2021 - CAP - Territorialising Space in Latin America - JMMV&SBG

The Latin American Studies Book Series
Michael K. McCall
Andrew Boni Noguez
Brian Napoletano
Tyanif Rico-Rodríguez Editors
Territorialising
Space in Latin
America
Processes and Perceptions
Series Editors
Eustógio W. Correia Dantas, Departamento de Geografia, Centro de Ciências,
Universidade Federal do Ceará, Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil
Jorge Rabassa, Laboratorio de Geomorfología y Cuaternario, CADIC-CONICET,
Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina
Andrew Sluyter, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA
The Latin American Studies Book Series promotes quality scientific research
focusing on Latin American countries. The series accepts disciplinary and
interdisciplinary titles related to geographical, environmental, cultural, economic,
political and urban research dedicated to Latin America. The series publishes
comprehensive monographs, edited volumes and textbooks refereed by a region or
country expert specialized in Latin American studies.
The series aims to raise the profile of Latin American studies, showcasing
important works developed focusing on the region. It is aimed at researchers,
students, and everyone interested in Latin American topics.
Submit a proposal: Proposals for the series will be considered by the Series
Advisory Board. A book proposal form can be obtained from the Publisher, Juliana
Pitanguy (juliana.pitanguy@springer.com).
More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/15104

Michael K. McCall · Andrew Boni Noguez ·
Brian Napoletano · Tyanif Rico-Rodríguez
Editors
Territorialising Space
in Latin America
Processes and Perceptions
Editors
Michael K. McCall Andrew Boni Noguez
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México Universidad de Guanajuato
Morelia, Mexico Guanajuato, Mexico
Brian Napoletano Tyanif Rico-Rodríguez

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Morelia, Mexico Morelia, Mexico
ISSN 2366-3421 ISSN 2366-343X (electronic)

ISBN 978-3-030-82221-7 ISBN 978-3-030-82222-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82222-4
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or
information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Acknowledgements
All the book chapters, save Chap. 1, were externally reviewed. Therefore we wish
to warmly acknowledge all the external referees whom we invited and who kindly
agreed to review chapters. We are very grateful to them for the considerable time
they contributed and for their many thoughtful and very constructive inputs:
Alina Álvarez Larrain, América Nallely Lutz Ley, José Antonio Mora Calderón,
José María León Villalobos, Jovanka Špirić, Margaret Skutsch, María del Carmen
Ventura Patiño, María Fernanda Paz Salinas, and Susana Barrera Lobatón.
At Springer Nature, we were encouraged right from the beginning at the CLAG
Conference in San José, Costa Rica, by Juliana Pitanguy, Publishing Editor, Springer
Latin American Studies, and she sympathetically supported us since, despite the
continuing pandemic-driven delays of the project. Pranay Parsuram, Assistant Editor,
ably stood in for Juliana Pitanguy during her maternity leave. For the later stages, we
want to acknowledge Balaganesh Sukumar, Project Coordinator, Book Production
Springer Nature, and Ritu Chandwani of Springer Nature Corrrections team, who
have provided all kinds of necessary technical advice.
We really appreciate the efforts of all our authors working through the pandemic
lockdown, many of whom, as we ourselves, experienced a range of personally,
socially, and administratively difficult situations in their various countries with some-
times bizarre COVID-19 policy approaches—in Mexico, Colombia, the USA, Costa
Rica, Argentina, Spain, the UK, and Brazil.
Thank you very much everyone, for sticking with us in this project; we have
enjoyed working with you, and learning. Muchisimas gracias, muito obrigado!
Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico Michael K. McCall

May 2021 Andrew Boni Noguez
Brian Napoletano
Tyanif Rico-Rodríguez
v
Contents
Introduction: Framing the Spaces of Territorialisation in Latin

America—A Complex Labour of Herding Cats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Andrew Boni Noguez, Michael K. McCall, Brian M. Napoletano,
and Tyanif Rico-Rodríguez
Territory in Latin America—An Evasive and Deeply Embedded
Construct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Michael K. McCall, Brian M. Napoletano, Andrew Boni Noguez,
Village-Scale Territorialities in Eastern Campeche State, Mexico . . . . . . . 35
John Kelly
Between Subsidies and Parks: The Impact of Agrarian
and Conservation Policy on Smallholder Territories of Calakmul,
Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Carlos Dobler-Morales
Territorial Changes and the Fisheries of La Encrucijada Biosphere
Reserve, Chiapas, Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
José Manuel Mojica-Vélez and Sara Barrasa-García
Contested Meanings of Territorial Production: Modern Territories
of Coffee and Steel in Colombia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Tyanif Rico-Rodríguez and Rodrigo Chaparro Montaña
Asymmetric Territories: Power as a Bag of Chisels Shaping Rural
Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Adrián Ortega-Iturriaga and Tzitzi Sharhí Delgado
Towards a Territorial Eco-Genesis. Land and Water Grabbing
in the Oases of the Province of Mendoza (Argentina) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Robin Larsimont
vii
viii Contents
Historical Territorialization Process of the American Smelting

and Refining Company in Latin America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Sol Pérez Jiménez
Time and Territorial Variations of State Response and Local
Action in Three Socio-Environmental Conflicts Over Mining
in Chile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Tamara Ortega-Uribe
The Communication of Territoriality in a Mining Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Andrew Boni Noguez and Michael K. McCall
Participatory Mapping: Supporting Community Identity Through
a Focus on Territory. An Indigenous Tupiniquim Community
in Espírito Santo, Brazil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Maria Elisa Tosi Roquette and Michael K. McCall
Territorialization and Resignification of Residual Space.
Experiences from Bogotá, Colombia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Nataly A. Díaz Cruz
Building and ‘De-indianising’ a Nation. The Kuna and Guaymí
People and the Formation of the Panamanian State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Ana Sofía Solano Acuña and David Díaz Baiges
‘They Destroy Everything:’ Racialising Discourses, Environmental
Conservation Narratives, and Territorial Belonging in Nicaragua’s
Bosawas Biosphere Reserve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Nora Sylvander
Editors and Contributors
About the Editors
Michael K. McCall Senior researcher, Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía

Ambiental, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Morelia, Mexico.
Michael McCall studied at Bristol and Northwestern universities. He worked in
ITC (University of Twente) for many years, in the University of Dar es Salaam, and
in Sri Lanka. He is a social geographer engaged in Mexico and Latin America and
previously in Eastern and Southern Africa. His primary research and teaching expe-
riences are in participatory cartography of rural and urban local spatial knowledge
with emphases on participatory spatial planning, territoriality, community initiatives,
risks and vulnerability, and environmental management. e-mail: mccall@ciga.unam.
mx
Andrew Boni Noguez Associate professor, División de Ingenierías, Universidad de

Guanajuato, Guanajuato, Mexico.
Andrew Boni Noguez is a geographer from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de
México. His research has mainly focused on the geography of conflicts between
communities and extractive industries and other aspects of mining in Mexico, such
as mineral extraction in natural protected areas and the social implications of open-pit
mining. He teaches in the Geography and Geomatic Engineering programs. e-mail:
andrew.boni@ugto.mx
Brian Napoletano Assistant researcher, Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía

Brian M. Napoletano studied biogeography at Michigan State University and
Purdue University, but has since shifted his focus to the geographical dimensions
of the metabolic rift, including alienation and territorial dispossession associated
with capitalist urbanisation, conservation, resource extraction, and other major land-
change processes in the Global South. He has recently become interested in the
possibilities of autogestión and successful co-revolutionary mobilisation by the world
ix
x Editors and Contributors
and environmental proletariat to forge a hegemonic alternative to capital’s alienated

mode of social-metabolic control. e-mail: brian@ciga.unam.mx
Tyanif Rico-Rodríguez Ph.D. candidate in Geography, Centro de Investigaciones en

Geografía Ambiental, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Morelia, Mexico.
Tyanif Rico-Rodríguez is a sociologist with Masters’ degrees in Social Sciences
and Agrarian Studies. Her research interests are in territorial conflicts, place-based
strategies for territorial development, and environmental governance. She is a Ph.D.
candidate in Geography and her current project explores governance scenarios on
local knowledge based on territorial relations of care among humans and non-humans
in the coffee landscapes in Nariño, Colombia. e-mail: tyanif.rico@gmail.com
Contributors
Sara Barrasa-García Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental, Univer-

sidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico
Andrew Boni Noguez División de Ingenierías, Universidad de Guanajuato, Guana-
juato, Mexico
Rodrigo Chaparro Montaña Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, Ciudad de
México, Mexico
Tzitzi Sharhí Delgado Escuela Nacional de Estudios Superiores Unidad Morelia,
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Morelia, Michoacán, México
David Díaz Baiges Universidad Nacional, Heredia, Costa Rica
Nataly A. Díaz Cruz Departamento de Geografía, Universidad Nacional de
Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia
Carlos Dobler-Morales Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental,
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Morelia, Mexico
John Kelly Department of Geography and Earth Science, University of Wisconsin-
La Crosse, La Crosse, USA
Robin Larsimont Instituto de Ciencias Humanas, Sociales y Ambientales, Consejo
Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Mendoza, Argentina
Michael K. McCall Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental, Univer-
sidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Morelia, Mexico
José Manuel Mojica-Vélez Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras
(INVEMAR), Santa Marta, Colombia
Brian M. Napoletano Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental, Univer-
sidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Morelia, Mexico
Editors and Contributors xi
Adrián Ortega-Iturriaga Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental,

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Morelia, Michoacán, México
Tamara Ortega-Uribe Politics Department, University of California Santa Cruz,
Santa Cruz, CA, USA
Sol Pérez Jiménez Instituto de Ecología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de
México, Ciudad de México, Mexico
Tyanif Rico-Rodríguez Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental,
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Morelia, Mexico
Ana Sofía Solano Acuña Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad Nacional,
Heredia, Costa Rica
Nora Sylvander Department of Geography and Environment, LSE - London
School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK
Maria Elisa Tosi Roquette Vitória, Espírito Santo, Brazil
Introduction: Framing the Spaces
of Territorialisation in Latin
America—A Complex Labour
of Herding Cats
Andrew Boni Noguez, Michael K. McCall, Brian M. Napoletano,

Abstract This chapter introduces a collection of original geographical research on

territorial processes in diverse settings throughout Latin America. Most of the works
were first brought together in a pair of sessions organised by two of the co-authors at
the 35th Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers held in San José Costa Rica,
the guiding purpose of which was to illustrate ‘how territory and territorialization are
materialised in practice in Latin American contexts’. Rather than aiming to establish
a unified theoretical vision, the collection seeks to integrate the rich complexity
and wide ranging empirical applications of the increasingly important concepts of
territory, territoriality and territorialisation. The book covers a broad geographical
spread in terms of the authors, the institutions and the places they have elected to work
in, which is reflected in a diverse range of thematic, theoretical and methodological
perspectives behind each work.
Keywords Territory · Territoriality · Latin America
1 Origins of the Book
This book emerged from two sessions organised by Michael McCall and Brian Napo-
letano at the 35th Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers (CLAG) in San José,
Costa Rica, 20–22 May 2018. The sessions were entitled ‘Territorializing Space in
Latin America: Processes and Perceptions in Territorial Appropriation—Territori-
alizar el espacio en América Latina: Procesos y percepciones en la apropiación
A. Boni Noguez
División de Ingenierías, Universidad de Guanajuato, Guanajuato, Mexico
e-mail: andrew.boni@ugto.mx
M. K. McCall (B) · B. M. Napoletano · T. Rico-Rodríguez
Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México,
Morelia, Mexico
e-mail: mccall@ciga.unam.mx
B. M. Napoletano
e-mail: brian@ciga.unam.mx
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 1

M. K. McCall et al. (eds.), Territorialising Space in Latin America, The Latin American
Studies Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82222-4_1
2 A. Boni Noguez et al.
territorial’, and they hosted presentations in both English and Spanish from scholars
working on Latin America. We were pleased that Springer contacted us about assem-
bling these presentations into a book for their Latin American Book Series, and we
invited Andrew Boni Noguez and Tyanif Rico-Rodríguez to contribute their expertise
and make a stronger team of four editors. Most of the chapters included in this book
are based on the presentations made in San José, though some authors of studies
were unfortunately unable to contribute, their plans being derailed by the pandemic.
But then, we were fortunate to receive contributions from other authors who had not
participated at CLAG, San José, but whose work is very much relevant to this topic.
Ultimately, the decision was made to write all chapters in English, as the book
is intended primarily to showcase work on territory in Latin America for scholars
globally. As bilingual readers are already aware, excellent theoretical, conceptual and
activist political work, as well as narratives directly from practitioners and communi-
ties, is found in many Latin American and Iberian sources. In CLAG’s own Journal of
Latin American Geography, these include notable contributions by López Sandoval
et al. (2017), Correia (2020) and Haesbaert and Mason-Deese (2020). Additionally,
there is the recent collection of participatory mapping practices for reclamación y
gestión de territorios, likewise in English translation (Sletto et al. 2020).
2 Vision and Setting
The original invitation to contribute to the CLAG sessions, and by extension to this
book, asked people to submit works that illustrated ‘how territory and territorializa-
tion are materialised in practice in Latin American contexts’ and encouraged them
specifically to think along any of the following themes and discourses:
• How power relations influence the configuration of material and symbolic
landscapes.
• Claims and contests over territory, considering internal conflicts as well as
encounters with external actors and forces.
• How people legitimise their claims in the face of external forces.
• People’s need for territory extending the extant notions of belonging, ownership
and responsibilities of landscape.
• Territorial construction under the influence of pervasive entities including states,
communities and enterprises.
• Mapping as a mechanism towards either the appropriation or the reclamation of
(indigenous) territories.
An underpinning principle from the outset was that the essence of territory and
territoriality conform to geographic spaces, where social entities shape, influence
and control (to some degree) human activities and the access to what is in that
space, in terms of both concrete items and culturally relevant imaginaries. Therefore,
‘territory’ must always be a locus of local (and often indigenous) social organisation
and, ultimately, of struggles over power and effective control.
Introduction: Framing the Spaces of Territorialisation in Latin … 3
Territory is thus a concept essentially linked to influence over and in a tangible

spatial area which is essentially material, but whose control by necessity also entails
symbolic and intangible dimensions of human life. The cultural, historical and sacred
dimensions of territory, and the umbilical cord of identity with a people’s territory,
are co-related aspects that support, constrain and modify the spaces of territories and
the processes of territorialisation, as well as being interdependent complementarities.
Feelings of identity, place, placefulness or home themselves, however, are not suffi-
cient (and may not be necessary) to make a space into a territory. People’s need for
territory extends beyond extant notions of belonging, ownership and responsibilities
of a landscape.
Our interrogative approach towards the territory, territoriality and territorialisation
was therefore eclectic, inclusive, adaptive and critical. Though not committed to any
specific theorisation of the many which in recent years have been produced (including
Antonsich 2010; Delaney 2008; Elden 2013; Escobar 2016; Haesbaert 2011; Paasi
2006; Painter 2010; Raffestin 2012), the collection as a whole appreciates and shares
the rich complexity these thinkers seek to convey, using these concepts as lenses to
understand the confluence of the material and symbolic aspects of place with identity
and power.
Heretofore, we have spoken of territory and its related concepts as analytic
concepts. But in the Latin American context, these concepts transcend the theo-
retical realm or rather they shuttle between it and the sphere of political and social
action. In this sense, territory—or more aptly territorio—is a term that is becoming
an increasingly broader bridge connecting the academic and the realised worlds of
citizens and activists (López Sandoval et al. 2017; Haesbaert & Mason-Deese 2020).
It is this double-sidedness of territory which lies beneath our motivation to highlight
the notion’s empirical scope and, by extension, social relevance, in Latin America.
3 In the Book
This collection aims to investigate and articulate space and place, power and control,
of territory in concrete grounded cases. That is, interpreting how the trope of territory
has been configured or reconfigured through practices exposed by the cases in this
collection. Rather than proposing a priori, or even a posteriori, a definitive version of
territory and territorialisation, which would restrict the research experiences in the
chapters, we recognise the variety of explanations for the concrete manifestations
of territory, territorialisation and conflict in Latin America. The vision behind this
book is of grounded investigation and analysis of how territory and territorialisation
are materialised in practice in the region.
This collection, like the CLAG symposium that initiated it, recognises and show-
cases the richness and multiplicity that the concept of territory generates in the
region’s context. We have aimed to allow full expression to a wide range of posi-
tions, and we try not to constrain the diversity of thoughts and interpretations of
territory and territorialisation in the Latin American sphere. The book’s stories (chap-
ters) seek out the complex connections between these oppositional notions in the
strongly developed essentials of the Latin American context, both generic and local,
from divergent political stances, without forcing a definitive modality to unite these
different perspectives. We endeavour to find ontological and epistemological lines
and red threads, warps and woofs, themes and memes in the concepts, so as to get
a handle on territory and territorialisation, and not allow the term to elide into a
vacuous synonym for just any social, cultural or political manifestations in space.
Thus, our undertaking could be likened to the pleasing but challenging task of the
herding of cats.
The next chapter, ‘Territory in Latin America as an evasive and deeply embedded
construct’, by the compilers of the book, addresses multiple contemporary concep-
tualisations of territory and territoriality. Framings of territory emerge as historical
palimpsests, as instruments related to policy, and as powerful realisations of cultural
identity. For understanding and analysis, ‘territory’ can be interrogated as ‘territory–
space–control’ (as appropriation and exclusion), and as ‘territory–place–identity’
(sense of place, a shared landscape); related to both is the idea of ‘territory–knowl-
edge–representation’ (experience and discourse). The linked processes of ‘territo-
rialising space’ incorporate also deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation, and this
discussion introduces power dimensions of control, claims and conflicts, and agency.
Although the following scan (which is reflected in the order of the chapters)
highlights some key coinciding aspects of the thirteen case study chapters, we stress
that this is not intended as a strict grouping, nor are the connections we identify the
only ones to be found between them. Throughout, the reader may find links between
the chapters in terms of themes, study areas, conceptual focuses and methodological
approaches.
The first three case study chapters focus, through different approaches, on the
ways local territorialities are constructed and modified by a combination of local and
external factors. John Kelly, in ‘Village-scale territorialities in eastern Campeche
State’, uses participatory mapping to explore how local territorialities are histori-
cally constructed by farming communities in relation to internal and external factors
and tensions. The effects of past ‘fortress conservation’ policies, external drivers of
commercial agriculture and cultural differences within communities are part of what
moulds the ever-shifting territorialities of these lands in Eastern Mexico. In the same
region, Carlos Dobler analyses the effects of state intervention via environmental
and farming policies on the organisation of the territory. He shows how state influ-
ence in the form of farm subsidies and conservationist restrictions has affected land
use and organisation. José Manuel Mojica Vélez and Sara Barrasa García analyse
the role played by modernising agricultural policies in the configuration of territory.
They show how the construction of hydrological infrastructure aimed at extending
the agricultural frontier, has negatively impacted wetland ecosystems and fishing
communities, but also collided with later-established conservation measures.
More central analyses of the role of modernisation, specifically represented by
global markets, are present in the next three chapters. Tyanif Rico-Rodríguez and
Rodrigo Chaparro Montaña, in their chapter ‘Contested meanings of territorial
production: Modern territories of coffee and steel in Colombia’, analyse the social
construction of territory as a local-historical process. Global demand for coffee and
steel along with a nationalistic drive for ‘modernisation’ are the external drivers
that influence the ways territory is locally constructed, with ever-present tensions
regarding the uses and meaning of land. Adrián Ortega-Iturriaga and Tzitzi Sharhí
Delgado also study how the collision of global market demand for a highly valued
product (avocados) with local social-political realities results in the physical, polit-
ical and cultural changes of a rural territory in central Mexico. In ‘Land and water
grabbing in the oases of the province of Mendoza (Argentina): Towards a territo-
rial eco-genesis’, Robin Larsimont examines how the market-driven enclosure of
the countryside and the appropriation of water sources not only give rise to new
territorial arrangements, but also trigger violent conflictual processes.
Territorialisation driven directly by external corporate forces can also be a perva-
sive process, even though it is expressed locally, as shown by Sol Pérez Jiménez
in ‘Historical territorialisation process of the American Smelting and Refining
Company in Latin America’. There she describes the ways a global-scale mining
company has wielded political, economic and technological power to control and
reconfigure territories in four Latin American countries in the twentieth century.
Territorialisation processes and the social construction of territory very commonly
emerge within contexts of socio-political and spatial conflicts. Three chapters centre
specifically on conflict-related cases. In her study on three mining conflicts in Chile,
Tamara Ortega Uribe identifies the spatial strategies deployed by the state in different
periods of recent Chilean history. This socio-historical study illustrates the ways in
which different state strategies and local mobilisations in a conflict translate into
specific territorialisation processes. In ‘The communication of territoriality in a
mining conflict’, Andrew Boni and Michael McCall analyse the use of maps, or
rather a single ‘official’ map, in a conflict in Northern Mexico spurred by a mining
project in indigenous lands. Planned industrialisation in indigenous lands in Espírito
Santo, Brazil, and an ensuing conflict is the locus of field research by María Elisa
Tosi Roquette and Michael McCall. Through ethnography and participatory mapping,
they find how the threat of a steel industrial complex and the prospect of land dispos-
session induced an indigenous community to redefine and reassert their identity and
territoriality.
The sole chapter that deals with an urban context shares many aspects with
the preceding works. Nataly Díaz Cruz explores how transgressive uses of urban
residual spaces constitute a deeply symbolic form of alternative territorialisation in
Bogotá, Colombia.
Colonisation and decolonisation are the themes of the final two chapters. In
‘Building and ‘de-Indianising’ a nation: The Kuna and Guaymí people and the forma-
tion of the Panamanian state’ Ana Sofía Solano Acuña and David Díaz Baiges analyse
the territorial and political strategies involved in the colonisation of indigenous lands
in nineteenth-century Panama. Geopolitical and economic interests, along with the
establishment of a national identity, are shown to have been the main drivers of deep
territorial reconfiguration and cultural change. National and indigenous identities,
along with environmental discursive constructions, are the focus of Nora Sylvander’s
chapter ‘ “They destroy everything”: Racialising discourses, environmental conserva-

tion narratives, and territorial belonging in Nicaragua’s Bosawas Biosphere Reserve’.
The controversial policy of saneamiento territorial (‘territorial cleansing’), seem-
ingly understood as a tool for indigenous rights, is shown to be ignoring the intragroup
dynamics and can confuse the environmental aims.
Just as these works represent a wide range of topics, themes and study areas, they
also comprise a diverse set of methodological approaches that include ethnography,
historical documentation, social surveys, interviews with key informants, participa-
tory action research, discourse and image analysis, economic analysis, participatory
mapping, geostatistics, GIS, satellite image analysis and more. This reflects not only
the diverse backgrounds of the contributing authors, but also the range of applicability
of territory as an analytical framework.
4 Geographies of the Institutions and the Authors
Although the book was never planned to be a comprehensive survey of Latin Amer-
ican geography on the topic of territory, it covers a broad geographical spread
in terms of the people, the institutions involved and the places they have elected
to work in—Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama and
Peru. The majority are working in Mexico (from five different countries of origin).
Overall though, the authors’ institutions represent a diverse range: Mexico (three
centres within the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and Universidad de
Guanajuato); Argentina (CONICET—Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientí-
ficas y Técnicas); Brazil (Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo); Colombia (Univer-
sidad Nacional de Colombia—ESTEPA, and INVEMAR, Santa Marta); Costa Rica
(Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica), Spain (Universidad Pablo de Olavide); USA
(Clark University, the University of California-Santa Cruz, and the University of
Wisconsin–La Crosse) and the UK (London School of Economics).
The expertise and the experiences of the contributors are unsurprisingly mostly
forged in the inclusive disciplines of Geography, History, Anthropology and Soci-
ology. But reviewing also their supportive fields of expertise exemplifies why terri-
tory is a cross- and transdisciplinary challenge, well outside traditional silos. The
authors’ competencies straddle also: Agrarian studies, Art, Biological Sciences,
Chemistry, Creative writing, Cultural History, Ecology, Environmental Sciences,
Forestry, Geomatics, Landscape Architecture, Media Studies and Political Science.
We believe this diversity reflects the breadth of debate on notions and constructs
of territory and the multiple processes that can be analysed through the approaches
found in this book.
References
Antonsich M (2010) Rethinking territory. Prog Hum Geogr 35(3):422–425. https://doi.org/10.1177/

0309132510385619
Correia J (2020) Territories of Latin American geography. J Lat Am Geogr 19(1):132–140. https://
doi.org/10.1353/lag.2020.0018
Delaney D (2008) Territory: a short introduction, short introductions to geography. Wiley-Blackwell,
Malden
Elden S (2013) The birth of territory. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Escobar A (2016) Thinking-feeling with the Earth: territorial struggles and the ontological
dimension of the epistemologies of the South. AIBR Rev Antropol Iberoam 11(1):11–32
Haesbaert R (2011) El mito de la desterritorialización. Siglo Veintiuno, Mexico
Haesbaert R, Mason-Deese L (2020) Territory/ies from a Latin American perspective. J Lat Am
Geogr 19(1):258–268. https://doi.org/10.1353/lag.2020.0005
López Sandoval MF, Robertsdotter A, Paredes M (2017) Space, power and locality: the contempo-
rary use of territorio in Latin American geography. J Lat Am Geogr 16(1):43–67. https://doi.org/
10.1353/lag.2017.0009
Paasi A (2006) Territory. In: Agnew J, Mitchell K, Toal G (eds) A companion to political geography.
Blackwell, Oxford, pp 109–122
Painter J (2010) Rethinking territory. Antipode 42(5):1090–1118. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-
8330.2010.00795.x
Raffestin C (2012) Space, territory, and territoriality. Environ Plan D 30:121–141. https://doi.org/
10.1068/d21311
Sletto B, Bryan J, Wagner A, Hale C (eds) (2020) Radical cartographies: participatory mapmaking
from Latin America. University of Texas Press, Austin TX
Andrew Boni Noguez Associate professor, División de Ingenierías, Universidad de Guanajuato,

Guanajuato, Mexico.
Andrew Boni Noguez is a geographer from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
His research has mainly focused on the geography of conflicts between communities and extrac-
tive industries and other aspects of mining in Mexico, such as mineral extraction in natural
protected areas and the social implications of open pit mining. He teaches in the Geography and
Geomatic Engineering programs.
Michael K. McCall Senior researcher, Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental,

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Morelia, Mexico.
Michael McCall studied at Bristol and Northwestern universities. He worked in ITC (Univer-
sity of Twente) for many years, in the University of Dar es Salaam, and in Sri Lanka. He is a social
geographer engaged in Mexico and Latin America and previously in Eastern & Southern Africa.
His primary research and teaching experiences are in participatory cartography of rural and urban
local spatial knowledge with emphases on participatory spatial planning, territoriality, community
initiatives, risks and vulnerability, and environmental management.
Brian M. Napoletano Assistant researcher, Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental,

Brian M. Napoletano studied biogeography at Michigan State University and Purdue Univer-
sity, but has since shifted his focus to the geographical dimensions of the metabolic rift,
including alienation and territorial dispossession associated with capitalist urbanisation, conser-
vation, resource extraction and other major land-change processes in the Global South. He has
recently become interested in the possibilities of autogestión and successful co-revolutionary
mobilisation by the world and environmental proletariat to forge a hegemonic alternative to

capital’s alienated mode of social-metabolic control.
Tyanif Rico-Rodríguez Ph.D. candidate in Geography, Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía

Ambiental, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Morelia, Mexico.
Tyanif Rico-Rodríguez is a sociologist with Masters’ degrees in Social Sciences and Agrarian
Studies. Her research interests are in territorial conflicts, place-based strategies for territorial
development and environmental governance. She is a Ph.D. candidate in Geography and her
current project explores governance scenarios on local knowledge based on territorial relations
of care among human and non-humans in the coffee landscapes in Nariño, Colombia.
Territory in Latin America—An Evasive
and Deeply Embedded Construct
Michael K. McCall, Brian M. Napoletano, Andrew Boni Noguez,

Abstract This chapter provides an overview of the concepts and constructs of terri-
tory and territoriality, with its special focus on their meanings in Latin America and
to what extent these are considered as exceptional. The framings and material mani-
festations of the concepts are interrogated as historical palimpsests, as tools related to
policy in neoliberal transformations and the territorial turn, and thirdly, as powerful
realisations of cultural identity. In the section called, ‘territory as a geographical area
of, and with, values’, the concept is dissected, for analytical clarification, as ‘territory–
space–control’ (territory as appropriation and as exclusion), and as ‘territory–place–
identity’ (sense of place, sense of attachment, the idea of community, landscape).
Related to these is the idea of ‘territory–knowledge–representation’ (epistemological
experience and discourse). Processes of territorialisation necessitate change, which
must imply conflict, appropriation, alienation and resistance. This section considers
the interpretations and realisations of both deterritorialisation and reterritorialisa-
tion, which introduce discussions on power, control, claims and conflicts, as well as
ethical issues of agency and legitimacy. Concrete manifestations of territory, as well
as its conceptualisation, require a section on scale, limits and boundaries. The final
discussion point is the actualities of signification and representation: ‘talking about
“our territory”’, mapping methods and critical cartography in territorialisation.
Keywords Territory · Territorialisation · Space · Place · Land · Localness ·

Identity · Conflicts · Representation · Latin America
M. K. McCall (B) · B. M. Napoletano · T. Rico-Rodríguez

Morelia, México
B. M. Napoletano
e-mail: brian@ciga.unam.mx
A. Boni Noguez
División de Ingenierías, Universidad de Guanajuato, Guanajuato, México

10 M. K. McCall et al.
1 Vision
Territory, territoriality and territorialisation are primary themes in spatial episte-

mology with decades of contestation from divergent political stances over the frames,
centres and limits of the concepts and of their operating processes and constructs.
To find agreement on a common starting line or core is problematic, but we
emphasise here the essence of territory and territoriality as geographic spaces, where
social entities shape, influence and control (to some degree) human activities and
access to resources in those spaces. In a traditional Anglo-Saxon discourse, the spaces
of territory are typically understood to be associated with a specific or particular form
of political authority. Thus, some of these discourses have argued its origins in the
nation-state and assessed territory as a fairly recent invention, emerging in Europe
under feudal landownership and elevated within the transition to the capitalist mode
of production. However, with a broader vision, less historically and hierarchically
focussed, territory is always a locus of local or indigenous social organisations and
their struggles over power and effective control. At the larger scale in the neoliberal
global system, territories and territorialisation also provide the frame appropriated
by nation-states for hegemony, interventions and public policy in general.
Beyond this, the essential interpretations of territorio and its specificities in
Latin American contexts are recognised. The formulations of territory become more
complex when the cultural synergy of identity and place are laid onto the political
hegemony and economic power dimensions. This is especially pronounced in Latin
American understandings, where the cultural, the historical and the sacred are agents
that modify, constrain and guide the spaces of territories and the processes of territori-
alisation. When and where feelings of identity, place, placefulness and home (hogar)
are identified with geographic spaces, new conceptualisations and manifestations of
territory emerge.
2 Preamble to Territory in Latin America
2.1 Academic Musings on Territory
The critical question of whether, and how, territory constitutes a sufficiently impor-
tant topic to merit another book must be addressed at several levels. It is unarguable
that academics find the subject fascinating; critical (re-)examinations of the trope
emerge from across the academy, and there are thousands of grounded case studies.
Concepts of territory, territoriality and boundaries have long been brought into polit-
ical geography, highlighting as they do the geographical expression of social and
political power (Antonsich 2009, 2011; Ardrey 1967; Delaney 2008, 2009; Elden
2011, 2013; Foucault 2007; Haesbaert 2007, 2011; Haesbaert & Mason-Deese 2020;
Lovell 1998; Paasi 2003, 2006; Raffestin 1984, 2007, 2012; Sack 1986). The ambi-
guity and complexity become more apparent when territory and territoriality are
Territory in Latin America … 11
‘understood as implicating and being implicated in ways of thinking, acting, and

being in the world—ways of world-making informed by beliefs, desires, and cultur-
ally and historically contingent ways of knowing. It is as much a metaphysical
phenomenon as a material one. Territory, in turn, informs key aspects of collective
and individual identities’ (Delaney 2008, p.12).
It is this special concatenation of issues, real-world problems and academic disci-
plines that make territory so compelling. As a research topic, it is significant in so
many social science fields, undoubtedly geographical, with a growing presence in
social anthropology, political theory, environmental and social psychology and of
course in history. As a locus of praxis, it is related to individual and social identity,
to feelings of place and Heimat, homefulness and attachment and to many aspects
of the actual employment and operationalisation of power and control in territorial
conflicts. It is the driver of so many conflicts and wars. The notions of territory and
territorialisation have real-world human implications, making them more than just
conceptual abstractions for academics.
By contextualising the plastic concept of territory, we hope to avoid confusing
contemporary uses, not only in Latin America, with the different meanings that the
term has historically held following the emergence of the political state and associ-
ated systems of social relations (Elden 2011; Quaini 1982). Given the complexity
of its readings within geography, that territory is transversal, cross-cutting, fluid,
chimerical and an ambiguous boundary concept, all the conceptual understandings
and methodologies and grounded evidence that we can build on are contributions not
to a static definition, but as clues or signposts to making territory and territorialisa-
tion more usable concepts. We can consider Engels’s (1991, p.103) admonition in his
preface to Marx’s Capital Vol. III, that ‘it should go without saying that where things
and their mutual relations are conceived not as fixed but rather as changing, their
mental images, too, i.e., concepts, are also subject to change and reformulation; …
not to be encapsulated in rigid definitions, but developed in their process of historical
or logical formation’.
Theorisation and analytical dissection permit a more profound understanding
and some cross-pollination, and help to identify anomalies and outliers vis-a-vis
generalisations. These extend outside the conventional explorations of territory or
landscape, into more critical, inventive, inclusive notions of space and place and
power and identity, as in critical Marxist and feminist geography framings which
foreground issues of equality, exclusion, difference and power into the interrogation
of territory. This framing has radically critiqued limited understandings of territory.
Critical feminist geography and critical GIS have called for non-positivist practices
of knowledge production, more sensitive to patriarchal power hierarchies, including
gender, that produce social, economic, cultural difference, all of which are relevant
to understanding the territory (e.g., Pavlovskaya & St. Martin 2007; Wastl-Walter &
Staeheli 2004). Continuing in the epistemological frame brings the question of who
is included in the dominant ways of producing and communicating knowledge and
whose perspectives are marginalised (regarding territory)?
2.2 Meanings of Territory in Latin America
In the various discourses on territory and territorialisation in Latin America, is the

inquiry whether the concepts have significantly different meanings or concrete mani-
festations in the realities of the continent. Some accounts, e.g., López Sandoval et al.
(2017), Haesbaert and Mason-Deese (2020), contend on several grounds that the
terms hold special significance not shared everywhere. That is, there are exceptional
cultural identity and historical political considerations for territory and territorialisa-
tion in Latin America. López Sandoval et al. (2017) developed an important review of
alternative meanings, disputes and conceptualisations of territory and territorialisa-
tion in this context. An essential element of their argument is that the Latin American
lens is exceptionalist in the sense that the intense social debates in Latin America
over the concept of territory have resulted in highly fluid theorisations that ‘… ques-
tion the original conceptual boundaries of these constructs’ (López Sandoval et al.
2017, p.2). Along these same lines, see also, e.g., Escobar (2008, 2016), Halvorsen
(2018), Sletto et al. (2013). Haesbaert and Mason-Deese (2020) dissected territory
into three ‘categories’ inserted into Latin American social space–time: a category
of practice—‘a common sense conception of territory, as proposed in the everyday
lives of most social groups’; a normative category—‘what a territory should be (as
in territorial policies of the state)’; and a category of analysis, as in the academic
sphere—‘territory becomes a theoretically and methodologically elaborated category
through intellectual reflection’.
The arguments behind this position centre on three elements: political and
historical framing, policy impacts and cultural identity values. These elements are
addressed here as we move towards debates about Latin American exceptionalism.
2.2.1 Historical Framings, Palimpsests
History is present in the (partially) shared journey of Latin American societies and
cultures since the Conquista. Territorialisation is essential in land claims and enti-
tlements of the indigenous peoples, in the spatial state formation of Latin Amer-
ican countries (e.g., Chile–Bolivia, Gran Chaco, Panama, Chiapas), and in the resis-
tance of mestizo and indigenous peoples to the land alienations of megaprojects and
globalisation.
López Sandoval et al. (2017, p.45, 56) in their extensive review, argue convention-
ally that territory concerns power relationships in space, but they focus—with very
specific reference to territory and territorialisation in Latin America—on conflicts
‘triggered by the confrontation between global forces … and local, place-based or
territorially anchored groups …’. In their interpretation of territory and territoriali-
sation in Latin America, collectivities, groups and peoples are central. To tie that to
the essentiality of space and localness, ‘… we posit that space, power and locality
are fundamental elements for understanding territorio, particularly when these are
connected through actions, demands or claims of a collective’ (italics added).
The configuration of territory based on the historical experience and current reality
of Latin America renders it a profound de-colonialising exercise to use the trope to
make visible the specific ways in which relations of capital have expressions and
movements. Based on historical experience and current reality in Latin America,
the configuration of territory and its constitutive moments have been at the centre
of social mobiliation and struggles against oppression on numerous fronts, colonial
and contemporary (Halvorsen 2018; López Sandoval et al. 2017).
The dynamics of territorial formation have too much significance to be subsumed
into just one type of process called territorialisation. Analysing the fluxes of terri-
torial change has led geographers and political–cultural historians to recognise
processes of both de-territorialisation and reterritorialisation, (revisited below in
Sect. 5).
2.2.2 Policy—Neoliberal Transformations and the Territorial Turn
Territorial development and territory since the structural reforms of the 1990s in
Latin America have become synonymous with decentralisation, local development,
and rural neo-development. Decentralisation or devolution has meant in practice, the
neoliberal development public policy directions of many Latin American countries,
such as territorial growth zones, regional pôles de croissance and similar policies
(Bebbington et al. 2008; López Sandoval et al. 2017; Radcliffe 2009). The rhetoric
of decentralisation with which international financial institutions have justified and
obscured the imposition of various rounds of privatisation (Bello 2000; Chomsky
1999; Miraftab 2004) has facilitated contra-hegemonic challenges to the territoriality
of the state. Decentralisation frequently obfuscates the expropriation of land and land
resources, in the form of deferring the actual hard decisions on neoliberal controls,
and simply by transferring social costs (revenue from taxes, etc.) from the richer
centre to the poorer periphery regions.
A similar fundamental critique is made of the territorial turn in Latin America, that
is the trend towards state recognition of (indigenous) community property rights. This
is often presented as being a partial recognition of indigenous peoples’ demands for
territory, but can be re-interpreted as the driving mechanism for expanding neoliberal
approaches via the creation or extension of property rights regimes to community
lands and entitlements (Bryan 2012; Offen 2011). But the process is never completed,
the struggles continue (Correia 2019).
The state in Latin America plays a major role in territory-making and in the
naturalisation of links between territories and people (Paasi 2003, 2006; Sassen
2013). Without denying the major role of the state in enforcing ideas about territory
and boundaries, it is not the sole institution through which social power is given a
spatial expression.
2.2.3 Cultural Identity
So often, special places and their related spaces associated with territory are linked
to or derived from the cosmovisions and creation myths and dreaming practices of
indigenous peoples in Latin America (and elsewhere) to support the construction
of the sacred and spiritual dimensions of indigenous local territories. These always
include physical landscape features—mountains, caves, rivers, and smaller scale
nature—springs, sacred groves, trees, rocks or created artefacts, and frequently
beyond that, the presence of real or mythological animals which can embody extra-
human identities (earth beings). (Barabas 2014; Basso 1996; de la Cadena 2015;
Escobar 2016; Hirt 2012; Toledo et al. 2001; Wartmann 2016). The cultural, histor-
ical and sacred dimensions of place, and the umbilical cord of identity with a people’s
territory, are co-related agents that modify, constrain and guide the spaces of territo-
ries and the processes of territorialisation. However, the feelings of identity, place,
placefulness, home, are not sufficient (and may not be necessary) to make a space
into a territory. People’s need for territory extends beyond extant notions of belonging,
ownership and responsibilities of landscape.
Many communities and activists seek the progressive and emancipatory opportu-
nities opened up by conscious engagement in struggles to pursue alternative forms
of territorialisation. Recognition of a shared agency to challenge the hegemonistic
territoriality of the nation state is an antidote to a politics of despair, and a potent
reminder that territory remains an indispensable category in activating resistance by
showing the logic of the spatial divisions of their world (Escobar 2008; Sletto et al.
2013, 2020). However, the strength of cultural identity in so many Latin American
territories does not make it globally exceptionalist—affinity to a place and the belief
in defending our space seem to be a human universal (e.g., Ardrey 1967; Tuan 1974,
2001).
3 Territory as a Geographical Area of, and with, Values
We begin with simpler statements recognising territories as partial and open to

refinement or contradiction. Territory can be accepted as a ‘geographic space where
multiple social entities shape, influence and control human activities and access to
resources’ (Sack 1986), and therefore functions as a locus of local or indigenous social
organisation with inevitable conflicts over power and control. Territory represents
claims to some manifestation of ownership or entitlements over space, whether those
entitlements are based in modern or customary legal ownership, political, cultural
or moral power, or simply, blunt force and violence. Further, embedded in mate-
rial spatialisations of territory are conceptual, symbolic, ‘virtual’ territories that are
most often constructed upon cultural–historical landscapes. Territories exist because
people believe in them (Haesbaert 2011).
In essence however, there coexist essential dimensions of territory, which
themselves have various nodes of interconnectivity.
Territory 1: Territory as essentially linked to influence by some human group or

