Comunalidad, Guendaliza'a and anti-mine mobilizations in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec

Morosin, Alessandro

doi:10.2458/v27i1.23237

Cited by 7 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…The destruction of the traditional indigenous home and the swift architectural/aesthetic changes implemented by government employees amplified the grievances communities had with regard to the Special Economic Zone/Trans-Isthmus Corridor. Many campesino-indigenous organizations allege that mega-infrastructure policies are forcibly imposing an urban, commodified, “extractive” way of life on communities that once revolved around subsistence production, social ownership of lands and fisheries, and an obligation to one’s neighbors and surroundings that is known by the Isthmus Zapotec term guendaliza’a (Morosin, 2020; Altamirano-Jiménez, 2013). Home demolition and urban renewal made the Isthmus into a new outlet for accumulation, but rather than moving in to tap the region’s natural resources and energy it arrived to profit from people’s wrecked homes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is little reason for them to sincerely engage with the membership of groups such as the Grupo Ecologista Zanatepec, the Comité Ixtepecano Vida Territorio, APPJ Radio Totopo, the Asamblea de Pueblos Indígenas del Istmo de Tehuantepec en Defensa de la Tierra y el Territorio, and other activist groupings whose members oppose neoliberalism (Morosin, 2019). Activists in Juchitán and neighboring towns who speak out publicly and mobilize communities against government-backed projects such as the wind energy corridor (López Gómez, 2016) have faced assaults, death threats, and kidnapping attempts (Morosin, 2021;Caro et al, 2015: 14, 15). Understanding this recent history helps explain why the state moved to contain and outmaneuver independent grassroots organizations in the process of seeking to regain legitimacy after the disaster.…”

Section: Pacification Vs the Struggle For Autonomymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…State functionaries and the dominant political parties have invested years of political and economic capital in the Isthmus Special Economic Zone/ Trans-Isthmus Corridor. There is little reason for them to sincerely engage with the membership of groups such as the Grupo Ecologista Zanatepec, the Comité Ixtepecano Vida Territorio, APPJ Radio Totopo, the Asamblea de Pueblos Indígenas del Istmo de Tehuantepec en Defensa de la Tierra y el Territorio, and other activist groupings whose members oppose neoliberalism (Morosin, 2019). Activists in Juchitán and neighboring towns who speak out publicly and mobilize communities against government-backed projects such as the wind energy corridor (López Gómez, 2016) have faced assaults, death threats, and kidnapping attempts (Morosin, 2021;Caro et al, 2015: 14, 15).…”

Section: Pacification Vs the Struggle For Autonomymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Industries like logging, hydroelectric dams, and oil pipelines have further divided the Isthmus’s local population (Rodriguez, 2017, López, 2012; López Gómez, 2016; Ávila-Calero, 2017; Dunlap, 2018b; 2018c). More recently, campesino-indigenous organizations and rights networks have been agitating for the suspension of mineral exploration contracts in several municipalities that were awarded by Mexico’s federal government to mining companies (mostly Canadian) without the prior informed consent of the affected residents (Morosin, 2020). While gradually privatizing communal property for export-oriented transnational capital, such megaprojects in this geostrategic corner of Mexico all prioritize short-term capital accumulation while degrading the environment, endangering human rights, reviving internal colonialism, and uprooting traditional forms of social reproduction (López, 2019: 142).…”

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confidence: 99%

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The State, Accumulation, and Oaxaca’s Earthquake Survivors: Three Mechanisms of Inequality

