From the end of a revolution to the beginning of an evolution: An interpretive investigation on the Mexican oil culture.

摘要

This dissertation is an interpretative investigation on the Mexican petroleum industry. It studies the social arrangement that allowed the development of Mexico's most important State-Owned Enterprise Petróleos Mexicanos and the current pressures to transform it.{09}The need to modify its operations in Mexico is an issue of enormous significance for the current reforms undertaken by the Neo-liberal project initiated during the mid 1980's.{09}It represents the abandonment of the development strategy that characterized the “Regime of the Revolution” and the establishment of a market-oriented economy in line with the development strategy selected by the President Fox for the period 2000–2006.; Through an approximation of Habermas' ideal ‘Public Sphere’ this dissertation reveals relevant information about PEMEX's historical and present contexts, the basic elements that make up the Mexican petroleum culture, its major interest groups, their mutual perspectives and understandings, their interpretation of the present situation and their opinion as to the way PEMEX should be modified.; The investigation into the ideas, beliefs and customs that justified PEMEX's hegemony over Mexico's petroleum resources followed the conceptual model provided by the Critical Theory Paradigm and an adaptation of a methodological approach previously employed for qualitative Critical Theory research. Throughout an ethnographic analysis of twenty-six representatives of PEMEX's major interest groups through in-depth, semi-structured interviews based on a combination of an interpretative research design and a case-study research method, the beliefs, ideals, mutual perceptions and future plans of these stakeholders were identified.; This study advances the understanding of the symbols, beliefs and ideas that have framed Mexican petroleum culture, as well as describes how these beliefs and ideas have changed over time.{09}Through an ‘ethnography of rhetoric,’ this project facilitated the absorption and comprehension of their world, ideologies and expectations. Therefore, it contains the analysis of a whole rhetoric that legitimated an enduring and incredibly powerful political regime with an ideology that justified ‘a way of life.’ The study concludes with a call to exercise self-reflection, get rid of the hundreds of ‘False Consciousnesses’ that modify Mexican behaviour every day, and endeavour to enter the wonderful experience of intellectual emancipation.