their social–institutional manifestations over—or in—a geographically defined area
(piece of land), and therefore space is the locus of control, power and appropriation.
Territory 2: Place as the locus of (cultural) identity and attachment; a tangible area
of land that is the focus of socio-cultural organisation (usually of a local community
or indigenous group).
These two conceptualisations can be summarised as territory–space–control, and
territory–place–identity. These have complex connections in the Latin American
context (e.g., Escobar 2008; Halvorsen 2018; Lovell 1998).
Associated with both is Territory 3, which exists as an epistemological experience
and discourse to articulate the historical processes of appropriation or disputes over
space and specific places, which can be termed territory–knowledge–representation
(e.g., Haesbaert & Mason-Deese 2020).
This is in clear concordance with many of the numerous theorisations of territory
and territoriality. Delaney (2009, p.16), for instance, says, ‘What bears emphasising
here in our attempt to see around, through, and past territory is that territory cannot be
considered apart from two fundamental aspects of human social being: meaning and
power and the contingencies of their relationship.’ Paasi (2003, p.109) has framed
it as: ‘Territory is simultaneously a piece of land, a seat of power and a functional
space … several important dimensions of social life and social power come together
in a territory: material elements such as land, functional elements like the control of
space, and symbolic dimensions like social identity.’ (Italics added to both quotes).
This may be interpreted as a distinct triple, but it can also be seen as Paasi using two
components—the material and the symbolic. These are mirrored to a great extent
in the simultaneous understandings of territory as space–control, and territory as
place–identity.
3.1 Territory–Space–Control
Territory is about space and spatial entities. This is such a sine que non that it does
not need much theoretical construction. ‘Territory is no doubt a geographical notion,
but it’s first of all a juridico-political one: the area controlled by a certain kind of
power’ (Foucault 2007, p.176). Space is the theatre or the stage in which the actors
function, though in some senses produced by the actors themselves (Lefebvre 1991).
Territory is about the concrete physicality of land and space and the people who live
it; territories are hard and real. But, territory as land needs to be constituted in a broad
sense, not only in the superficial sense in which it may be translated into Spanish as
suelo. Land is more than the soil per se, to include not just the surface, but what lies
on it—the land cover, and what lies below it, and it can include what goes on well
above it, for example, any restrictions on the use of drones or even satellite imaging
over particular lands.
3.1.1 Territory as Appropriation
The appropriation of land (and thus of nature) is not always explicitly discussed as
an aspect of territory, but just try establishing a territory without it. The centrality of
private property in most social economies, not only neoliberal, and the exploitation of
nature as the basis of production, suggests how the appropriation of land, often treated
as a passive backdrop to territorialisation, is better understood as a co-constitutive
moment of territory-forming (e.g., Lefebvre 1991 also Halvorsen 2018). Appropria-
tion of land (and nature) is something more than mere temporary possession, though
not necessarily in the alienated form of private property. The spatial expression of
this development runs through tribal territories to kin and clan systems, then to city-
states, and eventually nation-states. It is obviously a far more complex process than
this simplistic sketch, but the point is that the metabolic relation with nature, social
production, and reproduction and territoriality co-evolved as mutually constituting
moments (e.g., Quaini 1982) as forms of market exchange came to dominate.
3.1.2 Territory as Exclusion
A clamorous version of territoriality as exclusion with its expression in the nation

state is currently employed to justify xenophobic voices against migration into many
countries at a time when globalisation is supposed to render borders obsolete. Rather
than (territorial) history ending with the levelling of the Berlin Wall, we are entering
another spiral of physical barriers across varying political regimes. India, Pakistan,
Turkmenistan, USA, China, Botswana, Turkey, Israel, Ceuta and Melilla, etc. all
enclose their territorial claims behind ever higher and more fortified ‘beautiful walls’
(Jones 2012; Wikipedia 2021). It is evident that we do not learn from the decline and
fall of the territorial walls against the ‘barbarians’ by the imperial powers of Rome
or China. In the early 2020s, compelled international migration and the legacies
of colonialism are issues where territoriality is readily problematised in terms of
expropriation and exclusion.
Another concrete illustration is the spatial appropriation and control by narco
and mafia gangs, i.e., the physical control of the transit spaces of landing strips and
harbours, warehousing, etc. Besides the land needed for growing and processing drug
crops are the protected, invisible ‘buffer zone’ spaces around fentanyl and heroin labs.
Few researchers have been foolhardy enough to address this because of the obvious
dangers of local (participatory) data collection, but there is an obfuscating result
within the bubble world of academic literature. There is much research into the iniq-
uities of territorial appropriations by mining companies, mega energy projects, palm
oil plantations, etc., which indisputably are existential threats to local and indigenous
communities. The deadly impacts of combinations of drug commerciants, drug labs,
paramilitares, corrupt officials, large landholders or former ideological guerrillas
are rarer issues in territory literature. These might therefore be considered relatively
insignificant, but they are not—rural communities are deprived of access to their land,
livelihoods, security and ultimately their lives, in many regions, as in Michoacán
(Mexico), Bosawas (Nicaragua) or Urabá (Colombia). In Mexico, notwithstanding

notable exceptions (Dulin & Patiño 2020; Salvador Maldonado 2010), this type
of research has been left to investigative journalists who pay a heavy price—124
journalists murdered in Mexico in the last 20 years.
3.1.3 Territory and Alienation
Apart from myriad activities being organised on a territorial basis, a significant

proportion of human behaviour is directed, explicitly and implicitly, towards parti-
tioning space and towards maintaining the territories and boundaries formed (Gold
1982). Lévy describes this crisis in terms of a growing disjuncture between the nation
and the territorial state, or the ‘perhaps temporary but nevertheless spectacular victory
of networks over territories’ (Lévy 2011, p.278). Essentially, the coherence of the
nation as a spatially bound entity has dramatically diminished with the mobility of
capital and people, thereby rupturing society’s historical partnerships with the phys-
ical territory of the state. The nation-state functions as a sort of cosmopolitan-tribal
hybrid, exacerbating the confusion experienced by local actors.
From alienation as the separation from lived territory, and the interpolation of
alienating mediators between humans and the means to meet their needs, and even-
tually the formation of capitalist mediators of territory—rent, private property, wage
labour (Mészáros 2005), follows the fragmentation of territory and space into sub-
territories of living spaces of production and labour, and eventually into a multitude
of spatial sectors designated by use, property designation, etc. (Lefebvre 1991). Key
is the central position of private property and the nation-state in territoriality in our
modern epoch. All of this utterly depends on control of land, whether this is control
by physical force (guns and armies), laws and legislation (supported by myriad insti-
tutions), economic (market mechanisms and alienation of labour) or by cultural,
moral forces, not excluding indigenous cultural norms and customary leadership.
3.2 Territory–Place–Identity
3.2.1 Sense of Place, Identity and Attachment
Place and placefulness and place–identity are fundamental to the localness of terri-
tory. People are attached and connected to specific places, not only through the
obtaining of material resources and as a space to live, but through the historicity of
individual or family life/spaces and especially through the specific historical creation
of those spaces as a collectivity of people, whether as family, clan, community,
neighbourhood, ethnic group (Tuan 1974, 2001). The deep place–identity connec-
tions—the placefulness—become operative conceptualisations of sacred places, the
processes of symbolic appropriation and cosmovisions of place and landscape, and
are eventually translated into claims to territory.
The shared history that emerges from the place where people have been living,
maybe for many generations or centuries, creates a sense of community, elements of
place–identity and attachment regarding what belongs to us. These are the roots and
axes of the disputes between the various actors (clans, communities, peoples) who
may be claiming the same territories, actors who may utilise other modalities, other
logics, and maybe other expressions of territoriality in those territorial spaces. The
social construction of ethno-territories is the historical coexistence of indigenous or
other long-settled local communities and their environments (Barabas 2014). This
is the case not only for indigenous communities and it is not necessarily always
successful coexistence.
3.2.2 Community and Gregariousness
To what extent does territory require community? There are strong parallels here
with the socio-psycho re-inventions we need for the idea of community. Groups
have a certain degree of homogeneity, in as much as self-distinctions can be made
between inclusion (us–we) and exclusion (the other). However, it is misleading to
assume too much social and political homogeneity or unity of interests and purpose
within local communities or villages. The social groups may actually be very fuzzy,
due to multiple social–cultural identities or nesting of smaller units within bigger
ones. On the one hand, migrants who have exited a community may still belong to
their ‘communities’ for many years, maybe generations. On the other hand, many
people even inside geographic (place) communities may simultaneously have an
affinity to other communities, such as social organisations, religious groups, political
groupings, and increasingly with online communities, more likely prevalent with
newer generations.
Community needs dissecting as an easily facile umbrella term for a group of people
who are comfortably currently coexisting with a common face to the outside world
and with apparently agreed objectives, problems and consensus attitudes. Commu-
nity is a contestable social construct and an ideal boundary object that is broadly
acceptable in territory-building precisely because it is imprecise and fuzzy.
4 Nexus of Space and Place
Some assert that the place-based (legitimate) interests of a local community (the
‘community territory’) are necessarily contradictory to the aggressive logic of terri-
tory and territoriality set by the state (‘state territory’), and thus, place may be a
counter-pole to territory. But such a created dichotomy (humans’ explanations love
binaries) is unrealistic and ungrounded in two senses. Local people may assertively
defend or expand their territories against other local peoples—not just the state—in
pursuit of their perceived entitlement to a piece of land (with its forest, minerals,
water) for many objectives besides cultural affinity to a traditional landscape. And
the state frequently uses the same ideals of visions of place, identity with the
mother/fatherland, nostalgia, (chauvinism) in the service of its nation state vision.
The state can equate local place identity of the community to the historico-cultural
identity of the whole nation (or part of it). Both positions are myths.
People occupy territory in the senses both of living in and of protecting (struggling
for), and of appropriating or attempting to appropriate. People belong to territories,
and territories belong to people who identify with them, have a sense of belonging,
attachment and ownership. Territory is about struggle and contestations and therefore
territory is about places (in space) and the localness of groups of people. When space
gets a meaning for people and they form affinities for that space, then it becomes a
place; as Cresswell (2004) put it, ‘space is for moving across/transiting, and place
is for pausing’.
4.1 Space and Place: Territory and Landscapes
There is an alternative conceptualisation, (or maybe just alternative nomenclature),

of keeping the term territory just for the first meaning (Territory 1 above), and
using landscape (or place) for the second meaning (Territory 2) (Rozo 2010). From
land through landscape, to space, there are levels of abstraction in territory, from
the less to the more abstract. What are the links between landscape elements and
territory? What are the differences and overlaps? Landscapes are always cultural and
social because they are formed and reformed by human society (with rare global
exceptions), thus they might be symbolic or spiritual as well as physical, material
and social economic. In global sustainability discourse, landscape is taken as a basic
unit for biophysical, especially conservationist, analysis, whereas territory refers to
the spatial units embedded in entitlements and thus in governance and use of the
land. The concept of territory is essential to spatial justice, whereas landscape is not
(McCall 2016).
Territory is often related to very specific landscapes. A landscape can only be
controlled by certain actors or groups, by means of political, legal, customary or
simple force, if and where and when it is to some extent, even if not exclusively, their
territory. The processes of territorialisation make use of or exploit the geographical
landscapes that are perceived, identified, created by people (e.g., cosmovisions) in
order to interweave them with the spatial territories to reinforce the cultural, social
or economic forces. Thus, whilst landscapes and territories may sometimes coin-
cide in space, landscapes are more organically formed through the action of human
management on material natural factors, whereas territory refers to ‘a geographic
space where a society or political entity, shapes, influences and controls social activ-
ities and access’ (Sack 1986). If a landscape is demarcated (by one who inhabits,
claims or needs it), it may become a territory—be territorialised.
4.2 Urban Territories
Is there a need to distinguish urban territories? Is urban and peri-urban territory

distinct from rural or regional? If so, what are the distinguishing features in terms
of characteristics and concrete features, and in terms of processes of formation,
appropriation, resistance or disintegration? There are rural–urban similarities in the
neoliberal processes of capital formation and in social continuity or deformation
or cultural resilience. There are also dissimilarities, however, because of obvious
spatio-geographical differences in human population density, and in communication
and interchange that positively affect the ability to mobilise. Further are the historic
differences between many urban and rural situations—the length of shared experi-
ences and the familiarity with the physical environment that affect the constructions
of territorial identities and common purpose.
There are fewer investigations of urban or peri-urban territory and territoriality
than of rural in the geography literature of Latin America. This is despite the continent
having the globally highest degree of urbanisation, at 80%. Most of the relevant work
comes in urban sociology, social anthropology, cultural studies or identity studies.
There are exceptional investigations—theoretical and also practical—in inclusive
spatial planning, security, mobility and usability, for women in central cities and
urban neighbourhoods (e.g., Valdivia Gutiérrez et al. 2017; and see: Crespo Oviedo
2006; Iconoclasistas 2014; Portela & Errandonea 2017). Looking at the case studies
made by geography academics, it appears that the territorial disputes most often
addressed are rural scenarios of identity and environmental conflicts where these
tensions tend to be more visible and clear-cut. Urban examples are a lacuna in
territoriality investigation in Latin America.
5 Territorialisation: Territoriality Processes Imply Conflict
Territorialisation is about control, possession and authority, whether it is political,

legal, customary, cultural or simple raw power, and the implications this has for
the degree of autonomy or subordination, or shared governance. As Delaney (2008,
p.10) says, ‘… any significant revision of the terms of territorialisation (such as with
respect to public and private) entails an equally significant social transformation (and
vice versa).’
Territory is a historical construct in the sense that its meaning depends on the
historico-geographical circumstances in which it functions. A territory is not purely
imaginary, and a territory must be designated by temporal as much as by spatial
coordinates or markers. Territory is temporally bounded, even in human history, as
it only exists in relation to specific historical forms. ‘Far from being a timeless,
universal feature of human social existence, territory is deeply historical (and histor-
ically contingent) in a number of ways’ (Delaney 2008, p.13). Territory is inherently
relational and dynamic–global issues from capital flow to climate change easily
dispel any ideas of territory as fixed or externally related. Regarding the temporal
aspect, we more readily recognise the relational and dynamic nature of territory
when we talk about territorialisation. The timescale relates to the dynamics of the
conflict. Conflicts are changeable and shifting; aspects like the arenas, the degree of
contestation and the mechanisms of conflict will change over time, even though the
structure of the underlying contest may remain.
5.1 Deterritorialisation and Reterritorialisation
If territorialisation is the set of processes of identifying with, claiming, constructing,

appropriating, defending (and more) of territories, then what about the un-making and
re-making of territories? Recognising territorialisation as a process is fundamental in
the service of creating or appropriating or destroying territories. ‘La territorialidad es
vista aquí como el ejercicio de aprehensión y concreción del espacio’ (Crespo Oviedo
2006, p.14). Bryan (2012) argues for a reconsideration of the construct of territory as
process, highlighting the ways in which governing works through territorialisation,
and thus how territorialisation constrains social justice. Delaney (2009, p.13) takes
this further: ‘… restricting attention to territory as a noun may have the effect of
over-emphasising its apparent thingness and thereby neglecting its relationship to a
range of other social phenomena, most especially the social activities, practices and
processes that are implicated in its production and transformation’.
5.1.1 Deterritorialisation
The continuous cycles of deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation constitute the

basic rhythms of globalised capitalist society. The fundamental mechanisms of
capital circulation accompany both processes. Globalisation transforms. Globalised
capital liberates deterritorialised resources and appropriates the surplus from the
reterritorialised spaces via new manifestations of institutions and governance frame-
works. Deterritorialisation is the usually slow process of externally-powered trans-
formation, in terms both of dislocation or alienation from material land, and in terms
of cultural erosion and denigration. It degrades local cultural norms by generating
relativisation and transforming local cultural experiences. Culture here should be
interpreted inclusively, taking into account all kinds of social norms, belief systems,
institutions, legitimisation frameworks. Deterritorialisation, however, is not simply
an impoverishment of culture, but more of a transformation produced by the impact
of the external cultural forces from colonialism and globalisation on the local social
formation.
5.1.2 Reterritorialisation
Reterritorialisation is the restructuring of a place or territory that has experi-

enced deterritorialisation. Most conceptual literature sees reterritorialisation as the
processes by which a hegemonic, oppressive power replaces the prior autochthonous
cultural footprint with its own (Raffestin 2007, 2012).
However it can be more than that: a more pronounced re-territorialisation with
the radicalisation of territorially defined cultural identities. The social, institutional
and political processes of community resistance and resilience are contained in the
processes of reclamation by a people of their own territory. This we call more appo-
sitely, auto-reterritorialisation. The re-stimulation of community self-identity is a
result of the renaissance of local, indigenous culture and local political strengths
of resilience and processes of resistance against the seemingly inevitable history of
deterritorialisation (Ruiz et al. 2020). Thus, auto-reterritorialisation is the awakened
realisation of territory as a form of resistance by the community as they revalue and
reactivate their indigenous identity. Mapping can be a vital and dynamic part of the
resistance and reterritorialisation processes. (Sect. 6.1).
5.2 Power—Sovereignty, Control, Claims
The position of power in territoriality is well established, and key to analysing and
enriching explanations of territory. ‘Whatever else one might say about it, territory
necessarily involves the workings of some form of social power’ (Delaney 2009,
p.16) (cf. Elden 2011; Foucault 2007; Halvorsen 2018). This dimension foregrounds
the relations of power, control and inequality occurring at all levels in all systems,
and it is transversal, as with class, ethnicity and gender inequalities. What is central
and dominant in Latin America are the hegemonic relations of globalised capital and
neoliberal political systems that are attempting to appropriate land and resources in
most Latin American regions, and which form the focus of resistance and struggle
for many, many local peoples.
Sassen (2013) amongst others has warned against a false alignment of territory
only with constructs around the sovereign authority of the state. Territory is not
reducible to national or state territory; indeed, the political construct of territory
entails a measure of conceptual autonomy from the nation-state. Furthermore, the
notion and existence of territory are not exclusive to modern capitalist modes of
production. Territory as control or sovereignty of a space is not exclusive to global
or national or regional scales, it exists at smaller spatial scales down to the level of
local power players and individual households. Feminist geography has extended
that further to the scale of individual people, in particular the cuerpos (bodies) of
women, and brought that into the interrogation of territory.
Territory is a technology of politics in the sense that there are techniques for
measuring land and controlling terrain, and such technical measures and legal
controls function alongside the economic and strategic (Bryan 2012; Elden 2011;
Halvorsen 2018). The operationalisation of these technologies of power is expressed

in the territories and by the actors. Therefore, a prerequisite for confidence in terri-
tory is security of tenure, a shorthand for multiple socio-cultural political factors
and drivers that influence whether members of the community are, or feel, secure in
their territory. Perceived and actual security can be independent of the actual tenure
system, that is, the status of external or internal (il)legality, use and access enti-
tlements, and durability, though clearly some tenure settings are more secure than
others (Offen 2011; Vélez Torres et al. 2012). Claims to specific territories are usually
framed as an element of the collective rights to (collective) management of natural
resources on their lands, to cultural protection and enhancement and to autonomy in
general.
The idea of security of the claim (as ownership or tenure) continues to be prob-
lematic. In a neoliberal law situation, the rights of tenure will be contested in law
courts or in government legislation, and will depend on effective and legal posses-
sion. But in many situations, the local understandings and therefore the disputes over
territory are external to modern law, and are rather based in customary law, tradition
and customs with very different mechanisms and modalities of legitimisation. There
may be very little common ground or mutual understanding or acceptance of the
competing recognitions and legtimisations of a territory, and there is nearly always
a significant disparity of power and, thus, access to force as a final mechanism for
appropriating territory.
Property therefore is not necessarily a pre-condition for claims to, or projections
of, territory by a group with collective interests (a community); nor is it necessary
for evidence of such claims or beliefs. Bryan (2012), Mançano Fernandes (2012),
Offen (2011) and others have critiqued the whole approach of the territorial turn in
Latin America which is based on formal claims, noting the calculative techniques
employed in the modern property rights regimes and the marginalising of indigenous
understandings of space and identity.
5.3 Foci and Loci of Conflicts and Dispute
In much activist and academic research in Latin America, conflicts are the
central driver within territorialisation. The arenas of territorial contestations are
the sites of the visible conflicts and competitive behaviour concerning struggles
over endowments (resources), services and attributes, rights and entitlements to
nature’s resources, space per se, control of people, access to capital and institutional
or political power.
5.3.1 Legitimacy in Territorial Conflict
Territory embodies claims to ownership or entitlements, referencing the competing

claims of actors based on power in its myriad forms: legal (official or customary),
political, cultural, gendered or violent force. There are existential threats to people’s
lands in Latin America, the most salient being indigenous and forest people’s fears
that their land will be expropriated. Their demands for environmental and spatial
justice are articulated in terms of claims and entitlements to land (territory) and
access to land and resources (cf. McCall 2016; Offen 2011; Ulloa 2010; van Dam
2011). Such conflicts, however, concern not only communities vs. state (e.g., land
expropriated for conservation or energy and infrastructure projects), and communities
vs. large capital and megaprojects. The loci of conflicts also include inter-community
and intra-community disputes.
The idea that territory is the (exclusive) claim to a space by one community or
social entity opens a moral inquiry into the validity of entitlements. The issue is
whether that exclusive possession is emic, internal and self-validating (e.g., relating
to principles of First Occupancy), or it derives from an external legalistic authority,
that of the coloniser or a driver of globalisation. Conflicts are between the interests of
different groups who have their internal logics, their recognition of rationality, and
therefore feel a legitimate right to express and articulate their interests. A sustainable
territorial future cannot close off the conflict by ruling that there is only one, or a few,
overriding correct or acceptably legitimate claims to resources and their use. Indige-
nous peoples often seek legislative or ‘legal’ formalisation of their customary territo-
ries to ensure the external enforcement of their borders, and this process can generate
conflict. The process of constituting collective territories is intimately related to the
constitution of authority, as it involves the negotiation of physical boundaries and the
recognition of the legitimacy of a particular entity to represent the collective (Larson
et al. 2015).
5.3.2 Agency and Intensity of Territorial Conflict
Territory is about actual people—groups, communities, collectivities, affiliations, the

noyau of people. Territory is not simply abstractable to theoretical social constructs.
The groups, communities or collectivities are fluid and intersectional, and not clas-
sifiable by only one criterion. In the construction of territory, there is an obverse:
the exclusion of some people and the creation of the outside other (Nevins 2010).
Thus, local communities can be reactionary, xenophobic and tyrannical in place of
being cooperative, welcoming and liberating, depending on the perspective of the
observer and the situation. The need is to recognise the importance of peopling—
centreing the people in the territory, and recognising the quality of their social agency.
In Antonsich’s terms, we must avoid treating modern territory only as a terror(izing)
tool, whereby people are treated as homines sacri, waiting to be controlled, oppressed
or simply disposed of (Antonsich 2009, 2011).
There is a long continuum in the intensity of conflict from (a) discussion, through
(b) dissension, (c) quarrelling and rancour, (perhaps via shutting out the ‘other’), to (d)
blustering, threats, (e) intermittent clashes and eventually to (f) violent confrontation
(cf. escalation of conflicts, Yasmi et al. 2006). Though central to it, competing terri-
torial claims per se do not necessarily lead to conflict. Conflict occurs with attempts
to materialise the idea, i.e., to realise these competing claims (Nevins 2010). At this
point, power becomes the determinate moment. Territorialisation can use military
(including internal) force, economic, legal, social, cultural, moral or spiritual powers
as mechanisms and tools.
5.4 Scale, Limits and Boundaries
Territories are bounded geographical spaces (Antonsich 2011). But this boundedness
does not necessarily mean that everyone agrees on the boundaries; there would be far
fewer conflicts if that was so easy; nor do they easily agree on the elements or criteria
or language of boundaries. But in the essence of territory and the processes of territo-
rialisation, there are boundaries between the space of us and the space of them. They
may be flexible, fluid, fuzzy, transparent, invisible, symbolic, imaginary, seasonal,
peaceful, but there are limits. Boundaries are not necessarily sharp dividing lines,
borders (frontiers), but exist as gradual transitions (Nevins 2010). Though there is
ample evidence of indigenous recognition of territorial limits, we must re-emphasise
that many local peoples, not only indigenous, do not hold to strict, permanent, fixed,
delineated, (surveyed) geo-referenced boundaries (e.g., Barabas 2014; Sletto 2009;
Thom 2014).
A methodological–ontological question is: what are the spatial boundaries (if any)
of a territory? There are physical spatial–geographical limits in which the actors
operate. Where does a territory end? Territory is not exclusive to official political
institutions, and so numerous territories can overlap, sometimes in conflict, some-
times complementary, and sometimes without much interaction at all. The same
applies even within formal hierarchies of states (e.g., municipality, state, country).
A felt territory of a small community might extend to the cities where members
commute for work, to the markets where they sell, to other countries where they
migrate seasonally or temporarily, but still, they feel belonging to the territory of
home. Sloterdjik’s concept of spheres makes sense here—communities form bubbles
(in here vs. out there) that then form a mass of foam rather than a coherent globe
(Ernste 2018).
In practical operational terms, some indigenous territories require security and
management at a very big spatial scale. Population density in indigenous lands is
frequently extremely low; for instance, 100,000 people in Bolivia supposedly have
control over 7.5 million ha, 15,000 in Brazil own 2.3 million ha., and around 60% of
the Amazonian lands of Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador are indigenous territories
(data from van Dam 2011). This presents enormous problems for effective control and
spatial governance for forest peoples whose sustainable forest systems had developed
at a much smaller scale. The actuality is that indigenous/local forest peoples also have
national legal responsibilities over their extensive territories which are increasingly
difficult for them to physically control.
If the nation-state is generally regarded as the upper limit to the scale of a territory,
the lower is less easily defined. There has always been some understanding of the
territory of households or local groups, (e.g., street gangs or neighbourhood friends)

and down to the household scale, and eventually to the scale of personal space at the
psychological level (Hall 1966; Sommer 1969) which merges into the concepts of
cuerpo. Feminist geography argues that most academic studies of territoriality and
of boundaries have been so centred on macro issues of sovereignty and security that
they make gender and localised quotidian behaviour appear irrelevant. Therefore,
there is the need to disrupt traditional discussion of territory and boundaries to include
other scales which demonstrate inclusion and exclusion.
A radical alternative introduced by feminist geography to overcome limited under-
standings of territory is about re-seeing scale—space is lived and understood foun-
dationally primarily from the physicality of humans’ bodily involvement in space.
López Hernández and Rosas Chávez (2011) wrote of ‘understanding through subjec-
tivisation’, where the idea of territory transits from the personal body to spatial
conflicts in landscapes via human–social physical connectivity with nature. This
conceptualisation is an expression of a complex dialectic of nature and society, as
being mutually intertwined constructs that cannot be absolutely isolated from one
another, but also cannot be collapsed into each other. This greatly expands the range
and situatedness of territory and legitimises embodiment and affect. Feminist geog-
raphy introduced the concept of cuerpo y territorio y tierra (d’Ignazio & Klein
2016; Sweet & Ortiz Escalante 2017); and the feminist collectives, Collectiu Punt
(Valdivia Gutiérrez et al. 2017) and Colectivo Miradas Críticas del Territorio desde
el Feminismo (2017) ask: ‘¿Por qué las luchas desde el cuerpo?’.
6 Signification, Representation: Talking About ‘Our

Territory’
Territory is about identity, cultural, ethnic, historical, social and personal. People are
connected to their places. Territory in this dimension has a profound meaning as the
connection to a place. But we reiterate that the territory is a (more or less) bounded
piece of the earth that is subject to (territorial) claims by a bounded group of people
(nations, tribes, communities, clans).
Wolf (1990) drew attention to signification as a crucial aspect of power, and by
extension, of territorialisation. This, in turn, calls attention to the vital role played
by the representation of territory, so central that it is often regarded as part of terri-
torialisation. Territorialisation utilises the representation of geographical landscapes
(perceived, identified, created) to be interwoven with the territories to reinforce
cultural, social, spiritual forces. Thus, as argued in Sect. 3.2, the connections between
a localised people and their place, their landscape and locality, are not simply about
ownership or property. There are intense and deep connections, and operative concep-
tualisations of space as memory-places and sacred places that are aspects of real
physical or symbolic appropriation.
Subversive or counter-maps present alternative meanings of territory from the

various perspectives within the community (Sletto et al. 2020). There is much litera-
ture exploring traditional, vis-à-vis modern, representations of territory, usually via
the medium of landscape features. This can be well-illustrated with a comprehensive
study from Pearce and Louis (2008) from Hawai’i that demonstrates the range of
characteristics and conditionalities that can live in the cultural reality of a specific
territory—toponyms of course, seasonality, sun position, diurnality or tidal ranges—
and thus in the territorialisation. Wartmann (2016) recognises especially language
and ethnobotany/ethnoecology as elements of landscape and place in emic territo-
rialisation in the Bolivian Amazon. Beyond the standard idea of cosmovisions as
being only indigenous, there are endless representations of place connected with
territory in popular modern culture which express relationships between locality and
belonging. There are many forms and media for this: modern legal and customary
rights, toponyms, legends and heroic stories, art, music, dance, poetry, imagination,
mythologies of football and sports history and more (e.g., Kei Miller 2014; Lovell
1998; Sörlin 1999).
6.1 Maps and Mapping—Method
There are many methods and presentation media used to explore and try to under-
stand people’s uses of territory, e.g., ethnographic, political research, historiography,
participatory mapping. Mapping is a rich language for the signification of territo-
rialisation processes, because territory and space are mutually constitutive, and the
standard representation of space is by the use—and misuse—of maps and cartog-
raphy. This truism has been interrogated by many critical geographers and historians
over many years, so there is no need to duplicate those works, e.g., Bryan and Wood
(2015), Rundstrom (1995), Sletto et al. (2013). Mapping especially of indigenous
territories is an essential tool in the defence of territory, see, e.g., Barroso Hoffman
(2010) (indigenous peoples of Brazil); Escobar (2008) and Vélez Torres et al. (2012),
(Afro-Colombians); Shinai (2004) (‘Aquí vivimos bien’ Peru); or Sletto et al. (2020)
(Latin America).
In ‘non-western’ mapping, there are numerous examples of the alternatives utilised
for the media, the tools, formats, forms of representation, as well as the content, so
different from conventional western maps. For instance, Pearce and Louis (2008)
showed Hawaiians expressing the depth of place through performative mapping with
proverbs, songs and hula dances and material artefacts including petroglyphs, carv-
ings, lei garlands, kapa bark cloth and tattoos, Hirt (2012) explored representations
of Mapuche territory in Chile, and Valiente (2009), the significance of folk music
and songs in the identity of cultural territory in Argentina.
6.2 Critical Cartography in Territory
Kwan and others (Kwan 2002, 2007; Elwood & Leszczynski 2018) have argued the
limitations of traditional GIS as a (mapping) instrument for the representation of
human behaviour in terms of excluding or downplaying spirituality, emotion, ambi-
guity or intrinsic uncertainty, and for notably ignoring the essence of reflexivity and
the realities of power and patriarchy. Kwan (2002) called GIS a masculinist tech-
nology, and Schuurman referenced Haraway’s cyborg (Leszczynski 2017) needing
to be countered by a critical feminist geography. In mapping, feminist cartographies
are developing new alternatives to mainstream cartographic and GIS representa-
tions, disrupting traditions of mapping towards critical interventions. Feminist geo-
data visualisation aims to examine power and empowerment, embrace pluralism,
represent uncertainty, the excluded, the hidden missing data, and to consider
context—i.e., to reference the material economy behind the data (d’Ignazio & Klein
2016). Approaches in feminist geography highlight the centrality of representation,
signification and the recognition of identity, difference and power in territories.
Territory and boundaries are used as expressions of enforcing ideas about who and
what belongs in particular places and the kinds of activities and practices that belong
to a place or are seen as being appropriate. Thus, questions of identity and difference
are critical to the ways in which territory and boundaries are constructed. Racialised
territories and territorialisation are elemental and essential, in that the majority of
situations are indigenous claims for territory, or the struggles of indigenous and
marginalised peoples against incursions into their spaces by the state, international
capital (large corporations), mega-projects or by outsider settlers who hold explicit
or tacit state support.
7 Summing Up
The material, representational and epistemological aspects of territories need recog-

nition as mutually constituting aspects rather than as separate categories. Notions
of belonging or claims underlying territoriality, for instance, are not understandable
if distanced from the material features of the land with which they are associated.
Categories such as indigenous, campesino, rural, urban, natural, artificial, spatial and
temporal are all imbricated in such relational understandings, but, as the case studies
in the book demonstrate, they hold their own accents and emphases linked to the
specific (grounded, local) questions being asked and the answers being sought.
An essence of territory and territoriality is the focus on control, appropriation,
conflict and power, which also provides analytical capacity. Territory embodies
claims to ownership and entitlements, referencing the moral imperatives and
competing authorities based on the many faces of power: legal/customary, cultural,
gendered, political or moral power, or physical force. There are myriad manifestations
of how control and appropriation may be sought and accomplished, how conflicts
may be ignited, and power deployed over territory. There are internal conflicts as well
as with external actors. Territory is thus also a clear lens to understand resistance.
A territory’s boundaries are not only the limits of its material extent. The bound-
aries of a territory may be vague or distinct, open or restricted, fixed or fluid, but they
always affect the power relations of the territory, the imaginaries built upon it, the
practices that shape and change it and the ambitions and desires it inspires. Territorial
spaces and places are not restricted to traditionally indigenous or rural community
territories—they include spaces that are urban, rural, peri-urban, regional or virtual,
and territorial constructs by interstitial entities between states and communities.
The practice of territorialisation requires modalities for communicating the spatial
elements of territory and their claims. Participatory mapping and spatial visuali-
sations have proven very effective in the service of (indigenous) land claims and
community ‘good land management’.
The impermanence of territory is clear in the notion of territorialisation. Terri-
tories are not unchangeable, they are constructed, assembled, disassembled and
rebuilt, they expand and retract, they are appropriated, contested, reclaimed and
abandoned. Hence, the significance of re- and de-territorialisation as unfinished and
open-ended processes. These processes operate both from tensions within a territory
and in response to external forces. They too involve material and symbolic aspects
of territories and are thus central as analytic tools to understand our shifting world.
The framings themselves of territory are changing over time. However, a constant
of territory lies in its transcending the analytical and academic. In Latin America
specifically, territorio, is also action. In this sense, territory acts as a bridge linking
academic observation and reflection with social and political movement. The special
category of territory and the interconnections within the concept have provided an
expressive approach to both insightful researches and to social improvement. We
hope that the case studies in this book contribute further to these essential tasks.
References
Antonsich M (2009) On territory, the nation-state and the crisis of the hyphen. Prog Hum Geogr
33(6):789–806
Antonsich M (2011) Rethinking territory. Prog Hum Geogr 35(3):422–425
Ardrey R (1967) The territorial imperative. A personal inquiry into the animal origins of property
and nations. Collins Fontana, London
Barabas AM (2014) La territorialidad indígena en el México contemporáneo. Chungara Revi
Antropol Chil 46(3):437–452
Barroso Hoffman M (2010) Mapeamentos participativos e atores transnacionais: a formação de
identidades políticas para além do estado e dos grupos étnicos. In: Acselrad H (Org.) Cartografia
social e dinâmicas territoriais: marcos para o debate. IPPUR/UFRJ, Rio de Janeiro, pp 47–80
Basso KH (1996) Wisdom sits in places: landscape and language among the Western Apache.
University of New Mexico Press, Alburqueque NM
Bebbington A, Abramovay R, Chiriboga M (2008) Social movements and the dynamics of rural
territorial development in Latin America. World Dev 36(12):2874–2887
Bello W (2000) The iron cage: the World Trade Organization, the Bretton Woods institutions, and
the South. Capital Nat Social 11:3–33
Bryan J (2012) Rethinking territory: social justice and neoliberalism in Latin America’s territorial
turn. Geogr Compass 6(4):215–226
Bryan J, Wood D (2015) Weaponizing maps. Indigenous peoples and counterinsurgency in the
Americas. Guilford Press, New York
Chomsky N (1999) Profit over people: neoliberalism and global order. Seven Stories Press, New
York, NY
Colectivo Miradas Críticas del Territorio desde el Feminismo (2017) Mapeando el cuerpo-territorio:
guía metodológica para mujeres que defienden sus territorios. Colectivo Miradas Críticas del
Territorio, Quito
Correia J (2019) Unsettling territory: indigenous mobilizations, the territorial turn, and the limits
of land rights in the Paraguay-Brazil borderlands. J Lat Am Geogr 18(1):11–37
Crespo Oviedo LF (2006) Espacio, territorialidad y poder. Ciudades 70(abril-junio):17
Cresswell T (2004) Place: a short introduction. Blackwell
d’Ignazio C, Klein LF (2016) Feminist data visualization. In: Workshop on visualization for the
digital humanities (VIS4DH). IEEE, Baltimore, MD. http://www.academia.edu/28173807/Fem
inist_Data_Visualization
De la Cadena M (2015) Earth beings: ecologies of practice across Andean worlds. Duke University
Press, Durham NC
Delaney D (2008) Territory: a short introduction. Wiley-Blackwell, Malden
Delaney D (2009) Territory and territoriality. In: Castree N, Kitchin R, Thrift N, Crang M, Domosh
M (eds) International encyclopedia of human geography. Elsevier, Amsterdam
Dulin AL, Patiño J (2020) Mexican cartel expansion: a quantitative examination of factors associated
with territorial claims. Crime Law Soc Chang 73(3):315–336
Elden S (2011) Territory—part I. In: Agnew JA, Duncan JS (eds) The Wiley-Blackwell companion
to human geography. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester
Elden S (2013) The birth of territory. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Elwood S, Leszczynski A (2018) Feminist digital geographies. Gend Place Cult 25(5):629–644
Engels F (1991) Preface. In: Marx K, Engels F (ed) Capital: a critique of political economy: volume
3. Penguin, New York, NY
Ernste H (2018) The geography of spheres: an introduction and critical assessment of Peter
Sloterdijk’s concept of spheres. Geogr Helv 73:273–284. https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-73-273-2018
Escobar A (2008) Territories of difference: place, movements, life, redes. Duke University Press,
Durham, NC
Escobar A (2016) Thinking-feeling with the Earth: territorial struggles and the ontological
dimension of the epistemologies of the South. AIBR Rev Antropol Iberoam 11(1):11–32
Foucault M (2007) Questions on geography. In: Crampton JW, Elden S (eds) Space, knowledge and
power: Foucault and geography. Ashgate, Aldershot, pp 173–182
Gold JR (1982) Territoriality and human spatial behaviour. Prog Geogr 6(1):44–67
Haesbaert R (2007) Identidades territoriais: entre a multiterritorialidade e a reclusão territorial (ou:
do hibridismo cultural à essencialização das identidades). In: Araujo FGB, Haesbaert R (eds)
Identidades e territórios: Questões e olhares contemporâneos. ACCESS, Rio de Janeiro
Haesbaert R (2011) El mito de la desterritorialización: del “fin de los territorios” a la multiterrito-
rialidad. Siglo XXI, Ciudad de México
Hall ET (1966) The hidden dimension. Anchor Books, New York
Halvorsen S (2018) Decolonising territory: dialogues with Latin American knowledges and
grassroots strategies. Prog Hum Geogr 43(5):790–814. https://doi.org/10.1177/030913251877
7623
Hirt I (2012) Mapping dreams/dreaming maps: bridging indigenous and western geographical
knowledge. Cartographica 47(2):105–120
Iconoclasistas (2014) Mapas y mapeos cartografías críticas como herramientas de creación colectiva
para abordar el territorio. Iconoclasistas, Buenos Aires. http://www.iconoclasistas.net/
Jones R (2012). Border walls: security and the war on terror in the United States, India, and Israel.
Zed, New York, NY
Miller K (2014) The cartographer tries to map a way to Zion. Carcanet Press, Manchester
Kwan M-P (2002) Is GIS for women? Reflections on the critical discourse in the 1990s. Gend Place
Cult 9(3):271–279
Kwan M-P (2007) Affecting geospatial technologies: toward a feminist politics of emotion. Prof
Geogr 59(1):22
Larson AM, Cronkleton PJ, Pulhin JM (2015) Formalizing indigenous commons: the role of
‘authority’ in the formation of territories in Nicaragua, Bolivia, and the Philippines. World Dev
70:228–238
Lefebvre H (1991) The production of space. Blackwell, Oxford
Leszczynski A (2017) Revisiting Cyborg Gis: Nadine Schuurman, interviewed by Agnieszka
Leszczynski. Society + Space, 2 May 2017. https://societyandspace.org/2017/05/02/revisiting-
cyborg-gis-a-conversation-with-nadine-schuurman/
Lévy J (2011) Territory—part II. In: Agnew JA, Duncan JS (eds) Wiley-Blackwell companion to
human geography. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester
López Hernández GY, Rosas Chávez NM (2011) Los cuatrocientos pueblos/cuerpos: lectura del
movimiento campesino desde el cuerpo masculino. Géneros (Universidad De Colima) 17(8):75–
100
López Sandoval MF, Robertsdotter A, Paredes M (2017) Space, power, and locality: the
contemporary use of territorio in Latin American geography. J Lat Am Geogr 16:43–67
Lovell N (ed) (1998) Locality and belonging. Routledge, London
Mançano Fernandes B (2012) Territorios, teoría y politica. In: Calderón Aragón G, León Hernández
E (eds) Descubriendo la espacialidad social en América Latina. Reflexiones desde la geografía
sobre el campo, la ciudad y el medio ambiente. Editorial Itaca, Ciudad Mexico
McCall MK (2016) Beyond ‘Landscape’ in REDD+: the imperative for ‘Territory.’ World Dev
85:58–72
Mészáros I (2005) Marx’s theory of alienation. Merlin Press, London
Miraftab F (2004) Public-private partnerships: the Trojan horse of neoliberal development? J Plan
Educ Res 24:89–101
Nevins J (2010) Operation gatekeeper and beyond: the war on “Illegals” and the remaking of the
U.S.-Mexico boundary. Routledge, New York, NY
Offen KH (2011) The territorial turn: making black territories in Pacific Colombia. J Lat Am Geogr
2(2):43–73
Paasi A (2003) Region and place: regional identity in question. Prog Hum Geogr 27(4):475–485
Blackwell, Oxford, pp 109–122
Pavlovskaya M, St. Martin K (2007) Feminism and geographic information systems. Geogr
Compass 1(3):583–606
Pearce MW, Louis RP (2008) Mapping indigenous depth of place. Am Indian Cult Res J 32(3):107–
126
Portela M, Errandonea LP (2017) The role of participatory social mapping in the struggle of the
territory and the right to the city: a case study in Buenos Aires. In: Proceedings of the 8th
international conference on communities and technologies. ACM, pp 100–104
Quaini M (1982) Marxism and geography. Blackwell, London
Radcliffe SA (2009) National maps, digitalisation and neoliberal cartographies: transforming
nation-state practices and symbols in postcolonial Ecuador. Trans Inst Br Geogr 34(4):426–444
Raffestin C (1984) Territoriality—a reflection of the discrepancies between the organization of
space and individual liberty. Int Polit Sci Rev 5(2):139–146
Raffestin C (2007) Could Foucault have revolutionized geography? In: Elden S, Crampton JW (eds)
Space, knowledge and power: Foucault and geography, chap 14. Routledge, London
Raffestin C (2012) Space, territory, and territoriality. Environ Plan D 30(1):121–141

Rozo JDD (2010) Entre la materialidad y la representación: reflexiones sobre el concepto de paisaje
en geografía histórica. Cuad Geogr Rev Colomb Geogr 19:77–86
Ruiz GAQ, Kotilainen J, Salo M (2020) Reterritorialization practices and strategies of campesinos
in the urban frontier of Bogotá, Colombia. Land Use Policy 99:31
Rundstrom RA (1995) GIS, indigenous peoples and epistemological diversity. Cartogr GIS
22(1):45–57
Sack RD (1986) Human territoriality: its theory and history. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Salvador Maldonado A (2010) Globalización, territorios y drogas ilícitas en los estados-nación.
Experiencias latinoamericanas sobre México. Estud Sociol 28(83):411–442
Sassen S (2013) When territory deborders territoriality. Territ Polit Gov 1(1):21–45
Shinai (2004) Aquí vivimos bien, Kameti notimaigzi aka: territorio y uso de recursos de los pueblos
indígenas de la Reserva Kugapakori Nahua. Shinai, Lima
Sletto BI (2009) Indigenous people don’t have boundaries: reborderings, fire management, and
productions of authenticities in indigenous landscapes. Cult Geogr 16:253–277
Sletto BI, Bryan J, Torrado M, Hale C, Barry D (2013) Territorialidad, mapeo participativo y política
sobre los recursos naturales: la experiencia de América Latina. Cuad Geogr Rev Colomb Geogr
22(2):193–209
Sletto BI, Bryan J, Wagner A, Hale C (eds) (2020) Radical cartographies: participatory mapmaking
Sommer R (1969) Personal space. The behavioral basis of design. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs,
NJ
Sörlin S (1999) The articulation of territory: landscape and the constitution of regional and national
identity. Nor Geogr Tidsskr 53(2–3):103–112
Sweet EL, Ortiz Escalante S (2017) Engaging territorio-cuerpo-tierra through body and community
mapping: a methodology for making communities safer. Gend Place Cult 24(4):594–606
Thom B (2014) Reframing indigenous territories: private property, human rights and overlapping
claims. Am Indian Cult Res J 38(4):3–28
Toledo VM, Alarcón-Chaires P, Moguel P, Olivo M, Cabrera A, Leyequien E, Rodríguez-Aldabe A
(2001) El Atlas Etnoecológico de México y Centroamérica: Fundamentos, métodos y resultados.
Etnoecológica 6(8):7–41
Tuan Y-F (1974) Topophilia: a study of environmental perception, attitudes, and values. Prentice
Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ
Tuan Y-F (2001) Space and place: the perspective of experience. University of Minnesota Press,
Minneapolis
Ulloa A (2010) Geopolíticas del cambio climático. Anthropos Nr.227:133–146
Valdivia Gutiérrez B, Ciocoletto A, Ortiz Escalante S, Casanovas R, Fonseca Salinas M (2017)
Entornos habitables. Auditoría de seguridad urbana con perspectiva de género en la vivienda y
el entorno. Col·lectiu Punt 6, Barcelona
Valiente S (2009) Discursos de identidad territorial según el cancionero folklórico. ACME Int E J
Crit Geogr 8(1):46–68
van Dam C (2011) Indigenous territories and REDD in Latin America: opportunity or threat? Forests
2:394–414
Vélez Torres I, Rátiva Gaona S, Varela D (2012) Cartografía social como metodología participativa
y colaborativa de investigación en el territorio afrodescendiente de la cuenca alta del río Cauca.
Cuad Geogr Rev Colomb Geogr 21(2):59–73
Wartmann F (2016) From space to place in the Bolivian Amazon: exploring and representing
folk landscape categories with ethnographic and GIS approaches. Claudia Wartmann Natürlich,
Oberengstringen, CH
Wastl-Walter D, Staeheli LA (2004) Territory, territoriality, and boundaries. In: Staeheli L, Kofman
E, Peake L (eds) Mapping women, making politics: feminist perspectives on political geography.
Routledge, London & New York, pp 143–153
Wikipedia (2021) Border barrier. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_barrier. Accessed 15 April

2021
Wolf ER (1990) Facing power—old insights, new questions. Am Anthropol 92(3):586–596
Yasmi Y, Schanz H, Salim A (2006) Manifestation of conflict escalation in natural resource
management. Environ Sci Policy 9(6):538–546

Brian M. Napoletano Assistant researcher, Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental,

Brian M. Napoletano studied biogeography at Michigan State University and Purdue Univer-
sity, but has since shifted his focus to the geographical dimensions of the metabolic rift,
including alienation and territorial dispossession associated with capitalist urbanisation, conser-
vation, resource extraction and other major land-change processes in the Global South. He has
recently become interested in the possibilities of autogestión and successful co-revolutionary
mobilisation by the world and environmental proletariat to forge a hegemonic alternative to
capital’s alienated mode of social-metabolic control.

