The article documents the process of de ! ning the prestige hierarchy for a sample of occupations, a required component of a Position Generator to estimate Social Capital within a local atypical context, from a relational perspective. It describes the results of a mixed-design study conducted to assessing the perceptions of Occupational Prestige in Uriangato, a Mexican town highly specialized in producing and selling clothing through small businesses. Through the case study we found a differentiated interpretation of occupational prestige regarding international standards. Occupations related to productive specialized local settings, are generally better evaluated. Owning a business of manufacturing, trade or services, is a better recognized occupation in comparison with others that, in typical contexts, have greater prestige and socioeconomic status, such as lawyer, teacher or nurse. However, the scale achieved on the basis of the qualitative technique of pile sort, strongly correlates with two Internationally Standardized Scales of Occupational Prestige, making it possible to build a locally relevant Position Generator to measure social capital, while maintaining comparability to other studies done in different economic or cultural contexts.
