Traditional

To understand the concept of traditional, it is first necessary to define tradition. ^{Arévalo (2004)} argues that tradition is equivalent to the concept of culture. Because tradition is a social conception that changes temporarily from one generation to another, from one place to another, it also varies within each culture, in time and according to social groups, between different cultures, in turn the past is updated and renewed from the present, it is modified to the compass of society, because it represents the continuity of culture; it refers to the past but also to a living present; what remains in the present from the past; the permanence of the living past in the present; the part of the culture in the time with a function of use in the present; it involves a selection of social reality; all the past that survives in the present; therefore, tradition is a social construction that is elaborated from the present on the past; it is the present that shapes the past (^{Arévalo, 2004}).

This is related to the continuity of culture, in this regard, ^{Giménez (2005)} who maintains that “culture should never be understood as a homogeneous repertoire, static or unchangeable meanings. On the contrary, it can have both zones of stability and persistence and zones of mobility and change”. Because culture in turn is modified but not in its entirety where that past is still alive in the reality of social actors, it adapts and recombines to prevail in the present.

On the other hand, the modern is a concept that has been related to the city, to industry, to technology, to the current, to fashion, to civilization, among others. But we do not imagine it related to the tradition, that is why we conceptualize this one to relate it and to visualize that it is not antagonistic with traditional and that both coexist.

Modern

Thus the modern is shown from two perspectives: the first is defined as a set of behaviors that would be in the process of replacing that traditional constitution and the second is a set of objective facts that are affirmed as substantial innovations to meet a need for transformation.

Although the concept we are working on is the modern one, it is necessary to conceptualize a derivative that is modernity. For this purpose, ^{Freitag (2002)} proposes that modernity is a mode of reproduction of society based on the political and institutional dimension of its regulation mechanisms as opposed to tradition, in which the reproduction mode of the whole and the meaning of the actions that are fulfilled is regulated by particular cultural and symbolic dimensions. Modernity is an ontological change in the regulation mode of social reproduction based on a transformation of the temporal sense of legitimacy.

The above concepts refer to the classic way of thinking, but adaptation and changes over time can be perceived in the practices of the social actors we investigate, where those traditional activities and the modern perspective as a whole are seen as conducive to not see them only as an economic growth, but as a development within the family groups.

Bonfil- Batalla (1988), when working on the Proyecto Central of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) in the Poblano-Tlaxcalan valley in the city of Cholula between 1964 and 1970, laid the foundations for the coexistence between traditional and the modern, he analyzed that these two concepts are not antagonistic nor separated, on the contrary they exist together. Pointing out that the peoples of Mexico through their historical process has shown that these concepts are not antagonistic, nor separated. It aims to visualize factors from a wider social field, based on the historical process of the place and its relation with the city (Bonfil-Batalla, 1988).

The objective of this paper was to show that for amaranther families there is a coexistence of the traditional and the modern that is expressed through their activities such as the organization, adaptation and recombination of their production, processing and marketing practices, they have achieved growth and development in their family agro-industry and it has become a life project.

The research was carried out from the theoretical perspective of urban anthropology, considering it as one that studies the cultural systems of cities, the unions of cities and populations as part of the urban world system (^{Guerrero-Burgoa, 2005}). According to the proposals of Bonfil-Batalla (1988), using holistic analysis. Because holistics sees the whole thing, in its totality, in its whole, in its complexity, where the interactions, peculiarities and processes that are not perceived if studied separately, can be appreciated. This is part of a process where the determination or precision of things is achieved by multiple relationships, dynamic events, synergies and expressions of context. On the other hand, holistic thinking involves an open attitude to history, to events, to perceiving contexts, ideas and situations within multiple relationships.

That is why it is said that it is relational, which enables the integration of experiences, relating knowledge, linking actions, dimensions, interpretations, inferences, with backgrounds of open possibilities. In this thought the continuum is multidimensional because it occurs in different directions (^{Barrera-Morales, 1999}). Therefore, holistic analysis uses elements of the past that are useful to understand the present of the fact that is investigated, it refers not only to the fact but to the context and factors of all kinds that may influence it. In addition, the ethnographic method was used because ethnographic designs are intended to describe and analyze ideas, beliefs, meanings, knowledge and practices of groups, cultures and communities (^{Hernández-Sampieri et al., 2010}). Ethnography also involves profound description and interpretation of a group, social or cultural system (^{Hernández- Sampieri et al., 2010}).