Guanajuato, Mexico.

Village-Scale Territorialities in Eastern
Campeche State, Mexico
John Kelly
Abstract The eastern half of Campeche State, in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula,

comprises a mosaic of forest and agriculture. The northern part, Chenes, is domi-
nated by long-settled indigenous Maya, in social property villages (ejidos). Since
about 2000, Mexican Mennonites have settled in private property villages there.
The southern part, Calakmul, is a forest frontier where nearly all settlement has
occurred since 1980, mainly as ejidos but including several private property villages.
Sketch mapping and interviews were conducted in 23 villages. From these and other
sources, GIS-based maps were developed for all or part of nine villages. The maps
depict legal and customary land tenure, state-initiated conservation areas (including
forest set-asides for payments for environmental services) and the pattern of forest
and agriculture in 2019. Historical and current struggles to assemble territories in
these regions are explored. While legal territorial rights were secured in the twen-
tieth century, some communities struggle against the vestiges of ‘fortress conserva-
tion’ in Calakmul, while in Chenes the emerging patchwork of Mennonites and Maya
engenders mutual accommodations along with struggles. In both regions, the under-
lying tension between commercial agriculture and traditional land uses contributes to
the evolution of territorialities. In many villages, apiculture (bee honey production)
is an important locus for this process.
Keywords Mexico · Yucatan · Calakmul · Social Property · Mennonites ·

Payments for Environmental Services · Forest Frontier
1 Introduction
In recent decades, preferred frameworks for understanding territory among academic

human geographers have evolved roughly in parallel with the priorities and strate-
gies of indigenous and marginalised rural communities. Related to these frameworks,
bio-conservation strategies among states and other actors have likewise evolved. A
J. Kelly (B)
Department of Geography and Earth Science, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, La Crosse, USA
e-mail: jkelly@uwlax.edu

36 J. Kelly
key question is how closely territory is linked to land tenure (including de jure, state-
sanctioned title), and whether the struggles for economic justice, natural resource
access and cultural distinctiveness are satisfied when tenure rights are ostensibly
secured. Rogerio Haesbaert and Liz Mason-Deese (2020, p.259) note that this tension
is fundamental to Latin America, a region whose very name carries a ‘colonial
connotation,’ but also ‘subversive of … Eurocentric epistemic approaches and other
sociocultural practices.’ One source of variation across Latin America is the scale of
territorial expression: the individual (typically associated with de jure private prop-
erty, and with commercially-focused land practices); the village (long the strongest
locus of identity and land titling in Mexico, more than in other Latin American states);
and the regional (e.g. an indigenous language community; or, a recently settled forest
frontier zone) (Kelly et al. 2010).
In an influential article, Karl Offen (2003, p.43) identified the territorial turn:
indigenous and other marginalised rural communities were finally gaining title (often
as regional-scale communal properties), after long struggles for state recognition of
rights over lands hitherto legally regarded as ‘unoccupied national lands.’ In Mexico,
this step had largely been achieved decades earlier, as village-scale social proper-
ties—ejidos and comunidades agrarias1 —were granted through post-revolutionary
land reform, mainly between 1920 and 1940. In Territory: A Short Introduction
(2005, p.12), David Delaney challenged scholars to see ‘through’ territory, to ‘reveal
what is commonly obscured by focusing too much on sovereignty, jurisdiction, and
property.’ A decade later, Latin Americanist social scientists and rural community
activists were more directly critical of what Ramzi Tubbeh and Karl Zimmerer
(2019, p.49) called the ‘ethnoterritorial fix.’ For an indigenous community in the
Peruvian Amazon, legal recognition of land rights through titling was a necessary
step, but it could not resolve the tension ‘between the need to defend their territories
and to enhance their market-based livelihoods’ (2019, p.48). In Limits to Decolo-
nization (2018), Penelope Anthias (quoted in McEwan et al. 2019, p.35) examined
the ‘limits of rights and state-led territorial titling processes’ in the Chaco region of
Bolivia.
Joel Correia (2019, p.16; see also Halvorsen, 2019, p.2) observed that, for the
indigenous Ache of Paraguay and Brazil, territory is a ‘dynamic assemblage.’ The
Ache struggles and accommodations with the state, with ‘traditional campesinos’
(Correia 2019, p.16), and with expanding commercial soybean farming, are reminis-
cent of the focus of this chapter: Campeche State, in Mexico. However, the ‘socio-
territorial struggles’ (Haesbaert and Mason-Deese 2020, p.263) in Campeche are
less obvious, less violent and less acute than in the Ache zone, or the Chaco, or
the Amazon zone. In the Calakmul and Chenes regions in eastern Campeche, three
key territorialising events have unfolded over longer stretches of time and space:
property titling of indigenous communities; settlement of the forest frontier by
campesinos (working-class rural residents), both non-indigenous settlers (in Mexico,
1 Ejidos were established for both indigenous and non-indigenous communities, mainly through the
seizure of large haciendas (private properties). Comunidades agrarias comprise recognized historic
indigenous lands, and usually function much like ejidos (Kelly et al., 2010).
Village-Scale Territorialities in Eastern Campeche State, Mexico 37
non-indigenous people are often called mestizo) and displaced indigenous ones; and
the influx of non-indigenous, commercially oriented agriculturalists (Mennonites),
interspersed among indigenous communities.
In 2016 and 2017, to document the presence, origins, legal status and cultural
purposes of village-managed forest reserves, I conducted semi-structured inter-
views, questionnaires and participatory sketch mapping exercises with residents in
23 villages: 16 in Calakmul and 7 in Chenes (including one Mennonite settlement).
I found that village-scale forest reserves did exist, mainly in response to Mexican
government programs of payments for environmental services (PES), but that there
was little common ground between autochthonous (locally generated) and state-
driven concepts of protected areas (Kelly 2020). In this chapter, I will use the same
data set, and secondary sources, to explore broader historical and current struggles
to assemble territories in these regions.
2 The Study Area
The human-environmental geography of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula embodies

classic core and periphery (see Fig. 1). From north to south, the city of Mérida
is surrounded by the continuously settled ecumene of Yucatan State, where Maya is
still spoken in dozens of villages. Starting 300 km south of Mérida and continuing
another 300 km southward is the Selva Maya, a 200-km-wide tropical moist forest
frontier zone bisected by the Mexico-Guatemala border. Its northern part, in south-
eastern Campeche State, contains the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve; its southern part
is the Petén region of Guatemala. This forest frontier was (re)settled only since the
late twentieth century, by mainly non-indigenous Mexicans carving new commu-
nities out of the forest, including some of the last village-scale social properties
(ejidos). The Calakmul region’s ejidos were established during the last years of the
agrarian reform program, initiated in the 1920s and covering about 50% of Mexico’s
rural land base by the time of its 1993–2006 neoliberal dilution. About halfway along
this ecumene-forest frontier gradient is the Chenes region of northeastern Campeche
State, where long-settled Maya villages (social property ejidos, like the Calakmul
villages) are more widely spaced than their Yucatan State counterparts further north,
leaving unclaimed pockets of federal land between many of them—until Mexican
Mennonites bought them and established their own private property communities to
plant commercial soybeans, sorghum and maize, mostly since 2000.2
Both study areas are karstic, with thinner soils and more rugged topography than
in the Yucatan State ecumene further north (Beach et al. 2006: 166). In the Chenes,
small, arable dolines (‘flatlands’) tend to be sharply distinguished from the rocky
2 Pacheco et al. (2011) identified five actor groups transforming Latin American tropical forest
landscapes: agribusiness farmers, modernizing cattle ranchers, campesino smallholders, colo-
nizing loggers, and resurgent traditional/indigenous agro-extractors. As rather small-scale migrant
colonists, yet with high access to global markets and to financial resources, the Chenes Mennonites
depart from this template.
38 J. Kelly
Fig. 1 Location of study areas within the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico
‘uplands,’ while in most of Calakmul, uplands and flatlands tend to be less distinct,
except for seasonally saturated poljes (bajos). Small, perennial ponds (aguadas) are
scattered across both areas.
3 De Jure and De Facto Individual Parcels

and Common-Use Areas in Mexico
De jure territories are state-sanctioned registered and surveyed properties. If they

are private property, their titles and descriptions are stored in a county (municipio)
cadastre. If social property, the entire ejido polygon is titled to the original group
of households granted the land or to their heirs (ejidatarios), and its description
is stored in the National Agrarian Registry (Registro Agrario Nacional, or RAN).
Despite this legal common ownership, most ejidos internally recognise parcels as de
facto belonging to individuals or households. In many ejidos, a significant portion
of the villagers are pobladores or avecindados, i.e. those without legal land rights
within the ejido system, though they may rent land (Kelly et al. 2010).
Since the neoliberal counter-reforms of 1993–2006, in some regions of Mexico
many of these former ejidos have been entirely converted to de jure private, individual
properties. In other regions, a partial privatisation has occurred: the state-certified
individual parcels (and often also the common use areas), but the fundamental title
is still held jointly by all ejidatarios. In much of the Yucatan Peninsula, including
the study area, most ejidos only had their village perimeters legally surveyed and
registered. Internal divisions are only de facto: they are agreed to and recognised
within the ejido assembly’s self-government processes, but not registered in the
cadastral records, nor in the RAN. Torres-Mazuera (2018, p.163) argues that even
this partial participation in neoliberal reform has contributed to a more individualised
concept of land.
When an ejido is first established—as a new legal description of a long-established
territory (in Chenes), or as a new settlement (in Calakmul)—typically a few parcels
near the village centre (where nearly all house lots are located in this part of
Mexico) are set aside for community purposes (e.g. to support the school). In the
Calakmul sample, territory far from the village centre and from any highway was
often initially left unallocated to any individual. According to sketch mapping inter-
views I conducted in 1999, for example, the ejido Ley de Fomento (Fig. 2) contained
unallocated strips comprising about 25% of its territory. Later, these lands have
often been distributed to the next generation of ejidatarios. In Calakmul ejidos with
long-term, intense, creative relationships with conservation NGOs and government
agencies, some of these ‘reserves’ have been internally or externally codified as
village-scale forest protected areas (AVDCs in the Mexican government’s parlance)
(Kelly 2020, p.207).
In other ejidos throughout Mexico, internal de facto divisions include sizeable
areas that are locally considered as belonging to the ejido as a whole—potentially
a significant expression of enduring village-scale territoriality. In parts of Mexico
where neoliberal partial privatisation is more common, these are registered as de
jure ‘common use areas.’ In this study, de facto common use areas are more typical
among the Chenes Maya than among the Calakmul frontier settlements. Permitted
activities in these common use areas typically include gathering firewood, hunting,
and occasionally swidden (shifting) agriculture. Some are located around sacred sites
or water features.
40 J. Kelly
Fig. 2 One Calakmul ejido (mixed mestizo/displaced indigenous), one private property settlement
(displaced indigenous), and part of another ejido
4 Methods
On a blank paper, the participants (four to nine individuals) were asked to draw sketch
maps of their community, starting with its boundary and toponyms (place names).
The aims of the participatory mapping and questionnaires (adapted from Herlihy and
Knapp 2003) were to: (1) stimulate collective knowledge of de facto and de jure land
tenure parcels, forest set-asides, productive landscapes and state interventions; (2)
elicit unanticipated indications of individual or collective cognitive maps of a village
territory, and the past or current struggles that shaped it and (3) create an opportunity
for new research questions to arise (e.g. concerning renting agricultural parcels to
Fig. 3 One Calakmul private property settlement (mestizo), plus part of an ejido
Mennonites in some Chenes communities). Typical participants were a comisariado

ejidal (ejido leader) or equivalent, and two to five others, usually adult males.
To illustrate the varied patterns of overlapping, evolving constructions of territory,
and possibly the struggles that were (or are) a part of that assemblage, I combined
data from the participatory maps and questionnaires, land tenure records and satellite
imagery to prepare maps of all or parts of nine communities (Figs. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6):
Each map displays four layers of territorial expression:
(1) De jure tenure status of village-scale territories: social property ejidos in purple;
and collections of private, individual parcels (plus, sometimes, a few titled
common-use properties) in red.
(2) Within ejidos, de facto land rights: customary, unofficial areas recognised
within the community, but not registered by the state. These comprise indi-
vidual parcels; common use areas; and in Fig. 5, individual parcels rented to
Mennonite farmers.
(3) Overlay of state-initiated conservation areas: the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve
(divided according to the Mexican system into ‘core,’ ‘intensive use,’ and
‘multiple use’ zones, the latter two categories to include environmentally and
economically sustainable human activities); and environmental services (PES)
forest set-asides.
(4) Landscape patterns (satellite imagery), most prominently showing areas of
agriculture and forest in 2019. This data layer is included: (1) as a mate-
rial expression of key resource-based economic activities and (2) because the
forest/non-forest patterns can be one manifestation of cultural distinctiveness,
and the struggles to maintain or construct it.3
3 The neo-Marxist geographer Don Mitchell (2009: 129) focuses on ‘the ways that specific, often
local struggles intersect with wider scale processes…to determine the transformation of landscape
in a particular locale.’ In Latin America, Bernardo Mançano Fernandes and Cliff Welch (2019) are
among those using this landscape-focused approach.
42 J. Kelly
Fig. 4 One Calakmul ejido (displaced indigenous)
The maps in this chapter show actual community (ejido or private property village)
boundaries, but all internal parcels and PES reserve polygons are shown only approx-
imately, to ensure confidentiality and because precise locations were only occasion-
ally identified. These parcel polygons as mapped are broadly representative of each
village’s patterns, based on participatory sketch maps and interviews and augmented
with government records that lack exact coordinates (e.g. Comisión Nacional Fore-
stal 2010), and by visual interpretation of the c. 2019 ArcGIS remote sensing imagery
layer also displayed in the maps. Private parcels in some figures are based on the
Campeche State cadastral records (e.g. Secretaria de Finanzas 2020). De facto parcel
boundaries are especially sensitive since they are usually not in the public record.
In the Calakmul region, additional historical data was drawn from participatory
and personal GPS-based field mapping conducted from 1997 to 2002, during the
author’s work with the Mexican conservation and rural development NGO Pronatura
Península de Yucatán.
Fig. 5 Two Chenes ejidos (in situ indigenous Maya)
5 Results: Territorial Assemblages and Struggles in Chenes

and Calakmul
The timing of a settlement’s establishment is a critical factor in the initial struggles for
territory and subsequent transformations. In rural Mexico, wider-scale processes in
various eras have included state-defined tenure regimes (social and private), and state-
driven territorial conservation programs, including biosphere reserves with suppos-
edly uninhabited core zones adjacent to sustainable development zones (most were
established circa 1980–1995), and forest set-asides to justify payments for envi-
ronmental services such as carbon storage (in Spanish, PSA—pagos por servicios
ambientales, since 2003). Links to evolving commercial markets for land-based prod-
ucts are mediated through local, national and global consumer demands. These are
filtered through state subsidies, the multinational accords that constrict these, and
44 J. Kelly
Fig. 6 One Chenes private property settlement (Mennonite)
village- and individual-scale access to capital and support services. Guided by these
processes, each village collective (and each individual) adds unpredictable, creative
practices, and decisions.
I will consider five generalised processes that overlap in space and time. For each,
I will briefly place the study area in context, and then observe how territorial struggles
manifest in the maps of sample communities.
5.1 First Process: Village-Scale State Titling of Chenes Maya

Territories
Indigenous Maya have occupied the Chenes region for millennia. Since at least the
early Colonial period, they have played a semi-peripheral role in the ecumene of what
is now western Yucatan State. Between 1923 and 1940, the Mexican government
issued village-scale titles to Chenes Maya communities (Cantún Caamal and Pat
Fernández 2012, p.10). Besides scattered private holdings, lands left over after the
formation of ejidos remained federal property. The struggle for state-recognised
titling—the territorial ‘fix’—was essentially accomplished. Was it a victory? Not
entirely: the Maya lost (or were not given) a chance to claim the spaces between
their villages, nor to assert legal title over territories larger than ejidos.
Scholars have long debated the inevitability of the ‘village’ as the primary
scale of territorial identity in Mexico (Restall and Gabbert 2017). Does the post-
Revolutionary ejido (and its colonial and nineteenth-century antecedents) represent
a continuation of autochthonous territorial practices; or, is it a state-imposed system
to dilute indigenous (or campesino) identity and power, and to channel conflicts
towards squabbles between villages (see Hodgson 2002 on the Tanzanian state’s
1980s imposition of village-scale territories among the Maasai)? Many of Mexico’s

indigenous language areas form coherent regions. During the colonial and national
eras, some of these (and other regions) evolved into cognitive territories sometimes
called patrias chicas (Warman 1988; Urquijo 2008, p.21; Kelly et al. 2010, p.173), but
with indistinct boundaries and little sense of organised control. The local village as
the fundamental unit of allegiance and administration has at least some pre-Hispanic
roots in Mexico (Mundy 1996, p.214). For Campeche State during the contact/early
colonial period, this is documented in the Calkini Codex, a series of manuscripts
written between 1579 and 1821 (Cantún Caamal and Pat Fernández 2012, p.111).
During the twentieth-century ejido titling process, Chenes Maya villagers’ poten-
tial claims to lands between the villages faced additional obstacles. Yucatan Maya
considered inter-village forests as ‘open to anyone,’ typically for swidden agricul-
ture (Torres-Mazuera 2018, p.157), thus these temporary usufruct rights blurred the
perimeters of many village-scale claims. The last regional-scale autonomous terri-
tories on the peninsula had been extinguished during the Caste Wars (in Chenes, c.
1847–1855), and geographic disruptions during the same conflict made it difficult
for some villagers to document their full territories to the state authorities (Torres-
Mazuer 2018, p.154). Also, the state cited Chenes villages’ small populations as a
reason to title small territories (Cantún Caamal and Pat Fernández 2012, p.111).
Katab and Xcalot Akal (Fig. 5) are in situ Chenes Maya ejidos; adjacent federal
land was sold to Mennonites c. 2000 as individual, private parcels (Fig. 6). De
facto (internal) tenure patterns in these indigenous ejidos vary. Nearly all Katab is
individual parcels; each parcel includes both arable flatland and upland. In Xcalot
Akal, most upland is considered ‘common use’; flatland is divided into individual
parcels, smaller than those in Katab. The maps illustrate how the struggle for state
sanction of territory was essentially won in the 1920s and 1930s—but at the cost
of extinguishing any vestiges of region-scale territoriality, including for legal claims
over lands between ejidos. De facto (non-state-sanctioned) territorial practices vary
between two otherwise similar villages, demonstrating the persistence of village-
scale assemblages in Chenes.
5.2 Second Process: Settlement and Titling of the Calakmul

Forest Frontier
The Calakmul region was part of the Classic Maya (c. 200 BC–900 AD) core of
urban and agricultural polities, but during most of the twentieth century, it was
mainly nearly uninhabited forest. Apart from a few private holdings, it remained
federal or state land, plus (from about 1930 to 2000) ‘forest extensions’ (ampliaciones
forestales) titled to several distant Chenes ejidos, originally for tapping Manilkale
spp. trees for chicle (chewing gum) (Cantún Caamal and Pat Fernández 2012, p.121),
46 J. Kelly
though without continuous settlement.4 From about 1975 to 1995, the Mexican state
issued village-scale titles during (or just before) the initial settlement of campesinos
from the Mexican states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Veracruz and elsewhere. The core of
the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve included leftover federal land and few settlements
(including Bel Ha, in Fig. 3).
Almost half of these late twentieth-century Calakmul villages are partly or entirely
inhabited by displaced indigenous people—indigenous by self-identification and/or
language. Most are Ch’ol Maya from the state of Chiapas, who fled intercommunity
conflicts, violence between anti-government Zapatista and pro-government groups,
and the 1982 eruption of the Chichón volcano (Haenn 2005, p.72). Ley de Fomento
Agropecuario, Santo Domingo (Fig. 2) and Chichonal (Fig. 4) are mainly Ch’ol. Bel
Ha (Fig. 3) is mestizo (non-indigenous).
Two of the mapped villages comprise legally private, individual parcels: Santo
Domingo (Fig. 2), where a group of the displaced Ch’oles carved out an agricultural
settlement only 20 km north of the Guatemala border; and Bel Ha (Fig. 3), where 200–
300-ha private lots were distributed in contradiction to the subsequent establishment
of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in 1989.
Ley de Fomento (Fig. 2) and Chichonal (Fig. 4) are typical forest frontier ejidos.
Their assemblies divided their polygons into de facto individual parcels (plus a
few de facto common use areas). Most parcels were partly cleared for agricul-
ture. Since 2000, permanent and mechanised farming has become more common,
though swidden extensive farming is still practiced (see the analysis of this process
in Calakmul in Dobler-Morales et al. 2020). This shift is visible as concentrations of
cleared areas for mechanised agriculture are closer to the village or a highway. In Ley
de Fomento, initially unassigned parcels (locally called a reserva) now belong to indi-
vidual ejidatarios. Here as in Chichonal, some distant parcels are no longer farmed,
reflecting a shift toward apiculture (honey production). Santo Domingo’s pattern of
de jure (legally private) parcels (and a small common use area) is comparable, but
here most parcels are entirely cleared for agriculture.
Since the merely legal territorial ‘fix’ was achieved through settlement-era
titling—part of their ‘continuous experience of the Mexican state’ (Haenn 2005,
p.79)—Calakmul’s pioneers have struggled to assemble territory in other ways. An
ongoing issue is how best to intersect with state-driven conservation initiatives (see
Sect. 5.4, below), but only in Bel Ha is this an acute struggle. Calakmul’s ejidos partic-
ipated in the nationally uneven resistance to the 1990s dilution of social property,
but not due to anti-neoliberal communitarianism. On the contrary, the state insisted
that forested land could not be converted to de jure individual parcels; Calakmul’s
ejidatarios chose to avoid certifying parcels altogether, rather than allow the forest
to be legally titled for common use (Haenn 2005, p.103).
4In 1998, I accompanied the Calakmul Reserve director and representatives of Chenes ejidos in an
exploratory trek of their distant ampliaciones forestales, which they had generally neglected since
chicle declined around the 1960s. Other ampliaciones were revived in the 1970s and 1980s as the
nuclei for new ejidos (Haenn 2005: 56).
More subtly but significantly, territorial assemblage in Calakmul can be consid-

ered as a multifaceted effort to forge a new regional landscape mosaic of agriculture
and forest into a culturally, economically and politically productive environment
(see Sect. 5, below). Evolving spatial practices within communities over the past
25 to 40 years (e.g. the concentration of agriculture) parallel the larger struggles to
create a coherent regional identity and purpose, in an economically and climatically
marginal environment. Challenges to the region’s coherence include a dynamic popu-
lation (frequent in- and out-migration) and divisions between displaced indigenous
and mestizos. These divisions were noted by Haenn (2005, p.81), but are not reflected
in this chapter’s maps, which display variation in Calakmul independent of ethnic
identity. As in ejidos throughout Mexico, another struggle for territorial assemblage
(though not reflected in these maps) that merits deeper study is the tension between
ejidatarios and non-landowning residents, avecindados.
5.3 Third Process: Settlement of Chenes Mennonites
Bilingual (Plautdietsch (Low German)/Spanish) Mennonites in the state of

Chihuahua resettled in northeastern Campeche State (and in Belize and some back
to Canada), mainly to flee narco-trafficking violence. About five small Mennonite
settlements were established in Chenes between 1985 and 2000, with an additional
15, mainly larger villages founded since. Colonia Santa Rosa (Figs. 5 and 6) was
settled in 2000 on state-owned land ‘in between’ the ejidos (see Sect. 5.1, above).
Additional federal and private parcels were purchased later, nearly doubling the
territory. For these Mennonites, as much as for the Calakmul settlers in the 1980s
(Haenn 2005, p.76), the initial struggle was to escape insecurity, acquire land and
carve out productive communities in a new physical environment—but, in this case,
as scattered ‘mini-forest frontiers’ across a long-settled culture region.5
Mennonite and indigenous communities struggle to maintain their distinct
cultures, while accommodating each other’s contributions to the evolving regional
mosaic of landscapes and de facto tenure practices. Recent studies stress how
Mennonite deforestation, agrochemical use and transgenic soybeans (the latter
banned in 2012) (Echanov 2016, p.55) contribute to a decline in Maya land-based
production, especially apiculture (Ellis et al. 2017; Gómez-González 2016). An
aguada (Fig. 5) just outside of Xcalot ejido was used by that village’s residents
as a water source until a Mennonite farmer purchased the parcel and filled it in.
In the longer term, however, the two communities are sharing a struggle to forge a
regional territorial assemblage (see Sect. 5.5, below).
5 Are these Mennonites practicing settler colonialism? They are changing the demographic makeup
of the Chenes region, but with little or no “logic of elimination”; and arguably they are further from
mainstream Mexican cultures. Settler colonialism, like territory, is a process and a structure, not a
single program or event (Wolfe 2006).
48 J. Kelly
Colonia Santa Rosa is a collection of private 100–500-ha parcels and a semi-

dispersed village centre, where productive house lots (e.g. to produce tomatoes)
are larger than a typical Maya or mestizo solar (yard). Though not legally a social
property, many decisions are made collectively among all landowners (Bravo Peña
et al. 2015). Like in Santo Domingo and Bel Ha in Calakmul, territoriality tends to
be practiced partly at the village scale. The mosaic pattern of agriculture and forest
resembles that in neighbouring Maya ejidos (Fig. 5), but contrasts with the two-thirds
of Chenes Mennonite settlements—e.g. Nuevo Durango, 30 km to the southeast—
where forest cover loss has been more extensive (Ellis et al. 2017, p.475). The primary
control in each case is the distribution of uplands and flatlands; Nuevo Durango’s
flatland is a large polje, not a small doline.
5.4 Fourth Process: Conservation-Based, State-Driven

Territorial Overlays in Both Study Areas
State-driven conservation territorialities in the study areas comprise two phases6

(Thaler 2017, p.1427). First, from about 1985 to 2005, protected areas were estab-
lished throughout Latin America, many of them intended to enhance state control over
land use while affording local stakeholders (especially indigenous peoples) a role
in territorial management (Kelly et al. 2017, p.6). Through the Calakmul Biosphere
Reserve (CBR), the Mexican federal government introduced a blend of sporadically
enforced ‘fortress conservation’ (White et al. 2016, p.178) and ‘sustainable develop-
ment’ programs (embraced by some ejido settlers, and promoted by NGOs). Second,
in the 2010s, payments for environmental services (PES) came to dominate the
discourse and practice. Using the ‘reducing emissions from deforestation and forest
degradation’ (REDD+) international guidelines, the Mexican government identified
Chenes and Calakmul as top priorities for conserving carbon storage (Alix-García
et al. 2018, p.7017).
Calakmul’s ejidos intersect the state’s protected area territoriality in ways ranging
from neglect or disappointment, through selective engagement, and, in a few cases,
outright struggle. There is no concordance between the CBR zones (core, intensive
use or multiple use) and the de facto and de jure tenure polygons (parcel and ejido
perimeters) (Figs. 2 and 4). (Ley de Fomento and Chichonal were founded before the
CBR, and Dos Naciones, an ejido partly visible in Fig. 2, after it.) Land use patterns
appear to acknowledge the CBR’s location somewhat—e.g. in Chichonal (Fig. 4),
most of the CBR multiple use zone is forested, but the distance from the village
6 While the literature on Chenes has emphasized forest cover loss (e.g. Ellis et al. 2017), the post-
NAFTA shift toward mechanized, commercial farming (e.g. Mennonite soy farms) could arguably
be construed as indirectly promoting forest conservation through a third process: “land sparing,” the
spatial concentration of economic value and rapid rural-to-urban migration (Elden, 2010; Oliveira
and Hecht 2016: 269). In Calakmul, much initially cleared land was abandoned and returned to
forest (Abel Vaca et al. 2012: 7), approximately balancing the modest expansion of cattle ranching
there (Rodríguez-Solorzano 2014).
centre is a stronger factor. Only in Bel Ha (Fig. 3), entirely within the CBR core
zone, there is an ongoing struggle to carve out economically sustainable territory
against the state’s ‘fortress conservation’ restrictions.7 Bel Ha’s private parcels are
mainly still forest. Residents implored me to help spread the message that, while
they recognise their role as caretakers of an important ecosystem, they feel unfairly
constrained by the government’s restrictions on their land uses, which have not been
balanced by significant assistance toward alternative economic activities.
The Mexican federal government’s PES environmental services system was
launched in 2003 to ‘offer annual payments of 20 to 80 dollars per hectare over
5-year periods to private and communal landowners, [who] must maintain existing
forest or natural land cover and engage in land management activities such as building
fences, controlling pests, or patrolling for illegal activity’ (Alix-García et al. 2018,
p.7016). In most cases the beneficiary must submit ‘a map of the area to be included’
(Cortina and Porras 2018, p.4). These modest payments rarely engendered signifi-
cant land use changes or decisions in this study’s ejidos, apart from some occasional
disagreements.8 In Calakmul (Fig. 2) and Chenes (Fig. 5), ejidos typically declared
about half their current forest area for PES.
In Ley de Fomento (Fig. 2), Dos Lagunas del Norte (Fig. 3) and Katab (Fig. 5),
many de facto individual parcels are partly or entirely within the PES forest set-aside;
their owners do not farm them, but many own other parcels they have cleared for
farming. In Xcalot Akal, the PES set-aside comprises most of the de facto common
use area. Bel Ha also participates in the PES program (for de jure private landowners),
but the other two private communities, Santo Domingo and the Chenes Mennonite
village of Santa Rosa, chose to not participate.9 Santa Rosa (Fig. 6) has enough forest
land to take part in the program, but its soybean and sorghum farmers told me the
small payments were not worth restricting potential land uses of their upland parcels.
Though their displaced indigenous ethnic identity and their peripheral forest frontier
location differ from Santa Rosa’s Mennonites, Santo Domingo’s residents expressed
a similar preference to avoid state-sanctioned land use restrictions.
In sum, state conservation initiatives have not greatly impacted territorial
assemblages in Chenes or Calakmul. Village-scale territorialities have endured.
‘Calakmul’s uniqueness arises from ejidal autonomy in natural resource manage-
ment’ (Haenn 2005, p.1818). Here, and in Chenes, some ‘community management
decisions effectively lead to conservation, even if this is not the main objective’
(Berkes 2009, p.19; Kelly 2020).
7 The confusion over land ownership in Mexico’s federally protected areas is rooted in shifting
decrees during the 1930s Cardenista era of social property distribution. Parks, like ejidos, ‘embedded
local property within the federal structure’ (Wakild 2011: 42).
8 ‘Evidence from carbon forestry projects operating on common property has shown that project
developers ignore community politics and do not pay attention to the exclusion of particular social
groups from carbon payments, such as women, landless people, and other vulnerable groups of the
rural poor’ (Corbera et al. 2011: 331).
9 In Ecuador, private landowners wanted to engage in PES, but could not (Schloegel 2012: 95). PES
may work better when commercial and traditional farming stakeholders participate (Wang et al.
2019).
50 J. Kelly
5.5 Fifth Process: Engagements with Commercial Markets

in Both Study Areas, and Intercultural Territorialities
in Chenes
In twenty-first-century Latin America, ‘territorio’ encompasses the multi-scale

connections between the rural and the urban, and amongst local spaces and often
distant markets (Sandoval 2017, p.52). Territorial assemblages do not disappear;
rather, they are increasingly embedded in political and economic networks (Haes-
baert 2013). In rural Mexico, post-NAFTA trade liberalisation, especially of maize
(corn), has been a key driver. In Calakmul during the 1990s, dependence on compen-
satory state aid increased, and subsistence poverty shifted toward market-dependent
(e.g. chili pepper) poverty (Haenn 2005, p.125). ‘Campesino movements in Mexico
were fighting not to have to move, to emigrate, if they could avoid it’ (Patel 2007,
p.60); in 2001, the suicide rate in Campeche jumped (Patel 2007, p.50).
By the early 2000s tariffs had ended, and Mexico had become a net importer of
maize, sorghum and soybeans, mainly to feed livestock (Salin 2010). In 2008, the
state began subsidising the establishment of soybean farming throughout northeast
Campeche (Echanov 2016, p.53). By 2015, Mennonites produced 90% of the state’s
soybeans (Echanove 2016, p.56).
In both regions, a territorial challenge is to (re)assemble a mosaic of agricultural
and forest landscapes that sustain culturally and economically productive environ-
ments. In Chenes, that struggle is most visible as indigenous Maya and newly settled
Mennonites accommodate each other. In most Maya ejidos, conversion to mecha-
nised, partly commercial agriculture was underway before the Mennonites came,
but now it is more pronounced. While forest cover loss and threats to apiculture
are serious issues, a hybrid territorial assemblage is emerging that accentuates the
interdependence and common future of both Chenes communities. Maya villagers
are employed as labourers on Mennonite farms (and on the modern chicken factory
farm in Fig. 6).
In many Maya ejidos, some agricultural parcels (or parts of them) are rented
to Mennonite commercial farmers (Fig. 5). (Note that these maps display a repre-
sentative pattern, not specific locations of actual rentals). In Campeche, Maya in
low-population-density villages have rented land to other Maya since at least the
early twentieth century (Cantún Caamal and Pat Fernández 2012, p.124). In some
ejidos that lack machinery, over 80% of cultivated land is now rented to Mennonites
for soybeans (Echanove 2016, p.60). The land use pattern in Mennonite Santa Rosa
resembles that in the neighbouring Maya ejidos, and some Mennonites have been
learning the Maya language (Spiric and Ramírez 2018). These rentals help forge
territorial assemblages among clusters of proximate Maya ejidos and Mennonite
villages.
The land use patterns in Calakmul’s ejidos (Figs. 2 and 4) also show an increase
in mechanised, more commercial agriculture, but here the less sharply delineated
geomorphology, lower population density and persistence of swidden farming favour
‘distance from village or highway’ as the controlling factor for a tighter clustering
of cleared areas. Santo Domingo’s residents (Fig. 2) practice nearly the same mix of
commercial agriculture (here, chili peppers) and subsistence as their neighbours in
Ley de Fomento, despite their private tenure regime and lower degree of mechanisa-
tion. Inter-village cooperation and seasonal labour sharing are common in Calakmul.
A region-scale territorial assemblage has fitfully evolved, notably since the 1996
establishment of a county-level (municipio) government. Here, and in Chenes, the
Mexican cultural focus on mestizaje downplays distinctions between indigenous
peoples (displaced or in situ) and (other) settlers (Gentry 2019, p.69). ‘Campesino’
is a sort of unifying Calakmul identity (Haenn 2005, p.114).
Village-scale territories are still where decisions are made to a remarkable degree–
in Calakmul’s forty-year-old communities as well as in Chenes’ thousand-year-old
and ten-year-old ones. It is the primary scale at which access for human activities—
the contested balance between security (a closed boundary) and opportunity (an open
boundary)—is most firmly regulated (Gottmann 1973, p.14). These practices are
challenged by inter-village land rentals, migration to cities and to the USA, and by the
individualising pressures of the market. The Mennonite settlers of Chenes engender
concerns about natural resource commodification, but their village-scale struggles
have much in common with the Maya and the Calakmul frontier campesinos. Indeed,
the history of Mennonite territorial struggles, adaptations and cultural survival is
astonishing. Before settling in Chihuahua in the 1920s, the Mennonite group in
Campeche had lived in Canada, having moved there from Russia in the 1870s. Viewed
diachronically, their territorial assemblage has been called not transnational, but
rather trans-statal (Cañás Bottos 2008).
6 Concluding Remarks
For the Chenes Maya indigenous communities and Calakmul frontier settlers, a mere
‘territorial fix’ was essentially achieved (though with compromises) during Mexico’s
era of social property titling (c. 1925–1995). In the twenty-first century, settlers buy
private properties, but some—e.g. Chenes Mennonites—also have some village-scale
practices in common with their new neighbours.10 The villages sampled for display
in this chapter’s maps are remarkably varied. They include surprising territorialities,
e.g. Santo Domingo, a displaced-indigenous, private property forest frontier village
partly in a biosphere reserve, almost entirely cleared for agriculture.
In Calakmul, the primary territorial struggle has been to establish a village-scale
and regional identity in an economically and environmentally marginal frontier with
a high degree of in- and out-migration. For a few villages such as Bel Ha, the struggle
has been against the lingering vestiges of late twentieth century ‘fortress conserva-
tion.’ Despite their dissimilar cultures, the Chenes Maya and Mennonites are both
10Shawn Miller (2007: 69) observed that many indigenous tenure practices (e.g. forest commons)
were more like certain European ones than is generally acknowledged–one reason for their
persistence in parts of the (post)-colonial Americas.
52 J. Kelly
grappling with climate change and with rural-to-urban migration and the attendant
loss of land-based cultural practices. They share a cultural space at the margins of
the Mexican nation, yet are enmeshed in national and global economies.
In both Chenes and Calakmul, apiculture proved to be a key activity at the nexus of
the environment, cultural identity and economic survival for indigenous and mestizo
communities. In Chichonal (Fig. 4) and other Calakmul ejidos, initial farming and
ranching attempts have been abandoned in favour of managing dispersed beehives
along forest paths. In Chenes, some Maya villagers blame Mennonite pesticides and
herbicide use for declines in honey production.
In rural Campeche State, Mexico, ‘territory’ is an assemblage of productive land-
scapes and cultural resources, evolving as its custodians interact with each other,
the markets, and the state (including the state’s perhaps competing programmes to
promote and commodify both forests and commercial farming). ‘Territory’ impli-
cates social power, within a bounded space (Delaney 2005, p.17). If we pull back
the lens to include the entire state of Campeche and its role within the Mexican
economy, the relatively placid struggles among Chenes and Calakmul’s villagers are
overshadowed by deeper inequalities. Campeche overall enjoys a high GDP (in some
years, the highest in Mexico), mainly generated by its offshore oil production (The
Economist 2018, p.1). Its inequality (e.g. as measured by the GINI coefficient) often
is also the highest in the country (Courchene 2000, p.131). The efforts to assemble
and maintain culturally, economically and environmentally sustainable village- and
regional-scale territories must be appreciated against this backdrop of non-renewable
resource extraction and its consequent imbalances.
References
Abel Vaca R, Golicher DJ, Cayuela L, Hewson J, Steininger M (2012) Evidence of incipient forest
transition in southern Mexico. PLoS ONE 7(8):e42309
Alix-García JM, Sims KR, Orozco-Olvera VH, Costica LE, Fernández Medina J, Romo Monroy
S (2018) Payments for environmental services supported social capital while increasing land
management. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 115(27):7016–7021
Anthias P (2018) Limits to decolonization: indigeneity, territory, and hydrocarbon politics in the
Bolivian Chaco. Cornell University Press, Ithac
Beach T, Dunning N, Cook L-B, DE, Lohse J, (2006) Impacts of the ancient Maya on soils and soil
erosion in the central Maya Lowlands. Catena 65(2):166–178
Berkes F (2009) Community conserved areas: policy issues in historic contemporary context.
Conserv Lett 2:19–24
Peña LCB, Cejudo LCA, Caravantes RED, Wiebe LC, Murrieta RLM (2015) Cultura y apropiación
del espacio: Diferencias en los paisajes culturales de menonitas y mestizos de Chihuahua México.
J Lat Am Geogr 14(2):77–100
Cantún Caamal M, Pat Fernández JM (2012) La reforma agraria en Campeche, ¿permanencia de
una cultura indígena? Secuencia 82:102–126
Cañás Bottos L (2008) Transformations of old colony Mennonites: the making of a trans-statal
community. Glob Netw 8:214–231
Comisión Nacional Forestal (2010) Aprobados servicios ambientales: Resultados de la convoca-

toria del programa ProÁrbol. http://www.conafor.gob.mx:8080/documentos/docs/6/711Aproba
das.pdf. Accessed Dec 2019
Corbera E, Estrada M, May P, Navarro G, Pacheco P (2011) Rights to land, forests and carbon in
REDD+: insights from Mexico, Brazil and Costa Rica. Forests 2(1):301–342
Correia JE (2019) Unsettling territory: indigenous mobilizations, the territorial turn, and the limits
of land rights in the Paraguay-Brazil borderlands. J Lat Am Geogr 18(1):11–37
Cortina S, Porras I (2018). Mexico’s payments for ecosystem services programme. In: Porras
I, Asquith N (eds) Ecosystems, poverty alleviation and conditional transfers: guidance for
practitioners. International Institute for Environment and Development, London
Courchene T, Díaz-Cayeros A, Webb SB (2000) Historical forces: geographical and political. In:
Giugale MM, Webb SB (eds) Achievements and channelings of fiscal decentralization: lessons
from Mexico. World Bank, Washington D.C
Delaney D (2005) Territory: a short introduction. Blackwell, Malden, MA
Dobler-Morales C, Chowdhury RR, Schmook B (2020) Governing intensification: the influence
of state institutions on smallholder farming strategies in Calakmul Mexico. J Land Use Sci
15(2–3):108–126
Echanove Huacuja F (2016) La expansión del cultivo de la soja en Campeche, México: Problemática
y perspectivas. Anales De Geografía De La Universidad Complutense 36(1):49–69
Elden S (2010) Land, terrain, territory. Prog Hum Geogr 34(6):799–817
Ellis E, Romero Montero JA, Hernández Gómez IU, Porter-Bolland L, Ellis PW (2017) Private
property and Mennonites are major drivers of forest cover loss in central Yucatan Peninsula,
Mexico. Land Use Policy 69:474–484
Gentry B, Bouce GA, Garcia JM, Chambers SN (2019) Indigenous survival and colonial disposses-
sion on the Mexican frontier: the case of the Cedagi Wahia and Wo’oson O’odham indigenous
communities. J Lat Am Geogr 18(1):65–93
Gómez-González I (2016) A honey-sealed alliance: Mayan beekeepers in the Yucatan Peninsula
versus transgenic soybeans in Mexico’s last tropical forest. J Agrar Chang 16(4):728–736
Gottmann J (1973) The significance of territory. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville VA
Haenn N (2005) Fields of power, forests of discontent: culture, conservation, and the state in Mexico.
University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AR
Haesbaert R (2013) Del mito de la desterritorialización a la multiterritorialidad. Cultura y
Representaciones Sociales 8(5):9–42
Geogr 19(1):258–268
grassroots strategies. Prog Hum Geogr 43(5):790–814
Herlihy P, Knapp G (2003) Maps of, by, and for the peoples of Latin America. Hum Organ 62(4):303–
314
Hodgson DL, Schroeder RA (2002) Dilemmas of counter-mapping community resources in
Tanzania. Dev Chang 33:79–100
Kelly J (2020) Village-scale reserves in the forest frontier regions of Chenes and Calakmul, Mexico.
J Land Use Sci 15(2–3):203–220
Kelly J, Herlihy P, Smith DA, Ramos Viera A (2010) Indigenous territoriality at the end of the social
property era in Mexico. J Lat Am Geogr 9(3):161–181
Kelly J, Herlihy P, Tappan T, Hilburn A, Fahrenbruch M (2017) From cognitive maps to transparent
static web maps: tools for indigenous territorial control in La Muskitia, Honduras. Cartographica
52(1):1–19
Fernandes BM, Welch C (2019) Contested landscapes: territorial conflicts and the production of
different ruralities in Brazil. Landsc Res 44(7):892–907
McEwan C, Correia J, Bryan J, Anthias P (2019) Book review symposium: limits to decolonization:
indigeneity, territory, and hydrocarbon politics in the Bolivian Chaco. Hum Geogr 12(3):57–58
54 J. Kelly
Miller SW (2007) An environmental history of Latin America. Cambridge University Press,

