FROM BURROS TO BUSES - TRANSPORT EFFICIENCY AND ECONOMIC-DEVELOPMENT IN GUERRERO, MEXICO

The manner in which local communities are embedded within broader regi onal, national, and international economies, a central theme in contem porary ethnographic research, is heavily conditioned by the prevailing forms of transportation. Major improvements in transport efficiency f requently correspond to equally dramatic changes in the position of co mmunities in their broader socioeconomic environment This article pres ents a, method of evaluating transport costs that can be used by ethno graphers to quantify the magnitude of shifts in relative efficiency. T he method and the processes it is designed to elucidate are demonstrat ed in the case of communities in an agrarian marketing region in south ern Mexico. The article attributes divergent patterns of economic deve lopment within the region to quantifiable differences in access to par ticular types of transportation system;.