'Just Right': Balance, tranquility, and drunkenness in rural Yucatán

In one rural community in Yucatán, many residents express concerns about the disruption alcohol use poses to the calm of everyday life and the wellbeing of individuals, families, and society. At the same time, men who drink point to tangible ways in which alcohol consumption relieves them of suffering and brings pleasure. Aware of the often-negative effects of their drinking, these men root their desire to get drunk in structural inequalities and resultant stress. Through analysis of extended ethnographic research, this paper explores drinking as a practice through which the complex and sometimes contradictory nature of care in modern life in rural Yucatán is exposed. Care through and against alcohol consumption reveals a convergence of suffering and privilege, one that is, in some ways, uniquely local and, in other ways, reflective of working-class masculinity in many parts of the world.