Cambridge
Mitchell D (2009) Work, struggle, death, and the geographies of justice: the transformation of
landscape in and beyond California’s Imperial Valley. In: Olwig KR, Mitchell D (eds) Justice,
power, and the political landscape. Routledge, Abingdon, pp 177–195
Mundy B (1996) The mapping of New Spain: indigenous cartography and the maps of the relaciones
geográficas. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Offen KH (2003) The territorial turn: making Black territories in Pacific Colombia. J Lat Am Geogr
2(1):43–73
Oliveira G, Hecht S (2016) Sacred groves, sacrifice zones, and soy production: globalization,
intensification, and neo-nature in South America. J Peasant Stud 43(2):251–285
Pacheco P, Aguilar-Støen M, Börner J, Etter A, Putzel L, Vera Diaz M (2011) Landscape transfor-
mation in tropical Latin America: assessing trends and policy implications for REDD+. Forests
2:1–2
Patel R (2007) Stuffed and starved: the hidden battle for the world food system. Melville House,
Brooklyn
Restall M, Gabbert W (2017) Maya ethnogenesis and group identity in Yucatán, 1500–1900. In:
Beyyette B, LeCount L (eds) ‘The only true people’: linking Maya identities past and present.
University Press of Colorado, Boulder CO, pp 91–130
Rodríguez-Solorzano C (2014) Unintended outcomes of farmers’ adaptation to climate variability:
deforestation and conservation in Calakmul and Maya biosphere reserves. Ecol Soc 19(2):53
Salin D (2010) U.S. grain and soybean exports to Mexico—a modal share transportation analysis.
In: Proceedings of the Agricultural Marketing Service. US Department of Agriculture
Sandoval MF, López AR, Paredes M (2017) Space, power, and locality: the contemporary use of
territorio in Latin American geography. J Lat Am Geogr 16(1):43–67
Schloegel C (2012) An analysis of structural impediments to landowner participation in Ecuador’s
Socio Bosque program. In: Naughton-Treves L, Day C (eds) Lessons about land tenure, forest
governance, and REDD+. Case studies from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. University of
Wisconsin-Madison, Land Tenure Center, Madison WI, pp 93–100
Secretaria de Finanzas (2020) Sistema de gestión catastral. Gobierno del Estado de Campeche,
Campeche. https://wms.infocam.gob.mx/inventario/. Accessed Jan 2020
Spiric J, Ramírez MI (2018) The Mennonite agricultural expansion on the Mayas’ territories in the
municipality of Hopelchén, Campeche. In: Proceedings of 35th Conference of Latin Americanist
Geographers (CLAG), San José, Costa Rica, May 20–23, 2018
Thaler GM (2017) The land sparing complex: environmental governance, agricultural intensifica-
tion, and state building in the Brazilian Amazon. Ann Am Assoc Geogr 107(6):1424–1443
The Economist (2018) Tropical messiah. June 23, 2018, pp 20–22
Torres-Mazuera G (2018) Communal and indigenous landholding in contemporary Yucatán: tracing
the changing property relations in the post-revolutionary ejido. In: Caballero PL, Acevedo-
Rodrigo A (eds) Beyond alterity: destabilizing the indigenous other in Mexico. University of
Arizona Press, Tucson AR, pp 151–170
Tubbeh RM, Zimmerer KS (2019) Unraveling the ethnoterritorial fix in the Peruvian Amazon:
indigenous livelihoods and resource management after communal land titling (1980s–2016). J
Lat Am Geogr 18(2):33–59
Urquijo PS (2008) Naturaleza y religión en la construcción de la identidad de los teenek potosinos:
La perspectiva de paisaje. Espaciotiempo 1:19–30
Wakild E (2011) Revolutionary parks: conservation, social justice, and Mexico’s national parks,
1910–1940. University of Arizona Press, Tucson AR
Wang L, Zheng H, Wen Z, Liu L, Robinson BE, Li L, Li C et al (2019) Ecosystem service
synergies/trade-offs informing the supply-demand match of ecosystem services: framework and
application. Ecosyst Serv 37
Warman A (1988) The political project of Zapatismo. In: Katz F (ed) Riot, rebellion, and revolution:
rural social conflict in Mexico. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ
White D, Rudy AP, Gareau BJ (2016) Environments, natures, and social theory: towards a critical
hybridity. Palgrave, London
Wolfe P (2006) Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native. J Genocide Res 8(4):387–409
John Kelly Associate professor, Department of Geography and Earth Science, University of
Wisconsin – La Crosse.
After degrees in Geography (University of Chicago) and Landscape Architecture (Univer-
sity of California), John Kelly worked with conservation and rural development organizations in
Mexico from 1997 to 2003 in Yucatán and Oaxaca. From 2005 to 2013, during doctoral studies at
the University of Kansas, he collaborated with indigenous communities, students and agencies in
Mexico and Honduras, to document land uses and fortify territorial rights, including the manage-
ment of water sources. In Wisconsin he teaches human geography and GIS courses. He is an active
board member of the Mississippi Valley Conservancy and collaborates in geography research with
US and Mexican students.
Between Subsidies and Parks: The
Impact of Agrarian and Conservation
Policy on Smallholder Territories
of Calakmul, Mexico
Carlos Dobler-Morales
Abstract Abundant carbon stocks and high biodiversity levels make Calakmul’s
forests, in southeastern Mexico, a valuable environmental resource. These forests also
constitute the territory of a number of smallholder communities largely characterized
by high poverty levels and a persistent dependence on swidden agriculture. Promoting
economic development in the region while preserving its ecological integrity has been
an historical challenge, which has increasingly captured the attention of the Mexican
government in recent decades. In this chapter, I review how state intervention in
the form of farm subsidies and land-use restrictions has evolved in Calakmul and
how it affects the organization of the region’s territories. I argue that state-driven
territorial processes in Calakmul cannot be interpreted as the result of an explicit
conflict over space or land as often happens in other southern contexts. They are
instead the product of a more subtle exercise of state power deployed through a
blend of coercion and penalization aimed at aligning the attitudes of community
residents with development and conservation goals. Crucially, this policy mix is
not by design, as agrarian and conservation state instruments behind it continue
to be implemented largely independently in the region. Nonetheless, their effects
still display high complementarity, with significant implications for both Calakmul’s
society and its environment.
Keywords Swidden · PROAGRO · Payment for Ecosystem Services · Biosphere

Reserve · Land-Sparing · Landscape Multi-Functionality
1 Introduction
In the remote southeast corner of Mexico sits Calakmul, an area primarily known
for its vast forest resources. Indeed, the region is said to hold the largest unbroken
expanse of tropical forest in the country (Acopa & Boege 1998). Despite being
frequently imagined as uninhabited, this forest actually constitutes the territory of
C. Dobler-Morales (B)
Morelia, Mexico

58 C. Dobler-Morales
a number of rural communities that arrived in the region in the 1960s, drawn by
promises of land distribution by the government (Haenn 2002; Klepeis & Turner
2001). Ensuing decades would witness the materialization of these promises through
the establishment of several ejidos—agrarian communities with a constitutionally
underwritten tenurial system in which land is held collectively.
Since its modern colonization, Calakmul’s development has been rather slow. Its
persistent isolation together with its challenging environment in the form of poor
soils and water scarcity continue to entrench most ejidos in conditions of economic
marginalization, with local livelihood options largely limited to swidden—or slash-
and-burn—agriculture (Schmook et al. 2013). The coexistence of an abundant forest
and a population dependent on what is often seen as a destructive land-use has made
Calakmul a constant target of an apparently conflicting mix of external interven-
tions—some focusing on the preservation of the region’s valuable ecology and others
on pursuing higher levels of socio-economic development (Haenn 2005). Among
the panoply of actors involved in this dual agenda, the state has gained consider-
able prominence in recent decades. Through a complex array of both agrarian and
conservation instruments, its influence has increasingly interfered with the local insti-
tutional environment that governs ejido resources and the livelihood opportunities
that can be derived from them in Calakmul.
In this chapter, I review how such state intervention has evolved over the last
decades and how it affects ejido land management. Drawing on Alcorn and Toledo
(1998), I treat the ejido as the main interface between the state and local residents
(smallholders), and thus, as an important locus of territorial processes. I frame these
processes not as the explicit conflict over space or land that frequently characterize
territorial tensions between ejidos and external forces in Mexico (e.g., Garibay et al.
2011; Rocheleau 2015), but rather as a more subtle exercise of power—one in which
the aim is to align the attitudes of ejido residents with those of the state through a
blend of coercion and restrictions. Crucially, the policy mix behind this blend is not
by design, as the majority of agrarian and conservation state instruments in the region
continue to be implemented independently. As I will show, nonetheless, their effects
still display high complementarity, with significant implications for both Calakmul’s
society and its environment.
2 Calakmul: Regional Context
Calakmul is a municipality located in the southern Yucatán peninsula, on the Mexican

side of the border with Guatemala (Fig. 1). The region was once the heartland of
an important Lowland Maya civilization, but after its collapse circa CE 1000, the
area remained virtually abandoned for almost a millennium, a condition that allowed
significant forest regrowth and expansion (Klepeis & Turner 2001).
Modern occupation of Calakmul commenced in the early twentieth century.
Between the 1900s and 1930s, a first but modest wave of immigrants arrived to
work in the commercial exploitation of chicle gum and logging of hardwood species,
Between Subsidies and Parks: The Impact … 59
Fig. 1 The study area, highlighting the four ejidos studied: (1) Nueva Vida; (2) Nuevo Becal; (3)
La Guadalupe; and (4) Narciso Mendoza
activities that were in the hands of large private concessions (Klepeis 2004). Eventu-
ally, workers for these industries gained access to land to farm, establishing the first
ejidos of the region in the 1950s (Acopa & Boege 1998; Haenn 2002). The 1960s
and 1970s witnessed far larger in-migration. Regarded back then as an empty quarter
that could relieve a scarcity of land among smallholders from other states, Calakmul
was opened to occupation by the federal government, which granted large tracts of
land as ejidos (Haenn 2002; Klepeis & Turner 2001). Population in the region grew
rapidly, and by the end of the 1980s, Calakmul had close to 60 ejidos.
Notably, by the time this larger wave of immigration took place, the chicle market
had collapsed and valuable timber species were close to depletion. Livelihood options
for newcomers were thus essentially limited to subsistence agriculture (Acopa &
Boege 1998). The conditions for farming in Calakmul, however, are quite chal-
lenging. Soils are shallow, sitting atop a karstic substrate (García Gil et al. 2002).
Water is a chronic concern because rainfall—distinctly seasonal and highly vari-
able—drains quickly through the porous limestone, leaving few natural surface water
reservoirs (Foster & Turner 2004). High rates of evapotranspiration further exacer-
bate the scarcity of water in the region (Lawrence 2005). Under these environmental
constraints, swidden cultivation of maize became the predominant form of agricul-
ture due to its adaptability and low input requirements (Klepeis et al. 2004; Schmook
et al. 2013).
Swidden continues to be an important activity today in Calakmul, although the
typical household economy has experienced some diversification (Radel et al. 2010).
The cultivation of jalapeño chilli as a cash crop and the production of bee honey are
responses to the increasing penetration of broader, although still thin and volatile
markets for these commodities (Acopa & Boege 1998; Keys 2004). Rearing of live-
stock remains relatively rare, serving as a savings mechanism for those who partic-
ipate in it in the absence of banks (Busch & Geoghegan 2010). Community-based
forestry for timber persists as a legacy of former logging activities, although it is
at a smaller scale and is restricted to the ejidos with the largest land endowments
(Acopa & Boege 1998). Paid farm work is common, with peak demand in the months
when fields need to be prepared and chilli harvested. A notable increase of labour
out-migration has been reported, most of it looking for opportunities in the tourism
corridor of the Caribbean coast and in the US (Carte et al. 2010; Schmook & Radel
2008).
Notwithstanding this diversification of livelihoods and the growing connection of
the region to the outside via incipient market exchange and labour flows, Calakmul
preserves many aspects of its frontier past. The region remains relatively isolated.
Population has grown slowly (16% in 10 years), and its density is low (only 1.9
people/km2 ), while poverty continues to be prevalent (86% of the municipality)
(Araujo Monroy 2014).
3 The Architecture of State Institutions in Calakmul
As with many other forest frontiers across the tropics, Calakmul remained largely
invisible to the state for much of its early expansion. It was only in 1989 that the
state intervened seriously for the first time through the establishment of the Calakmul
Biosphere Reserve. The Reserve represented a response to the alarming deforestation
rates associated with the settlement of the region and the attendant expansion of
swidden agriculture (Acopa & Boege 1998; Roy Chowdhury & Turner 2006). Loss
of forest cover was occurring at 2% per year at the time (Bray & Klepeis 2005;
Turner et al. 2001), a figure that led the region to be designated as a global hotspot
of deforestation (Achard et al. 1998).
The Reserve introduced a significant territorial disruption in Calakmul as part
of its area fell within lands already claimed by smallholders. The core zone of the
Reserve, where farming is prohibited, overlapped with 21 ejidos (Bray & Klepeis
2005). In the face of a potential violent backlash by smallholders, the Reserve had
to negotiate the terms of conservation in the area with an existing inter-ejido union
(Haenn 2005; Klepeis & Roy Chowdhury 2004). Negotiations took the form of
an ambitious conservation-development agenda based on a variety of programmes
to, on one hand, promote the diversification of the overwhelmingly swidden-based
livelihoods, and on the other, convince smallholders to set aside some ejido forest
areas for voluntary conservation (Acopa & Boege 1998; Roy Chowdhury & Turner
2006).
The late 1980s also witnessed the beginning of the general neoliberal turn in
Mexican socio-economic policy. The state halted the process of land distribution
across the country and, as a consequence of trade liberalization, maize prices plum-
meted (Appendini 2014; Cornelius & Myhre 1998; Gates 1996). Amid increasing
economic challenges, the alliance between the Reserve and the ejido union struggled
to deliver on development objectives, compromising its conservation-development
agenda. In 1996, Calakmul became a municipality and replaced the alliance as the
dominant governance structure in the region (Haenn 2005). Better connected with
higher governmental bureaucracy, the creation of the municipality marked the start
of an intensifying trend of state intervention in the area.
As part of national-level efforts to help smallholders be more competitive in
an opening market economy, from the beginning of the 1990s, farmers in Calakmul
began to receive a number of subsidies from the Secretariat of Agriculture to—among
other goals—‘modernize’ their agriculture (Klepeis & Vance 2003; Schmook &
Vance 2009). Until recently, the main subsidies in the region came from programmes
such as PROAGRO, formerly PROCAMPO (Spanish acronym for Program of Direct
Supports for the Countryside), PIMAF (Program of Incentives for Producers of
Maize and Beans) and PESA (Strategic Project for Food Security). The programme
PROAGRO disburses an annual payment to smallholders proportional to the area
farmed at a fixed location and extent, and conditioned on the continuous cultivation
of the exact same field registered. PIMAF provides free agrochemicals and hybrid
cultivar seeds to participating farmers. PESA provides free supplies of various inputs
to improve household food security, including mechanized tillage. The municipal
government has also played a part in these efforts towards agricultural moderniza-
tion through its programme PRTP (Program for the Rehabilitation of Productive
Lands), which is also focused on subsidizing mechanized tillage.
On the other hand, the Secretariat of the Environment—by then already in charge
of the management of Calakmul’s Biosphere Reserve—further expanded conserva-
tion efforts in the region with the introduction of a Payment for Ecosystem Services
(PES) programme in the early 2000s and the stricter enforcement of the 2005
Federal Forest Code (Porter-Bolland et al. 2015; Román-Dañobeytia et al. 2014).
PES compensates smallholders through annual cash transfers for voluntarily main-
taining forest patches within their ejidos. Meanwhile, the Forest Code bans cutting
down any forest stand considered to be old-growth, even if it is located outside a
protected zone (i.e. in the Reserve’s core area or a PES polygon).
4 On the Ground: The Influence of State Institutions

on Household-Level Land-Use Patterns
During Calakmul’s colonization and for some decades after, swidden agriculture in
Calakmul was practiced in a ‘paleotechnic’ (Turner & Brush 1987) fashion. The
typical practice entailed slashing and burning forest followed by the cultivation of
maize, usually intercropped with squash and beans in a cropping system known
here—as elsewhere in Mesoamerica—as milpa. Seeds were sown with a digging
stick directly in the ashes, without tilling or any other land preparation. After a
cultivation period of 1–3 years, land would be fallowed between 9 and 24 years
before returning the field to cultivation (Klepeis et al. 2004). Secondary vegetation
regenerates rapidly in these fallows largely due to the exceptional capacity of local
species to sprout from stumps and roots left in the field (Negreros-Castillo & Hall
2000; Read & Lawrence 2003). Low input requirements and its capacity to thrive in
the challenging environment of Calakmul established milpa cultivation as the most
important livelihood option in the region (Schmook et al. 2013).
Over time, milpa in Calakmul became more intensive. Although studies suggest
cultivation periods remained relatively short (1–3 years), fallow periods shortened
to 10 years or less (Abizaid & Coomes 2004; Schmook 2010). The incorporation of
jalapeño chilli in the 1980s played a major role in changing local agriculture as the
crop demands much higher amounts of labour and external inputs than maize (Klepeis
et al. 2004). By the 1990s, chilli was the most important land-use in the region
after maize in terms of producers and total cultivated area (Keys 2004). The use of
agrochemicals increased substantially during that period, with up to 70% of farmers
applying them to their chilli crops, but mechanical tillage remained rare, undertaken
by only 11% of smallholders (Vance et al. 2004). Although chilli continues to be
cultivated today, its production dropped drastically three decades after its introduction
due to persistent market failure (i.e. volatile farm gate prices) and crop losses to pests.
However, many of the external inputs used to farm it remained and were transferred
to the cultivation of maize (Klepeis et al. 2004; Schmook et al. 2013).
A study I conducted recently in the region (Dobler-Morales et al. 2020) demon-
strates that the trend of agricultural intensification described above has continued.
The study surveyed 84 smallholders from four ejidos (see Fig. 1) and their fields
with the objective of characterizing individual agricultural practices and the internal
and external drivers behind them. The study found that, in contrast to the previ-
ously common 1–3 years of continuous cultivation before fallow, fields now appear
to be cultivated for 5.6 years consecutively on average. This figure hides a certain
skewness: 19% of surveyed smallholders reported continuous use of their field for
1–2 years, 22% for 3–4 years, 17% for 5–6 years and 42% for 7 or more years.
Use of agrochemicals is now even more widespread. 70% of the surveyed farmers
use synthetic fertilizers (most commonly 17-17-17, 28-46-00 and 20-30-10 in N-P-
K concentrations), 85% use herbicides (glyphosate, 2, 4-D and paraquat) and 81%
use pesticides (cypermethryn, parathion and cholorpyryfos). 92% use at least one
agrochemical, a notable increase from the previous regional estimate (70% in 1997).
Similarly, 54% of surveyed farmers use mechanical tillage, up from 11% in 1997.
This pattern of agricultural change could be considered surprising given that
typical conditions for intensification are largely absent. The region remains weakly
integrated into crop markets, demand for food crops has changed little due to marginal
population growth and land is in apparent surplus. Furthermore, intensification often
entails major outlays of labour and capital (Boserup 1965)—resources in limited
supply here.
The aforementioned study sought therefore to test the influence of state institu-
tions operating in Calakmul on farmers’ motivations to intensify their farm produc-
tion. Results suggest that, on one hand, government farm subsidies appear to be
working as incentives for intensification. Drawing on household survey data and
statistical regressions, the study found that smallholders participating in PROAGRO
were significantly more likely to prolong the number of years of cultivation of
their field without fallowing, after controlling for other livelihood and household
variables (Table 1; highlighted coefficients). The study ascribed this behaviour to
PROAGRO’s transfers being conditioned on continuous cultivation of the field. Like-
wise, farmers enrolled in PESA were significantly more likely to mechanize their
fields, as the programme subsidizes this practice. PROAGRO also appeared to be
significantly correlated with field mechanization. The municipal programme PRTP
was not included in the regressions because all farmers who reported being partic-
ipants of it had mechanized their fields. This perfect correlation, however, speaks
about the importance of the programme as a driver of intensification in the region.
Notably, the study could not find a significant relation between any programme
and the use of agrochemicals, most likely due to its widespread adoption (92% of
surveyed farmers), and thus a strong bias in the sample.
On the other hand, based on interviews with farmers and key-informants, the study
found that state conservation instruments were also linked to agricultural intensifi-
cation in Calakmul. Given the restrictions imposed collectively by the Reserve, the
PES programme and the Forest Code, land access is currently limited to patches
either already cleared, in early successional stages, or with no protection status.
These restrictions appear to be inducing smallholders to reduce the rotation of
their fields across the landscape and thus to extend the number of years the same
field is cultivated continuously. Many informants noted that governmental efforts to
monitor the forest and enforce its protection have grown in recent years, especially
through the Federal Attorney’s Office for Environmental Protection (PROFEPA, an
agency of the Secretariat of the Environment) and a Federal Police task force: the
Gendarmería. Interviewed ejido leaders also noted how clearing forest areas desig-
nated for Payment for Ecosystem Services is punished internally by the ejido through
Table 1 Smallholder intensification practices as a function of household livelihood variables and

government farm subsidies (Dobler-Morales et al., 2020)
Variable Intensification Intensification practice: Intensification
practice: Use of agrochemicals practice:
Fallow deferral (logistic model)b Mechanical tillage
(tobit model)a (logistic model)c
Constant 0.54 4.80 −3.88 ***
Household
characteristics and
activities (2018)
Family size 0.40 ** −1.22 0.26 *
Maize cultivation (ha.) 0.98 ** 0.42 0.39
Chilli cultivation (ha.) 1.71 * 44.55 1.99 **
Livestock net worth 0.05 1.58 0.04
($) * 10−4
Honey production 0.00 0.66 0.00
(kg.)
Remittances ($) * 0.16 49.32 0.00
10−4
Forestry (binary) −1.70 * −21.20 −0.78
Off-farm income ($) * −0.79 −0.52 −0.64
10−4
Participation in
government
programmes
PROAGRO (binary) 2.79 *** 17.25 1.20 *
PIMAF (binary) 0.55 2.12 0.73
PESA (binary) −0.39 3.44 1.41 **
*p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01, a Pearson’s r = 0.635 ***, b X-squared = 13.88 ***, c
X-squared = 28.52 ***
hefty fines, signalling an internalization of state-mandated conservation goals by the

ejido (see Agrawal 2005). Farmers and key-informants attested that clearing old-
growth and/or protected forest rarely happens today as residents tend to comply with
environmental regulations.
5 Scaling Up: The Influence of State Institutions on Ejidal

Landscapes
Despite once being a deforestation hotspot, rates of forest cover loss in Calakmul
began to decline in the 1980s due to multiple factors—among them, a deceleration
of in-migration rates amid a nation-wide financial crisis (Bray & Klepeis 2005). In
retrospect, that slowing of deforestation could be seen as the beginning of a trajectory

that may eventually lead Calakmul to experience a ‘forest transition’—a process in
which forest cover experiences a reversal in change rates, from losses to gains (see
Mather & Needle 1998). A forest transition in Calakmul is likely given that multiple
conditions for the expansion of forest cover have been present for some decades. One
factor conducive to such a transition is the progressive decline in land availability after
the establishment of ejidos in the region (Haenn 2006), which in turn reduced both in-
migration and the expansion of swidden (Bray & Klepeis 2005). The termination of
the state’s land distribution programme in the mid-1990s reinforced these dynamics,
further stabilizing population growth and cropland expansion in the region (Schmook
et al. 2013). Another factor is the progressive diversification of local livelihoods,
especially through the incorporation of labour migration. Labour migration appears
to be linked to a decline in swidden area at the household level (Schmook & Radel
2008), which should free up spaces for forest recovery at broader scales. One last
factor involves the expansion of conservation instruments in the region (Bray &
Klepeis 2005; Rueda 2010). The Reserve, the PES programme and the Forest Code,
as mentioned, have been reported to effectively deter smallholders from felling forest,
especially old-growth (García-Frapolli et al. 2009; Román-Dañobeytia et al. 2014).
Some ejidos have also set aside areas for conservation voluntarily (Acopa & Boege
1998, see also Kelly 2020), representing an additional driver of reduced deforestation
in Calakmul.
The occurrence of a forest transition could be significant for a place like Calakmul.
These processes have been linked to a number of social and environmental bene-
fits such as increased carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation and improved
provision of other ecosystem services at local scales (Chazdon et al. 2016; Gardner
et al. 2009; Pan et al. 2011). Nonetheless, while the slowdown of deforestation rates
is relatively well characterized (Ramírez-Delgado et al. 2014; Rueda 2010), no study
has conclusively detected a generalized trend of forest recovery in the region.
Admittedly, accurate detection of forest transitions in swidden-dominated land-
scapes like Calakmul is challenging given the spatial complexity of the forest-
agricultural mosaic, and especially the quick and periodic replacement of land-
covers: from forest to agriculture and back. It has been noted that common approaches
based on the comparison of remotely sensed image pairs (before vs. after) are unable
to fully capture such dynamism and might confound ephemeral forest cover changes
with sustained recovery/loss trends (DeVries et al. 2015). In order to accurately detect
where and when sustained forest expansion was occurring amid the ‘noisy’ back-
ground of land-cover change in the region, I conducted a change detection study based
on the analysis of a 34-year dense stack of Landsat imagery (Dobler-Morales 2019).
My approach consisted in analysing per-pixel time-series to detect abrupt changes
in their reflectivity. Periods between these changes, or breakpoints, were assumed
to correspond to different land-uses/land-covers (specifically, forest vs. non-forest).
The duration of these periods was then quantified to estimate the age of their corre-
sponding land-cover at any point in time. The entire procedure was performed for
each one of the 30×30 m pixels within the boundaries of the four selected ejidos
(see Fig. 1).
My study found that forest dynamics differ across the four ejidos, yet some patterns
seem to be shared (Fig. 2, Table 2). Theil–Sen slopes indicate that forest cover (all
ages) is still declining in all four ejidos. When excluding secondary forest cover
Fig. 2 Forest and non-forest cover change in the four ejidos studied. Dashed line and dotted line
represent all-ages and old-growth forest cover dynamics, respectively
Table 2 Coefficients and significance of forest cover trends in the four ejidos
All-ages forest Old-growth forest
Ejido Annual rate of Mann–Kendall’s Annual rate of Mann–Kendall’s
cover change (per test of cover change (per test of
Theil–Sen slopes) monotonicity (α Theil–Sen slopes) monotonicity (α
= 0.05) = 0.05)
Nueva Vida −0.37 km2 Significantly 0.43 km2 (0.27%) Not significant
(−0.23%) decreasing
Nuevo Becal <−0.01 km2 Significantly < 0.01 km2 Significantly
(−0.02%) decreasing (0.58%) increasing
La Guadalupe −0.31 km2 Significantly −0.59 km2 Significantly
(−0.26%) decreasing (−0.5%) decreasing
Narciso Mendoza −0.13 km2 Significantly 0.04 km2 (0.02%) Not significant
(−0.07%) decreasing
(i.e. less than 20 years old), forest trends in all but one ejido are positive or close to
stable, albeit with high non-linearity. Reciprocally, the area comprising non-forest
cover—composed of milpa but also pasture—exhibits a slow increase in all ejidos.
In addition, non-forest cover in all ejidos appears to be increasingly dominated by
fields used for over 9 years continuously.
These forest trends provide no conclusive evidence of a forest transition in any of
the four studied ejidos. In all but one case, old-growth forest seems to be expanding,
but Mann–Kendall statistics indicate that such growth has not happened in a sustained
(i.e. monotonic) way during the analysed period (Nuevo Becal is an exception).
Overall, these findings suggest that the expected abandonment of agricultural land
in the region and an attendant expansion of forest cover is not yet happening in a
notable way. Furthermore, the non-linear nature of forest cover dynamics makes the
likelihood of a forest transition uncertain in the near future.
The absence of a forest transition in the four ejidos comes as a surprise given that
conditions are ripe for significant forest regrowth, as mentioned above. However,
several factors could be offsetting the effect of these conditions on forest cover.
To begin with, although labour migration is associated with a decline of swidden
in the region, it has been seen that the scarcity of family labour that results from
this process, as well as the attendant gain in liquidity of the household from remit-
tances, can sometimes lead to the establishment of pasture and thus prevent forest
regrowth (Busch & Geoghegan 2010). More clearly involved in the absence of a
forest transition, however, are state-sponsored farm subsidies. Based on evidence
of household-level land-use decisions shown before, I argue that by incentivizing
smallholders to farm continuously via cash transfers and free inputs, farm subsidies
are promoting the consolidation of a semi-permanent agricultural cover, which in
turn prevents the expansion of forest cover.
Besides composite land-cover change in the ejidos, it is worth highlighting
changes happening within forest and non-forest cover. As mentioned, findings from
my research suggest old-growth forest in all but one ejido is expanding, although in
a non-linear trajectory. Indeed, research has shown that deforestation in Calakmul is

