summary, the TCS maintains that each
person continuously processes fragmented information about the group, the space
and the resources they have [16-20].
However, such information processing is
biased since the norms of a group are the result of experience and
inexperience. It is the perception of the individual that is in charge of
putting the pieces together and giving it an eminently symbolic meaning of
comparison between the current situation of a group in reference to its
prospective situation and that of other groups.
TPS and TCS are part of a symbolic
communicative process known as social representation. Social psychologists
argue that such a process includes two dimensions: objectification and
anchoring.
In essence, the Theory of Social
Representation (TRS), unlike TPS and TCS, delimits group processes to their
communicative aspects. The asymmetric differences that give rise to the
structuring conflict are considered by the TRS as informational differences
that enhance the beliefs and knowledge of each individual. In this sense, the
conflict would be an antecedent of the change that would consist of
substituting beliefs for knowledge. As conflicts activate internal or external
communication in a group, they reduce the diversity of personal symbols to a few
group meanings and meanings. It is a process of exhaustion of personal beliefs
and their transformation into group knowledge.
Now, the structuring conflict seems to
take place in a peripheral zone of social representations in reference to a
central nucleus in which symbols are constituted in traditions, uses and
customs.
Precisely, the naturalization of symbols
takes place in the figurative nucleus that legitimizes the stigmas towards a
minority group at the same moment that they disappear as a group referent. In
such a process, objectification and anchoring explain the landing of abstract
concepts and their conversion into concrete entities.
In summary, the TRS adequately explains
the information processing that affects the choice of a group, its communication
styles and influence.
Despite the fact that TPS, TCS and TRS
seem to envision the choice of a group, social psychologists have developed the
Theory of Social Identity (SIT) to explain the relationship between situations,
decisions and actions of individuals when choosing the group to which they want
to belong.
Social identity, like belonging,
categorization and representation seems to have two dimensions for its
analysis: self-categorical and hetero-categorial. The first refers to the
identification made by the dominant, majority or minority group, with respect
to their capacities and resources, attributing them to extra properties that
make them different from the other group members. In contrast, the dominated
elements seem to attribute their situation to their abilities. Asymmetric
relationships in a group seem to be explained from the attributions that its
members make of themselves in reference to the other members. The differences
between the two groups, low and high status, seem to be legitimized and
justified based on social identity. The permanence of such internalized
attributions is explained by the internalization that each group makes of the
characteristics attributed to them. A group convinces itself of its
capabilities once it has undermined the version of the other groups that
perceive it.
In communication terms, of a stimulus that
appears as an essential part of different groups, high or low status, there are
two underlying biases: an intra-categorial homogeneity and an inter-categorial
differentiation. On the one hand, the individuals of a group consider that said
communicative stimuli are inexorable to their characteristics, causing them to
be perceived as different from other groups of greater or lesser status [21-35].
However, when communicative stimuli are
perceived as inherent in a group, the consequence is a perception of
illegitimacy, then a structuring conflict is generated that will become a
change in group identity.
In summary, the TPS, TCS, TRS and TIS
explain the conflict that structures the individual as a social actor by
inserting it into the normativity of a group. Said process is limited to the
minority or majority status. The symbols and meanings between the members of a
group seem to be concentrated in a nucleus of representation in which the
objectification, anchoring and naturalization of the information shapes the
status of the group and its corresponding norms. The assignment of a role by
the group homogenizes the identity, but innovation diversifies the normativity
of the groups.
In the case of Xilitla, the exposed
theories would suggest that water vulnerability, job insecurity, migratory
intensity and resilient identity are the result of belonging, categorization,
representation and social identity. In other words, the scarcity of water and
commercial activities explain migration and the issuance of remittances, but
psychosocial processes would suggest that the availability of water and the
commercial activities of Xilitla are the result of conflicts that were structured
in minorities and in majorities to the communities and localities of the
region. Apparently, the normative symbols of the entity that were built within
the Huasteca micro-region, contributed decisively to the Local Development of
Xilitla. In other words, the nucleus of symbolic representation delineated the
axes of the search for opportunities in which migration was a primary
instrument. Once water resources were depleted, agriculture was no longer the
local economic support. Government authorities encouraged tourism and trade
that further compromised the sustainability of the region. In the first
instance, migration was an escape valve and later, it was transformed into an
instrument of resilience. Collaborative networks and remittance nodes were
structured around migratory flows. Once sent to the region, the local economy
reactivated, but at the cost of restructuring the majorities that continued to
practice agriculture and at the cost of exalting the minorities that
diversified the region's trade. Such a process was insufficient to even
preserve the resources compromised by their scarcity. The Xilitla region is in
such a situation that its relationship with nature does not seem to concern it
as long as it does not compromise its uses and customs. In this sense, the
study of the preservation of the environment would indicate the degree of
sustainability, vulnerability and resilience of the region. For this reason, it
is necessary to interpret the discourses that the migrant community of the
Huasteca region expresses in the face of water scarcity, job insecurity and the
search for employment outside the region [35-40].