Semi- structured interviews were used in the exploration phase that were analyzed to complete the questionnaires. Interviews were applied to the 50 producers in a random way who were carrying out the primary production and the 18 families that compose the sample, considering the families that worked the entire production process (primary production, processing and marketing) within the family agroindustry.

Among the techniques, the survey was used, that will allow us to gather information to answer the research questions. According to ^{Hernández-Sampieri et al. (2010)} that defines the questionnaire as “a set of questions regarding one or more variables to be measured. It should be congruent with the problem approach and hypothesis”.

In addition, as a technique, observation was used since it is general and then begins to focus on certain cultural aspects. Provides detailed descriptions of the site, members of the group or community, structures and processes, categories and cultural issues (^{Hernández-Sampieri et al., 2010}). Another was the bibliographical review that helped to contextualize the place of study, as well as the description and location in time of the family agroindustries.

We proceeded with the type of sampling the one used was the non-probabilistic or directed, where the choice is related to the characteristics of the research. The sample used was called sampling chain or networks (snowball), which is asking the informant to recommend potential participants, who can provide more extensive data (^{Hernández-Sampieri et al., 2010}). There were also visited the shops where they sell the products made by the amaranther families in the agro industries of Santiago Tulyehualco, where they were asked to allow us to apply the questionnaires, making appointments and looking for spaces to be attended.

On the other hand, the sample size was calculated, it was obtained by applying stratified sampling, where the population is divided into strata (subgroups), in order to obtain the representativeness of the different strata that make up the population. In which the investigator should randomly select the final subjects of the different strata in proportional way. In addition, in this type of sampling the strata are considered as independent populations (Rojas-Soriano, 2013), using the 52 families of the ^{Méndez-Bautista sample (2011)} and applying the formula to 31 families that were surveyed in six strata, considering the group of elaborated products and thus the sample was obtained from 18 families.

Santiago Tulyehualco, Xochimilco

Santiago Tulyehualco belongs to the Xochimilco Delegation of Mexico City. In this town, families develop the rainfed agricultural activity considered as periurban agriculture for being in a physical space near the city (^{Ramírez-Meza, 2007}).

These families produce amaranth (Amaranthus sp.) or huautli an important economic and social crop, since pre-Hispanic times and evidence can be found in ethnohistoric documents as Florentino codices (1550) where illustrations of harvested tender amaranth being consumed as vegetable can be appreciated, it also show the mature and dry plant where the seed was obtained. The illustrations of amaranth, as well as maize, chia, and beans, are also observed in the documents of the Matrícula de Tributos (1535) and the Mendocino Codex (1541), seeds were kept in stock for storage purposes and as part of the tribute to the Triple Alliance (^{Rojas, 1991}).

In Santiago Tulyehualco there are two areas of crops: 1) in the part of El Ejido plain, which has 405.3 hectares is the place of chinampas with channels that, currently has pollution problems; and 2) in the mountain area located on the slopes of the extinct volcano Teuhtli, 250 hectares are reported, here there are agricultural land in small properties that are difficult to reach by the slopes (^{Ramírez-Meza, 2007}). On the other hand, the problems of contamination of water, soil and air are currently issues that can not be left aside, the problem is greater where there is high concentration of population, such as urban areas, where the pressure of green spaces is reduced.

These have become areas of vital importance for conservation and safeguarding, as is the case of the mountain cultivation area that has been called Ecological Conservation Zone Teuhtli in Santiago Tulyehualco. ^{Torres-Lima (2000)} mentions that the periurban areas that are engaged in agricultural activities show high levels of soil erosion, loss of biological diversity, deforestation, sedimentation of water bodies, contamination of aquifers, inefficient land use and poor management of natural resources that together reduce the carrying capacity for the human activity of the geographical spaces.

Santiago Tulyehualco, as well as the other towns and neighborhoods of Xochimilco, ceded the water from the springs and canals to Mexico City, but in return, accesses that allowed them to reach the city center were built. The town of Tulyehualco was among the first were drainage services were installed in 1948, there was more street lighting; another service was the tram in 1908 with a length of 12 kilometers that was suspended in 1947.