now happening mostly at the expense of secondary forest, not old-growth (Schmook
2010). A similar pattern can be observed within agricultural land cover, as older fields
(i.e. of over 9 years of consecutive use) appear to be becoming increasingly common
within already opened lands. The simultaneous growth of these two land-use cate-
gories—old-growth forest and older agricultural fields—could reflect the cumulative
effects of farmers gradually suspending field rotations, and therefore reducing the
amount of fallowed land that needs to be reopened, in turn allowing secondary forest
to grow older. This shift in land-use patterns is relevant as it may have important
social-environmental implications, some of which are discussed below.
6 Discussion
The observations presented in this chapter provide important evidence of the impact
of state interference on Calakmul’s ejidos through two main instruments: farm subsi-
dies targeted at the modernization of local agriculture, and conservation institutions
to protect the extensive forest of the region. Much of the relevance of this form of
state interference lies in the territorial processes it unleashes in terms of its influence
over ejido land management.
The effect of agrarian policy based on farm subsidies on Calakmul’s land-use
patterns has been amply documented. The PROAGRO programme, for instance,
has long been recognized as a critical driver in the allocation (mostly expansion)
of agricultural land at the household level (Klepeis & Vance 2003; Roy Chowd-
hury & Turner 2006; Schmook & Vancem 2009). My research further indicates that
PROAGRO as well as the PESA and PRTP programmes work to induce farmers to
defer fallows and undertake mechanical tillage. On the other hand, evidence shows
that state restrictions to access land under a protection status (the Reserve’s core
zone and the PES polygons) or with old-growth forest (Forest Code) appear to be
introducing an artificial form of land scarcity that increases the pressure to keep
cultivating the same field and defer fallows. The possibility of being arrested for
breaking conservation law seems to act as a deterrent to field rotation—especially in
the face of expanding efforts by state agencies to monitor the region.
While agrarian and conservation policy appear to be critical drivers of territorial
processes on their own, I believe their significance to ejido land-use patterns stems
mostly from their joint action. Indeed, although seemingly at odds, farm subsidies
and environmental restrictions seem to align neatly in shifting the way Calakmul’s
residents organize their territory—from an approach where different land-uses are
shared dynamically across the landscape, to one in which forest is set aside and
decoupled from agriculture. This shift echoes what is known among scholars as
‘land-sparing’ (Green et al. 2005; Phalan et al. 2011).
The convergence of agrarian and conservation policy in pushing Calakmul’s
landscapes towards the segregation of agriculture from forest constitutes a process
witnessed in many other tropical frontiers (de Jong 1997; Fox et al. 2009; Mertz
et al. 2009; van Vliet et al. 2012). Not surprisingly, swidden agriculture has declined
globally (Heinimann et al. 2017; van Vliet et al. 2012). However, it is worth noting
that land-sparing imperatives of the state in Calakmul have not been translated into
forceful measures such as compulsory village relocation or overt land disposses-
sion—tools of land governance often used in other contexts. Instead, I see land-
sparing in the region as the product of state institutions shaping smallholders’ land-
use decisions in a more subtle way: by mixing instruments of coercion (farm subsidies
and PES) and land-use regulation (the Reserve and Forest Code). Notably, this institu-
tional ‘carrot-and-stick’ complementarity can hardly be considered a planned feature
given the persistent lack of coordination between the agencies in charge of agrarian
(Secretariat of Agriculture) and environmental (Secretariat of the Environment)
issues in Mexico (Domínguez 2010; Fernández Vázquez 2014).
An increasingly segregated and stable landscape can have important implications
for local livelihoods and the forest in Calakmul. The otherwise dynamic integra-
tion of land-uses such as that embodied by swidden-dominated landscapes has been
recognized for its benefits in contexts where livelihood alternatives remain limited
due to economic and/or environmental constraints (Castella et al. 2013; Dressler et al.
2018; van Vliet et al. 2013). It is claimed that highly integrated agricultural-forest
mosaics can increase the ‘multifunctional’ character of the landscape (O’Farrell &
Anderson 2010), supporting a wide range of land-based activities without neces-
sarily degrading the natural resource base of the territory. In Calakmul’s ejidos, land-
scape multi-functionality still plays an important role in household reproduction,
underpinning the concurrent development of forestry, beekeeping, cattle ranching,
firewood collection and, of course, milpa cultivation, among other activities (Porter-
Bolland et al. 2006; Radel et al. 2010; Schmook et al. 2013). The growing segregation
and simplification of ejido landscapes can thus erode such multi-functionality and
threaten the livelihood security of ejido residents in the region.
The pattern of agricultural intensification that undergirds this land-use regime shift
also has more direct socio-environmental consequences. It is reported that fallow
deferral in the region can interfere with phosphorus cycling in the soil, affecting
agricultural productivity and future forest regrowth (Lawrence et al. 2007). The
increased application of agrochemicals inevitably leads to higher human exposure
to toxic agents, and beekeepers argue it also affects their honey production. The
expansion of mechanical tillage is one of the biggest concerns in the region due to its
capacity to permanently degrade the shallow soils. Furthermore, the removal of roots
and stumps to prepare fields for tilling undermines the capacity of the forest to regen-
erate, allowing the colonization of invasive species (Schneider 2004). Amid a context
of a fragile ecosystem and economic marginalization, such consequences demand
that policy-makers reconsider the institutional arrangement inspired by misinformed
notions of modernity and pristine ecologies that currently operates in Calakmul.
References
Abizaid C, Coomes OT (2004) Land use and forest fallowing dynamics in seasonally dry tropical
forests of the Southern Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico. Land Use Policy 21:71–84
Achard F, Eva H, Glinni A, Mayaux P, Richards T, Stibig H (1998) Identification of deforestation
hot spot areas in the humid tropics: TREES Publications Series B, Research Report no. 4. Joint
Research Centre, European Commission, Ispra
Acopa D, Boege E (1998) The Maya forest in Campeche, Mexico: experiences in forest management
at Calakmul. In: Primack RB, Bray DB, Galletti HA, Ponciano I (eds) Timber, tourists, and
temples: conservation and development in the Maya forest of Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico.
Island Press, Washington D.C, pp 81–97
Agrawal A (2005) Environmentality: technologies of government and the making of subjects. Duke
University Press, Durham
Alcorn J, Toledo VM (1998) Resilient resource management in Mexico’s forest ecosystems: The
contribution of property rights. In: Berkes F, Folke C (eds) Linking social and ecological systems.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.
Appendini K (2014) Reconstructing the maize market in rural Mexico. J Agrar Chang 14:1–25
Araujo Monroy R (2014) Programa Municipal de Desarrollo de Gran Visión para el Municipio de
Calakmul, Campeche (2013–2040). GIZ, Petén, Guatemala
Boserup E (1965) The conditions of agricultural growth: the economics of agrarian change under
population pressure. George Allen & Unwin, London
Bray DB, Klepeis P (2005) Deforestation, forest transitions, and institutions for sustainability in
Southeastern Mexico, 1990–2000. Environ Hist 11:195–223
Busch C, Geoghegan J (2010) Labour scarcity as an underlying cause of the increasing prevalence
of deforestation due to cattle pasture development in the Southern Yucatán region. Reg Environ
Chang 10:191–203
Carte L, McWatters M, Daley E, Torres R (2010) Experiencing agricultural failure: internal
migration, tourism and local perceptions of regional change in the Yucatan. Geoforum 41:700–710
Castella JC, Lestrelin G, Hett C, Bourgoin J, Fitriana YR, Heinimann A, Pfund JL (2013) Effects
of landscape segregation on livelihood vulnerability: moving from extensive shifting cultivation
to rotational agriculture and natural forests in Northern Laos. Hum Ecol 41:63–76
Chazdon RL, Broadbent E, Rozendaal D, et al. (2016) Carbon sequestration potential of second-
growth forest regeneration in the Latin American tropics. Sci Adv 2:e1501639
Cornelius WA, Myhre D (eds) (1998) The transformation of rural Mexico: reforming the ejido
sector. Center for US-Mexican Studies. University of California, San Diego, San Diego
de Jong W (1997) Developing swidden agriculture and the threat of biodiversity loss. Agr Ecosyst
Environ 62:187–197
DeVries B, Decuyper M, Verbesselt J, Zeileis A, Herold M, Joseph S (2015) Tracking disturbance-
regrowth dynamics in tropical forests using structural change detection and landsat time series.
Remote Sens Environ 169:320–334
Dobler-Morales C (2019) Smallholder dimensions of rural change in modern Mexico (Ph.D.
Dissertation). Clark University, Worcester, U.S.
Dobler-Morales C, Roy Chowdhury R, Schmook B (2020) Governing intensification: the influence
of state institutions on smallholder farming strategies in Calakmul, Mexico. J Land Use Sci
15:108–126
Domínguez J (2010) Integralidad y transversalidad de la política ambiental. In: Lezama J, Graizbord
B (eds) Los grandes problemas de México: Medio Ambiente. El Colegio de México, Mexico City
Dressler WH, Smith W, Montefrio MJF (2018) Ungovernable? the vital natures of swidden
assemblages in an upland frontier. J Rural Stud 61:343–354
Fernández Vázquez E (2014) Integración de la política ambiental en México: El caso de la política
agropecuaria. Gestión y Política Pública 23:465–505
Foster DR, Turner BL (2004) The long view: human-environment relationships, 1000 BC–AD
1900. In: Turner BL, Geoghegan J, Foster D (eds) Integrated land-change science and tropical
deforestation in Southern Yucatán: final frontiers. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 23–38
Fox J, Fujita Y, Ngidang D, Peluso N, Potter L, Sakuntaladewi N, Thomas D (2009) Policies,
political-economy, and swidden in Southeast Asia. Hum Ecol 37:305–322
García-Frapolli E, Ramos-Fernández G, Galicia E, Serrano A (2009) The complex reality of biodi-
versity conservation through natural protected area policy: three cases from the Yucatan Peninsula,
Mexico. Land Use Policy 26:715–722
García Gil G, Palacio Prieto JL, Pérez Ortiz MA (2002) Reconocimiento geomorfológico e
hidrográfico de la Reserva de la Biosfera Calakmul, México. Investigaciones Geográficas 48:7–23
Gardner TA, Barlow J, Chazdon R, Ewers RM, Harvey CA, Peres CA, Sodhi NS (2009) Prospects
for tropical forest biodiversity in a human-modified world. Ecol Lett 12:561–582
Garibay C, Boni A, Panico F, Urquijo P, Klooster D (2011) Unequal partners, unequal exchange:
goldcorp, the Mexican state, and Campesino dispossession at the Peñasquito goldmine. J Lat Am
Geogr 10:153–176
Gates M (1996) The debt crisis and economic restructuring: prospects for Mexican agriculture.
In: Otero G (ed) Neoliberalism revisited: economic restructuring and Mexico’s political future.
Westview Press, Boulder, CO, pp 43–62
Green RE, Cornell SJ, Scharlemann JPW, Balmford A (2005) Farming and the fate of wild nature.
Science 307:550–555
Haenn N (2002) Nature regimes in Southern Mexico: a history of power and environment. Ethnology
41:1–26
Haenn N (2005) Fields of power, forests of discontent: Culture, Conservation, and the State in
Mexico. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson
Haenn N (2006) The changing and enduring ejido: a state and regional examination of Mexico’s
land tenure counter-reforms. Land Use Policy 23:136–146
Heinimann A, Mertz O, Frolking S, Christensen AE, Hurni K, Sedano F, Hurtt G (2017) A global
view of shifting cultivation: recent, current, and future extent. PLoS ONE 12:1–21
Kelly J (2020) Village-scale reserves in the forest frontier regions of Chenes and Calakmul, Mexico.
J Land Use Sci 15:203–220
Keys E (2004) Jalapeño Pepper Cultivation: Emergent Commercial Land Use. In: Turner BL,
Geoghegan J, Foster D (eds) Integrated land-change science and tropical deforestation in Southern
Yucatán: final frontiers. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 207–220
Klepeis P (2004) Forest extraction to theme parks: the modern history of land change. In: Turner
BL, Geoghegan J, Foster D (eds) Integrated land-change science and tropical deforestation in
Southern Yucatán: final frontiers. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 39–62
Klepeis P, Roy Chowdhury R (2004) Institutions, organizations, and policy affecting land change:
complexity within and beyond the ejido. In: Turner BL, Geoghegan J, Foster D (eds) Inte-
grated land-change science and tropical deforestation in Southern Yucatán: final frontiers. Oxford
University Press, Oxford, pp 145–170
Klepeis P, Turner BL (2001) Integrated land history and global change science: the example of the
Southern Yucatán Peninsular region project. Land Use Policy 18:27–39
Klepeis P, Vance C (2003) Neoliberal policy and deforestation in Southeastern Mexico: an
assessment of the PROCAMPO program. Econ Geogr 79:221–240
Klepeis P, Vance C, Keys E, Macario-Mendoza P, Turner BL (2004) Subsistence sustained: swidden
or milpa cultivation. In: Turner BL, Geoghegan J, Foster D (eds) Integrated land-change science
and tropical deforestation in Southern Yucatán: final frontiers. Oxford University Press, Oxford,
pp 189–206
Lawrence D (2005) Regional-scale variation in litter production and seasonality in tropical dry
forests of Southern Mexico. Biotropica 37:561–570
Lawrence D, D’Odorico P, Diekmann L, DeLonge M, Das R, Eaton J (2007) Ecological feedbacks
following deforestation create the potential for a catastrophic ecosystem shift in tropical dry
forest. Proc Natl Acad Sci 104:20696–20701
Mather AS, Needle CL (1998) The forest transition: a theoretical basis. Area 30:117–124
Mertz O, Padoch C, Fox J, Cramb RA, Leisz SJ, Lam NT, Vien TD (2009) Swidden change in
Southeast Asia: understanding causes and consequences. Hum Ecol 37:259–264
Negreros-Castillo P, Hall RB (2000) Sprouting capability of 17 tropical tree species after overstory
removal in Quintana Roo, Mexico. For Ecol Manage 126:399–403
O’Farrell PJ, Anderson PML (2010) Sustainable multifunctional landscapes: a review to imple-
mentation. Curr Opin Environ Sustain 2:59–65.
Pan Y, Birdsey RA, Fang J, Houghton R, Kauppi PE, Kurz WA, Hayes D (2011) A large and
persistent carbon sink in the world’s forests. Science 333:988–993
Phalan B, Onial M, Balmford A, Green RE (2011) Reconciling food production and biodiversity
conservation: land sharing and land sparing compared. Science 333:1289–1291
Porter-Bolland L, Bonilla-Moheno M, García-Frapolli E, Morteo-Montiel S (2015) Forest ecosys-
tems and conservation. In: Islebe GA, Calmé S, Cortés JL, Schmook B (eds) Biodiversity and
conservation of the Yucatán Peninsula. Springer, Heidelberg, pp 377–398
Porter-Bolland L, Drew AP, Vergara-Tenorio C (2006) Analysis of a natural resources management
system in the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve. Landsc Urban Plan 74:223–241
Radel C, Schmook B, Roy Chowdhury R (2010) Agricultural livelihood transition in the Southern
Yucatán region: diverging paths and their accompanying land changes. Reg Environ Chang
10:205–218
Ramírez-Delgado JP, Christman Z, Schmook B (2014) Deforestation and fragmentation of seasonal
tropical forests in the Southern Yucatán, Mexico (1990–2006). Geocarto Int 29:822–841
Read L, Lawrence D (2003) Recovery of biomass following shifting cultivation in dry tropical
forests of the Yucatan. Ecol Appl 13:85–97
Rocheleau DE (2015) Networked, rooted and territorial: green grabbing and resistance in Chiapas.
J Peasant Stud 42:695–723
Román-Dañobeytia FJ, Levy-Tacher SI, Macario-Mendoza P, Zúñiga-Morales J (2014) Redefining
secondary forests in the Mexican forest code: implications for management, restoration, and
conservation. Forests 5:978–991
Roy Chowdhury R, Turner BL (2006) Reconciling agency and structure in empirical analysis:
smallholder land use in the Southern Yucatan, Mexico. Ann Assoc Am Geogr 96:302–322
Rueda X (2010) Understanding deforestation in the southern Yucatán: insights from a sub-regional,
multi-temporal analysis. RegNal Environ Chang 10:175–189
Schmook B (2010) Shifting maize cultivation and secondary vegetation in the Southern Yucatán:
successional forest impacts of temporal intensification. RegNal Environ Chang 10:233–246
Schmook B, Radel C (2008) International labour migration from a tropical development frontier:
globalizing households and an incipient forest transition: the Southern Yucatán case. Hum Ecol
36:891–908
Schmook B, van Vliet N, Radel C, Manzón-Che MJ, McCandless S (2013) Persistence of swidden
cultivation in the face of globalization: a case study from communities in Calakmul, Mexico.
Hum Ecol 41:93–107
Schmook B, Vance C (2009) Agricultural policy, market barriers, and deforestation: the case of
Mexico’s Southern Yucatán. World Dev 37:1015–1025
Schneider L (2004) Bracken fern invasion in Southern Yucatán: a case for land-change science.
Geogr Rev 94:229–241
Turner BL, Brush SB (eds) (1987) Comparative farming systems. The Guilford Press, New York
Turner BL, Cortina Villar S, Foster D, Geoghegan J, Keys E, Klepeis P, Vance C (2001) Deforestation
in the Southern Yucatán Peninsular region: an integrative approach. For Ecol Manag 154:353–370
van Vliet N, Mertz O, Birch-Thomsen T, Schmook B (2013) Is there a continuing rationale for
swidden cultivation in the 21st century? Hum Ecol 41:1–5
van Vliet N, Mertz O, Heinimann A, Langanke T, Pascual U, Schmook B, Ziegler AD (2012) Trends,
drivers and impacts of changes in swidden cultivation in tropical forest-agriculture frontiers: a
global assessment. Glob Environ Chang 22:418–429
Vance C, Klepeis P, Schmook B, Keys E (2004) The ejido household: the current agent of change. In:
Turner BL, Geoghegan J, Foster D (eds) Integrated land-change science and tropical deforestation
in Southern Yucatán: final frontiers. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 171–188
Carlos Dobler-Morales Postdoctoral fellow, Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental,

Carlos Dobler-Morales holds a Ph.D. in Geography from Clark University, USA (2019). His
areas of interest include rural livelihoods, agrarian political economy, land systems, and vulnera-
bility to environmental and institutional change. He has developed most of his research in Mexican
contexts, particularly in the southern Yucatan peninsula and western Oaxaca.
Territorial Changes and the Fisheries
of La Encrucijada Biosphere Reserve,
Chiapas, Mexico
José Manuel Mojica-Vélez and Sara Barrasa-García
Abstract This chapter analyzes how policy impacted the landscape of coastal
wetlands and the territory of artisanal fishermen. The study area is La Encruci-
jada Biosphere Reserve in Chiapas, which is in the south west of Mexico along the
Pacific Coast. We studied historical, political, and economic processes. We found
that building hydrological infrastructure was a political act to expand the agricul-
tural frontier whilst overlooking the realities of the wetlands and the artisanal fish-
ermen. The Mexican Government has promoted agricultural plantations since the
early twentieth century, but especially the expansion of oil palms in the last decades
has caused significant impacts on the environment. However, the conservation policy
of La Encrucijada Biosphere Reserve has been an obstacle to the growth of plan-
tations, rendering the territorialities more controversial in a complex landscape of
coastal wetlands. At present, the livelihoods of artisanal fisheries have been reduced
dramatically, affecting the traditions and the welfare of local communities.
Keywords Protected Areas · Fisheries · Conservation
1 Introduction
This chapter explores the effects of programs that were designed to expand the
agricultural frontier in Chiapas, Mexico, which affected the fishing communities
that traditionally operated in the wetlands that border the coast, in an area now
incorporated in La Encrucijada Biosphere Reserve (LEBR). The chapter is a product
of a PhD thesis which was prepared between 2016 and 2021 with the general objective
of assessing landscape and territorial changes in coastal wetlands. The purpose of this
J. M. Mojica-Vélez (B)
INVEMAR, Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras ‘José Benito Vives de Andréis’,
Santa Marta, Colombia
S. Barrasa-García
Morelia, Mexico
e-mail: sbarrasa@ciga.unam.mx

76 J. M. Mojica-Vélez and S. Barrasa-García
case study is to demonstrate impacts of past policies and to highlight the challenges
that conservation and small-scale fisheries face today.
Policies for development in Mexico have included some which aim to expand the
agricultural frontier in wetland zones. Wetlands have been reclaimed by hydrologic
infrastructure, such as dikes, river straightening, and drainage systems. However, this
infrastructure may have negative environmental impacts, resulting in the degradation
or disappearance of wetlands, and even worse, in the decline of small-scale fisheries
that depend upon them (Mojica-Vélez et al. 2018).
From 1978 to 1994, a policy called Integrated Rural Development Program for
the Humid Tropics—known by the acronym PRODERITH in Spanish—was imple-
mented to expand the agriculture frontier in the Mexican humid tropics. It received
significant loans from the World Bank, which advised and monitored the execution
of programs. The policy was implemented in the coastal zone of Chiapas in two
programs: the first was a pilot between 1978 and 1982, and the second was a river
control and draining megaproject between 1986 and 1994. The agency in charge was
the Ministry of Agriculture and Hydrological Resources, which was reformed and
replaced in the 1990s by the National Water Commission—CONAGUA—(World
Bank 1994; CONAGUA 1994).
Since this policy was initiated, the area dedicated to small-scale fisheries has
been progressively reduced, in contrast to the agriculture plantations, which have
expanded. Wetlands located down-stream of hydrological infrastructure have been
affected by sedimentation and agrochemical pollution, and fish resources in these
areas are therefore declining. Local communities have been changing their livelihood
bases because income from fishing has declined.
Currently, officials and scientists working in La Encrucijada Biosphere Reserve, a
conservation area which extends for 125 km along the coast of Chiapas—equivalent
to 48% of the coastline of the state—are trying to find solutions to deal with the
problems of sedimentation and pollution in the coastal wetlands. But, they are aware
that the origins of the problems are located upstream, outside of the protected area,
which means that solutions need to be negotiated and agreed with farmers and other
producers, and especially with CONAGUA (Gómez-Ortega et al. 2019) (Fig. 1).
2 Study Area
La Encrucijada Biosphere Reserve (LEBR) is in the State of Chiapas in southeastern

México, on the Pacific coast. It consists of lagoons connected by waterways that
are influenced by both rivers and tides. Extensive areas are covered by mangroves,
marshes, swamp forests, and dunes. The diversity of the wetlands provides habitats
for birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles, including species in danger of extinc-
tion. The aquatic diversity is reflected in the stocks of fish and crustaceans, which
are significant not only in environmental terms but also because they support the
economy of local communities (Instituto Nacional de Ecología 1999) (Fig. 2).
Territorial Changes and the Fisheries … 77
Fig. 1 Fishers in La Encrucijada
Fig. 2 Mangroves in La Encrucijada

Environmental protection efforts in La Encrucijada began in 1972. The State of

Chiapas initially established a protected area to stop the invasions of farmers and
cattle ranchers into the mangroves and the swamp forests. However, the State did
not allocate sufficient financial resources for this and did not carry out monitoring
or patrols, and as a result, invasions of wetland zones continued (Alcalá 1999).
At the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s, the State of Chiapas, with
the support of international environmental organizations, carried out several studies
with a view to creating protected areas across the whole of the State. Based on
these studies, the Federal Government created the LEBR in 1995, with an area of
144,868 hectares—much larger than the protected area that had been created in 1972.
The core zones were established with the purpose of conserving the mangroves and
lagoons over an area of 36,216 hectares (Fig. 3). A buffer zone of 108,651 hectares
was also delineated, incorporating private and social properties (Instituto Nacional
de Ecología 1999).
The establishment of the LEBR opened a “window of opportunity” for the fishers
of the area who had been affected by PRODERITH, and they supported it as a
strategy to deal with the increasing agriculture and cattle rearing that were taking
place upstream. In fact, the purpose of creating a Biosphere Reserve is to encourage
the harmonization of traditional natural resources management with the conservation
of ecosystems, with all of this based on community participation (Halffter 2011).
3 Material and Methods
An exhaustive search of data files was made in the Mexican Historical Archive
and in the National Library of CONAGUA. Both preserve the institutional memory
related to water resources management from the colonial era to present. The search
comprised all official documents related to the implementation of PRODERITH
along the coast of Chiapas. In addition, a search of documents in the database of the
World Bank was carried out to find evaluation documents related to the programs
funded. Four semi-structured interviews were also carried out; two with officials who
worked in the implementation of PRODERITH, and two with the former directors
of the LEBR, who were involved in the studies for establishing the Reserve.
4 Integrated Rural Development Program for the Humid

Tropics
In the first half of the twentieth century, the agricultural policy of the federal govern-
ment in Mexico was focused on the expansion and protection of irrigation districts,
especially in the north of the country. In addition to supporting irrigation infrastruc-
ture, the government guaranteed prices and gave subsidies to farmers. However, this
Fig. 3 La Encrucijada Biosphere Reserve
policy was uneven. While it protected the irrigation districts, subsistence agriculture
in other parts of the country did not benefit.
In the 1970s, the unstable prices of basic grains, the lack of land, and the reduction
of groundwater generated a crisis in the policy of support for irrigation. First, the
Green Revolution generated an over-production of basic grains in the international
market due to the development of technology of agrochemicals and mechanization.
Because of overproduction, prices were reduced, and the production costs in the
national irrigation districts were too high to compete in the market. In the irrigated
districts, basic grains (maize, rice) were replaced by other crops, such as vegeta-
bles. This meant that the internal demand for maize was not supplied by national
production, and the government was forced to import. Second, the expansion of irri-
gation districts required land and water resources, but there were no more resources
available in the regions where expansion had occurred earlier (Rubio 1988).
To deal with the agricultural policy crisis, politicians focused their attention on the
Mexican humid tropics. In these zones, the Federal Government calculated that 3.5
million hectares were available for agricultural expansion. On the coast of Chiapas,
550,000 hectares were identified (CPNH 1975).
In the past, efforts to expand the agricultural frontier in the humid tropics had
largely failed because of a lack of technology adapted to the natural conditions, and
because the programs were imposed without the agreement of local communities
(Tudela 1989). Therefore, a long-term policy based on scientific research was deemed
necessary. This new policy would be based on the technological developments of the
Green Revolution and legitimized by the participation of peasant communities.
The new policy proposed that development in the humid tropics was possible
through the construction of hydrological infrastructure and the conversion of peasant
farming systems to more productive, commercially competitive ones. The policy was
aimed at establishment of rainfed agriculture, not irrigation, in areas where excess
water had to be drained for production of crops and grasslands.
On the coast of Chiapas, after a pilot program, a river control and mega drainage
project—the Hydrological Plan of the Chiapas Coast—was carried out between
1986 and 1994. 400 km of dikes, 600 km of drainage canals and pipes, and 1,434 km
of roads were built (World Bank 1994). Although the megaproject was implemented
upstream of the coastal wetlands, it changed the territory of the fishing communities
who had traditionally made a living within them.
5 Territorial Changes
At the beginning of the 1970s, there were approximately 3,000 fishers on the coast
of Chiapas (Helbig 1976). In La Encrucijada, their houses were spatially dispersed
between the mangroves, the forests, and the coastal dunes. Fishers moved constantly
along the coast, according to the fishing season. They had a rotation system for
fishing, which allowed the fish resources to recover annually. In this way, and with
the passing of time, fishers developed social networks beyond their own villages.
Since pre-hispanic times (Navarrete 1998), fishers navigated the corridors of
lagoons and waterways, where they caught fish and shellfish. Through navigation,
they explored and appropriated their territory. If they went far from their homes,
they built huts where they stayed for some days—a practice called ranchar by local
people. Indeed, it was through ranchar that they began to establish the main villages
in the territory during the twentieth century.
The fishers territory was isolated from the rest of the country in a space unexplored
by the State. In the coastal plain, recurrent floods obstructed roads. People could not
go to the municipal headquarters to market the fish resources in the rainy season.
Because of the lack of electricity, they traded dried fish and shellfish with merchants,
or they exchanged the products for other supplies. In the first half of the twentieth
century, two of the most important villages (La Palma and Río Arriba) founded
fishing cooperatives, and here, fishers were empowered to negotiate and manage the
natural resources (Ortiz-Hernández 1983).
However, in the 1970s and 1980s, the territory and the livelihoods of the fishing
communities began to change. There was growing social tension throughout the
State of Chiapas. In the north, the building of hydroelectric dams displaced the
population. The wars in Central America and the arrival of refugees concerned the
Federal Government, which was worried about expansion of the conflicts (Paz 1985).
Demographic growth, migration, and the continuing demand of peasants for land
distribution were leading to popular invasions of land. In the coastal plain of Chiapas,
the new settlers faced problems of living in flood-prone areas, and they had to organize
to get land tenure and face disputes with the legal landowners (Alcalá 1999).
PRODERITH was formulated and implemented in this context of growing social
tension. On the Chiapas coastal zone, PRODERITH intensified the conflicts around
land distribution. The hydrologic infrastructure led to the replacement of marshes and
swamp forests with grasslands and crops, while the roads increased accessibility to
the mangroves and lagoons. PRODERITH created the physical conditions to increase
the occupation of the flood-prone areas, which in their natural conditions could not
be used by humans.
Further, the building of infrastructure led to the establishment of human settle-
ments. The new and the old communities, encouraged by the participation activities
carried out in the PRODERITH, demanded access to public services and the construc-
tion of facilities such as schools and medical centers (CPNH 1984). The building of
roads enabled integration of the fisheries into the market. Roads increased the pres-
ence of traders, and with the passing of time, the prices of fishery products increased.
In the 1980s, exploitation was intensified, and fishing communities noted that the
fish resources began to decline. However, integration into the market was considered
by many fishers a positive change, because it was beneficial for them in the short
run, elevating local incomes.
The arrival of new populations (Fig. 4) changed the management of the natural
resources within a few years. These people, who came from different regions and did
not have knowledge of the environment, expanded wildlife hunting and the extraction
of mangrove wood (Instituto de Historia Natural 1993).
The new population fought with the fishers over access and control of fish
resources. The state handled these disputes by instituting fishery concessions. Conse-
quently, both the new and the traditional fishers organized themselves into cooper-
atives to apply for concessions. At the end of 1970s, there were only five fishing
cooperatives in Chiapas, and today, there are more than 200 (Conapesca 2017).
Figure 5 shows the increase in number of fishers over this period. Concessions are
given in the form of rectangular polygons along the coastline. Having a concession
means that fishers are limited to fishing within one area, and cannot move to other
Fig. 4 Increase of
population in municipalities
of the LEBR (INEGI, 2010)
Fig. 5 Increase in numbers of fishers in the State of Chiapas (CONAPESCA 2017)
places as they did under their traditional rotation system. This in turn has led to
overfishing in demarcated areas.
Most of the fishers do not have formal land tenure, rather they live on land which
is federal public property next to the lagoons and mangroves. Although they have
fishing concessions, the absence of land tenure has meant that the fishers are not able
to defend their wetlands, especially those that have been occupied by farmers who
got land tenure in areas upstream in the coastal plain.
PRODERITH caused a loss of territory for fishing communities. Moreover, defor-
estation and the subsequent agricultural activities have increased erosion; and with
the dikes, river straightening, and drains upstream, sediment deposit is occurring
progressively on the coastal wetlands. However, the government’s response has been
to reinforce the flood control policy, and all rivers have been channelled in the coastal
floodplain (Tovilla 2005).
The establishment of the LEBR in 1995, at the end of the PRODERITH, can
be considered a response to the accelerated and negative changes in the coastal
wetlands produced by the hydrological infrastructure. According to interviews, the
designation of La Encrucijada as a Biosphere Reserve was a challenging process. On
the one hand, peasants demanded the access to lands, while on the other hand, the
fishing communities were experiencing the loss of their territory. Due to this context,
the spatial boundaries of the reserve were delineated based on the land tenure and
the spatial distribution of mangroves and lagoons.
A few years after the implementation of PRODERITH and the establishment of
the LEBR, tropical storm Javier (1998) and hurricane Stan (2005) caused flooding
with severe impacts on people, economy, and infrastructure in the coastal wetlands.
Flooding intensified the sedimentation, and significant areas of marsh and swamp
forest disappeared. Today, wetland sedimentation has meant a loss of territories
available for fishing because of reductions in lagoon depths and the disappearance of
ecosystems which provided seafood nurseries, such as marshes and swamp forests.
The monitoring of the mangrove program by the National Commission of Biodi-
versity (CONABIO) detected land use and land cover changes along much of the
Mexican coast, including in the area occupied by the LEBR. Here, the program
detected loss of mangroves and lagoons, but more importantly, it identified a signif-
icant change to other wetlands such as marshes and swamp forest and vegetation
such as tropical forest, to agriculture and cattle rearing (Valderrama-Landeros et al.
2017) (Table. 1).
Synergistically, the loss of wetlands and the growth of population related to
PRODERITH have impacted the fisheries. Figure 6 shows the reduction in production
of shrimp in the State of Chiapas.
The decline of small-scale fisheries has had implications for people’s lives.
Several communities have abandoned fishing activities completely, especially where
wetlands have been degraded and disappeared. Some communities have diversified
their livelihoods, combining fishing with agriculture, cattle, and/or (eco)tourism.
Most of the fishers who remain in the territory have continued with the exploitation
of fish and shrimp. Many young people have migrated to the capital cities or to the
United States to get access to opportunities that offer better incomes.
Table. 1 Land cover and

Land cover and land use 1970 (ha) 2015 (ha)
land use in the LEBR
(Valderrama-Landeros et al. Agriculture and livestock 25,230.49 41,423.63
2017) Water bodies (lagoons, streams) 36,070.38 35,687.65
Urban areas 234.62 1,307.43
Mangroves 29,601.83 29,312.92
Vegetation 17,061.56 7,148.47
Other wetlands 35,811.18 29,219.71
Without vegetation 822.70 733.19
Fig. 6 Reduction of shrimp production in the State of Chiapas (CONAPESCA 2017)
Additionally, the recent and increasing expansion of the agricultural frontier, espe-
cially for oil palm, has changed the landscape of the coastal wetlands. At the begin-
ning of the 2000s, due to the increase in the prices of palm oil in the international
market and to agricultural policies that offered financial incentives, palm oil plan-
tations expanded all along the coast of Chiapas. Most of the plantations replaced
grasslands used for cattle ranching, but oil palm also expanded over wetland zones
reclaimed by the hydrological infrastructure, and over wetlands that were affected
by sedimentation after the floods of 1998 and 2005 (Castellanos-Navarrete 2018)
(Fig. 7).
Presently, climate change is becoming another important driver of landscape
change in coastal wetlands. Higher temperatures, sea-level rise, salinity, and extreme
weather events are transforming the physical properties of wetlands (Alongi 2008;
Erwin 2009; Hadley 2009; Gardner et al. 2015). Small-scale fisheries are vulnerable,
and where wetlands do not have enough resilience in the face of increasing hazards,
fisheries will continue to decline.
LEBR officials and scientists are trying to find solutions to deal with sedimentation
and agrochemical pollution in coastal wetlands. However, real solutions have to be
found and implemented upstream in the coastal plain outside the protected area. In
the coastal plain, there is a growing recognition towards recovering the free flow of
rivers, and thus to reduce sediment deposition in the coastal wetlands. These solutions
may negatively affect agricultural plantations and cattle areas, but all policies involve
trade-offs. Ultimately, the loss of wetlands and the decline of small-scale fisheries
may be costlier than losses that would occur by harming people in the agricultural
zone.
Fig. 7 Palm oil factory and oil palm trees behind
6 Conclusions
The actual decline of traditional fisheries in the Chiapas coastal zone can be directly
related to PRODERITH, which was intended to expand the agricultural frontier
through the building of hydrological infrastructure. The policy was narrowly focused
to include the territory located downstream of the flood plain, where coastal wetlands
and fisheries configure a cultural landscape. A more holistic policy could have
avoided the decline of fisheries if it had integrated the interests of different sectors
and planned the prevention and mitigation of the long-term environmental impacts
of dikes, river straightening, and drains.
In a synergistic way with PRODERITH, the increase of new populations entailed
major pressures on natural resources. The arrival of people from different regions
without local knowledge of the coastal wetlands changed the fishing practices and the
traditional relations of communities with nature. For this reason, it is becoming more
urgent to work with the traditional knowledge of communities. The territories of local
communities are facing driving forces that change their lives and territories, so the
recovery of traditional knowledge may give insights to improve the conservation of
biosphere reserves.
The establishment of the LEBR slowed the agricultural expansion produced by
PRODERITH, but environmental degradation of the wetlands continues, and is highly
related to activities upstream and the occurrence of floods that transport and deposit
sediment in the coastal wetlands. Flood hazards will intensify due to climate change,
and environmental degradation makes wetlands more vulnerable. Conservation must
be undertaken beyond the actual spatial boundaries, and include the restoration of
the entire Chiapas coastal plain.
Acknowledgements We thank CONACYT for the PhD scholarship [456645]; Universidad

Nacional Autónoma de México for Programa de Apoyo a Proyectos de Investigación e Inno-
vación Tecnológica [IA301118 and IN303620]; the Historical Archives and the National Library
of CONAGUA for providing access to the data files. Finally, special thanks go to the communities
and fishing cooperative leaders and the officials of the LEBR. Thanks to the anonymous reviewer
of the chapter, who helped to improve it.
References
Alcalá, G (1999) Con el agua hasta los aparejos: pescadores y pesquerías en el Soconusco, Chiapas.
Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social
Alongi DM (2008) Mangrove forests: resilience, protection from tsunamis, and responses to global
climate change. Estuar Coast Shelf Sci 76(1):1–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2007.08.024
Castellanos Navarrete A (2018) Palma de aceite en tierras campesinas: la política de las transfor-
maciones territoriales en Chiapas, México. Rev Pueblos Y Front Digit 13(e-357):1–34. https://
doi.org/10.22201/cimsur.18704115e.2018.v13.357
Comisión Nacional del Agua (1994) Desarrollo Integral del Trópico Húmedo. Comisión Nacional
del Agua
CONAPESCA (2017) Anuarios Estadísticos de Acuacultura y Pesca
CPNH (1975) Plan Nacional Hidráulico. Secretaria de Agricultura y Recursos Hidráulicos
CPNH (1984) El programa de desarrollo rural integrado para el trópico húmedo. Primera etapa
Evaluación 1978–1984
Erwin KL (2009) Wetlands and global climate change: the role of wetland restoration in a changing
world. Wetlands Ecol Manage 17(1):71–84.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-008-9119-1
Gardner RC, Barchiesi S, Beltrame C, Finlayson CM, Galewski T, Harrison I, Paganini M, Perennou
C, Pritchard DE, Rosenqvist A, Walpole M (2015) State of the world’s wetlands and their services
to people: a compilation of recent analyses. Ramsar Briefing Note No. 7. Ramsar Convention
Secretariat
Gómez-Ortega R, Ramos-Santiago E, Romero-Berny E (2019) Problemas asociaciones con la recti-
ficación y el cambio de cauce de ríos en los sitemas lagunares de la costa de Chiapas. México.
Ciencia Pesquera 27(2):59–67
Hadley D (2009) Land use and the coastal zone. Land Use Policy 26:S198–S203
G Halffter 2011 Reservas de la Biosfera: Problemas y Oportunidades en México Acta Zoológica
Mexicana 27 177 189
Helbig, K (1976) Chiapas: Geografía de un Estado Mexicano. Estado de Chiapas
INEGI (2010) Censos de población
Instituto de Historia Natural (1993) Plan Operativo 1993: Reserva Ecológica La Encrucijada
Instituto Nacional de Ecología (1999) Programa de Manejo Reserva de la Biósfera La Encrucijada
Mojica-Vélez JM, Barrasa-García S, Espinoza-Tenorio A (2018) Policies in coastal wetlands: key
challenges. Environ Sci Policy 88. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2018.06.016
C Navarrete 1998 La navegación en la costa de Chiapas Arqueología Mexicana 33 32 39
M Ortiz-Hernández 1983 Los pescadores de la Isla La Palma en Acapetahua Chiapas. La Casa
Chata 115 107 159
M Paz 1985 La Frontera Sur Rev Mex Sociol 47 1 25 38

Rubio B (1988) Estructura de la producción agropecuaria y cultivos básicos 1960–1970. In: Moguel
J (ed) Historia de la cuestión agraria mexicana tomo 7: La época de oro y el principio de la crisis
de la agricultura mexicana. Siglo XXI Editores; Mexico City, pp 146–276
C Tovilla 2005 Agonía y desaparición de los ríos y humedales en la costa de Chiapas Ecofronteras
25 5 8
Tudela F (1989) La modernización forzada del trópico: el caso de Tabasco México CINVESTAV
Valderrama-Landeros L, Rodríguez Zúñiga MT, Troche Souza C, Velázquez Salazar S, Villeda
Chávez E, Alcántara-Maya JA, Ressi R (2017) Manglares de México: actualización y exploración
de los datos del sistema de monitoreo 1970/1980–2015. CONABIO
World Bank (1994) Chiapas agricultural development project (LOAN 2525-ME) Project completion
report
José Manuel Mojica-Vélez INVEMAR, Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras ‘José

Benito Vives de Andréis’, Santa Marta, Colombia.
José Manuel Mojica Vélez is a Ph.D. candidate, Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambi-
ental, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He has worked on research projects involving
communities’ participation and governance in environmental management, climate change and
spatial planning of protected areas. He strongly believes that local knowledge and community
empowerment play fundamental roles in the conservation of strategic ecosystems such as coastal
wetlands.
Sara Barrasa-García Researcher, Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental, Univer-

sidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Morelia, Mexico.
Sara Barrasa has a degree in Environmental Sciences and a PhD in Ecology and Environment
from the Autonomous University of Madrid. Her research is related to landscape geography, and
in particular with social perceptions of environmental problems, local environmental knowledge,
environmental history and the incidence of public policies in conservation territories. The union
of these themes has allowed the development of a series of projects and the consequent publica-
tions: articles in indexed journals, chapters, books, and contributions at national and international
conferences.
Contested Meanings of Territorial
Production: Modern Territories of Coffee
and Steel in Colombia
Tyanif Rico-Rodríguez and Rodrigo Chaparro Montaña
Abstract This chapter provides an approach to how the notion of territory as

a process can be problematized as current and past benchmarks of moderniza-
tion, based on two cases in Colombia: specialty coffee in Nariño and steel mill
development in Boyacá state. We investigate the senses of ‘territory’ as localized
processes, leading to a discussion about these two specific contexts. Coffee and
steel have marked narratives in Colombia that allow us to problematize the ways
of visualizing ‘national development’ and thus understand territories designated as
peripheral underdevelopment narratives, and to interrogate their use and integration
into national modernization discourses. By addressing two spatially and temporally
distinct contexts—the Colombian centre-east in the Sogamoso Valley in the mid-
twentieth century, and the south-west of the Colombian Massif in Nariño’s northern
region in the present period—it is possible to analyse two modernization experiences
that constitute specific meanings of territorial organization and disputes.
Keywords Senses of Territory · Modernization Narratives · Colombia · Land ·

Terrain · Territorio
1 Introduction
The notion of territory in Latin America, as shown in the chapters of this book, has
various characters. The analytical and practical approaches to territory are diverse.
This chapter provides an approach as to how the notion of territory as a process can
be problematized, based on two cases in Colombia that represent current and past
benchmarks of modernization: specialty coffee in Nariño and steel mill development
in Boyacá state.
T. Rico-Rodríguez (B)
Morelia, México
R. Chaparro Montaña
Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Ciudad de México, Mexico

90 T. Rico-Rodríguez and R. Chaparro Montaña
Our analysis is framed from the meanings of territory provided by the moderniza-
tion experiences typical of Latin American historical frameworks: ‘import substitu-
tion industrialization’ in the mid-twentieth century, and ‘economy of scale’ models
based on comparative advantage. We provide an analytical perspective that extends
the readings focused on the binary ‘territory–social struggles’ that dominate the
discussion in Latin America (e.g. Halvorsen 2018). Further, this exercise investi-
gates the senses of ‘territory’ as localized processes as addressed in the ‘territorial
turn’ (e.g. López Sandoval et al. 2016; Porto-Gonçalves 2006) leading to a discussion
around the two specific contexts.
We return to the analytical potential that Stuart Elden (2010) has generated by
questioning the notion of territory in western geography, deconstructing it through
the concepts of ‘land’ (tierra) and ‘terrain’ (terreno). We are inspired by his work to
analyse the uses of these notions in Boyacá and Nariño as particular processes. The
author affirms that ‘territory’ as a delimited socio-spatial construct and its historiza-
tion allows understanding how the definition of spatial boundaries based on political,
cultural, identity, biological interests, etc., determine the nature of ‘territory’.
For Elden, it is clear that such a process implies a set of political technolo-
gies focused on ‘measuring the land and controlling the terrain’ (Halvorsen 2018,
p.1) that refer to specific forms of the political organization of space; in our case,
spaces of coffee and steel as concrete cases to understand territorial processes.
This involves transforming resources (coffee processing practices/industrial and
mechanical-mining-steel works), a market (specialty coffees/economic indepen-
dence of national steel-construction) and a type of social organization (peasant terri-
tories/modern urbanization). These processes lead the analysis towards two proposed
interrelated constructs that make up the territory (territorio): the local meanings of
tierra and terreno.1
Coffee and steel have marked narratives in Colombia that allow us to problema-
tize the ways of visualizing ‘national development’, and thus understand territories
designated as peripheral underdevelopment narratives, and to interrogate their use
and integration into national modernization discourses. By addressing two spatially
and temporally distinct contexts—the Colombian centre-east in the Sogamoso Valley
in the mid-twentieth century, and the south-west of the Colombian Massif in Nariño’s
northern region in the present period—it is possible to analyse two modernization
experiences that constitute specific meanings of territorial construction and conflicts.
1The notion of terrain as used by Elden refers to control mechanisms associated with military
definitions of the space, in Spanish, terreno also refers to control mechanisms by legal means.
Elden’s analysis is useful to ours based on the understanding of political technologies for control
associated to spatial constructs.
Contested Meanings of Territorial … 91
2 Coffee and Steel Lands
Our analysis of the contexts of coffee and steel problematizes notions intrinsic to local
territorial processes and allows a dialogue with the notion of property that frames
‘land’ in Elden’s (2010) terms, or tierra in ours. Both in the Sogamoso Valley where a
steel mill was established in the middle of the last century, and in the northern region
of Nariño where a niche for the production of specialty coffee has been established
in the last 20 years, we interrogate the local uses, practices, and conceptions that
frame the modernization projects to better understand the constitutive notions of
‘territorio’.
In the high Andes region where the department of Boyacá is located, and which
includes the Sogamoso Valley, the use of the expression ‘tierrita’ (little land) by local
people is a regional identity criterion that suggests deep cultural roots. This diminu-
tive alludes to a bucolic and romantic representation of peasant life and rurality,
historically dominated by agricultural production ‘under traditional and uncompeti-
tive techniques’ (OTDB 2018). In addition to a smallholder land tenure model (mini-
fundio), this romantic representation outlines a specific sense of countryside and its
actors. The peasantry, as Fals Borda (1957) defined them almost seven decades ago,
as well as the people of Boyacá, are ‘loyal land workers’ (p.6) who made Boyacá an
open and living window to the colonial past. This connects the individual to his/her
land in a subject–land relationship where the notion of the state did not need to fit.
In 1954, a steel mill was established to modernize the ‘traditional’ relationship of
peasants to land through the industrial impetus marked by the state, setting up ‘land’
as a source of mineral resources.
In this sense, the peasant from the Colombian Massif in the south-west of the
country at the northern region of Nariño state, was romantically represented in the
1930s by Zalamea Borda. He described the peasants as a society where cooperation
had always been a feature of its autonomous character. The peasants of this region are
people who have solved their problems without the ‘need of the state’, since ‘their
whole lives seem dominated by the concept of the common good and the mutual
provision of services’ (Zalamea 1936, p.35). The connection of the individual to
their land is based on solidarity and community ties ascribed to the agricultural
character of the region. Because ‘the man from Nariño decided to organize his life
in agriculture and opted for the small property that would guarantee to the greatest
possible number of people, the economic independence that comes from ownership’
(Zalamea 1936, p.59).
Today, the land in the region lacks formal registered tenure by the state and most
of the peasants grow coffee in small dispersed plots. This form of coffee production
acquires market value though provenance and exclusivity criteria that are related to
notions of development and modernization.
Land appears as an inherent element of the peasant world, in a double meaning
between backwardness and tradition. The state has a diffuse presence in the regu-
lation of land use and property. While in Nariño, land references a strong and even
challenging community bond of state ‘absence’, in Boyacá, specifically Sogamoso
valley, the reason for its backwardness is based on ideas of the egotistical and envious
peasant, prisoner of his own narrow property (microminifundio).2
2.1 Land as a Shifting Concept of Time and Space
Modernization involved in the case of steel, the use of iron, coal and limestone
resources in the Sogamoso Valley region, with the construction of an integrated steel
mill in the mid-twentieth century.3 The industrial framework resulted in the peasant
society of the Valley taking on other nuanced meanings in the narrative of national
development, with the opportunity to move from an agrarian stage to the promising
industrial era, according to the developmental narrative. In this sense, ‘land’ was a
motif reflecting industrial advance and a civilizing dynamism set against rural and
peasant lethargy. With heavy industry, the objective was to energize that rural land.
As a local chronicler recalled referring to his ‘pre-industrial’ Sogamoso, ‘how quiet
my land was!’ he exclaimed ‘in front of the devilish rhythm of the pistons and the
glare of the furnaces consuming huge amounts of ore and producing tons of steel’
(Plazas n/d, p.5).
The land constitutes a medium where time flows, leaving the marks of materialized
progress in a space that can be seen as a stage—time occupies space. Sogamoso
advances towards the industrial revolution in a dynamic that makes its elevation,
climate, rural culture and land as accessories to the rhythm of the times that pass
without difficulty ‘from the age of wood to the age of steel’.4 A modernization
that did not understand space and time as reciprocal meant that they could share ‘a
fundamental unity in their difference’ (Coronil, 1997, p.84). On the contrary, the
framework of modernization allows ‘land’ to be a signifier to be read in a double
exercise, recognizing at the same time, both the agrarian character in the peasant
world, and its alleged backwardness.
Unlike the case of steel modernization based on industrial technology and specific
focused projects, coffee production in Colombia has reflected a modernization
strategy since the end of the nineteenth century (Palacios 2009). Through coffee,
certain regions have been marginalized from a state perspective, based on narratives
of poverty, backwardness and spatial isolation as defined according to the point of
view of the central administration in Bogotá. This interpretation is associated with
notions of time in the peasant way of life, contrasted with the rhythms and scales of
efficient production determined by the international market. ‘Development’ aims to
articulate local agricultural production based on local land use, creating the centrality
2 Armando Solano, a writer from Boyacá, asserts that ‘in Boyacá, the aspirations (of the peasant) are
not towards one’s own inheritance itself to yield an abundant harvest, but for that of the neighbour to
be lost … even those who have a deceased relative in their house are envied, because that misfortune
gives them momentary notoriety’ (Corredor Castillo in Chaparro Montaña 2013, p.71).
3 An integrated steel mill involves mining processes, the extraction of resources not only of iron, but
also of coal (coke) and limestone, and it requires the use of vast quantities of water and electricity.
4 Words of President Alberto Lleras Camargo, (in Camargo 1961, p.429).
of the land as a productive reference. The earth of Sogamoso offers its abundance of
iron ore deposits to facilitate steel exploitation in processes involving magnitudes of
ore and huge amounts of water and energy, whereas the agricultural potential of coffee
in Nariño is focused on the modernization of production and marketing processes,
only possible because of its tight links with the international coffee market.
Specific policies, such as the agrarian reform programme in Law 135 of 1961
and the creation of the Colombian Institute for Agrarian Reform (INCORA), were
designed from the country’s administrative centre, without knowing or understanding
the local dynamics. The marked conflicts and social violence in Colombia originated
in land disputes and inequalities, but the distance from the centre to the rural and local
realities, exacerbated by the state’s lack of attention and the violence in rural areas,
diminished the agrarian land re-distribution. For example, the Dalmacia hacienda
located in the northern lowlands region (800–1,000 MASL) was divided amongst
peasants as a result of their struggles and given formalized tenure through INCORA
which, together with the Agrarian Credit Bank (Caja Agraria), gave credits to produce
maize (Rico Rodríguez 2016). In the highest areas (1,200–2,200 MASL), the peasants
held farms without tenure rights, and they cultivated fique5 and coffee as a small-scale
commercial product.
During the 1990s, rural development policy changed to focusing on productive
modernization in specific economic areas, where technical criteria about terrain
management were introduced through the National Federation of Coffee Growers of
Colombia (FNC). Coffee as an agricultural product embodies the work of hundreds
of FNC agricultural engineers and technical personnel who provide comprehen-
sive advice, as well as organizations outside the FNC such as NGOs. Most of the
NGOs in the northern region contribute to the shaping of ideas about the productive
terrain of coffee, transforming the meaning of land based on notions of poverty and
productive backwardness, to problems of efficiency for the international market. In
Nariño, coffee production, although it is commercially dominant, does not cover the
entire area of productive land. Coffee in Nariño is produced in dispersed plots in the
mountains amidst food crops and forests.
The regional conditions, added to other historical drivers, gave Nariño a position
contrary to the FNC’s hegemonic coffee modernization process. The intensification
of coffee production through the regulation of soil productivity, quality controls and
prices based on technological packages for the improved varieties, met resistance
from specific forms of peasant appropriation based on local land uses, especially
the growing of subsistence food crops and plants. Such local disputes, together with
modifications in the articulation to the international coffee market, reinforce the
notion that land is locally identified by peasants as being more than just its productive
character.
Such a process evokes the construction of a ‘third world nature’ in Coronil’s terms,
based on how these societies are articulated with the world market, triggering local
processes despite the heterogeneously structured power relationships. This not only
locates countries in a specific place in the framework of the international division of
5 A type of hemp, Furcraea andina Trel. 1915.