Morosin¹

2023

Latin American Perspectives

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Ethnographic field interviews collected in three municipalities of Oaxaca explain how the Mexican state’s response to the Chiapas earthquake facilitated capital accumulation while intensifying indigenous-campesino grievances against megaprojects and resource extraction. State policies in Oaxaca’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec during the fall of 2017 reinforced social inequality by way of three key mechanisms: neglect, dispossession, and pacification. Making sense of the way state institutions exercised power during this disaster benefits from combining a critical perspective on global capitalism with long-standing frameworks of cultural genocide and internal colonialism. Las entrevistas de campo etnográficas recogidas en tres municipios de Oaxaca nos muestran cómo la respuesta del Estado mexicano al terremoto de Chiapas facilitó la acumulación de capital al mismo tiempo que intensificó las quejas de campesinos indígenas contra los megaproyectos y la extracción de recursos. Las políticas estatales en el istmo de Tehuantepec en Oaxaca durante el otoño de 2017 reforzaron la desigualdad social a través de tres mecanismos clave: abandono, despojo y pacificación. Para poder dar sentido a la forma en que las instituciones estatales ejercieron el poder durante este desastre es importante combinar una perspectiva crítica sobre el capitalismo global y marcos teóricos de larga data en torno al genocidio cultural y el colonialismo interno.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Pacification Vs the Struggle For Autonomymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Pacification Vs the Struggle For Autonomymentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The State, Accumulation, and Oaxaca’s Earthquake Survivors: Three Mechanisms of Inequality

Morosin¹

2023

Latin American Perspectives

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“…However, this approach may present risks as well, particularly when it is not accompanied by a transformation of patriarchal relations within opposition movements. For Josefa, a young Zoque female leader opposing the Santa Martha mine in Mexico, folkloric descriptions of motherhood are problematic because they render patterns of internal violence and domination invisible (case 051) (Morosín, 2019). On this question, Noel Sturgeon (1999) suggested that a difference should be acknowledged between academic and activist discussions of essentialist narratives enacted by women.…”

Section: Women's Activism and Socio-political Transformationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Not victims, but fighters: A global overview on women's leadership in anti-mining struggles

Venes

Barca

Navas

2023

Journal of Political Ecology

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While it is known that women have a strong presence in struggles for Environmental Justice, there is a lack of knowledge about their role in them, particularly in struggles opposing mining projects. We aim to fill this gap by undertaking the first global systematization of the available data on women's anti-mining activism, using a multi-case perspective. We analyze 151 mining conflicts identified through the Environmental Justice Atlas, examining the impacts mining activities have had on women, how women responded to these, how they organized to oppose mining projects, and what challenges they faced in their activism. While our analysis reinforces many aspects discussed by Feminist Political Ecology scholars on the challenges women face in their activism, it also raises new questions about the specific impacts mining has on women, the repertoire of actions they have at their disposal as part of their activism, and how they organize to oppose mining projects, patriarchal dynamics within movements, and to question prevailing narratives of progress.

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Indigenous resistance at the frontiers of accumulation: Challenging the coloniality of space in International Relations

Hesketh

2023

Rev. Int. Stud.

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Latin America has long been subjected to colonial development that has negated Indigenous territory. In the present conjuncture, the region is home to the largest volume of environmental conflicts in the world. These conflicts are intrinsically connected to the wider model of neo-extractivist development that has been embraced throughout the continent since the early 2000s. Indigenous communities have frequently been the victims of this model of extractive development, with their territories becoming the primary sites for the aggressive expansion of the resource frontier. This has generated new political conflicts, as Indigenous communities conversely assert claims to territory and resources. In this article, I link these conflicts to what I term the ‘coloniality of space’, whereby Indigenous territorial forms have been theoretically elided from traditional spatial imaginaries within International Relations and concretely negated through practices within the global political economy. Moving beyond the territorial trap of nation-state centrism, Indigenous forms of resistance raise important questions about the subject and actors of International Relations.

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Comunalidad, Guendaliza'a and anti-mine mobilizations in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec

Cited by 7 publications

References 34 publications

The State, Accumulation, and Oaxaca’s Earthquake Survivors: Three Mechanisms of Inequality

The State, Accumulation, and Oaxaca’s Earthquake Survivors: Three Mechanisms of Inequality

Not victims, but fighters: A global overview on women's leadership in anti-mining struggles

Indigenous resistance at the frontiers of accumulation: Challenging the coloniality of space in International Relations

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