Resistance to What? How?: Stalled social movements in Cancun

Abstract

This paper explores the utility and futility of the concept of resistance in relationship to urban popular movements in Cancun. While Cancun has become the most popular tourist destination in Mexico, the city is characterized by severe inequalities and neighborhood segregation, the legacy of city planning. Urban settler movements have organized to pressure the city and state governments for land for purchase, public works, and services; yet the power of these movements has been curtailed by government strategies of co-optation, orchestrated enthusiasm, and the bureaucratization of resistance. Many city residents expressed doubts that democratic elections and settler movements could ever successfully ameliorate their condition of poverty. [Mexico/social movements/poverty/segregation] Resistance to What? How? 67

Critical adaptation to hurricanes in the Mexican Caribbean: Development visions, governance structures, and coping strategies

“…In addition, the PRI governance structure suggests that MT hegemony relies on a population which is conditioned to play subservient social and political roles. In fact, alternative social or political networks are actively discouraged and systematically co-opted by the government (Kray, 2006). One may speculate that the intellectual and emotional acceptance of current governance structures builds on historic processes of internalization whose origins can be traced to the Mexican Revolution and further back.…”

“…This helped put in place a strong political network of support constantly lubricated with money from tourism. Such a network not only helps win elections (Kray, 2006), but also provides an effective platform to support hegemonic development visions (or alternatives should they become embedded in the political architecture of the PRI). Nevertheless, a double discourse is not exclusive to the PRI system but has persisted despite changes in ruling political parties.…”

Enclosures within Enclosures and Hurricane Reconstruction in Cancún, Mexico

“…Cancún's story of enclosures within enclosures also reflects a political process of fabricating acquiescence and subduing dissent. While this article focused on the socio‐spatial dynamics that unfolded in the Hotel Zone, we found only occasional evidence of dissent from the city's residents against the hegemonic narrative of Cancún as a tourist destination (see Kray ). For the most part, there was an attitude of acquiescence rather than resistance with respect to the need to preserve Hotel Zone—the “goose that lays the golden eggs.” The Hotel Zone remains a national, regional, and municipal priority, as well as the only source of work available to most of those who migrate to Cancún.…”

«Vivir en el paraíso»: escenarios de contienda entre la segunda generación de migrantes yucatecos en Cancún, Quintana Roo

“…Caso contrario ocurre con el señor Bernardo y su esposa donde el hecho de usar hipil implica pobreza y para evitar este señalamiento es crucial dejar atrás esta forma de vestir para integrarse a las formas de convivencia en la ciudad, en 'vestirse lujosamente' como este señor lo afirma. Estas visiones diversas confirman la actual implementación de las políticas gubernamentales que, a través del tiempo, han operado sobre la cultura maya, en este caso, con la vestimenta tradicional entre otros componentes socioculturales (Kray 2006;Villanueva 2008;Castellanos 2010; Oehmichen 2013) y que apuestan por la venta del «ser maya» a merced del turismo (Pi-Sunyer y Thomas 1997; Oehmichen 2010).…”