Elections in the Context of Everyday Practices: Views from aPueblo Originarioin Mexico City 2006

Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork this article discusses the 2006 elections in Mexico as they transpired in a pueblo originario (native town) in Mexico City. The main topic of the article is to explore people’s motivation for voting, given that the ethnographic material demonstrates massive distrust in politicians and elections, whereas electoral statistics reveal high rates of participation. The article thus explores the meaning of voting for the subjects, using a lifeworld approach. Notions of electoral fraud and vote‐buying are paradoxically found to contribute towards electoral participation; these notions are embedded in a widespread trickster culture which is explored in the article. A survey of electoral participation in the village testifies to a higher participation rate among the natives than the non‐natives, especially among the native women. The article suggests that this difference may be understood in the context of the lifeworld of participation and reciprocation which is created through the communitarian practices in the native community. These practices are first and foremost ritual, constituting the exercise of a communitarian religion in which masses of natives participate on an everyday basis. The elections may be seen as an extension of these ritual practices. At another level, the article also makes a methodological point; in the study of politics, elections and democracy the author argues the importance of reaching beyond the conventional approaches, researching the perspectives, meanings and experiences of the subjects themselves, which may be achieved by the lifeworld approach.