Price and Output Variability in a Peasant‐Artisan Stoneworking Industry in Oaxaca, Mexico: An Analytical Essay in Economic Anthropology 1

Abstract

This paper presents and analyzes data collected among metateros (metate or quern makers) who live in a Zapotec village in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, and who sell their products on a weekly basis in the Oaxaca City marketplace. The analysis shows that metate output correlates closely with both “market” and “nonmarket” factors, that is, with supply, demand, and price conditions, on the one hand, and with seasonal, ecological, and cultural conditions, on the other. Metate output fluctuates periodically in time to the local calendar of agricultural operations and of festive celebrations but also fluctuates regularly in accordance with the general laws of supply and demand as stated formally by economists. The analysis shows that it is neither possible nor desirable to focus upon one set of factors to the exclusion of the other, thus the “economic” and the “anthropological” modes of explanation are complementary, not contradictory, and the metate output data can be fully understood only when both are applied.