Kin, Friends, and Leaders

Abstract

As the twentieth-century Dominican state-building project unfolded in the southwest, the region’s well-tried institutions—such as the family, compadrazgo, and patronage—were put to use in new ways and for new purposes.¹ But the basic local institutions were neither threatened nor undermined. In La Descubierta, local social and cultural distinctiveness was not eliminated. On the contrary, the building of the state both depended upon and reinforced particular local forms. In La Descubierta, the state was largely brought into being and constructed by the community’s own inhabitants.