This dissertation analyzes the outcomes of a capital-intensive large-scale development program known as Plan Chontalpa, in the livelihood strategies of small-scale producers in Tabasco, a tropical state located in southeastern Mexico. Drawing on fifteen months of participant observation, interviews and archival research, this person-centered ethnography examines some of the Plan's socio-economic impacts on the livelihoods of a small-scale sugarcane producer, Jesus, from the 1960s when the Plan started to be implemented in the region until today. Though his personal experiences are not identical with other members of his community or residents in other regions, his story offers a valuable reference to a larger "shared reality". His experiences are a lens through which to understand the evolution of the Plan, the community, and the environment, from the subsistence farming that characterized the area before the Plan to the sugarcane production that dominates the region today.

A political and economic historical perspective is critical in this research as both the town and the Plan have been changing and adapting through time. As a result, the analyses of historical socioeconomic transformations in the Chontalpa shows us the Plan's role as the vehicle of the economic and political integration of the region into the national and international market economy. Consequently, this dissertation argues that local production systems go through transitions that, in many cases, increase economic marginalization, social vulnerability and overexploitation of natural resources on which the local population depend, as a response to these integrations.

Despite well-intentioned economic development policies---designed in a framework of moral-economic assumptions different from those of the targeted communities--these initiatives are leading in many cases towards dependency, undermining of local social and economic practices, and negatively impacting the natural environment. Development strategies like Plan Chontalpa continue being implemented despite the shift of the development discourse in recent decades to focus on "women-centered" initiatives and environmental sustainability. They are being promoted throughout Latin America as solution to poverty alleviation, and food and energy crises. It is my goal that this study can contribute to better inform future policies in the region.