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Reviews the status of the German-as-a-foreign-language classroom and teacher education at the university level in Mexico, describing the teacher education course in the language center at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Also discusses distance learning in the area of German teacher training, which creates educational opportunities for current and future German teachers. (AP)

The paper is dedicated to the famous Russian Latin Americanist Vera Nikolaevna Kuteishchikova (1919–2012), who became the second Russian woman after A. Kollontai to be awarded with the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle for her merits in the study of Mexican literature. However, V. Kuteishchikova’s specialization was not limited to the Mexican literature; her academic interests included a wide range of issues. The paper demonstrates that she laid the foundations for the scientific study of Latin American literature in Russia and outlined the ways for further research in the field. Therefore, V. Kuteishchikova’s life and work are considered in an inseparable context with the development of Latin American literary studies in Russia. The list of the Russian editions and translations of Latin American writers and the number of critical works published before the 1960s clearly confirm the fact that until then Latin American literary studies did not exist as an independent branch of philological science in Russia, since Russian scholars had a very vague notion of the Latin American literature. The first research work in philology on the Latin American literature was the monograph by V.N. Kuteishchikova Latin American Novel in the XX century (1964). The paper pays special attention to this significant work. An analysis of this book proves that its author identified and revealed a number of essential topics and problems that would be center of Latin American studies in Russia. With an amazing sagacity V.N. Kuteishchikova mapped out a program for Latin American studies for half a century ahead. These ideas were developed in her work in 1970s, in particular, in New Latin American Novel (1976), co-written with her husband, L.S. Ospovat. The paper traces the participation of V.N. Kuteishchikova in the creation of the academic five-volume History of Latin American Literatures; analyzes her last book Moscow – Mexico – Moscow. A Lifelong Road (2000), gives a spiritual portrait of the Russian scholar.

This paper narrates the schooling experiences of the Old Colony Mennonites (OCM) across two contexts based on my first-hand observations as a principal in a rural, southwestern Ontario school and on a research trip to the Cuauhtémoc, Chihuahua, area of Mexico. The OCM children described in this paper attend public school in southwestern Ontario and travel regularly to Mexico where many of the families hold property or visit family. Thus, during one calendar year, these OCM children often attend schools in two countries with important differences in the use of language(s) and literacy practices, expectations in the classroom, and even the meaning of playing outside. This reality, which requires OCM students to adapt to the expectations of two very different learning cultures, is an important facet in the life of these children, whose experiences of school and education are vastly different. Using ethnographic methods and case study tools including photos, I describe the educational settings of Ontario and Chihuahua where OCM students are schooled. Further, I illustrate how the diaspora from Russia to Manitoba, Canada, the subsequent migration to Mexico, and then the return of the OCM to Canada (this time Ontario) was partially predicated on the need to find places where their beliefs about education could be enacted, a search that continues to the present.

Since 1995, in the state of Guerrero, Mexico, a community system of security, justice, and re-education has been in operation. Articulated at the regional level, this security system integrates several dozen rural, largely indigenous communities in a self-managed and autonomous way. In 2006, the federal government of Mexico implemented the "war on drugs", leading to an increase in violence. In this context, community defence has become increasingly important, leading to the emergence of several community defence groups in different regions of the country. This article explains the emergence of past and present community defence groups in Mexico through an analysis of the relationship between violence and reconfigurations in the capitalist economy. Through focusing on the community police, the paper reflects on the potential of collective practices to produce community safety, and on the emergence of defensive groups in urban and non-indigenous localities, creating new forms of community-based organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the history of the so-called Mexican notebook of Mayakovsky, he traveled with from Europe to America and back in 1925. The notebook preserves one record in Spanish made by José Manuel Puig Casauranc, Minister of Public Education in Mexico, and traces of torn pages. According to Mayakovsky's testimony, Casauranc’s record was followed by a brief appeal to the working people of Soviet Russia, written in Spanish by the deputy F. Moreno, which the poet destroyed when crossing the US border, fearing political complications. It was suggested that two separate pages from Mayakovsky archive with the autographs of F.-T. Marinetti in French belong to this notebook. Drawing on new archival and memoir sources, the paper explores social, cultural and biographical circumstances of getting the autograph. Particular attention is paid to the interpretation of the goals and results of Mayakovsky's trip to Mexico, his contacts (Alfonso Reyes, Diego Rivera, Manuel Casauranc, Francisco Moreno, Tina Modotti, List Arsubido). On the basis of historical, literary and textual analysis of the Mexican notebook, its publication as part of the 19th volume of the Complete Collection of Works by V.V. Mayakovsky in 20 vols. (IWL RAS) is justified.