This was an effective means of transport for the passengers transfer, but its main objective was to provide transportation of the labor and materials required for the construction of the aqueduct (^{Farías-Galindo, 1984}; ^{Terrones-López, 2006}). On the other hand, the town of Santiago Tulyehualco has increased its population through migrants that arrived from different states of the Republic, like Veracruz, Oaxaca, Puebla, among others. As a result, the urban spot grew, pushing aside cultivated land. At the moment, the center of Tulyehualco is a commercial place where the inhabitants of other towns and colonies that go to the city overflow. Which is a situation that the amaranther families use to market their products.

Authors such as ^{Bordiou (2011)} referred that dichotomous concepts as objective and subjective were not separated, that they were related, in this paper these concepts are not analyzed, but they serve as a parameter to say that the traditional and the modern are not antagonistic, because Coexist and social actors relate them through their activities in their daily lives.

For this reason, this part begins with the concepts of traditional and modern, to understand that traditional derives from tradition and this is the culture of the amaranther families that is the case we are foccused on, is what they learned from their ancestors and gets reproduced in their organization, adapting and recombining it, to give as a result what they are now, because in the reproduction of their activities are seen aspects that have traditionally worked, incorporating new modern elements to their work, while remaining in essence what has identified them, differentiated and it is recognized by others.

Primary production

The amaranthers families of Santiago Tulyehualco are located in a territorial and organizational space that according to ^{Medina-Hernándes (2007)} is called original town within Mexico City, that under this concept is an agrarian community, where the work forms, culture and social relations have been constructed from the agricultural development of a crop with pre -hispanic origin as is the case of amaranth. At the present time these families know two types of sowing in the cultivation of amaranth: 1) the indirect sowing that is characterized by first realizing the seedlings where the seed is sowed and let to germinate, so that later the transplant is performed and that these families called chapines and ^{Alejandre-Iturbide and Gómez-Lorente (1986)} has referred to the transplantation technique as an ancestral technique of chinampas, this system is considered as traditional technology; and (2) direct seeding to chorrillo with high population density, the seed is discarded without leaving space, and is slightly covered, plants grow together, which is the modern way (^{Ramírez-Meza, 2007}).

Although there are two ways of sowing, these families prefer to use the traditional way because they argue that it has given them better results according to the type of soil and conditions of the land they have. In addition, with the chapines they can control the plant’s growth. However, if the weather is not conducive and they are in the deadlines to realize the sowing is when they realize the direct sowing that requires less time than the first one. On the other hand, these families have received training from institutions such as the Universidad Autónoma Chapingo (UACH), Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM), Colegio de Postgraduados (COLPOS), Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales, Agrícolas y Pecuarias (INIFAP) and Secretaría de Agricultura, Ganadería, Desarrollo Rural, Pesca y Alimentación (SAGARPA), among others, so they know modern technology in technological packages (^{Escalante-Escoffié, 2010}). In this first part we find elements both traditional and modern, where it is visualized that one does not replace the other and yet there is a coexistence.

Families know the two types of sowing, but depending on the situation of the weather, they decide to sow with one or the other. Through the description of certain activities we visualize the coexistence between the forms: traditional and modern. Traditional activities are their own expressed culture that identifies them as a group and distinguishes them from others. On the other hand, over time with the transmission and reproduction of traditional technology in amaranther families, continuity is observed, but also variants and adaptations are observed in the instruments used to make the chapines, that is, they modify the structure of certain instruments to facilitate the work with current materials. In addition, according to ^{Giménez (2005)}, each culture varies in the group, in generation and context, so we see our society as heterogeneous, multicultural and multi-ethnic. Also, in small groups there are differences that distinguish them and that are identified between them.

Transformation and commercialization

This part of the productive process has to do with the historical process of the transformation, adaptation and recombination of the activities and instruments used to form the amaranther agroindustry and its relation with marketing.

