This article seeks to challenge the notion that the concept of agro‐extractivism be restricted to crops destined for export with little or no processing. Based on a study of agave and tequila production in Mexico, it argues that the domestic processing of biomass does not change nor necessarily compensate for the negative social and environmental impacts of upstream agricultural activities; it can in fact add to them. We seek to demonstrate this to be the case for industrialized agave–tequila production by adopting an approach that traces the flows of materials, pollutants and money, taking into consideration the degree to which transnational companies control the agave–tequila value chain, the portion of tequila that is exported, technologies, company–farmer and company–worker relations, relevant public policy, and environmental and social impacts. We analyse the polluting consequences of industrialized tequila production and show how the expansion and intensification of agave production since the mid‐1990s has been characterized by increasing volumes of biomass extraction, the emergence or exacerbation of different forms of environmental degradation, the marginalization of small‐scale agave farmers, and deteriorating working conditions for agave‐field workers. In addition, we briefly discuss traditional mezcal production as a socially and ecologically sustainable alternative model.

Research in urban political ecology has been important in recent decades in understanding the complex socionatural processes entailed in urbanization, exploring the local and global linkages of the production and consumption processes of urban metabolism. While these studies have explored diverse networks and artefacts in this metabolism, little attention has been paid to the flows of the pollution of water and air, particularly of the industrial emissions that are also key to the socionatures of urbanization in industrialized regions of the Global South. In this paper, we explore two interconnected nodes in the metabolism of the Guadalajara Metropolitan Area in Western Mexico. These are key sites for the flows of resources and emissions, with different levels of social discontent and conflict related particularly to the health impacts of water pollution. Here, government authorities tend to deflect attention from industrial-and city-level sources of pollution, focusing instead on proximate sources and household emissions. Organized social resistance, on the other hand, calls attention to powerful industrial actors and speculative urban development while taking action to imagine new socio-ecological configurations in the region. We focus on the role of the state in maintaining socio-ecological inequities, and the lessons that can be learned about urban metabolism by expanding the frame to include industrial processes in the shaping of urban socionatures.

ResumenEn este texto, la pretensión es hilvanar una explicación teórico-conceptual de la degradación del río Santiago, en Jalisco, a partir de las nociones de "corrupción institucionalizada" y "mito de las multinacionales". Para ello, partiendo del enfoque de la "neoliberalización de la naturaleza", examino el ambientalismo de mercado como una respuesta a las crisis ecológicas engendradas por la tendencia de la producción capitalista, y en particular de su forma actual neoliberal, a degradar sus condiciones de producción y a la naturaleza más ampliamente. Posteriormente analizo la adaptación del ambientalismo de mercado "para países pobres" de maneras que empoderan al sector privado en la regulación ambiental; para ello tomo como ejemplo la regulación mexicana. A partir de la investigación de campo, asimismo, presento un resumen de algunos datos empíricos que sustentan la hipótesis de la corrupción institucionalizada. Finalmente, las conclusiones versan sobre cómo la regulación de las descargas industriales en México refleja el sesgo del ambientalismo de mercado en su versión "para países pobres", que se basa en supuestos no verificables del cumplimiento de las empresas transnacionales, o lo que propongo llamar el "mito de las multinacionales".

No abstract

La contaminación del río Santiago en el estado de Jalisco, México, ha generado un conflicto socioambiental por las afectaciones a la salud y el bienestar de la población aledaña. A pesar de que una planta tratadora de aguas negras de la Zona Metropolitana de Guadalajara ha mejorado las condiciones del río, persiste la problemática de las descargas industriales. La deficiente legislación en materia de control de descargas asociada a su escasa aplicación favorecen la persistente contaminación del Santiago por los vertidos industriales.