labour, but it is also mediated by notions such as the relationship of ‘land’ to ‘nature’,
creating an ‘unequal structure of international production’ that also reconfigures
national narratives, development and modernization discourses (Coronil 1997, p.92).
The relationship between ‘land’ and nature is evident not only from the creation of
an unequal structure of production because of modernization, but it is evoked in local
practices labelled as more ‘traditional’. These concepts go beyond the productivity
expectations linked to the acts of producing/cultivating. An example is the planting
of ‘jutes’ in the high paramos of Sogamoso. Jutes are small potatoes planted in small
pits with high humidity, a practice known as ‘jutiar’. The potato is buried for a few
months in places where the water circulates and is constantly renewed. ‘We throw
the potato into a hole; it is necessary to add ferns so that the potatoes are not buried in
earth’, said Sra. Maria, emphasizing that she does not simply bury them, but arrange
them in the ground wrapped in leaves. They are left for weeks or even months, and
when they are taken out, ‘the potato […] is protected by the skin, the inside is soft
[…] so just squeeze them and it comes out’.
The jutiar potato practices embody local conceptualizations that transcend the
modernizing meanings of peasant production and refer to epistemic frameworks that
are not reduced to only the usufruct of the land. In this context, ‘land constitutes a
signifier of life and care, which gives agency to the substratum (soil), to water as an
ecological articulator, and plants. These, together with the individual’s knowledge
of the environment, presents the jutiar practice as being much more complex than
simply ‘to sow’. Jutiar is a form of soil care, is a heritage knowledge about how to
sow and a cultural practice to reinforce local identity.
Both jutiar as a practice of sowing and eating ‘jutiat(ed)’ potatoes are referred
to with shame among inhabitants who know such practices. Most people affirm
that today this is seen as something for older people (los abuelos). In common
usage, jutiar is referred to as synonymous with ‘to decompose’. This is derived
from the strong smell that the potatoes give off when they are removed from the
ground, added to the spicy flavour, referred to as ‘stale’ which comes with a soup
prepared from the potatoes (mazamorra de jutes). ‘Shame’ can be seen here as a
mechanism that epistemically refers to the disarticulation of the local referents that
make traditional local knowledge of nature so complex. This mechanism is related to
the instrumentalization of knowledge in modernization discourse because it ignores
or nullifies the rational foundations of the action and of the word jutear; in a modernist
interpretation, it is expected that the potato will rot.
What Coronil pointed out as modern ‘de-naturalization’ (1997), here refers to the
de-naturalization of the land. The potato—and the land—rot because metaphorically
nature becomes immobile, an artefact external to the human and subject to being
transformed with an instrumental reason, as iron is extracted from a deposit, a mineral
that has rested thousands of years forming mountains waiting for the human species
to transform it into steel. Thus, with a seemingly immobile nature through which
humans and their culture move, modern society creates alterity. Paradoxically, an
alterity constitutive of modernity itself: the traditional ways of production and the
backward peasant economy that need to be improved and modernized. The peasant
who is destined to become a worker and reduces himself to being a ‘producer’, and
his ‘land’ to be a means of exploitation. The signifier ‘tierra’ is transformed, reducing

its older epistemic breadth, and giving way to a primary significance of land that is
anchored only to productive and economic references. Such changes in the processes
that determine the notion of ‘land’ open up the analysis of terreno from below.
3 Coffee and Steel Terrenos
The de-naturalization of the land is the driver that dislocates local epistemic frame-
works enabling national modernization narratives to transform the meanings of the
land. The terreno refers to the processes of instrumentalization of land in the frame-
work of modernization. Proof of this is that the word ‘terreno’ directly indicates
the possession of the land as legal property, and therefore, the legal right to its
usufruct. This is clear from notarial documents according to which Elden deter-
mines that terrain (terreno) ‘… is land that has a strategic, political, military sense’
(Elden 2010, p.806). The limits and nature of a terreno are determined by produc-
tion and work—in the cases analysed here, that is, by cultivation and the extraction
of valuables from the land. This section addresses the notions and uses of terreno
that mediate its de-naturalization through processes of instrumentalization, firstly,
through the creation of value in the steel-based modernization processes with the
urbanization of the Sogamoso Valley, and secondly, by analysing the delimitation of
the market niche for coffee in northern Nariño.
3.1 The Modernization of the Sogamoso Valley: A Narrative

of Temporary Breakdown
Based on an analysis of notarial documents in the Sogamoso jurisdiction between

1950 and 1965, we show the dynamics of the terreno as a factor of dislocation and
change in the regional social structure within the framework of industrial modern-
ization. Characteristics derived from the terreno, such as its spatial extent, its use
(urban–rural), its market appraisal and even its name, articulate the notion of ‘terreno’
as a set of attributes that contribute to the production of ‘real estate’. Moreover, this
allows an analysis of how the concept of ‘terreno’ determined the articulation of the
industrial steel project in the national market, with the dislocation of the reality of
‘land’ at the local level. The analysis takes the toponymic references of the land as
a specific variable. Through the names that the owners give to their properties in the
documents, we demonstrate how the framework of modernization determined not
only new trends in the real estate market but also new symbolic references derived
from the act of naming.6
6 Based on a sample of notarial protocols between 1930 and 1965, Notaría Primera of the Sogamoso
circuit.
Fig. 1 Fences at Monguí, Boyacá (own photo)
Two large toponymic groups were identified from the property documents, the
referents of the physical environment and anthroponyms. From these, we analyse the
dynamics of land sales considering the location of the properties. This allows us to
find trends in the way modernization shows clear spatial patterns in the Sogamoso
Valley. The names of the places defined the reference criteria for the land and its
articulation with the commercial dynamics of the real estate market. This dynamic
reflects a strong migration process in Sogamoso related to the employment attraction
of the steelmaker, and a process of urbanization that exceeded the population capacity
of the planned town (see Fig. 1).
The ‘veredas’7 which have toponyms referring to physical environments such as
altitude, topography and slope, are found in a medium–high strip of the mountain.
But in the lands closer to the Valley, the anthroponyms are more dominant—they are
linked to rural land with agricultural activities near the urban capital and to purely
urban land projected for housing. The mountain itself becomes a benchmark in terrain
with complicated topography and hard-to-work soils, since it is ‘the unevenness of
the terrain that determines in some way the choice of land use. Valleys and gentle
slopes generally provide a more conducive environment for agriculture’ (Herrera
2002, p.45). However, the pressure of market demand for commercial urban land
relegated agricultural land uses to higher zones or those more distant from the urban
centre in the Valley.
Names such as ‘Uche’ (Prunus buxifolia), ‘Arrayanes’ (Myrdanthes leucoxyla)
or ‘Cordoncillo’ (Piper aduncum), all local tree names, are closely related to the way
the inhabitants read their surroundings and refer to their lands; these trees serve also
as living fences between properties. Similarly, elements of the environment delimited
7 The smallest territorial subdivisions of the administrative divisions of the country.

properties, as a peasant explained showing the building stone that they ‘took from
the nearest river there’, and which implies that between neighbours they agreed
on the stone piles as boundary markers, since ‘the state does not want to assume
anything, each person must crush, chop and make their own stone piles apart’.8 The
delimitation of properties as stated in the notary documents provides evidence of
particular forms of construction of boundaries: ‘it goes from a native stone that is in
the bed of the stream […] to a sharp stone (picachuda) […], to stones buried in the
creek (quebrada) where there is a large flat stone (plancheta)’.9
Terrains with a predominance of anthroponyms correspond to locations that frame
transition processes from rural to urban uses. Urban subdivisions, highways, roads
and even hermitages and shrines make spatial references through the names of
Catholic saints. Thus, the ‘sacred’ allows the owner to consecrate their land for protec-
tion or prosperity. Names such as ‘El triángulo’ (triangle), ‘La cuadra’ (the block) or
‘La esquina’ (the corner) refer to characteristics of subdivided environments, priori-
tizing their morphological features. The urban checkerboard or Spanish grid pattern
reconfigures the landscape and the functionally of space through properties named
by letters or numbers (e.g., plot A, plot 21, plot 3A).
The patterns shown by the distribution of toponyms in the terrain delineate inter-
relations between some anthropic landmarks and the modernization process trig-
gering urbanization. However, this dynamic had little to do with organized plan-
ning, leaving social change as a simple mechanistic question in the utopian narrative
of progress. It was not the big buildings, the spacious squares, the wide avenues
or the new ‘working-class neighborhoods’, but the incorporation of rural masses
around marginalized spaces that articulated this scalar rearrangement of the urban
continuum. The process of industrialization of society and culture is much more a
phenomenon of the involvement in the international industrial market, than one of
development of internal industrial production’ (Quijano 1968, p.102).
3.2 Market Niche, the Third Wave Coffee Terreno
As Quijano points out, the process of industrialization and modernization is less an

internal development process, but more a dependence relationship with the inter-
national market. Coffee production in the northern region of Nariño in the Colom-
bian Massif is a clear example of this phenomena. Starting from the creation of
value, we show the delimitation of production and supply spaces for specific niche
coffee markets. The rearrangement of the terreno is made through mechanisms of de-
naturalization of the land by the changes in the constituent meanings of the peasant
8 Interview with José, peasant from the Municipality of Monguí. Guardapáramos in the Páramo de
Ocetá. March 10–13, 2016.
9 Notarial Protocole No. 268. February 24, 1954. 1st Notary’s Office. ‘Predio en la Vereda Las
Cintas.’
way of life, economy and modes of production. The meanings range from backward-
ness, lack of certainty in property and productive precariousness, to the senses of
care, peasant life spaces and work. These changes took place through the creation of
the supply conditions for a niche market, in which the precariousness of the condi-
tions to produce and the efforts and care expended by the farmer are commodified as
part of the strategy to support a specific product. In the northern region, the specialty
coffee is a product delimited through the notion of a ‘microlot’ which constitutes a
key feature of the ‘third wave’ of coffee. Let us see an example of the creation of
meanings on a trader’s website promotion for their ‘microlot’ selection.
Our Microlot Coffee Offerings are sourced from innovative producers in innovative ways,
from super high-end limited-edition Aces lots (sic) to cupping competitions and auction lots,
to variety-specific separations and those coffees that are traceable down to an individual
producer. Farmers are paid quality premiums for any microlot coffee, which reflects the
extra planning, effort, labour, and attention to detail required to produce them, as well as
rewarding the ultimate job well done.10
Coffee production in Colombia has followed three cycles according to Guhl

(2008). The first, incipient industrialization, the second was expansion and the third
cycle was segmentation. In Nariño, this third cycle was associated with Starbucks and
its strategies for building a regionally specific taste profile. This segmentation process
is analysed by Roseberry (1996) detailing the way in which consumption, traceability
and commodification strategies took place in technical and investor circuits, partic-
ularly in the United States through the circle of ‘coffee businessmen’, specialized
magazines and the creation of the Specialty Coffee Association. These forms of
segmentation and commercialization shaped the production and commercialization
patterns that currently govern supply terrains for specific niches such as those of
Nariño.
Through the experience of Ramiro, a peasant from the region, we can see this
scaling rearrangement in the value-creation processes. A decade ago, he had diffi-
culties to sell his coffee to the parallel markets of the FNC, despite the good quality of
his coffee. He had no access to other traders, and also not the quantity they expected
to buy from producers. The high-quality coffee was bought by traders who recog-
nized the excellence and effort of the product through a price premium based on the
criteria of taste and quality. By 2010, the amount of coffee that traders expected to
buy was not proportional to the amount on offer. Local production conditions do not
guarantee every year the same high, stable amount of coffee. The specialty coffee is a
high-quality variety defined from the coffee cupping process. The greater limitation,
however, was that Ramiro could not offer to traders the guarantee of a consistent,
stable supply of coffee. He had to deal with volatile production conditions of poor
access to water and crops dependent on rain, and the dispersion of production in very
small plots. Those conditions affected the characteristics of the coffee beans and the
volume of production. Ramiro’s isolated plots were a constraint on his marketing.
Currently, numerous traders from around the world come to the region via NGOs
or Catholic Church assistance because they use specialty coffee production as part
10 https://www.cafeimports.com/north-america/blog/microlots/.
of their strategies to promote local development. The traders nowadays search for
isolated plots such as those of Ramiro, or, as they are called in the coffee busi-
nessman’s circle, ‘microlots’. These are the ways of re-categorizing the land by
means of specific productive criteria. Today, the terreno of the third wave coffee is
based on an extremely situated production that is commodified back from the final
coffee consumer to the plot of the farmer who grows the beans. This commodification
process is all made possible by the criteria of exclusivity and total traceability.
The land uses, delimited through technical-productive criteria, give meaning to
the land from market strategies associated with the flavour and traceability of the
product. The search for (micro-)localized tastes that can be used to construct limits
of terroirs from commodification processes demonstrates the strategic and political
meaning of the land. In this region, ‘microlots’ become the spatial and market markers
that guarantee the delimitation of the high-quality coffee production terrains. These
coffee landscapes are inserted in the consumption and production circuits included
within the space of the international coffee market in specific spatial and socioeco-
nomic locations. What defines a ‘microlot’ is the relationship between ‘dedication
to the craft of coffee, exceptional quality in the cup, and a lot—like, a lot—of hard
work’.11 The way in which the productive conditions of Nariño´s northern region
were commodified is part of the territorial relations that configure the commercializa-
tion of coffee, and the meanings of land, landscape and territory that the institutions
bring into play.
4 Steel and Coffee Territories
Elden’s definition of ‘territory’ denotes more than certainties, it sets up ambiguities

by pointing out that territory is ‘certainly something that is closely related to “land”
or “terrain” but is more than them’ (Elden 2010, p.808). Historicizing the concrete
contexts allows us to analyse territory in the framework of the modernization of steel
and the ongoing modernization of coffee production. This provides the opportunity
to make the ambiguous, the concrete. Modernization understood as a set of political
technologies around the notions of land and terreno, explains how coffee and steel
production systems influenced their respective territorialization processes. In this
section, we present territorial struggles that evidence the local identity disputes, the
processes of modernization and the legibility of the local to the state.
Coffee farmers and steelworkers embodied modernizing policies through their
practices, characterizing them as suitable and appropriate in the face of the civilizing
mandate of national development. Coffee and minerals as resources, and the articu-
lations to their markets, were the core of the social organizations that determined the
11Accessed online at https://www.cafeimports.com/north-america/blog/microlots/ On Feb. 02,

2020.
territorial frameworks of their tierras and terrenos. We can characterize the territories
from their ‘geocultural identities’12 (Quijano 2014, p.318).
4.1 Steel Territories: Steel as a Geoculture
Colombia as the country of coffee not only moulded an identity and globally posi-
tioned the product through ‘Juan Valdéz’ and his mule ‘Conchita’, but also built the
symbol of the coffee community as a national community through a farmer with
‘carriel’ (leather bag), hat and espadrilles that projected positive values about those
who till the land. A parallel framework, in the context of the industrial modern-
ization of the Sogamoso Valley, was represented in a process of effacement and
re-signification of the peasantry, a process that oscillated between eliminating the
atavism of the high Andes peasant and promoting modernization. For instance,
in Boyacá, the steelmaker boasted that ‘the industrial revolution that occurred in
England in the course of a century [took] place in a very few years in the Sogamoso
Valley’ (CINVA 1956). The re-signification of the peasantry was being appropriated
by the company through institutional discourses about their historical responsibility
for modernization—a responsibility materialized in service to the land of the histori-
cally troubled peasant who finds redemption through his labour, and to the land itself
through the barbed wire to fence the land and the fertilizer to enrich the soil (see
Fig. 2, left).
The incorporation of the high Andes rural framework in the industrial moderniza-
tion project, represented on the horizon as an incandescent sun born out of a foundry
ladle (the first logo of the ‘Acerías Paz del Río’ Steelworks), was intended to guide
the promising path of peasant progress—with the barbed wire fence that imposes
a straight course on the sinuosity of unchecked agriculture (the fenced, flat and
straight land that consecrates land property as a factor of capital), and the fertilizer
that enforces an instrumental rationale on the productive aspect of the land.
The geographical and cultural framework structured the local territory as a hetero-
geneous and multi-scale unit embodying the articulation with modernization that
shapes land and terrain. With the iron and steel enclave, the Colombia’s centre-east
and the Sogamoso Valley sought to put a modern developed nation on the map.
Intended as a basic industry from which other more complex and specialized indus-
tries could emerge, the steel project underpinned the articulation of a cement industry,
military industrial plants and smaller industries to form a nascent ‘Industrial Park’ to
the north of the city, demonstrating the functionality of the urban space. This urban-
ization process involved the creation of ‘working-class neighbourhoods’ built and/or
financed by the state through the ICT (Territorial Credit Institute) and the central
mortgage credit bank (BCH), and by the steelmaker through loans to its workers for
construction and home improvement.
12 Territories are classified according to the ‘the racial signs that naturalized the Eurocentric control
of the territories and natural resources’ (Quijano 2014, p.318).
Fig. 2 Left: Promotional poster of the Acerías Paz del Río Steelworks (Reproduced from: Biblioteca
Nacional de Colombia, 1963). Right: Advertising from Café de Colombia in the USA in the late
1960s (Reproduced from: shorturl.at/zDLVX. Accessed online: 31 May 2020)
Although, in the discourse of national authorities, ‘Acerías Paz del Río’ was
promoted as a national development initiative to produce national steel, its impact
dynamics were local. It projected a local territory incorporated into modernity
through the actions of European banks, foreign engineers and instructors with allu-
sions to images of the civilizing progress of steel in nations such as the United States,
Brazil and Chile. This was a process that determined the territory of steel moderniza-
tion from a specific geocultural framework, that of underdevelopment, oriented by
dialectics such as worker–peasant, urban–rural and man–woman. The territory was
and has been masculinized not only in terms of the centrality of man as its historical
actor, but also for the production of stories that masculinize history itself and human
nature. This masculinization marks a racialization of geography as well (Quijano
2014, p.778) where identity constructs such as that of ‘the foreigner’ oriented an
opening to the modern world: Sogamoso as Pittsburgh.
Therefore, it is important to point to the territory of coffee as an inverse experience
in terms of building its sense of modernization, although with the same character of
coloniality in its articulation as territory. As seen in the image of ‘Juan Valdez and
Conchita’ in the 1960s, there seemed to be ‘no towns too small for them’, whilst
preparing to appear like stars on TV in the largest coffee market in the world, that
is, New York.
4.2 Agro-Food Territories: Identity and Territorial Rights

Struggles
Peasant organizations in northern Nariño have tried since the 1990s to articulate
notions of territory and land linked to senses of citizenship and rights, as well as to
autonomy, in determining the land use through local boundaries and technologies.
The recognition of a territorial space implies the recognition of ways of inhabiting it
and using the land. This translates into struggles for recognition of a peasant identity
specific to the region based on the uses of the territorio. The peasant organizations
define the land uses as agro-food and they categorically restrict mining and the
exploitation of hydrocarbons; therefore, they effectively go beyond the stereotypical
reading of the coffee peasant. Disputes over the desirable and permitted uses of the
land are core claims in the local organizations’ struggles. Local people aim to position
their political-cultural demands and delimitation of their land through strengthening
their shared sense of territory.
The local struggles and meaning of territory expand the ideas about the agricultural
potential of the region centred on dependence on the international market. They go
beyond the demarcations of land that the state and market make which are based on
land uses governed by the productive dynamics of coffee or mining. These efforts are
mobilized regionally through the institution of Agro-Food Peasant Territory (TCAM)
(Fig. 3) which is promoted by peasant organizations grouped together in the Massif
Integration Committee (CIMA), a geographical and cultural region that includes the
north of Nariño (CONPES, 3815 of 2018).
Through TCAM, local organizations demand the exclusive use of land for food
production over mining, based on what they call economía propia, an agricultural
character that confronts the notions of backwardness and development meanings
with the farm as a key political axis. They propose to decentre coffee with its trade
guarantees as the main product, and to diversify trade processes to other food crops
they produce. This proposal revives an agrarian debate that, after the 1990s, had aban-
doned attention to agrarian conflict, instead focusing on modernization and business
development solutions through the market (Fajardo Montaña 2012). In the northern
region, the farm as a space for family livelihood is the key not only for survival,
but for its autonomy. Through technical and productive decisions, peasants organize
family well-being, soil quality, forest care, etc., in a set of political practices, based on
agro-ecological principles. Formation of life on the farm and the vision of productive
land and terrain made by the peasant organizations expands traditional notions of
territory into something more complex. The productive relationships are also polit-
ical. The territorial and collective recognition of peasant rights is an important way
of guaranteeing their ways of life and citizenship with agrarian and social rights.
This is a central aspect of the disputes between the state and the local level over the
territorio.
Halvorsen (2018) identifies ways of understanding ‘territory’ in Latin America
by focusing on the binary of ‘social struggles–territory’. Svampa (2013) claims this
orientation is a result of the eco territorial turn, an analytical turn constructed on
Contested Meanings of Territorial …
Fig. 3 Agro-food territory map of TCAM (Reproduced from Dayver Betancourt, IEI, PUJ, 2016. https://cutt.ly/IgdJFBC A25 Jan. 2020 Accessed online: 15
May 2020)
103
the economic and political relations that configure local realities in Latin America
based on the logic of commodities. Without doubt, the role of local organizations
is key to configuring and understanding the meanings of the notion of territory. It
is necessary to unfold their uses and make complex what is too easily simplified
in the political nature of the struggles that shape territory. Precisely, through these
local meanings of land and terrain, it is possible to shift the political meanings and
the local complexities of different territorializations, as well as the historicity of the
mechanisms that shape the meanings of ‘development’ and the ‘modern’ in situated
contexts.
5 Conclusion
This chapter adds elements that allow territory to be historicized by understanding

its multiple uses and the disputes produced at different scales. The meanings of
territory, when examined locally, expand and deepen the readings about land (tierra)
and terrain (terreno) as productive and static goods. These categories are articulated
with local identifications and in the disputes with the state and institutions—disputes
that entangle readings of the modern character of ‘territory’ and the uses of political
mechanisms, which in Elden’s (2010) terms, refer to land and terrain.
It is possible to understand the contested meanings and processes of territorial-
ization in the specificities of the situated contexts and the historicity of the senses of
territory, land and terrain. For example, in Nariño, the search for territorial recogni-
tion is not a search for autonomy from the state, but for the institutional recognition
of peasants and their economía propia. In the Sogamoso Valley, it is possible to make
visible the nuances of the specific modernization and territorialization processes that
are expressed in the ways of naming, marking and defining land uses that go beyond
the markers of great industrial progress and positioning of images.
By making visible these tensions between the local meanings of land, terrain and
territory, it is possible to indicate the political meanings and the local complexities
in which certain modernization processes take shape; likewise, to contribute to the
historicity of the mechanisms that define the meanings of ‘development’ and ‘the
modern’ in different territorial contexts.
References
Camargo G (1961) Del Barro al Acero, Departamento de Boyacá

Castillo Corredor H (1954) Semanario Acción Cívica. Sociedad de Mejoras Públicas. Sogamoso.
No. 243. In: Chaparro Montaña RH (2013) [Thesis] La Ciudad Sorprendida. La Siderúrgica
Acerías Paz del Río y la configuración socioespacial de la ciudad de Sogamoso, Universidad
Industrial de Santander, 2013. p 71
CINVA Centro Interamericano de Vivienda (1956) Proyecto Sogamoso - Paz de Río, Ensayo de
una Metodología, Bogotá, p 13
CONPES (2018) Lineamientos de Política y Estrategias para el Desarrollo Regional Sostenible del
Macizo Colombiano-CONPES 3915, Bogotá, pp 1–9
Coronil F (1997) El Estado mágico: Naturaleza, dinero y modernidad en Venezuela, Caracas, Ed.
Alfa
Elden S (2010) Land, terrain, territory. Prog Hum Geogr 34(6):799–817. https://doi.org/10.1177/
0309132510362603
Fajardo-Montaña D (2012) Colombia: Dos décadas en los movimientos agrarios. Cahiers Des
Amériques Latines 71:145–168. https://doi.org/10.4000/cal.2690
Fals-Borda O (1957) El Hombre y la Tierra en Boyacá. Bases sociológicas e históricas para una
reforma agraria. Documentos colombianos, Bogotá
Guhl A (2008) Café y cambio de paisaje en Colombia, 1970–2005. Fondo Editorial Universidad
EAFIT, Banco de la República, Medellín
7623
Herrera-Ángel M (2002) Ordenar para controlar. Ordenamiento espacial y control político en las
llanuras del Caribe y en los andes centrales neogranadinos Siglo XVIII. Academia Colombiana
de Historia, ICANH, Bogotá
López-Sandoval M, Robertsdotter A, Paredes M (2016) Space, power and locality: the contemporary
use of territorio in Latin America. J Lat Am Geogr 16(1):43–67. https://doi.org/10.1353/lag.2017.
0009
OTDB (2018) Ordenamiento Territorial Departamental de Boyacá. Departamento Nacional de
Planeación, Gobernación de Boyacá. Available http://www.dapboyaca.gov.co/wp-content/upl
oads/2018/09/PRODUCTIVIDAD-SECTOR-AGROPECUARIO.pdf. Accessed 6 March 2020
Palacios M (2009) El café en Colombia (1850–1970). Una historia económica, social y política, El
Colegio de México, México City
Plazas G (n.d.) Treinta años después. In: Coy-Montaña A. Directorio Histórico de Sogamoso, Tomo
29, p. 5. Archivo Central del Municipio de Sogamoso
Porto-Gonçalves CW (2006) A reinvenção dos Territórios. A experiência latino-americana e
caribenha. In: Ceceña, A (ed) Los desafíos de las emancipaciones en un contexto militarizado,
CLACSO, Buenos Aires
Quijano A (2014) Antología esencial. Cuestiones y horizontes: de la dependencia histórico-
estructural a la colonialidad/descolonialidad del poder, CLACSO, Buenos Aires
Quijano A (1968) Dependencia, cambio social y urbanización en Latinoamérica. Revista Mexicana
de Sociología 30(3):525–570. https://doi.org/10.22201/iis.01882503p.1968.3.58372
Rico Rodríguez T (2016) Conocimiento, campesinos y paisajes de montaña: Relaciones entre
humanos, no-humanos y espacio en la configuración de agriculturas campesinas del café en
El Carmen, San Lorenzo, Nariño, Colombia [Thesis] El Colegio de Michoacán, México
Roseberry W (1996) The rise of yuppie coffees and the reimagination of class in the United States.
Am Anthropol 98(4):762–775. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1996.98.4.02a00070
Svampa M (2013) Consenso de los commodities y lenguajes de valoración en América Latina.
Nueva Sociedad 244:30–46
Zalamea J (1936) El departamento de Nariño. Esquema para una interpretación sociológica.
Comisión de Cultura Aldeana. Available in https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=Bcl2Xw
AACAAJ Accessed 6 June 2020

Rodrigo Chaparro Montaña Ph.D. candidate, Humanidades, Universidad Autónoma de México,

Ciudad México, México.
Rodrigo Chaparro has a degree in History and a Master’s in Human Geography. His current
doctoral research is a geohistorical perspective of the post-war industrialization processes in Latin
America, linked to steel and territorial development. His approaches to cases in Mexico and
Colombia seek to establish a dialogue with decolonial perspectives on minerals as an articulating
notion of the discourses of development and the nation.
Asymmetric Territories: Power as a Bag
of Chisels Shaping Rural Mexico
Adrián Ortega-Iturriaga and Tzitzi Sharhí Delgado
Abstract Space and power have been theorized as inextricable concepts. Territories
are political arenas where different forms of power perform, affect each other, and in
most cases collide and generate conflict to determine people’s access to space. But,
since not all powers are equally strong, dominion, accumulation and marginaliza-
tion are frequent, resulting in different territorialities. Rural communities living in
forest areas have complex power structures that unevenly affect people’s access to
and control of natural resources. In this chapter we analyse how different forces are
determining territorialisation processes in rural landscapes (ejidos) in Mexico. As a
case study we look at the ejido Nieves, where we have examined natural resource
management, landscape perceptions and the economic, social and political motives
influencing land use changes. We focus on avocado production as one of the main
sources of conflict in Nieves and the region, to emphasize how highly valued products
in the international markets can be used to create specific perceptions of territory,
ultimately impacting local realities, and creating disputes over resources and space.
We suggest that access to natural resources mainly depends on having one or a
combination of powers that can be accumulative. Such powers sculpt the landscape
both physically and culturally, creating local territories—that is, people’s access and
control over local space and resources—that are also linked to and are a result of
global power dynamics. We discuss industrialized agricultural production in mono-
cultures (e.g., avocado) as a process that is currently changing local territories at a
global scale.
Keywords Reterritorialization · Rural Livelihoods · Avocado · Neoliberal Rural

Policies · Industrialized Farming · Community Forestry
A. Ortega-Iturriaga (B)
Morelia, Mexico
T. S. Delgado
Escuela Nacional de Estudios Superiores Unidad Morelia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de
México, Morelia, Mexico
108 A. Ortega-Iturriaga and T. S. Delgado
1 Introduction
As with many geographic concepts nowadays, territory has fallen into the swamp of
polysemy. The word swamp is illustrative of the turbidity, the muddiness, and the
richness of meanings. Territory is swampy not only as a semiotic entity but also as a
geographic reality. Territories are blurry. The concept of territory has been addressed
as a political technology (Elden 2010), as a social process where space and action,
that is, space and time, or geography and history, are inseparable (Paasi 2003), as a
knowledge and representation that begins within imagination (Raffestin 2011), or as
an effect of networked socio-technical practices (Painter 2010). Also, territory can
be differentiated from territorio, a nuanced term for Latin America, deeply related
to resistance and the search for autonomy, that emphasises the continuous struggle
between global and local forces, mostly related to a shared history of colonialism
and coloniality but also to a current hybridisation of culture (Haesbaert 2013; López
Sandoval et al. 2017; Halvorsen 2019). Territorio is also ‘the wrapping material of
power relations’ and a ‘space of cultural and symbolical sedimentation’ (Giménez
1999, p.28–29). In Mexico, territorio is deeply political and remits to what Sack
(1983) has coined as territoriality: ‘a strategy for influence or control’ (p.55). Rather
than grasping this multiplicity of meanings as a defect, we value it as a reflection of
the need and pertinence of including a humanised notion of space in social research, in
which power is the bedrock. We do not intend to make an epistemological contribution
to the philosophical discussion, nor to give a dazzling definition of territory—which
we understand as processual, always in construction, and not as something fixed—
instead, we aim for a grounded analysis of practices of territoriality, where territory
is mostly defined by the particularities of both the sediments (the stories, the history)
and the sprouts (the contingent) of the local reality.
With globalisation and neoliberalism, the twenty first century came as the epitome
of movement, of liquidity and porosity.1 Even if politically demarcated, territories
are not hermetically sealed. Territories are open entities; open to external flows,
to movement, to regional and international markets, to free trade agreements, to
the media, to social networks, and daily movements. Massey (1991) had already
warned about this: places (territories) can only be understood progressively, linked
to a global asymmetric network that dynamically reshapes them. She referred to
power geometry2 as the unevenness of movement of flows: some places (some ideas,
some interests) are dominant and powerful and can influence and shape other places
remotely. In the 1990s, Bauman (2017) argued that globalisation implied a deter-
ritorialization of capital. Capital is no longer bounded and controlled by states but
1 ‘Territory is necessarily porous, historical, mutable, uneven and perishable. It is a laborious work
in progress, prone to failure and permeated by tension and contradiction. Territory is never complete,
but always becoming’ (Painter 2010, p.1094).
2 ‘Different social groups have distinct relationships to this anyway differentiated mobility: some
people are more in charge of it than others; some initiate flows and movement, others don’t; some
are more on the receiving-end of it than others; some are effectively imprisoned by it’ (p.26).
Asymmetric Territories: Power as a Bag of … 109
flows freely around the globe. The control of nations over their economies is weak-
ened and subjugated to the global markets. Under globalisation, places are constantly
contested and negotiated arenas. Globalisation brings economic and social polarisa-
tion to rural places (Woods 2007). Whilst some can or are willing to benefit from
neoliberal policies, others resist or are forced to change their livelihoods or even
to sell property (Eakin et al. 2013). Small producers are usually at the receiving
end. Against all odds, small scale farming in Mexico has persisted (Keilbach 2008;
Eakin et al. 2014), showing that even if disempowered by economic policies, human
agency is retained. As Woods (2007) argues, ‘globalization remakes rural places not
through a politics of domination and subordination, but through a micropolitics of
negotiation and hybridization’ (p.502). Rural territories in Mexico are changing but
not without resistance and tension.
In this chapter, we focus on one small village that we believe is representative
of the rural situation faced by many communities in Mexico and the world. It is of
particular interest how high-value agricultural products in the international markets
trigger disputes over space and natural resources that eventually lead to disposses-
sion, reterritorialization processes and material transformations. In Michoacan, the
international growing demand for avocado has dramatically changed the landscape
and the internal dynamics of territories. Avocado is also illustrative of how an accu-
mulation of powers—that we shall call chisels—is a quite successful strategy in the
conquest of space. Furthermore, avocado is rejected, confronted, and resisted by
campesinos3 for whom the environment transcends commodification and preserves
cultural values and a mythicised history of land acquisition. Campesinos enter this
story as the subaltern, the ‘other’, the fragile, the obstinate that struggle to preserve
the forest and a diversified livelihood that is not only based on the commodification
of nature.
2 Territory and the Structural Chisels
Territories are disproportionate polyphonic entities weaved by voices of different

tone, of different range, of different purpose: different forms of power performing
in a shared space. As networks of social relations, territories are mostly built upon
narratives of access. The option (or risk) to penetrate, to set foot inside a place,
is a knowledge learned by both experience and orality. But also, the options to
control, to own, to transform are discursive. The possibility of movement is thus
dependent on how many keys, how many passports, a person has. By passports
we refer to all the key cards that allow an individual to move freely, to cross all
sorts of boundaries (material and immaterial), and access different territories. We
3 We prefer to use the word in Spanish rather than the English options of peasant or farmer because
campesino refers to a diversified livelihood based on multi-activity where agriculture—mainly rain-
fed—, forest management, livestock, paid work and remittances may combine at the household
level.
believe access is the key term here: to access as a strategy to benefit (Ribot and
Peluso 2009), and lack of access as a form of exclusion, of submersion, of stifling.
To wield a bundle of passports translates into a wide territoriality4 whereas a few
means lower mobility and control, thus, less capacity to print and imbue the landscape
with personal (or collective) traits. While passports grant movement, chisels allow
material transformation. But they are both two sides of the same coin. Some passports
grant access to invisible boundaries—perhaps the most meaningful—such as access
to funding or incentives for rural development. Or access to knowledge on how
to benefit from the economic system that operates at different scales, to overturn
bureaucracy; knowledge to understand how policies operate; knowledge of all sorts
of powerful/institutionalised languages. Knowing the economic and political jargon
and ideologically sharing the hegemonic categories of modernity and development
are also types of passports—that eventually can turn into chisels—that amplify power,
mobility, and capacity to carve the materiality of how the territory looks and works.
Power operates in different ways. Perhaps the most crucial mode of power is what
Wolf (1990) describes as structural power: ‘power that not only operates within
settings or domains but that also organises and orchestrates the settings themselves’
(p.586). The importance of structural power is that, through normativity, it normalises
hegemonic categories that regulate social thinking and behaviour and leads to cultural
and material orders, many of which require transformation, in cases, in the form of
imperialism. In Mexico, structural power has been mostly exercised and negotiated
between the Mexican State, transnational corporations, and a national elite which
have favoured and benefited from neoliberal policies such as the Green Revolution
model, NAFTA, and the ending of the land redistribution period (Gravel 2007; Otero
2011, 2012).
Structural chisels are mostly immaterial, elitist, aristocratic, globalised modes of
influencing and guiding rationality and decision making. Nowadays, these chisels
are acquired through membership that is intimately related to economic wealth and
political alliances.
2.1 Chisel 1. The Modern Idea of Development
In modern times the discourse of freedom, human rights and equality have made
it look as if every human being had a right to space and territory. However, new
ways of creating territory are arising as part of a new discourse of development. The
modern idea of development is based on the concept that human societies can attain
well-being through economic growth. Although this belief is being questioned by
peoples all over the world, the reality is that it is still shaping the way we think,
act and model our territory. According to Escobar (2012), there are some elements
4 Sack offers a helpful and explicit definition of territoriality: ‘the attempt by an individual or group
(x) to influence, affect, or control objects, people, and relationships (y) by delimiting and asserting
control over a geographic area’ (Sack 1983).
which are the basis of modern thought, from which development stems. At the top of
modern thought is a ‘logocentric’ view of the world that holds that the modern world
should be perfectly ordered under a rational and predictable organisation. A ratio-
nality that is underpinned by reductionist science and technology. However, in reality
it has been difficult for the system to sustain this order, a situation that has caused
it to react by combating the symptoms, but not the causes of the crisis that result
from the system’s own functioning, resulting in what Joxe (2002) calls pequeñas
guerras crueles (‘little cruel wars’). These are the ways in which the new global
system articulates the ‘pacific expansion’ of the economy through a new global
economic and military regime (Escobar 2012). This regime acts through multiple
forms of violence—that which Santos (2009) calls ‘social fascism’5 —which increas-
ingly regulate peoples and their economies. Social fascism operates, for example,
through violently excluding peoples from their territories—as has been the case in
Colombia and some parts of Mexico—but also through other means, such as the
financial system and the internationalistion of commodity chains that exclude the
poorest populations (Santos 2009). Paternalistic social and agricultural aid programs
are also institutional forms of violence since they are not intended to help the poorest
people out of poverty (Gómez and Tacuba 2017). Furthermore, landless rural workers
are excluded from support (Gravel 2007). So, through these pequeñas guerras crueles
or social fascism, what is sought is the imposition of the neoliberal capitalist project.
This strategy has varied results, but in regions such as Latin America, it acts by
emptying vast areas where original and local populations live, through the creation
of an ‘insecure’ atmosphere through the workings of the ‘organised crime’, opening
them to economic globalisation through the imposition of industrialised production
systems. In Mexico, and particularly in Michoacán, drug trafficking groups have seen
an opportunity in avocado production to diversify and increase their profits through
the making of a violent environment (extortion, kidnappings, sexual violence, murder,
illegal logging, arson, etc.) that is then used to charge the landowners for security
and protection (Fuentes Díaz and Fini 2021).
2.2 Chisel 2. The Exclusion of Difference
The idea of social fascism also has to do with the exclusion of ‘difference’. Escobar
(2012) explains this difference not only as that which is essential and inherent to
‘non-conquered cultures’. He sees difference as the resulting tension between global
means of extending power and the existence of place-based worlds, that is, worlds
that are based on logics that cannot be reduced to capital and rational principles. This
tension exhibits cultural, economic and ecological differences that are in constant
5 In 1992, PROCEDE, a new program designed to certify and give land rights as a means to
provide certainty over landownership and total freedom to take decisions over land (Registro Agrario
Nacional 2003), opened a seductive window to capital holders that have the means to invest in an
industrial mode of agriculture and extract economic value.
threat of being conquered by a global economic system. Yet the politics of place are
an emergent form of politics, which affirm a logic of difference for which spaces
are places where living cultures, economies and systems of production, and the
environment, exist on their own right.
The global economic system, however, is a system that needs to ideologically
exclude other, ‘different’, ‘rudimentary’, production systems. Small rural communi-
ties (ejidos) that continue under traditional forms of agriculture and forest manage-
ment are conceived of and treated as primitive, as a hindrance, or as a nuisance for
economic growth. Incompatible forms of relating to the world converge: the (single)
hegemonic and all the (plural) minorities that are adaptive and self-organised. Along
with frictions and subductions, the disadvantaged adapt through recombination,
hybridisation, and resistance (García Canclini 1997).
2.3 Chisel 3. The Hegemonic Economic Order
There are many ways to call the current economic order that Escobar (2012) calls the
‘logocentric’ order. This order is the new economy, but it is not only an economic
order but also a new rationality that has shaped the way we think about our relationship
with nature and its capabilities to provide a very demanding resource extraction
system (Toledo et al. 2002; Leff 2004). In Mexico, the neoliberal economic system
has pushed a very strong focus on production of produce for export purposes. Treaties
like NAFTA have helped consolidate export paths that were created in the 1990s.
One such path was that of avocado’s entry into the United States’ market in 1997
(Thiébaut 2010). With the growth in avocado demand came the growth in the demand
for Earth’s resources: water, soil, land.
Although this economic model has been at work for many decades, it was in the
1990s that this model began to dramatically change the geography of the State of
Michoacan by making it the largest producer of avocado in Mexico. Currently, there
are more than 110,000 hectares of avocado orchards in the state (APEAM 2016) that
mostly respond to an international demand. But there exist also an estimated 30,000
orchards that have been established without a proper permit from the pertinent state
and federal authorities (Steve 2020). Nevertheless, these orchards exist, and many
have been established in plots that were previously covered by forest. Today, these
orchards produce avocados mostly for export to the USA; however, the avocado
market is a growing market that is expanding to Asia with an increasing demand
in Japan, China and South Korea (Estrada 2020). To give the reader an idea of the
extent of production, 962,000 tons of avocado were produced and exported from
Michoacan in the 2019–2020 cycle (APEAM 2021). Originally, orchards began to
be established in those regions with temperate-warm climates, around the city of
Uruapan. With time, these production regions have extended to other zones of the
state that share similar climatic conditions, and even to other states that have seen
an opportunity in the production of export avocado (Oaxaca and Morelos, lately in
the news). These changes are due to the crossing of very particular conditions and
situations; it is the intersection between specific physical requirements (such as soil

and weather) that benefit avocado production, and different powers that profit from
the economic system from the global to the local scales. Similar situations have
been reported in the literature for other profitable products suitable for export that
have influenced changes in the territory (i.e., monoculture and land use patterns) in
different regions of Mexico such as henequén in Yucatan (García de Fuentes and
Morales 2000), coffee in the South of Mexico (Nestel 1995; Montoya and Toledo
2020), and ‘blue’ agave in Jalisco (Tetreault et al. 2021).
3 Nieves, the Small Little Forest Village: The Local Chisels
To the south of the capital of Michoacan, the city of Morelia, there is a little village,
an ejido, called Nieves (Fig. 1). The ejido is very close to the Umécuaro-Loma
Caliente dam, a dam that is frequented by Morelians during the weekends, and
which is surrounded by beautiful visible forests. The inhabitants of this village
are very productive people, their most common productive activities are agricul-
ture, extensive cattle raising systems, silvopastoral systems that include pine resin
extraction and collection of non-timber forest products such as mushrooms (Fig. 2).
People in the area who are not landowners also hire their labour as peones or migrate
daily to the nearest urban centre—the city of Morelia—to work in the construc-
tion industry (Delgado 2018), following what has been widely described as a new
Fig. 1 Location map