In Tulyehualco town, families that sow amaranth have been divided into two types of producers: 1) those who only sow and sell their seed; and 2) those who sow and process for sale. For producers who only sow and sell the seed, amaranth has meant a supplement to their family income. Those who sow and process give added value to the product. ^{Champredonde and González-Casiorovski (2013)} proposes that “added value is an extra feature or service that is given to a product or service, in order to give it a commercial value, it is usually a rare feature or service or little used by competitors, and that gives the business or company some differentiation”. On the other hand, the transformation has allowed them to obtain higher incomes and, therefore, greater development, becoming a life option.

In addition, amaranther families are multifunctional, that is, in addition to working in primary production (agriculture), they transform and market and have been employed in the city and thus have shaped their economy, taking advantage of their traditional knowledge that has allowed them to develop. Because tradition implies transformation, in terms of sociocultural adaptation, for its reproduction and maintenance. Tradition has a dialectical relationship between the past and the present, between continuity and change (^{Arévalo, 2004}).

^{Manzo-Ramos and López-Ornelas (2011)} report that by the 1960’s these peasant families considered as poor, were sowing various crops and raising animals, but it was not enough to meet their needs, so they transformed amaranth in two or three products (alegría, pepitoria and palanqueta) in their homes (kitchen) and sold them on weekends, men in a drawer and women in a basket.

For this generation of amaranther families, the transformation of amaranth production was done artisanal, inside the kitchen of the house in the family unit, they used clay comal, a blower and a popotillo broom to burst the seed, a square table to make the mold where it was cut into rectangles and then placed in the drawer or basket. The families mentioned that these instruments were similar to those used by their parents, as expressed by Mr. David Hernández de la Rosa in an interview (personal communication, 2015) “back in the day the amaranth was toasted at home, you came home, toasted the amaranth, in clay comales, and amaranth tasted different...”Marketing was done on weekends in different places of Mexico City, crossing streets, avenues, neighborhoods, as Mr. Amado De la Rosa commented in an interview (personal communication, 2015) “all those places, I walked through Coyoacán, all the way there to sell, of course, let me tell you, we did not sell all week, it was just Saturdays and Sundays, that’s how we sold back then”.

As the decades passed, families were adapting and incorporating new tools for transformation, as well as their marketing strategies. Because tradition is realized and transformed continuously. It is important to point out that the traditional is proper but not exclusive to the rural social classes and sectors (agricultural or peasant) and workers in the urban environment.Tradition exists everywhere and all social, urban or rural groups have tradition (^{Arévalo, 2004}).

Between the 70s and 90s, changes occurred in families, when family agroindustries began to be established. ^{Manzo-Ramos and López-Ornelas (2011)} argue that the heads of families are separated from the paternal or maternal house and as a consequence the production of amaranth in its transformation phase, forming its own family and industry. At this moment the production unit is integrated by a nuclear family and produced in small workshops that had adapted in the patio of their homes. According to the interview with Mr. Hernández-De la Rosa, (2015) “... then spaces began to open and we realize that we were better off selling our amaranth, of course, transforming it ourselves, not by buying and reselling it, but transforming it ourselves and making good money, and I dedicated to that, there was when the whole family came...”

Families also begin to diversify their products, in addition to alegría and pepitoria, they have introduced bakery products with amaranth seed; using for its processing equipment for domestic use such as blenders, stoves, pewter spoons and plastic utensils (^{Manzo -Ramos and López-Ornelas, 2011}). As Hernández-De la Rosa (2015) states in the interview “... because my wife and my daughters helped us to prepare everything, in small workshops of amaranth, my daughter makes bread and has ovens...”, when he recalls his experience of increasing the production size, number of products and the incorporation of their married daughters to the work of the family agribusiness. Because tradition is realized and transformed continuously.

In 1987, it is proposed to install an amaranth processing plant with a useful life of ten years (^{Anónimo, 1987}) in Tulyehualco by the head of the agroindustrial development program of the then Delegación de la Secretaría de Agricultura y Recursos Hidráulicos (SARH) in the Distrito Federal, its objective was to fully exploit amaranth production in the Tulyehualco region to contribute to the improvement of the living standards of families. In this regard, Mr. Uriel ^{Molotla (personal communication, 2014}) mentioned that his agro-industry was the first to be established in the 1980s by his father, in addition to the transformation of amaranth they seek the quality of their products. According to ^{Arévalo (2004)} with tradition and innovation are categories that are intertwined. To continue without renewing is only to repeat, whereas to innovate without the support of the past (experience of life) is to make castles in the sand, because any change takes place on a background of continuity. In contrast to ^{Arévalo (2004)}, ^{Vilches-de Frutos and Duorgherty (1997)} mentions that the constant desire to bring to light the most strikingly modern customs in the last 20 years was not reflected in contemporary life, the successes in reflecting the uses of society emphasizing the modern that replaced the traditional form.