Fair Trade in Mexico as a tool for rural development? Taking Mexico as an example, this paper examines the potential of Fair Trade as a rural development strategy. It is argued that Fair Trade's impact on rural development needs to be analyzed in the context of other income strategies that the rural poor pursue. I discuss migration and participation in Fair Trade as different possibilities to generate income in rural areas and assess their abilities to stimulate rural development. My findings suggest that participation in Fair Trade results in some positive effects on the livelihoods of the rural population. These effects stem from strengthening Fair Trade Cooperatives and the existence of broader Mexican Fair Trade Institutions. Whereas Fair Trade includes some possibilities for rural development, I argue that, nevertheless, Fair Trade has to be combined with broader and multiple development strategies to substantially improve rural livelihoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has as purpose to show how the nationality and citizenship are formal elements that demand the Mexican Constitution to take over any position of popular election to federal level in the Mexican legal order. In this sense, it is worth mentioning that the Mexican legal order does not give a concept about how to understand nationality and citizenship. However, the Constitution establishes the requirements on how to acquire the nationality and how to lose it. Likewise, so that a person has the quality of a citizen has to fulfill the following requirements: to have an honest way of living, and to be 18 years old. Thus, not every Mexican is a citizen, indispensable condition to be candidate to any position of popular election.

In recent decades, women have become more present in the world of drug trafficking, coping with various functions within criminal organizations, despite not achieving high positions of power, armored by a strongly male chauvinist structure. In the first part of the paper, we analyzed the role of females in cartels, from retail trade to money laundering, and, in more recent times, more violent roles such as that of sicarias or torturers. In the second one, we study the reflection of these activities in the narcocorridos, musical genre preferred by the narcos to praise their heroes and feats. It also addresses the most recent changes in the diffusion and consumption of this music and its new compositions, increasingly aggressive and sanguinary, reflecting a country captive for extortion, corruption and indiscriminate violence.

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In order to present an exercise showing the importance of mixed methodology, this paper offers an exploratory approach to the simultaneous use of data sources clearly identified with qualitative and quantitative research styles. In doing so we took as a starting point a different platform than the one traditionally used in the field of labor studies, at least in Mexico. Instead of having as a main frame of reference a statistical database, we first analyzed qualitative information on a group of Mexican urban, middle-class women. One of the means we have found of linking the two sources has been to construct a typology—with quantitative data and similar to one previously elaborated in a qualitative study—to describe the possible links between four life trajectories (school, work, marriage and child-bearing). Combining a quantitative analysis with the results of a previous qualitative study was precisely what made it possible to both enrich and reinforce the proposal of the existence of diversity within homogeneity. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0801281

This paper introduces the methodology of autobiographic-narrative interview created by Fritz SCHÜTZE. The procedure of interview analysis is illustrated using a case study about a female "Indian" activist who is involved in religious and grass roots organizations of the Otomi-"Indians" living in the central highlands of Mexico. The study investigates the link between individual and social processes of cultural change. The biographical development and social processes of cultural change regarding the categories gender, religion and creativity are also shown. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0502160

The aim of this paper is to show how, on the basis of the social construction of reality and the informants' speech, it is possible to obtain original knowledge of the pathways to treatment of patients seeking to restore their mental health. The information presented is based on 13 people's verbal explanations of their pathways to treatment. According to Peter BERGER and Thomas LUCKMANN (1988), the language used by individuals in everyday life is the most effective means of transmitting meanings; it represents the objective accumulation of vast amounts of experience and meanings by this group. By extension, the language a group uses to talk about health constitutes its objectivized experience regarding this phenomenon at the same time as it serves to express it. As in the theoretical aspect, the methodological aspect emphasizes the aim of constructing a spoken, participatory form of knowledge, which is why a qualitative methodology was used. The techniques used focused on non-participatory observation, field diaries and semi-structured interviews. The interviewees' narrations and the observations carried out showed that the population has no problem combining various medical systems. The importance they place on each one depends, among other things, on their financial possibilities, logistic problems, their past experiences with the various systems, anecdotal information on the results obtained and the social networks available. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs040229

Article in Spanish, Abstracts in English and Spanish.The famous German scientist Alexander von Humboldt visited Mexico in 1803. He made several efforts to preserve the remainders of the so called ”Museo histórico indiano” which had been collected about fifty years before by the Italian Lorenzo Boturini Benaduci and which was at that time confiscated by the viceroyal administration. The fate of the unfortunate collector, his ideas and the failure of his intentions have caused new research into his motives and the results of his efforts. A discussion of the value of sources available to scholars which are related to the original inhabitants of the precolonial Mexico seems to be justified. The paper will discuss the opportunities and difficulties in collecting documents at the time of the Spanish dominion, and within that time the extraordinary character and eminent importance of Boturini’s collection. Moreover, it is evaluating his academic work for American anthropology.