Fig. 2 Resin collection in ejido Nieves
rurality (Carton de Grammont 2004; Rubio 2006; Kay 2008). In the past decades this
region has suffered from water supply, distribution, availability and quality problems
(Schoendube et al 2002).
The basin of Umécuaro dam is a small spatial expression of what goes on at
a larger scale, in the Lake Cuitzeo basin, to which it belongs. The basin of Lake
Cuitzeo (the second largest lake in Mexico) presents a number of problems related
to the growth of the city of Morelia. The Umécuaro basin is no exception, due to its
proximity to the city. The most notable problems in this microbasin have to do with
land use change, from forests to avocado plantations—and, more recently, cranberry
plantations—and with the pollution generated by agricultural production, as well

as forest degradation (pests, unsustainable logging practices), and low agricultural
yields.
On top of the ‘physical’ natural factors, the social factors related to the safety
of inhabitants have become a focal concern for local peoples. When we talk about
‘safety’, the connotation refers to the situation of insecurity that has abounded in
recent years. It is more than well-known that Michoacan is one of the country’s
most violent states. Violence in the form of kidnappings, extortion, murders, and
theft are common throughout the state, no matter if it is a rural or urban area. In the
Nieves area, some of the most preoccupying crimes have to do with extortion of resin
collectors, but also of murders committed by criminal bands in the nearby forests.
This small village is the site of a performance that repeats itself all around the
state: a battle between those who own a bag of chisels, and those who for decades—or
centuries, in the case of indigenous communities—have been the main users of the
land and everything that lives and grows on it. And when these people give meaning
to the land and along with it, everything above, below and around it, the land becomes
their territory. Therefore, this battle is a battle over territory and its meanings as well.
3.1 A Dispute Between Two Incompatible Production Systems
The avocado production system has some peculiarities, like many other industrialised
production systems. The production system is based on a very intensive use of the
soil, water (Delgado 2018) and even the air (Pinilla Herrera 2017), and a heavy use
of agrochemicals, as it is for pretty much every avocado production system. This
also means that orchards are established in a diversity of areas: abandoned fields,
forest lands, or lands that were formerly used to produce a different product (Fig. 3).
This production system does not only create changes in the way Earth’s resources
are used but also in the way people interact in and about territories.
For campesinos, territorio is not only space but also time. It is a seasonal system
in which different spaces are used at different times, and in which the same piece of
land can be used for multiple purposes in the same year. Thus, the peasant produc-
tion system is based on permanence and on change, on diversity, on the seasons,
with a focus on maintaining local livelihoods, and on a strong basis of community
organisation to guarantee the permanence of the most basic elements provided by
nature. Campesino life is always adapting to new seasonal conditions which allow
activities like non-timber forest product collection, resin extraction, beekeeping, agri-
culture, cattle, and even incorporating activities outside the community, like working
as construction or domestic workers. This diversity of activities and overlapping uses
and meanings of space and time are becoming less and less relevant in a monocul-
ture plantation system that sees non-material socio-cultural meanings of the forest
and traditional agricultural systems (e.g., milpa) as an obstacle to development and
growth.
Fig. 3 Avocado orchard in Nieves
3.2 Chisel 4. Acquisition of Land
What is gaining importance is the idea that land is a commodity that can be marketed
and used as a simple stock of nature, as the substrate where anything can be grown or
extracted. This land becomes part of the land market around the world and enters a
cybernetic, financial—and that is, surreal—transaction system. Yet, these systems—
as surreal as they are—have an indirect but strong and determinant influence on the
way land is used, because land is traded in spheres that are no longer connected to what
is actually happening on the ground, or rather, on the soil. In Mexico, this is a reason
why amending Article 27 of the Constitution in 19926 —which opened a fissure in
the law to allow the selling of collectively-owned lands—was such an important step
in Mexico’s integration into the neoliberal, international market system. In Nieves,
land is usually sold within the extended family nucleus itself, to the richest family
members, or outside the family to friends or other community members. But also
to people from outside the community. This has a double effect: few people from
inside the community possess and control larger areas of land and new owners arrive.
Those who remain as smallholders become gradually less competitive. While we do
6 ‘O fascismo social é a nova forma do estado de natureza e prolifera à sombra do contrato social sob
duas formas: pós-contratualismo e pré-contratualismo. O pós-contratualismo é o processo pelo qual
grupos e interesses sociais até agora incluídos no contrato social são dele excluídos sem qualquer
perspectiva de regresso: trabalhadores e classes populares são expulsos do contrato social através
da eliminação dos seus direitos sociais e económicos, tornando-se assim populações descartáveis’
(p.38–39).
not have specific data on how much land has become private property, small farmers
repeatedly talked about the selling of agricultural land as an increasing practice.
Land sales were always related to the introduction of avocado. It is also important to
mention that small producers are also shifting from maize agriculture to avocado in
small areas of their plots, while maintaining other agricultural and forestry activities.
So what is happening today on the ground is to a large extent an expression of an
economic system that has been shaping itself for a very long time (Marx’s critique of
the capitalist system is becoming ever more pertinent today). What the economic
system has achieved is a simultaneous transformation of the economic, ecolog-
ical, and cultural spheres, so as to allow for the conditions necessary to accomplish
modernity’s project.
3.3 Chisel 5. The Establishment of Physical Boundaries:

Fencing
When viewed in detail territories reveal a fibrous structure. Territories are amor-
phously gridded by multiple boundaries (material and invisible) that shape mobility
and performance inside the administrative, more rigid, limits. By boundaries we mean
all sorts of spatial manifestations of difference between social groups that create
some kind of exclusion (Paasi 1998) and, eventually, conflict. In Nieves, one of the
most clear, recent and visible materialisation of boundaries (of micro-territories) is
the fencing7 of avocado orchards that block old paths that used to lead to important
places or were part of non-timber forest product gathering tracks, now inaccessible to
the rest of the people8 (Fig. 4). These fences become obstacles that local inhabitants
have to go around. In the case of non-timber forest product collectors, these fences
work as externalities of the avocado production system, which pushes them farther
away from the paths that they used to collect non-timber forest products, creating
new costs in the form of time and safety. In the case of Nieves and many other rural
communities facing similar land use change dynamics, fences become an important
determinant of whether to collect or not collect, and ultimately, a determinant of
people’s access to space. Sometimes orchards create very large extensions of fenced
land, so if in the past—before the orchard—it used to take collectors 15 minutes to
get to a non-timber forest product collection area, it now takes them up to an hour
and a half. Most of the time, the decision is not to collect in areas that are on the
other side of the orchards. Fencing appears as a clear use of a chisel that carves out
a physical division.
7 ‘Few symbols more clearly define a territory than rolls of barbed wire fence’ (Cresswell 1996,
p.164)
8 In another work (Delgado and Ortega-Iturriaga 2020), we talked about how, when orchards are
established, fences are set up around the orchards, creating a physical barrier that cannot easily be
trespassed.
Fig. 4 Newly planted avocado trees
In addition to being pushed to abandon the activity of visiting certain places, the
fencing act also crystallises an important change in the land tenure structure that
speaks of a rupture from the communal and a step forward into the private. In a
collective ownership model, forests may have an internal, individualised distribution
of land, yet access to cross through, to move around, to graze cattle and to gather non-
timber forest products is open to members of the community and even to outsiders.
It remains communal. It prevails as an open space. On the contrary, fenced orchards
are entirely restricted and produce an intrinsic line of exclusion. Furthermore, a
border that can only be crossed with permission is established. They are not only
interrupting spatial continuity (also in ecological terms), they are also modifying
traditional subsistence systems that depend entirely on an interaction with the land
as a whole. Places where non-timber forest products grow become abandoned (and
unproductive, since for many products, human management to some degree is neces-
sary) and slowly erased from the imaginaries of local peoples. As land use changes
and a new spatial organisation is redefined, new boundaries are being traced, and
with them, new forms of social organisation (or disorganisation). Avocado orchards
have brought important struggles over land and natural resources that are negatively
lived and perceived by those with a local history of forest management. This is also
the case for other small villages in the region.
3.4 Chisel 6. Controlling the Water and the Weather
Since borders are not fixed lines but socially contested processes—especially within
the expansive nature of the capitalist system—strong groups (territorialities) struggle
to expand, either to gain more space or grow in volume, and maintain control and
reinforce their power. Actions that reassert territoriality and in some cases reach
reterritorialization are not necessarily spatial in the classic sense, as in the terres-
trial, grounded notion of territory; they can also be, to follow Olwig’s (2011) term,
aerographical. Avocado producers use hail cannons in order to control the weather
and avoid heavy rains that can hurt the harvest. The avocado system is a globalising
market model that takes Earth’s resources as something fixed and ready to use. It
forces the seasons through artificially creating the conditions necessary for produc-
tion. Rainfed agriculture farmers experience these changes in a negative way. As
they say, hail cannons ‘scare’ the rain. Hail cannons are said to inhibit the formation
of clouds, which hinders the rain, directly impacting campesino agricultural produc-
tion that depends on seasonal rains. Rain diminishment does not necessarily affect
avocado producers because their orchards are usually equipped with water storage
and irrigation that comes from groundwater wells. The manipulation of clouds and
rain appears as a new mode of territorialization. By modifying the physical condi-
tions avocado producers have traced a new line, a new division that leads to a dispute
over the atmosphere. At the same time, hail cannons add to the negative perception
that the locals have regarding the avocado producers.
3.5 Chisel 7. A Sense of Community
Community as cohesion, cooperation and participation is also a kind of power, and it

is territorial. The concept of territory as an ideological configuration that pulls people
together in a shared space and that has to do with a concrete identity is a helpful tool
to understand why people defend the space where they live (Fig. 5). A shared history
of the struggles to gain the land they have also works as a unifying thread. There
are, additionally, actual physical elements that have served Nieves inhabitants in the
shaping of their conception of territory and identity: the forest and the spring.
As mentioned earlier, the forest is a very important aspect of people’s lives because
it is a source of many products that are used to generate income and also for subsis-
tence purposes. The forest is managed ‘collectively’ in the sense that the decisions
made regarding how it is managed are made in assemblies that bring together the
landowners. In these assemblies, decisions are made about topics such as what is to
be done when a tree is infested with a pest. What is done in case of pests that affect
pine trees is a clear example of how the forest has become an important referent to
their identity, cooperation and of the power that people hold over their territory. When
a tree is infected by pests, people have an understanding of what is to be done; the
decision is to cut the tree down, burn it and apply pesticide to the surrounding trees.
All of this is done with no consent from the state forestry institutions that regulate this
Fig. 5 A sign in the middle of the forest, which reads: ‘Do not cut down the forest’
type of management. People are compelled to do this without permission because

the official administrative procedure is a bureaucratic process that takes too long,
allowing in this time for the pest to spread over to the trees nearby causing greater
damage. People therefore make decisions about their territory and their trees and act
them out immediately, even though they know they can get into trouble for doing
so. They take the risk in order to preserve the forest. For Nieves people, their forest
is more important than keeping to the rules that external institutions have created to
protect their resources.
Another element that has been highly promoted and defended as part of their
identity is the spring. On the outskirts of the small village, right on the base of the
mountain, there is a spring that supplies the village with fresh water. The spring has
always been used for this purpose and at some point was protected by building a
small water reservoir to catch the water that flows down the spring (Fig. 6). The
water from the spring is distributed to the village houses through a system made of
hoses. Nothing complex. What water comes out of the spring has been enough to
fulfill the needs of Nieves inhabitants. The rest of the water flows into the reservoir
and overflows onto the ground, feeding a small stream. That has been the dynamic
for many years. Inhabitants take only what they need, and the rest is left for other
people to use (passers by, and people from nearby villages). It is a common sight to
see people gathering water in plastic water containers to take home or to sell in their
communities.
This all changed with the arrival of new landowners of a nearby ejido. These
landowners bought land from local landowners to establish avocado orchards in the
area. The new landowners also migrated to the area, establishing their homes. All
Fig. 6 Water reservoir built by the community
good until the orchard owners became suddenly interested in ‘protecting the spring’.
Yet, this protection entailed fencing it and preventing the rest of the community from
using the spring. There was a clear hidden intention of taking control of the spring. To
protect it from being privatised, Nieves old-timers organised into groups to stand by
the spring night and day and prevent this fencing from happening. They did this for
over a month, while taking their struggle to government institutions that had the legal
resources to prevent this privatisation. As a result, the new inhabitant´s intentions
to privatise the spring subsided and they continued using the spring like any other
inhabitant from the area.
4 Conclusions
People who own a bag of chisels are more prone to control access to resources and to
model the physiognomy of the territory. Different modes of power can accumulate
to create dominant, solid social groups linked to powerful networks of people and
institutions outside the administrative territorial limits. As we have seen, chisels
can be structural, related to capital and the global hegemonic ideas of modernity,
development and economic growth. Social and political discourse and changes in
laws, policies and programs are used as means for exclusion, to push aside groups of
people that value the environment culturally, beyond the sole monetary value, which,
to the capitalist logic, hampers the production of capital. Products of high value in
international markets—such as avocado—easily penetrate small rural communities
legitimated by a discourse of development and high export-based revenues. Yet,

chisels are also agency based. In rural communities in Mexico, subaltern groups of
campesinos are struggling to defend the right to preserve and perpetuate place-based
livelihoods and have succeeded in resisting so far; in many cases, putting their lives
in danger.
In the inside, territories are asymmetrical. At the local level we find that different
exercises of power have led to a process of reterritorialization. First, through land
acquisition former common property has become privatised, blocked, and detached
from cultural local values and meanings. Secondly, private owners who fence their
plots produce a restricted use of space, limiting mobility and access to natural
resources. Thirdly, new ways of territorialization emerge as powerful groups try
to control atmospheric processes. Avocado production plays the dominant role in the
reterritorialization of Nieves and other rural communities in the region.
In our field trips to Nieves, campesinos have expressed more than once a genuine
concern about the future of their territory. Their main fear is that in the short term
the whole area can change to a homogenous avocado landscape. Since we started
working in Nieves fourteen years ago, we have seen this happen. Avocado orchards
have spread, and most probably will continue to do so. Yet, through their own agency
and collective action, local peoples are resisting ‘avocadisation’, using their own
chisels. The expansion of the avocado production system is just one example of many
high-value monocultures distributed around the globe, actively chiselling territories.
References
APEAM (2016) Aguacate caso de éxito e historia 1997–2016. https://www.globalgap.org/exp

ort/sites/default/.content/.galleries/Pictures/TOUR2016/TOUR2016_Mexico_Presentations/8.-
ARMANDO-LOPEZ-ORDUNA-GENERACION-DE-VALOR-EN-LA-CADENA-DE-SUM
INISTRO.pdf. Accessed 29 Dec 2019
APEAM (2021) ¿Qué es APEAM? http://www.apeamac.com/que-es-apeam/. Accessed 10 Apr
2021
Bauman Z (2017) La globalización. Consecuencias humanas. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Ciudad
de México
Carton de Grammont H (2004) La nueva ruralidad en América Latina. Rev Mex Sociol 66:279–300.
https://doi.org/10.2307/3541454
Cresswell T (1996) In place/out of place: geography, ideology and transgression. University of
Minnesota Press, Minneapolis
Delgado TS (2018) The significance of NTFPs for contemporary rural livelihoods: a study of
policies, social organization and markets in non-timber forest product management in two
communities in Michoacan. Dissertation, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Delgado TS, Ortega-Iturriaga A (2020) Un acercamiento a los cambios ambientales a través de las
percepciones locales: el caso del ejido Nieves. In: McCall M, Campos-Sánchez M (eds) Lidiando
con el clima de hoy en pequeñas comunidades. Enseñanzas sobre la adaptación y la capacidad
de respuesta al cambio climático en el contexto de Michoacán, 1st edn. CIGA-UNAM, Morelia,
pp 33–48
Eakin H, Bausch JC, Sweeney S (2013) Agrarian winners of neoliberal reform: the ‘maize boom’
of Sinaloa Mexico. J Agrar Chang 14(1):26–51. https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12005
Eakin H, Perales H, Appendini K, Sweeney S (2014) Selling maize in Mexico: the persistence of
peasant farming in an era of global markets. Dev Chang 45(1):133–155. https://doi.org/10.1111/
dech.12074
Elden S (2010) Land, terrian, territory. Prog Hum Geogr 34(6):799–817. https://doi.org/10.1177/
0309132510362603
Escobar A (2012) Más allá del Tercer Mundo. Globalización y Diferencia. Instituto Colombiano
de Antropología e Historia (ICANH), Bogotá
Estrada C (2020) El apetito voraz de aguacates. https://www.jornada.com.mx/2020/02/15/del
campo/articulos/apetito-voraz.html. Accessed 10 Aug 2020
Fuentes Díaz A, Fini D (2021) Neoliberalism in the grey area: community defense, the state, and
organized crime in guerrero and michoacán. Lat Am Perspect 48:84–102. https://doi.org/10.1177/
0094582X20975019
García Canclini N (1997) Culturas híbridas y estrategias comunicacionales. Estud Cult Contemp
3(5):109–128
García de Fuentes A, Morales J (2000) Dinámica regional de Yucatán 1980–2000. Invest Geogr
42:157–172
Giménez G (1999) Territorio, cultura e identidades: la región socio-cultural. Estud Cult Contemp
5(9):25–57
Gómez L, Tacuba A (2017) La política de desarrollo rural en México. ¿Existe correspondencia entre
lo formal y lo real? ECONOMÍAunam 14(42):93–117
Gravel N (2007) Mexican smallholders adrift: the urgent need for a new social contract in rural
Mexico. J Lat Am Geogr 6(2):77–98
Haesbaert R (2013) Del mito de la desterritorialización a la multiterritorialidad. Cult Represent Soc
8(15):9–42
7623
Joxe A (2002) The empire of disorder. Semiotext(e), New York
Kay C (2008) Reflections on Latin American rural studies in the neoliberal globalization period: a
new rurality? Dev Chang 39:915–943. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2008.00518.x
Keilbach NM (2008) Apuntes Para Una Ruralidad Reflexiva. Cotidiano 147:35–42
Leff E (2004) Racionalidad Ambiental: La reapropiación social de la naturaleza. Siglo XXI Editores,
México, D. F
Sandoval MFL, Robertsdotter A, Paredes M (2017) Space, power, and locality: the contemporary
use of territorio in Latin American geography. J Lat Am Geogr 16(1):43–67. https://doi.org/10.
1353/lag.2017.0009
Massey D (1991) A Global Sense of Place. Marx Today 35:315–323. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pecs.
2007.10.001
Montoya D, Toledo VM (2020) Historia de la caficultura en Chiapas (1880–2010). Apuntes de una
evolución social y ambiental. Soc Ambient 23:1–25. https://doi.org/10.31840/sya.vi23.2187
Nestel D (1995) Coffee in Mexico: international market, agricultural landscape and ecology. Ecol
Econ 15:165–178. https://doi.org/10.1016/0921-8009(95)00041-0
Olwig KR (2011) All that is landscape is melted into air: the ‘aerography’ of ethereal space. Environ
Plan D 29(3):519–532. https://doi.org/10.1068/d8409
Otero G (2011) Neoliberal globalization, NAFTA, and migration: Mexico’s loss of food and labor
sovereignty. J Poverty 15(4):384–402. https://doi.org/10.1080/10875549.2011.614514
Otero G (2012) The neoliberal food regime in Latin America: state, agribusiness transnational corpo-
rations and biotechnology. Can J Dev Stud 33(3):282–294. https://doi.org/10.1080/02255189.
2012.711747
Paasi A (1998) Boundaries as social processes: territoriality in the world of flows. Geopolitics
3(1):69–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650049808407608
Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Maiden, pp 109–122
Painter J (2010) Rethinking Territory. Antipode 42(5):1090–1118. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-

8330.2010.00795.x
Pinilla Herrera MC (2017) Sistemas de producción frutícola, amenazas y riesgos hidrometeo-
rológicos: percepciones y respuestas frente a su ocurrencia en paisajes de montaña Dissertation,
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Raffestin C (2011) Por una geografía del poder. El Colegio de Michoacán, Zamora
Registro Agrario Nacional (2003) PROCEDE: Programa de Certificación de Derechos Ejidales
y Titulación de Solares. http://www.sct.gob.mx/obrapublica/MarcoNormativo/3/3-3/3-3-5.pdf.
Accessed 5 Aug 2020
Ribot JC, Peluso NL (2009) A theory of access. Rural Sociol 68(2):153–181. https://doi.org/10.
1111/j.1549-0831.2003.tb00133.x
Rubio B (2006) Territorio y globalización en México: ¿un nuevo paradigma rural? Comer Exter
56:1047–1054
Sack RD (1983) Human territoriality: a theory. Ann Assoc Am Geogr 73(1):55–74. https://doi.org/
10.1111/j.1467-8306.1983.tb01396.x
Santos BS (2009) Para além do pensamento abissal: das linhas globais a uma ecologia de saberes.
In: Santos BS, Meneses MP (eds) Epistemologias do Sul. Edições Almedina, Coimbra, pp 23–71
Schoendube BB, Durán Juárez JM, Sánchez Rodríguez M, Torres Rodríguez A (2002) Los estudios
del agua en la cuenca Lerma-Chapala-Santiago. Universidad de Guadalajara, Zamora, El Colegio
de Michoacán
Steve O (2020) Cuando el aguacate se mete con el ambiente: aparecen miles de plantíos en México
aunque no se ha dado un permiso en 20 años. https://www.xataka.com.mx/ecologia-y-naturaleza/
cuando-aguacate-se-mete-ambiente-aparecen-miles-plantios-mexico-no-se-ha-dado-permiso-
20-anos. Accessed 10 Aug 2020
Tetreault D, McCulligh C, Lucio C (2021) Distilling agro-extractivism: agave and tequila production
in Mexico. J Agrar Chang 21(2):219–241. https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12402
Thiébaut V (2010) Evolución del paisaje aguacatero en Michoacán: Procesos socioeconómicos y
medioambientales. Rev Estud SocS Nueva Época 4(7):235–254
Toledo VM, Baron L, Alarcón P (2002) La modernización rural de México: un análisis
socioecológico. SEMARNAT, INE, UNAM, México, D.F
Wolf ER (1990) Distinguished lecture: facing power-old insights new questions. Am Anthropol
92(3):586–596. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1990.92.3.02a00020
Woods M (2007) Engaging the global countryside: globalization, hybridity and the reconstitution
of rural place. Prog Hum Geogr 31(4):485–507. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132507079503
Adrián Ortega-Iturriaga Ph.D. candidate in Geography, Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía

Adrián Ortega received his Master’s degree in Geography from CIGA-UNAM. He also holds
an M.A. in Literature and Creative Writing from Centro Cultural Casa Lamm, and a B.Sc. in Envi-
ronmental Sciences from UNAM. His current research focuses on the intersections between sense
of place, rural livelihoods, the persistence of Mexico’s rural population, indigenous peoples and
translocality.
Tzitzi Sharhí Delgado Postdoctoral fellow, Escuela Nacional de Estudios Superiores Unidad
Morelia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Morelia, Mexico.
Tzitzi Delgado has an Anthropology major (Mount Holyoke College), a Master’s degree in
Environmental Science (UASLP, San Luis Potosí) and a Ph.D. degree in Geography (UNAM).
Through her academic work she has tried to connect with other areas of life and has also been an
activist and entrepreneur, working on sustainable urban transportation and mobility, public spaces
and issues of food and culture. Her postdoctoral fellowship is a continuation of previous collabo-
rations with non-governmental organizations and local neighbourhood groups on the rehabilitation
of urban river banks through agroforestry interventions.
Towards a Territorial Eco-Genesis. Land
and Water Grabbing in the Oases
of the Province of Mendoza (Argentina)
Robin Larsimont
Abstract The point of this chapter is to examine with a territorial lens the outcome
of the wave of land investments in the wine region of Mendoza (Argentina). Our
theoretical framework aims to deepen our understanding of the complex water–land
nexus and the intermittent movements in contemporary land grabbing dynamics in
drylands. Drawing on personal fieldwork and secondary source analysis, we focus
on the district of Gualtallary (Uco Valley) to show that the market-driven enclosure
of the countryside gives rise to conflictual and violent processes of corporate space
appropriation.
Keywords Land Grabbing · Groundwater · Territorialisation · Conflict · Mendoza
1 Introduction
In 2008, the Belgian real estate company, BURCO—already present in the Argen-
tinean Patagonia since the 1990s—settled in Uco Valley, one of the several irrigated
oases of the semi-arid province of Mendoza. In the past three decades, this province,
historically known for its regional wine-making economy, has experienced an uneven
productive restructuring process aimed at the production and exportation of high-
quality wines. This productive shift was presented as an ‘El Dorado’ for national
and foreign investors looking to diversify their investments. BURCO, like many
other firms, chose to combine export wine-making with other sources of profit such
as tourism and luxury real estate complexes. Through a new local subsidiary, the
holding company selected the highly coveted terroir of the district of Gualtallary
as a hallmark of its luxury project: a wine country with a golf course covering 800
hectares.
Supported by local authorities and deploying subtle marketing strategies, these
corporate manoeuvres constitute a complex agribusiness model by which many rural
areas of Mendoza have been transformed into a global countryside. Behind these
R. Larsimont (B)
Instituto de Ciencias Humanas, Sociales y Ambientales, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones
Científicas y Técnicas, Mendoza, Argentina
e-mail: rlarsimont@mendoza-conicet.gob.ar
126 R. Larsimont
idyllic landscapes lie conflicting territorial processes, as corporations sometimes

employ intimidation tactics, even aggressive expropriation, and several local families
become locked in a conflictual relationship with their ‘new neighbours’.
By exercising effective control over land and (mostly underground) water corpo-
rate actors contribute to the growing commoditisation and enclosure of spaces of
the Mendocinean piedmont. The need to derive benefit from such control over land
and associated resources refers to what Borras et. al (2012) have called ‘control
grabbing’. In our work, we build upon this concept to analyse corporate territorial
processes. Drawing on personal fieldwork and secondary source analysis,1 we seek
to unravel the power relations that give rise to these land grabs. Hence, the conceptual
framework we deploy in this chapter follows two interconnected purposes. First, it
seeks to characterise the capitalist valorisation of the Uco Valley, not only as a space
of production but also as a space for elite consumption. In this regard, we demon-
strate that the material, discursive and symbolic processes of space appropriation by
corporate actors evidence forms of epistemic and physical violence. Secondly, this
will lead us to give an account of the non-linear nature of these territorial processes.
Indeed, as in many cases, land grabbing could be a risky business (Li 2015). Drawing
upon this case study, we argue that strategies employed by investors to gain access
to the land and water—or to maintain their initial business plans—may encounter
obstacles, such as policy shifts, legal constraints or lack of economic openness. In
order to characterise the back-and-forth movement of these complex processes, we
distinguish phases of territorialisation, deterritorialisation, and reterritorialisation.
The main conclusion of this chapter is that despite glaring impacts of long-
term ‘control grabbing’—groundwater over extraction, growing commodification
of nature, and cultural dispossession—these effects are likely to be made invisible
by legitimating strategies deployed by corporate actors and authorities. Specifically,
the eco-efficiency argument and the wish to transform Mendoza as one of the finest
wine-producing regions of the world are still among the main and strongest discourses
used to legitimate new land deals.
We take the reader through the following steps: first, we lay out our theoretical–
methodological tools drawing upon the literature on the so-called ‘global land grab’
and by proposing to tackle the issue through a vertical and multi-dimensional lens. To
highlight the dynamic and non-linear character of control grabbing, we operationalise
the territorial eco-genesis theory proposed by Claude Raffestin, a critical geographer
whose theoretical contribution has been widely used in Latin America. Second, with a
brief geohistorical contextualisation of the oasis as a backdrop, we focus on the recent
expansion of the agricultural frontier by agribusiness firms based on the exploitation
of groundwater. Third, we analyse the territorial transformations that have occurred
as a consequence of the uncontrolled expansion of agribusiness firms in the district of
1Fieldwork was conducted during several short stays, mainly between 2015 and 2017. Individual
and group interviews were held with local families and producers based in Gualtallary, as well
as with agronomists, enologists, journalists, and policy-makers. Secondary data sources were
consulted, particularly project documents, company’s annual reports and websites, cadastral maps,
and newspaper reports.
Towards a Territorial Eco-Genesis. Land … 127
Gualtallary, paying special attention to the conflictual process of land appropriation

of emblematic golf and wine-country project.
2 Towards a Territorial Approach to Land Grabbing
2.1 Control Grabbing: A Vertical and Multi-Dimensional

Lens
From the 1990s onward, in various latitudes of the arid-South American diagonal, the
famous slogan of ‘making the desert bloom’ (Reisner 1993) has found in the agro-
export boom its new raison d’être. Several areas of oasis agriculture production,
traditionally structured around a surface water distribution network, have under-
gone an expansion of their agricultural frontiers through intensive exploitation of
their aquifers (Lavie et al. 2017; Vos and Marshall 2017; Damonte and Boelens
2019). Through groundwater access and the systematic application of modern irriga-
tion technologies, domestic and foreign investors converted lands branded as ‘dry’,
‘marginal’ or ‘empty’ into sources of profit (White et al. 2012). As a result, several
oases are increasingly serving export markets and ultimately a global diet. In these
dry environments, commodity flows, as either fresh (asparagus, peppers, avocado,
etc.) or processed goods (wine, olive oil), depend on significant water supply. In the
case of a world wine capital like Mendoza, such rural dynamics go hand in hand with
the mise-en-scène and extension of the commodification of the countryside for the
tourist and real estate sectors. Such territorial processes easily erase ‘existing histo-
ries and peoples from the landscape, and “destructively create” new socio-natures’
(Devine and Ojeda 2017, p.606) or, as Gordillo (2014) put it, they produce, destroy,
and remake.
Drawing upon the literature on the so-called ‘control land grab’ (Borras et al.
2012), we highlight two epistemological standpoints when it comes to understanding
the processes of land grabs in a semi-arid area as is the province of Mendoza. The first
one advocates the need to have a vertical vision that distinguishes three levels: ‘[…]
the ground, the underground, and the above-ground’ (Lefebvre 1991, p.325). In this
scheme, the land not only refers to agriculture but also the subsoil and its resources
(Lefebvre 1991). If this vertical view on the capitalist valorisation of land by corporate
actors must, of course, draw our attention to soils, agro-climatic characteristics, and
even landscapes, we must also put emphasis on groundwater control (Hoogesteger
and Wester 2015). In this sense, some refer to ‘blue grabbing’ to characterise ‘the
capturing of control not only of the water itself but also of the power to decide
how this will be used—by whom, when, for how long, and for what purposes—
in order to control the benefits of use’ (Franco et al. 2013, p.1654). Specifically,
following Bossenbroek et al. (2017), we highlight three distinctive yet closely entan-
gled processes of groundwater enclosure: the physical, through land enclosure and
also the more fuzzy water frontier; the technological, by keeping the water hidden in
128 R. Larsimont
tube wells and drip irrigation lines; and the discursive, which refers to new farming
and water imaginaries associated to drip irrigation and the notion of efficiency, which
is highly exclusionary (Bossenbroek et al. 2017).
This last process leads to our second epistemological standpoint, which stresses
that control grabbing processes have to be understood not only in a technical mate-
rial register but also in a discursive and symbolic one. Borrowing to some extent the
idea that ‘production creates the consumer’ and the ‘manner of consumption’ (Marx
1963 [1859], p.343). We understand that, beyond the production of commodities,
firms have to design how to consume them as well. Therefore, marketing strategies
(including greenwashing) are indispensable tools to promote a continuous search for
marks of distinction and uniqueness not only of their product but also of the built
environment necessary for production (vineyards, bodegas, and terroir). Indeed, as
mentioned by a prestigious Mendocinean winery architect, architectural and land-
scape designs were shaped for the benefit of many companies as an ‘added value’ or
a ‘visual seduction for commercial purposes’ (Flores 2001, p.54).
2.2 A Territorial Eco-Genesis Perspective
As mentioned in the introduction of this book, much ink has been spilt on the eclectic
territorial question. In this work, we understand ‘control grabbing’ as the starting
point of a territorial eco-genesis (Raffestin 1982). Following Raffestin, this approach
understands territorial processes in a relational and dynamic way. It is not restricted
to political-administrative matter but, on the contrary, considers that any group of
human actors can actively produce multiple territorial forms. Specifically, we under-
stand territorial eco-genesis as an ongoing and contested socio-relational process
dependent on power relations and scalar arrangements. As a reversible approach, it
encourages deciphering processes of territorialisation–deterritorialisation–reterrito-
rialisation (T-D-R) of a given group of human actors, in our case, firms. Embedded
in a complex ontology of socio-nature, it also considers that the moulding of created
ecosystems through T-D-R is made by domestication and simulation (Raffestin 1997,
2012). Domestication refers to the transformation process, which plays with the
spatial and temporal scale of the produced nature (Raffestin 2012). Simulation is ‘an
algorithmic exploration generating images and models that invent “natures” whose
scales are chosen according to the desired utility’ (Raffestin 1997, p.98). Technical
scientific practices and knowledge, as we shall see, are driving forces behind this
remodelling.
3 From Oases to Globalisation Processes
3.1 Green Islands in the Middle of the Desert
Mendocinean rivers originate in the snow-crested mountain range of the Cordillera

de los Andes and flow towards the lower plains providing diverted water for three
main oases developed on the piedmont2 (Fig. 1). The irrigation of the piedmont
oases dates back to remote times, but a major revolution in land use came in the late
nineteenth century with the arrival of the railroad and a massive wave of Mediter-
ranean migration. At the time, the provincial government and elite became active
in a hydraulic mission by financing the expansion of a run-of-the-river irrigation
system.3 This massive hydraulic infrastructure has been at the core of a historical
winegrowing and winemaking model, supplemented by other fruit and vegetable
crops. This model, which was said ‘would last for a century after first emerging’,
has been boosted by the growth of domestic consumption of low-quality table wine,
entered a full-blown collapse in 1980 (Stein and Mateu 2018, p.291). Since the late
1980s, larger and better-capitalised firms began a process that would become known
as the reconversión of the Argentine wine industry (Stein and Mateu 2018).
3.2 The Conquest of the Piedmont by Agribusiness Firms
As the decade of the 1990s progressed, Mendoza’s oases started arousing great
interest from transnational investors, while also experiencing a restructuring process
that began to reveal its spatial consequences: as some areas were abandoned, others
expanded (Lavie et al. 2017). In particular, the expansion of the agricultural frontier
was made possible by intensive groundwater exploitation in the context of loosely
regulated groundwater management. Led by intensive, mainly large-scale and export-
oriented projects, this conquest of the piedmont involved not only the high-quality
wine-making sector but also the production of fruit, tree nuts, vegetables, and olive oil.
Former ‘marginal lands’ were now in the sights of firms who saw the peripheral areas
of the oases as potentially highly profitable (Martin 2019). With access to ground-
water, corporate actors became disconnected and independent from the complex run-
off-the-river irrigation system by irrigating their fields at their leisure. Pressurised
irrigation systems further facilitated the process significantly since the sandy and
sloping soils of the piedmont could not have been made productive without such
2 In this arid land with 200–350 mm of annual precipitation, no rain-fed agriculture is possible (Lavie
et al. 2017), thus water control is essential for the subsistence of the created and domesticated oasis
ecosystems.
3 The oasis economy has been gradually modified in order to develop a cattle fattening activity
dependent on irrigated alfalfa, and complemented by wine production and subsistence crops. The
hydraulic mission goes hand in hand with a process of land and water commodification that results
in the dispossession of native and peasant groups from their traditional land and water rights (Martin
2019).
130 R. Larsimont
Fig. 1 The Province of Mendoza and its oases
technology (Hoogesteger and Wester 2015). In particular, drip irrigation was used
not only to overcome physical constraints in conquering that new space of produc-
tion but also to optimise farming performance by guaranteeing quality and quantity.
Many business groups, seeking to diversify their activities or finding stability in the
face of financial market turbulence, have chosen to combine the export wine produc-
tion with other sources of profit, such as tourism and luxury real estate complexes.
These restructuring processes and rural dynamics have occurred in all the oases but
gained special relevance in the case of Uco Valley (Fig. 2). In the last few decades,
this oasis has become Argentina’s equivalent to California’s Napa Valley. In the
following section, we describe the territorial transformations, which have occurred
as a consequence of the uncontrolled expansion of agribusiness firms in the district
of Gualtallary.
4 Wine, Golf, and Violence
4.1 Gualtallary in An Emerging Global Countryside
Gualtallary is a district and a high-altitude wine area (1500 m, approximately) situ-

ated within the department of Tupungato in the Uco Valley (Fig. 2). At the end of
the nineteenth century, the highlands of the Tupungato piedmont were devoted to
extensive cattle raising based on large estates and dedicated to commercialisation
to Chile. Following an auction process, the lowlands were highly fragmented in
the middle of the twentieth century. These lands, as a local producer recalls, were
‘divided only by word, not by papers’ and acquired by medium-scale fruit growers
(mainly Mediterranean descendants) and some local peasant families dedicated to
cattle and horse breeding. As the producers depended on irrigation, they organised
water distribution in a way that ensured ‘nobody stole the water’. ‘When they started
to have more plantations they had to impose shifts’, and the General Department of
Irrigation intervened by registering 50 ha.
At the end of the 1980s, a major change took place in Gualtallary. It all started in
1989, when Nicolás Catena Zapata, one of the few winery owners who survived the
crisis (Stein and Mateu 2018) bought a small plot ‘looking for height, freshness, and
being close to the mountain, thinking about finally obtaining fresher wines, with more
acidity’, as a local enologist explains. At that time, as a fruit grower recalls, land ‘had
very little value. It must have been worth US$300 a hectare’ and ‘it seems that his
on-farm trials gave good results’. Indeed, the arrival of this entrepreneur in the area
triggered the Gualtallary wine boom. First of all, it drew the attention of the politician-
businessman and native of Tupungato, J.L.Manzano (former minister in Menem’s
neo-liberal government), who quickly became a new terrateniente (landowner) with
a speculative view on the area. This soon sparked the interest of other firms to buy
in this district. As one local man recalled, ‘it seemed like everyone wanted to go
uphill. Those of us who had been producing in Gualtallary for 40 years said, they are
crazy, let them come and put up the money!’. In fact, in a few years—as fruticulture
became less profitable—new vineyards and wineries proliferated in the area (such
as the French Doutre and Chandon, the Chilean Doña Paula, the Catalan Freixenet,
and the Argentine Zuccardi, Zorzal, and Altus, among others). Wine tourism and real
estate complexes also appeared, such as Huentala Wine, but above all the Belgian
BURCO’s Tupungato Wineland project, to which we shall return later (Fig. 3).
132 R. Larsimont
Fig. 2 The expansion of the agricultural frontier in Uco valley