After the 90’s, the heads of families leave their salaried work and decide to dedicate themselves completely to the amaranth agribusiness, because in this activity they find higher income and permanent employment that assures them an income flow. On the other hand, they increase the number of varieties of processed products to an average of 30, with diversity of presentations, size and shape. As a result of the increase in production, they set up a place for marketing in their homes to the street. With retail and wholesale, which is done to resellers, people from the community, also those who pass through Tulyehualco, heading for the city (^{Manzo-Ramos and López-Ornelas, 2011}).

“Yes, because after I got married I dedicated completely to the amaranth, I also did masonry, but sometimes there is work and sometimes there is no work, and they pay you until the weekend, and sometimes they pay you and sometimes they do not, money is not for sure, in the construction, depending on the people you work with, and with the amaranth it does no thappen like that, with amaranth you see your money daily, and it sells very well and you do very well, then practically you become a merchant” Hernández-De la Rosa (personal communication, 2015).

In this increase of production and commercial establishment in a place in their homes, comes the innovation of machinery, grain breakers, mixers or the simple adaptation of a domestic appliance like an iron to seal the cellophane bags where they place the product, wood that was used in the elaboration of the pallets was replaced by metallic pieces (Figure 1a and 1b). Thus modern phenomena show their modernity as a civilizing tendency endowed with a new unitary principle of coherence or structuring of civilized social life and the world corresponding to that life. It is intended to replace the ancestral or traditional organizing principle (^{Echeverría, 2008}). But the reality is that the traditional is linked to the modern, without one replacing the other, because there is not a break but a learning adaptation of their inherited activities to the modern instruments for their activities.

Figure 1 a) Mixer to make amaranth cookies in the Karina family agribusiness; b) elaboration of a platform of alegría candy in the La Gabara family agribusiness. 

Despite the adaptation and innovation of the instruments for the process of making amaranth candies it has not lost its traditional essence. The presentation of the products has been modified in the sense that when they walked the streets of Mexico City they took their products in the drawer to offered it and gave it to the customer on a piece of paper, now the candy is sold wrapped on cellophane (Figure 2). Also used in relation to the modern is the progress, both are seen as a straight and ascending time line. In a space or geographic version of this progress, it is related to the urban (city) that is linked to technical and civilizing progress (^{Echeverría, 2008}) . This positivist perspective that relates the modern to the progress presupposes that this modernity is a better tendency than the traditional because the traditional one is linked with the backward, nevertheless in the amaranteras families a coexistence of the traditional and modern is observed.

Figure 2 Various amaranth products of Casahuates family agribusiness. 

Another aspect is the use of technological means such as the internet to promote their products that some family agribusinesses have established (^{Mendez-Bautista, 2011}). Harnessing technologies in amaranthers families has led them to offer their products not only locally but to expand its borders regionally for more resources and leverage its activities without breaking the bond inherited from their ancestors. Because traditional has not been replaced by modern, on the other hand they have implemented strategies that enabled them to have a job not only to family members, also neighbors, godfathers, among others.

Transformation is about searching for quality and implementing a variety of mechanical mechanisms to choose the seed and remove particulates, in order to have products with quality standards. These are examples of modern means coexisting with traditional ones.

Because thinking about recombination happens because amaranthers families make the transformation of traditional production to family agribusiness, because they have achieved what their parents did not have. Adaptations to the times and places at the time, has led families to economic growth and infrastructure development.

From using their traditional knowledge to give added value to their products and diversifying and innovating in its variety. And its coexistence with the modern building on the scientific advances and implementing accessories and machinery in their workshops in the direction of progress.

Finally, with the coexistence of traditional and modern, it is observed in amaranthers families upgrading and renewal of the past from the present, but also the permanence of the past alive in the present.