Fig. 3 Land rush in Gualtallary’s district
The territorialisation process by corporate actors has led to new land-use patterns.
While functional and repetitive shapes dominate—that is the logic of the grid at
the service of a voluntary structuring of space—some touristic projects opted for
more freedom in landscape design. At the same time, this control grabbing strongly
emphasises the concrete physicality of bounded land and the centrality of private
property. Indeed, in contrast with local peasants, who mainly used land regardless of
its legal status, agribusiness companies mostly seek to own land as private property
(Martin 2019). While some inhabitants and producers tried to adapt to this new
mechanism of tenure legitimisation, for others, it was too late.
Corporate actors also make use of spatial markers, which materialise and
symbolise the security of land tenure. A native recalled a conflict he had with the
company Freixenet after one of his horses had broken through his rustic fences to
venture into the company’s vineyards. Until then, these new neighbours had never
come close to meeting him. He unsuccessfully tried to remind them that Gualtallary
was formerly a cattle-raising place; nevertheless, ‘as foreigners they immediately
called the police’. As in other cases of ‘investor’s colonialism,[…] space and its
animals were suddenly brought under control following the introduction of barbed
wire’ (Netz 2009, p.16). Other markers and means have been deployed to control or
deter trespassing, such as signs that read ‘PRIVATE PROPERTY: NO ENTRY’, or
the use of security guards, dogs, and video surveillance. The operationalisation of
these power technologies has clearly exacerbated the market-driven enclosure of this
rural landscape. What is more, boosted by intensive aquifer exploitation, this territo-
rialisation process takes place in tandem with groundwater enclosure (Bossenbroek
et al. 2017). In such new enclosures, water flows quietly and hidden through drip
irrigation or, as reported in a commercial brochure, resurfaces through sprinklers for
134 R. Larsimont
‘the golf course that spreads out as a green carpet coexisting in harmony with the
natural vegetation’ (BURCO America N/D).
Based on the foregoing, we can say that Gualtallary has been transformed in less
than two decades into a global countryside (Woods 2007). While it embodies the site
of increasing corporate concentration and touristic attraction, it also reflects rising
social polarisation and precarious labour. As an engineer working on a transnational
project explained, ‘Today Gualtallary is world-renowned for its wines […]. A lot has
to do with the soil but at the same time the combination of the height, the temperature
and the people who work here makes a very particular place’. This reputation defi-
nitely led to a sharp increase in land prices, as he recalled: ‘When these people [firms]
purchased, it was worth US$500/hectare. Today [in 2016] in Gualtallary, one hectare
with irrigation rights is worth US$20,000’ and one ‘of vineyard costs US$60,000’.
From another viewpoint, a local journalist highlights the ‘rift of Gualtallary land-
scape’. As she mentioned, ‘Just over there you have the counterpart, a shocking
contrast, it sticks out like a sore thumb, just here, poverty and overcrowding, and on
the other side, you have these new [corporate] neighbours’. Indeed, in addition to
the difficult persistence of local fruit growers, the land rush has grown along with
the proliferation of informal settlements. While these new settlers (mainly deprived
local or migrant farmworkers) serve the firms as a reserve army of cheap labour,
they are also the foci of local disputes. Furthermore, corporate actors seem to know
very well how to use these internal conflicts to their advantage. As the journalist
recalls, ‘Gualtallary has always been an area of land title litigation and dispute […].
There are cases of overlapping titles and it is not known precisely to whom the land
belongs’. Also, many claims to ownership and entitlements of local actors have been
overlooked by government authorities. As one settler lamented: ‘We are quiet people,
why won’t they let us live, they say we are “indios”,4 we are local people, people
from this place’. The authorities have definitively played a key role in facilitating—
directly or not—market-led land commodification by registering unclear ownerships
as fiscal lands.
To illustrate this state-corporate complicity, we can refer to how a local family has
been suffering diverse pressures to transform its elongated plot of one hectare into a
landing strip for the potential V.I.P customers of the area (Fig. 3). The project to build
a small private airport arose from an initiative of the former mayor of Tupungato,
an association of pilots, and some new entrepreneurs, among others, a ‘big fish’
like J.L. Manzano. The local family learned in the press that their land had been
selected as the optimal location for the airstrip project. As the mayor was publicly
declaring, ‘We are solving some questions about the documentation of the property,
to sign definitively the papers of purchase’ (Manoni 2011), in private, the family was
visited by Manzano’s agents with a proposal of sale. Concurrently, the neighbouring
Freixenet had already offered a part of its property to install the hangars and other
necessary infrastructure. After having firmly rejected the offers, the family plot was
strangely affected by an irrigation manoeuvre and started receiving much less water
4 Indio is used here as a pejorative term that refers to native indigenous person or migrant workers
from bordering countries.
than what their few fruit trees needed. Finally, after having decided to mark the
possession by occupying permanently their land, the family was surprised to learn
that the project had disappeared from the immediate political agenda.
Without entering into the multifarious causes of this blockage, this case reminds us
of something important regarding the territorialisation by corporate actors. Control
grabbing is not always a worry-free process as firms may face difficulties, obsta-
cles, and stagnation. Of course, we have to mention the usual politico-economical
constraints inherent to ‘Argentina’s hit-or-miss economy’, where ‘investors have to
be willing to ride out the ups and downs’ (Carter 2014, p.1). But we have also to
refer to a legal and administrative constraint related to a sanction that prohibits,
as of 2011, drilling new wells in Uco Valley due to aquifer overexploitation. As
an engineer declared, ‘the water supply is completely inelastic in Gualtallary; you
can’t plant anymore, ciao! It’s closed!’. To deepen the back-and-forth movement of
these processes, we now turn to the conflictual and intermittent process of territorial
appropriation by an emblematic project.
4.2 The Incomplete Territorialisation by BURCO
In 2008, the CEO of the BURCO subsidiary for Latin America initiated its new
Tupungato Winelands (TWL) project in Gualtallary. The strategy seemed simple, as
one of its managers ironically recalled, ‘you buy two thousand, five thousand, ten
thousand, twenty thousand hectares, make roads, build a nice house, and hope that an
American, Argentinean, Spanish, or Belgian millionaire wants to buy a property in
Latin America, in Argentina’. In a promotional brochure, they presented the acquired
land as a ‘desert […] full of fresh-water underground rivers, [that] remains untouched.
An oasis where nature stretches to protect the potential of a true treasure’. Indeed,
by drilling numerous wells, this treasure allowed them to provide ‘a lifestyle for
those willing to enjoy contemporary life pleasure’ (BURCO America N/D). Over 800
hectares, the project combines a vineyard supervised by a world-renowned enologist,
private residences, hotel, a polo club, and golf course. In its trade report, the group
explained, ‘despite the outbreak of the global economic and financial crisis […] our
company has enjoyed an excellent commercial launch of its new Wine Country Club
Tupungato Winelands’ (BCE 2009, p.36). Remembering the spectacular opening,
‘with celebrities, balloons, and light aircraft’, a neighbour said ironically, ‘We quickly
realised that we were out of this project’.
For another well-known peasant family of Gualtallary, this news was the beginning
of a nightmare. As is often the case, too late they realised that their lands had been
‘measured/surveyed and—formally—expropriated’ (Martin 2019, p.2). First came
the front men, using different company names and explaining that they had bought
the land. Then, the family learned ‘in the newspapers that there had been a negotiation
with Tupungato’s mayor in a hotel in Buenos Aires’ (see Gómez 2008). Finally, one
day ‘people appeared closing the field with a perimeter fence, and we knew that
if they closed, they would take possession of the land’. From this moment on, ‘a
136 R. Larsimont
Fig. 4 Tupungato Wineland project
war began, between us and them, and obviously they have money, political power;
who would listen to us?’. This was followed by a violent confrontation and armed
intimidation until the moment when the family’s grandmother decided to give up
claiming that ‘there’s no land worth a son’s life’. Years later, from a hill and behind a
fence, contemplating this domesticated and simulated corporate landscape—where
according to the brochure ‘it is possible to live the alchemy process while interacting
with nature’—her daughter lamented: ‘one thing is to transform nature, another is to
blow it up’ (Fig. 4).
Since then, even though tensions have eased, this event—taboo for some—remains
in the collective memory of Gualtallary. Years passed and the reputation of TWL was
not improving—quite the opposite. The company tried, under the excuse of corporate
social responsibility, to displace informal settlers installed on its edges behind a hill
because ‘visually and touristically it is not well’, as one of the settlers sarcastically
quoted. Recalling that the company is also renowned for its massive and recurring
layoffs, a school teacher explained how the company exploited one of his students
who worked in the hotel: ‘he wanted to make a claim, a complaint, but there was no
legal form to do it’. Doubtful about the profitability of the project he was right in
wondering, ‘Will the capital be recovered?’.
In 2017, ‘tired’ of the scarce sales of private estates, the CEO sold the complex
to BD Promotores, another ill-famed transnational group. This corporate manoeuvre
brought forth two processes: deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation (Raffestin
2012). Undeniably, sustained by financial brokers, a company like BURCO can
carry on flexible strategies on a regional/worldwide scale by shutting down invest-
ment flow in one place and opening it elsewhere. So, while the company was deter-
ritorialising from Mendoza, it was reterritorialising by conducting new projects in
the Southern Cone, mainly in Patagonia. But in Gualtallary, quoting Raffestin (1982,
p.169), ‘the return to wasteland [friche] reveals the cessation of territorial production’,
the domestication ceases, at least for a while. It seems that the built environment,
partly abandoned by BURCO, is still awaiting taken up again. Indeed, despite a new
simulation wave to ‘re-invent’ the project (with a US$40 million investment and a
new biodynamic winery), the reterritorialisation process by BD Promotores seems
to remain in an advertising plan. Recently, a member of the expropriated family, who
until then could not approach his corporate neighbour by judicial order, climbed the
same nearby hill. When he reached the top, he could see that, except for the vineyard,
the rest was uncontrolled. The entrance gate was unsecured, broken, and tagged with
graffiti. The small illegal settlement had grown to almost the now-dry greens of the
golf course. Facing the rubble of progress (Gordillo 2014) and knowing that the roots
of the problem remained unresolved, he whispered ‘What for?’.
4.3 On the (In)Visibility of a Global Countryside
This chapter contributes to the current debate on land/water grabbing by exploring,

through a territorial lens, the case of Uco Valley (Mendoza, Argentina) and particu-
larly the outcome of the wave of land investments in the district of Gualtallary. Our
theoretical framework has sought to provide through a vertical and multi-dimensional
vision a deeper understanding of the complex water–land nexus and the back-and-
forth movements in contemporary control grabbing dynamics in drylands. In this case
study, we have revealed that corporate territorial eco-genesis gives rise to progressive
and regressive processes of T-D-R through domestication and simulation. New corpo-
rate actors seem to have ‘started from scratch’, by representing these high-potential
lands as ‘underutilised’ or priding themselves on their feat of conquering this desert
(see also Pastor et al. 2020). Subtle modernisation narratives are deployed by private
and state actors to justify these processes of control grabbing. Yet the eco-efficiency
argument—referring mainly to the use of state-of-the-art irrigation technology and
precision farming—not only simulates a harmonious capital–nature relation but also
discredits traditional practices. Additionally, in a context of water stress, the state
(including the local water authority) plays a double game. While it imposes water
restrictions, it makes use of these powerful eco-narratives to legitimise new land
deals, arguing that there is room for modern interventions. In turn, due to the political
determination to transform (and by the way simulate) Mendoza as one of the finest
wine-producing regions of the world, the territorial eco-genesis of corporate actors
is supported by political intermediaries or facilitators, who see these investments as
potential foci of development. As such, state-corporate complicity has contributed to
the reinvention of a standardised and banalised countryside to suit global tastes and
trends. Meanwhile, claims to ownership and entitlements of local actors are often
overlooked and rural conflicts, such as those we described, are frequently rendered
invisible, if they have not been hushed up. This case study shows the inherent violence
138 R. Larsimont
of these territorial processes and how this violence takes many forms. It occurs physi-
cally through domination by fencing and monitoring the land or by direct threats. But
epistemic violence (Devine and Ojeda 2017) also occurs when state and corporate
actors re-invent the countryside by simulation, ignoring local practices and histories.
Quoting Lefebvre these corporate manoeuvres clearly sacrifice ‘the future to imme-
diate interests while simultaneously destroying the present in the name of a future
at once programmed and utterly uncertain’ (Lefebvre 1991, p.336). But who cares
about the marks left by the speculative temporality of capital in the landscape and
memories?
References
BCE (2009) Banque-Carrefour des Entreprises Public Search (Burco Report) 28/7/2009. http://eco
nomie.fgov.be/fr/modules/onlineservice/bce/bce_public_search_odi.jspp 1–43. Accessed 20 Feb
2016
Borras SM, Franco JC, Gómez S, Kay C, Spoor M (2012) Land grabbing in Latin America and the
Caribbean. J Peasant Stud 39(3–4):845–872. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2012.679931
Bossenbroek L, Kuper M, Zwarteveen M (2017) Sour grapes: multiple groundwater enclosures in
Morocco’s Saïss region. In: Venot JP, Kuper M, Zwarteveen M (eds) Drip irrigation for agriculture.
Untold stories of efficiency, innovation and development. Routledge, London, pp 105–121
BURCO America (N/D) Tupungato winelands [promotional brochure]. Mendoza, Argentina
Carter A (2014) American starts a luxury resort to share the Argentina he loves. The New York
Times, 21 January. http://nyti.ms/1aHx7y0
Damonte G, Boelens R (2019) Hydrosocial territories, agro-export and water scarcity: capitalist
territorial transformations and water governance in Peru’s coastal valleys. Water Int 44(2):206–
223. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508060.2018.1556869
Devine J, Ojeda D (2017) Violence and dispossession in tourism development: a critical geographical
approach. J Sustain Tour 25(5):605–617. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2017.1293401
Flores M (2001) El diseño integrado al paisaje como valor agregado. Revista De Bodegas Argentinas
10:54–57
Franco J, Mehta L, Veldwisch G (2013) The global politics of water grabbing. Third World Q
34(9):1651–1675. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2013.843852
Gómez G (2008) Presentan en Buenos Aires el proyecto Tupungato Wine & Golf. MDZol, 5
November. http://www.mdzol.com/nota/79950
Gordillo G (2014) Rubble: the afterlife of destruction. Duke University Press, Durham
Hoogesteger J, Wester P (2015) Intensive groundwater use and (in)equity: processes and governance
challenges. Environ Sci Policy (51):117–124. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2015.04.004
Lavie E, Morábito J, Salatino S (2017) The transformation of the Oases of Mendoza (Argentina):
how the provincial socio-spatial structure was reversed by the crises of the 1980s and 2000.
In: Lavie E, Marshall A (eds) Oases in the globalisation: ruptures and continuities. Springer,
Heidelberg, pp 227–242
Lefebvre H (1991) The production of space. Blackwell, Oxford
Li TM (2015) Transnational farmland investment: a risky business: transnational farmland
investment: a risky business. J Agrar Chang 15(4):560–568. https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12109
Manoni G (2011) Proyectan aeropuerto en Tupungato para incentivar el turismo extranjero. Los
Andes, 6 December. http://www.losandes.com.ar/notas/2011/12/6/proyectan-aeropuerto-tupung
ato-para-incentivar-turismo-extranjero-611057.asp
Martin F (2019) All-terrain experts: land surveyors, remote mapping and land alienation in Mendoza,
Argentina, GLOCON working paper series (10):1–20
Marx K (1963) Critique de l’Économie politique [1859]. In: Guterman N, Lefebvre H (eds) Karl
Marx. Oeuvres choisies I. Paris, Gallimard
Netz R (2009) Barbed wire: an ecology of modernity. Wesleyan Univ. Press, Middletown
Pastor GC, Torres LM, Marinsalda Pastor L (2020) Landscape enclaves: wine capitalism and luxury
tourism in Mendoza, Argentina. J Polit Ecol (27):580–593. https://doi.org/10.2458/v27i1.22953
Raffestin C (1982) Remarques sur les notions d’espace, de territoire et de territorialité. Espaces et
Sociétés (41):167–171
Raffestin C (1997) Le rôle des sciences et des techniques dans les processus de territorialisation.
Revue européenne des sciences sociales 35(108):93–106
Raffestin C (2012) Space, territory and territoriality. Environ Plan D: Soc Space (30):121–141.
https://doi.org/10.1068/d21311
Reisner M (1993) Cadillac desert: the American west and its disappearing water. Penguin, Nueva
York
Stein S, Mateu AM (2018) Argentina. In: Anderson K, Pinilla V (eds) Wine globalization: a new
comparative history. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 291–322
Vos J, Marshall A (2017) Conquering the desert: drip irrigation in the chavimochic system in Peru.
In: Venot JP, Kuper M, Zwarteveen M (eds) Drip irrigation for agriculture. Untold stories of
efficiency, innovation and development. Routledge, London, pp 134–150
Woods M (2007) Engaging the global countryside: globalization, hybridity and the reconstitution
of rural place. Prog Hum Geogr 31(4):485–507. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132507079503
White B, Borras S, Hall R, Scoones I, Wolford, W (2012) The new enclosures: critical perspec-
tives on corporate land deals. J Peasant Stud 39(3–4):619–647. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.
2012.691879
Robin Larsimont Postdoctoral fellow, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y

Técnicas (CONICET), Instituto de Ciencias Humanas, Sociales y Ambientales (INCIHUSA),
Mendoza, Argentina.
Robin Larsimont has a Ph.D. in Geography from Universidad de Buenos Aires, an MA from
Universidad de Sevilla in territorial planning, and a BA in Geography from Vrije Universiteit
Brussel.
Historical Territorialization Process
of the American Smelting and Refining
Company in Latin America
Sol Pérez Jiménez
Abstract The American Smelting and Refining Company’s (Asarco’s) historical

impact has been documented in North America, but not in Latin America. The chapter
presents a description of the Southern Copper Corporation’s historical territorializa-
tion process in four Latin American countries. It analyzes the corporation as a subject
that exercises political and economic power to appropriate the territory and reorder
it for mineral extraction. Furthermore, the mining extractive territoriality’s environ-
mental implications are analyzed, mainly in Peru, where negative impacts have been
reported since the early nineteenth century, which has caused a social rejection of
their projects in Chile, Argentina, and Ecuador.
Keywords Transnational Mining · Territorial Appropriation · Extractive

Territoriality · Latin America
1 Introduction
Owing to its strong political and economic power network, the corporation consol-
idated itself during the twentieth century as a hegemonic actor with the capacity to
impose its territoriality. However, the opening of new mining projects has come into
conflict with local Indigenous and peasant territories in the last two decades. Because
of its aggressive model of territorialization and its disrespectful environmental prac-
tices, Grupo Mexico has faced strong social rejection in the countries in which it
operates in Latin America.
The methodological proposal is to analyze the processes of territorialization of
mining corporations from a historical perspective in four stages: the consolidation
of power, the execution of power relations in territorial appropriation, the territorial
transformations implemented, and the impacts generated. The first section presents
the company’s history from the late nineteenth century to the present to understand
S. Pérez Jiménez (B)

Instituto de Ecología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad de Mexico, Mexico
142 S. Pérez Jiménez
its historical power consolidation. Later, a section analyzes the company’s territo-
rialization in each country (Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru).1 The review of
new projects in Latin America allows us to examine how the territory’s meanings
are subject to conflict and depend on actors’ power relations.
2 Company History (1889–2019)
On April 4, 1899, the American Smelting and Refining Company (Asarco) was
founded with the initial capital of US$65,000,000, primarily sponsored by the Rock-
efeller family. The Rockefellers aimed to combine the largest smelters and metal
refiners in one company to control the copper produced in the United States (Gámez
2004).
In 1901, they made a forced alliance with the Guggenheim consortium,2 which
maintained its control until 1940. Asarco quickly became the owner of 17 corpo-
rations that included 16 smelting plants, 18 refineries, and several mines in various
parts of the world. It was thus a transnational company since the early twentieth
century, exploiting gold in the Canadian Yukon, diamonds in the Belgian Congo and
Angola, silver in Bolivia, and copper in Alaska, Utah, Chile, and Mexico (Marcosson
1949; Berstein 1964). Asarco maintained significant power from the first decades of
the twentieth century in each country where it operated.
In the 1960s, 51% of Asarco’s Mexican subsidiary was acquired by the Grupo de
Empresarios Industriales de México; among the shareholders were former Miguel
Alemán and businessman Jorge Larrea. After several name changes, it consoli-
dated as Grupo Mexico in 1994. The company has historically benefited from its
proximity to the State. The political and legal machinery in Mexico has histori-
cally contributed to the consolidation of a certain fraction of the business class.
The economic groups close to the ruling class—entrepreneurs—became enormously
wealthy from the 1980s onwards, mainly by privatizing public enterprises and State
assets (Pérez-Jiménez 2020).
In 1999, the Mexican company Grupo México acquired Asarco and Southern
Copper Corporation (SCC), which continued to be listed on the New York Stock
Exchange as its subsidiaries. In 2001, Asarco was sued by the Federal Government
of the United States for severe environmental damage throughout the country for
more than a century. Asarco has left nearly 100 contaminated sites in the United
States (Brugger 1977). In 2005, Asarco declared bankruptcy, although they still
had to pay what is considered the largest environmental settlement in US history.
The Asarco company has also operated in Latin America for more than a century.
1 Notice that only Peru can be characterized in detail because Asarco has operated in the south of
the country since the mid-twentieth century.
2 Owners of one of the largest fortunes in the world at the beginning of the twentieth century, the
Guggenheim family arrived in America in 1848, from Switzerland (Gámez 2004).

Historical Territorialization Process of the … 143
However, unlike in the United States, the company has not been held sufficiently
responsible for the historical environmental impact of its mining operations.
Grupo Mexico is currently the largest mining consortium in the country. The
company has the world’s largest copper reserves and is the fourth largest producer
of this metal, the fourth largest silver producer, and the fifth largest producer of
zinc (Grupo Mexico 2018, p.3). In addition to operating in Mexico, it has signifi-
cant mining projects in the United States and Canada, Latin America (Peru, Chile,
Ecuador, and Argentina), and Europe (Spain). In the United States, Grupo Mexico
operates through Asarco, whereas in Spain it operates through Minera Los Frailes.
Their mining activities in Mexico and Latin America are controlled by its subsidiary
Southern Copper Corporation (SCC), which manages other subsidiaries such as
Industrial Minera Mexico, Southern Peru Copper Corporation, and Southern Copper
Corporation Argentina.
Grupo Mexico is implementing an intensive expansion process by opening new
open-pit mines in each country. It is doing so to satisfy the international demand
for copper, considered a strategic metal for the clean energy industry (NRGI 2020).
The corporation’s new projects are widely questioned due to the historically negative
impact it has in the regions where it operates.
3 Historical Presence and SPCC Expansion in Peru
Southern Peru Copper Corporation (SPCC) is one of the oldest mining companies in
Peru. ‘Due to both its large size and its long history in Peru, SCC is often seen and
portrayed as a corporation with very privileged access to political decision-makers’
(Coni-Zimmer et al. 2019: 288). Its operations have been subject to severe social
conflicts for almost six decades. During the nationalization process in the 1960s, it
was the only company that remained intact and maintained its operations. A notable
example is that SCC was exempt from paying due to a preferential agreement with the
government during Peru’s military government (1968–1980), while environmental
regulations were applied to other companies (Scurrah 2013, p.6). Nowadays, SPCC
has 247 mining concession titles in 10 of Peru’s 25 departments (Fig. 1).
The following is a summary of its historical presence through its subsidiaries
Asarco and Southern Peru Copper Corporation. First, I present the environmental
impact in the La Libertad Department. Then I analyze the history of the two primary
copper mines in Peru, Cuajone and Toquepala, in Moquegua and Tacna Depart-
ments, respectively. The environmental and social impacts of these two mines and
the Ilo smelter are the primary concerns. Subsequently, I describe the company’s
principal exploration projects in Peru and the social opposition due to their potential
environmental impact.
Fig. 1 Departments with mining concessions of the SPCC company
3.1 Quiruvilca Mine, Department of La Libertad
The Quiruvilca Mine is in the Andean mountains of northern Peru. ‘It has been
operating since pre-Inca times through small-scale exploration and exploitation of
silver and copper ores’ (MINEM 2017a, b). In 1921, Asarco’s subsidiary, Northern
Peru Mining and Smelting Company, acquired 73 mining concessions in the mining
district of Quiruvilca, covering a total of 539 hectares. In that property Asarco devel-
oped a subway copper mine (Arciniega 1986). The mine ceased operations between
1930 and 1936 due to the decline in metal prices. After this period, the company
began a process of expansion during the following decades Chiguala (2016).
In 1978, Compañía Minera y Fundición del Norte del Perú, in association with
several Peruvian capitals, changed its corporate name to Corporación Minera North
Peru S.A. In 1995, Pan American Silver Corporation acquired the Quiruvilca mine
(Rosario 2014). This Canadian mining company operated the mine until 2012.
Southern Peaks Mining LP acquired the mine, which operated it until December
Fig. 2 Quiruvilca mine in the Moche river basin
17, 2017, when it filed for bankruptcy. Historically, the mine has had a strong
environmental impact in the Moche River basin (Fig. 2).
The inhabitants have been claiming for years that the tailings of the Quiruvilca
mining company are contaminated. Neither the government nor the company has
taken responsibility for this problem. Pan American Silver blames Asarco for the
historical level of contamination; both companies refuse to remediate the sites where
they no longer operate.
3.2 Toquepala and Cuajone Mines, Tacna and Moquegua

Departments
For their second project in Peru, Asarco established the subsidiary Southern Peru
Copper Corporation (SPCC) in 195. It became the leading producer of copper in this
country, from the beginning consolidating as a company with enormous economic
and political power. In 1954, SPCC signed an agreement with the Peruvian govern-
ment to exploit the Toquepala mining project, located in the department of Tacna
in southern Peru. Many analysts have considered this agreement to be “radically
unjust for the country” because, according to Article 56 of the Mining Code of 1950,
it considers the Toquepala deposit marginal. It was thus achieving exemption from
various taxes enjoying other fiscal benefits (Malpica 1976). The company exerted
political pressure on the government to accept this unequal agreement.
The construction of the Toquepala mine was carried out between 1956 and 1959.
The company developed all the necessary complementary infrastructure such as the
railway line, a smelter, dock, and camps. The mine began to extract ore in 1960,
reaching 183,988 tons per year. Since the beginning of the Toquepala project and
the Ilo smelter, there were a series of arbitrary decisions that have impacted the
environment and the local population. Unfortunately, this continues to the present
day.
According to Days (1988), ‘just months after the company’s operations were inau-
gurated, the farmers of the Ilo Valley denounced in the Ministry of Agriculture that
the fumes from the smelter were damaging their crops’ (56). Despite the controver-
sies, in 1969, SPCC reached an agreement with the military government of Velasco
(Term length 1948–1956) to exploit the Cuajone Mine located in Tacna. To carry out
this operation, the company obtained financing from ‘more than 50 banks on four
continents; the total investment amounted to 683 million dollars’ (Arciniega 1986,
p.24–25). Construction began on the mine in 1970 and it began operating in 1976,
Southern Peru Copper Corporation is nowadays the leading copper producer in Peru.
3.2.1 Social and Environmental Implications in Southern Peru3
During the last two decades of the nineteenth century, the company implemented a
territorial expansion process to increase mineral production. The mine’s expansion
implied a more significant demand for water and the generation of large volumes of
mining tailings. By 1980 both mines required 500 l of water per second. Currently,
the demand is 1950 l. The company owns nine water-use licenses that were approved
56 and 41 years ago. This permission allows it to extract surface and underground
water from that region’s headwaters for its mines Toquepala (Tacna) and Cuajone
(Moquegua).
Over time, water exploitation from wells impacted the basins and high wetlands,
such as the Titijones wetlands in Moquegua, which have nearly disappeared and
are now extensive dry areas. They began to disappear due to the overexploitation of
the Suches lagoon, which is situated between the Moquegua and Tacna departments
(Fig. 3). While the water level decrease is evident, the mining company continues to
use this resource for processes in both copper mines (LABOR Report 2015).
Another significant environmental impact of SPCC’s operations in southern Peru
is the enormous amount of mining waste generated Díaz Palacios (1988). Since it
began operations, it has generated 40 million cubic meters per year of waste with a
high content of silicates, heavy metals, cyanide, and other toxic agents. Until 1996
the mining company dumped its waste directly into the Locumba River, which flows
into the sea. Historically, this waste accumulated in the Bay of Ite. These tailings
accumulated around the coastal perimeter, causing severe environmental impacts,
especially in marine fauna, with local fishing being affected (Fig. 4).
3 To go deeper into the cases presented below, consult the works of Balvín (1995) and Coni-Zimmer
(2016).
Fig. 3 SPCC mining operations in southern Peru
Owing to environmental complaints, as of 1996, the company began pouring

its tailings into a site called Quebrada Honda (Fig. 3). In 2010, the Regional Health
Directorate of Tacna detected high levels of heavy metal contamination in the filtered
water from the Quebrada Honda tailings reservoir to the Pampa Sitana reservoir.
These waters are used for agriculture and livestock in the province of Jorge Basadre.
Likewise, a report from the Dirección General de Salud (DIGESA) in 2011 revealed
a high degree of concentration of cadmium above the permissible limits established
by the standards for wastewater intended for agricultural purposes.
In 2015, the Moquegua department reported mining pollution in the wetland area
and demanded SPCC to remedy the damage. The company had promised to execute
“land drainage and recovery,” but never complied. In 2016, facing the expansion of
the Cuajone Mine in the Torata-Mariscal Nieto district, farmers protested against the
company. They accused the company of contaminating water and air in Cuajone.
Local leader Samuel Coayla said SPCC was mocking his demands for a healthy
environment.
The company processes ore from the Cuajone and Toquepala mines at the Ilo
smelter, located 15 km north of the city of Ilo, in the department of Moquegua.
The smelter commenced operations in the 1950s when the Toquepala mine began to
operate. Since then, there have been intense environmental controversies concerning
air pollution due to its fumes. For more than 40 years, the smelter has discharged
sulfur gases and fine particles of heavy metals into the environment through four
chimneys. Balvín (1995) reported the atmosphere intense polluting of the Ilo Valley.
Her study demonstrates how this has generated acid rain on soils and seas, affecting
the population of Ilo, fish, seafood, and agriculture in the Ilo and Tambo Valley. Ilo’s
Fig. 4 Mining tailings discharged in Ite until 1996. Author: Sol Pérez Jiménez
inhabitants have suffered for many decades from the high concentrations of SO2
and heavy metals in the atmosphere. The population has reported severe respiratory
problems such as rhinitis, pharyngitis, tracheitis, pulmonary fibrosis, chronic and
asthmatic bronchitis, and asthmatic crisis. The company has refused to recognize the
adverse health effects caused by its operations (Lora 2015). The smelter emits an
average of 520,000 metric tons of sulfur dioxide, 67% released into the atmosphere
(Portocarrero 2007, p.138).
In January 2015, the Peruvian Environmental Prosecutor’s Office found SPCC’s
executive president, Oscar Gonzalez Rocha of Mexico, guilty of environmental pollu-
tion in the Ilo Sea. The agency sentenced him to two and a half years in prison
and payment of $1 million in civil reparations. The company denied the charges
and got legal protection from Lima’s judge, who annulled the charges arguing the
businessman’s advanced age.
3.3 Main SPCC Exploration Projects in Peru
In addition to its two mines operating in Moquegua and Tacna, SPCC has various
other exploration projects. Several of the most critical cases are described below.
3.3.1 Apurimac Department
Since 1998 SPCC has carried out exploration activities in the Chancas mining project,
in the Apurimac region’s Pocohuanca district, near the Las Bambas mine. The
Chancas project directly affects the Tapayrihua Aymara community. In 2000, the
company began its operations. It built roads, destroyed crop fields, and installed
motor pumps to bring water to the drilling machinery, which contaminated the water
that irrigated the natural pastures. In 2001, the community demanded the suspen-
sion of exploration work. However, the authorities did not comply, and the project
continues to the present.
Throughout these years, there have been several disagreements between commu-
nity members and workers of the company. The last one recorded was in October
2014, when citizens reacted in anger after the mining company moved equipment and
heavy machinery to the mining camp. Community leaders believed that ‘the problem
is the company’s attitude,’ as it seemed accustomed to imposing rather than seeking
dialogue. ‘It is not the first time that Southern Peru wants to impose its criteria. We
have been rejecting that same attitude for 14 years,’ said Eulogio Perez, an Abancay
activist, in an interview for the International Socialist League Newspaper.4
3.3.2 Ayacucho Department
In 2009, SPCC acquired the Chinchinga mining project, located in the District of
Hualla, Víctor Fajardo province, near the high Andean communities of Hualla and
Tiquihua. At the end of 2010, these communities decided to oppose mining in their
territories.
The protest’s primary motivation was the concern for water pollution and deple-
tion in these peasant communities. Another factor that motivated the protest is the
company’s negative image due to its actions in Tacna and Moquegua. Despite this,
‘the mining company began operating behind the back of the vast majority negoti-
ating with a small group of leaders to obtain a rigged authorization’” (Bernaola 2013,
p.96).
On July 15, 2011, roughly a thousand community members rejected Southern’s
work in their territories, beginning a strike that lasted until the project was canceled.
Subsequently, at a dialogue with the provincial government, an agreement was
reached to declare the intangibility of the Chinchinga area as a basin head and the
4 For more information: http://lis-isl.org/en/2019/08/06/peru-compania-minera-southern-copper-

el-patron-del-mal/.
cancelation of all mining concessions in the Víctor Fajardo province. Days later, on
July 21, the company announced the suspension of the project.
3.3.3 Arequipa Department
The Tía María project, located in the Tambo River Valley, has been one of Peru’s most
controversial mining projects. It involves an investment of US $950 million and grants
a 21-year concession to extract copper through two open-pit mines. The possible
impact of mining on agriculture—the main productive activity in the valley—has
caused strong opposition from the local population, especially in Cocachacra. The
affected argue that the mine would reduce water availability, which would limit the
production of crops such as rice and sugarcane.
In 2009, the Arequipa authorities issued a Municipal Ordinance that called for
consultation as a democratic mechanism to gather the population’s will regarding the
possible start of mining activities. In that consultation, 97% voted for the cancellation
of the mining project. The authorities and the company ignored the decision and called
for a public hearing to approve the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).
After the EIA approval, several mobilizations and general strikes in the region
were met by the federal government with intense repression and criminalization by
police forces. In March 2011, an indefinite and widespread general strike of the
community began, seeking the project EIA’s final rejection. The repression of these
demonstrations left five people dead and several dozen injured. This bloody event
mobilized public opinion throughout the country and at an international level; finally,
the executive declared the environmental impact study as inadmissible (Dunlap
2019).
At the end of 2012, the company presented a new EIA of the Tía María project,
which immediately generated new mobilizations. Despite this, in 2014, the Peru
Ministry of Energy and Mines (MINEM) approved the EIA. Nevertheless, in August
2019, the same institution suspended the construction license issued to the Tía
María copper project because it did not have a social license. To date, the project
remains on hold, although the company plans to reopen it in 2021. The Tambo
Valley continues to mobilize to defend its peasant livelihood. This process shows the
different territorialities (Escobar 2011) in the dispute for control of the territory.
Southern Peru Copper Corporation’s main activities have historically been in
the south of the country. In the last decade, it has expanded. It now intends to
exploit projects in the north, specifically in the department of Cajamarca, where
there was a significant conflict over the CONGA mining project some years ago. In
the region of Cajamarca, there are significant problems with the impacts of natural
resource exploitation (RPP News 2018). In February 2018, the company received
the Michiquillay mining project concession, which plans to begin operating in 2022.
Michiquillay is one of the most significant mining projects in Peru promoted in
recent years, with an approximate investment of US $2 million. A few days after
the project was awarded, various communities declared that it should not have
been approved without raising awareness of the project and agreements with the
Michiquillay, Quinualloc, and Pampa Grande sectors.
As I have shown, the company’s exploration projects in Peru have generated strong
social rejection. While the Tía María project in Arequipa has a significant media
presence because of its high level of violence and repression against opponents, the
projects in Ayacucho, Apurimac, and Cajamarca have also been rejected by peasant
and indigenous populations who defend water for agriculture and their livelihoods.
4 SCC’s Historical Presence and Expansion in Other Latin

American Countries
In this section, I show the SCC’s historical presence and expansion in Latin American
countries (Fig. 5).
4.1 Historical Presence in Chile
4.1.1 Chuquicamata Mine
The interest of the Guggenheim family in copper from Chile dates back to the end
of the nineteenth century. At that time, there was a clear research policy and search
for new deposits in Chile by mining companies in the United States. The American
Smelting and Refining sent the engineer William Braden and Guggenheim Company
sent Pope Yeatman (O’Connor 1937).
Fig. 5 SPCC mining projects in Latin American countries

Owing to these explorations, Chuquicamata—one of the world’s largest copper

deposits—was discovered in 1900, and ‘it was acquired in 1910 by Asarco through
its subsidiary Chile Exploration Company’ (Gutiérrez-Viñuales 2008). In the first
decades of the twentieth century, the large-scale mine was developed to meet the
demand for copper from the First World War. It thus began the stage of the Great
Copper Mining in Chile.
Asarco sold the Chuquicamata mine to Anaconda Copper Mining Company in
1923. With these resources, Asarco acquired more than 20 mining properties in
Mexico (Alvear 1975). In the 1940s, Asarco developed the open-pit mine. In 1957,
the Exotica deposit (South Mine) was discovered beneath tailings, which became the
world’s largest known deposit of exotic copper.
Afterward, Anaconda started to expand its operations and to build an oxide plant,
concentrator, smelter, refinery, and town, all next to the mine. In 1971, the mine was
nationalized. Since then, the Corporación Nacional del Cobre de Chile (CODELCO)
has operated the mine. Chiquicamata is one of the largest open-pit copper mines and
the second deepest open-pit mine in the world.
4.1.2 SCC New Exploration Projects in Chile
Southern Copper Corporation returned to Chile in 2000 to start four explorations in

the North of the country: Catanave, Sierra Áspera, El Salado, and Esperanza Acuña
(2018). The Catanave mining project was approved in 2010 despite rules that
protect the area’s environmental value and the rights of local indigenous peoples.
In March 2011, the mayor of the Putre community resisted the approval of the
project, presenting a demand in the Court of Appeals, ensuring that the company
had violated environmental regulations and protection of nearby Aymara commu-
nities (OSAL 2011). The same affected indigenous communities presented another
appeal arguing the lack of consultation. However, Chilean authorities rejected both
requests. The Catanave project faces conflicts with Quechua and Aymara commu-
nities because it is inside the National Reserve of Las Vicuñas, part of the National
System of Wild Areas Protected by the State (SNASPE) and a Biosphere reserve
safeguarded by UNESCO. This protected space is one of the world’s most critical
sites for the conservation of fragile Andean ecosystems (OCMAL 2015).
4.2 SCC Mining Exploration in Argentina
SCC subsidiary Southern Copper Argentina has been developing a copper exploration
project in the Patagonian province of Neuquén. The company has two exploration
mining projects, Las Nenas y La Voluntad, in the Cerro Caycayen near Las Coloradas
community. One of the biggest concerns about this mining project is the Catán Lil
river basin’s involvement, a source of water for the local population. The Assembly
of Self-convened Neighbors of Las Coloradas began in 2015; it is supported by other

groups from the towns of Aluminé, Junín, and San Martín de Los Andes.
Likewise, Mapuche communities oppose the project, which is on their sacred
territory. The indigenous group denounced no prior, free, and informed consultation,
as is required by Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO). The
Mapuche communities affirm that the project is a risk for the entire population that
lives on the affected river banks and their influence zone (Servindi 2016).
4.3 SCC Mining Exploration in Ecuador
Southern Copper Company, through its subsidiary, Ruta el Cobre SA de CV, devel-
oped two mining exploration projects in Ecuador. The first one, the Chaucha copper
project, located in the Azuay province, in southern Ecuador on the western slope of
the Andes Cordillera Occidental. In January 2020, Azuay local authorities requested
the Constitutional Court to authorize a “popular consultation” in order for the popu-
lation to state its position on the development of mining in their territories. Currently,
the mining project is in the advanced exploration phase.
The second project consists of three mining concessions (Janet 1, 2, and 3) in
Cuenca, where Southern Copper Corporation has a 70% stake in Minera Ruta del
Cobre SA. This project has faced more significant controversies, for being near a
Biosphere Reserve called the Macizo de Cajas, located in the southwest of Ecuador,
in the Azuay province, which is part of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves. It
forms part of the UNESCO Man and Biosphere Program (MAB). The 3,217 hectare
Quimsacocha National Recreation Area is inside this zone in which the Bermejos and
Tarqui rivers originate. The Victoria de Portete and the Tarqui communities depend
upon these rivers for their livelihood and survival.
For all these reasons, based on 12 official resolutions to protect its water sources,
in January 2017 the Cantonal Council of Cuenca approved a declaration that makes
the canton a mining-free zone. The project has been stopped, although the company
seeks to reactivate it this year. Finally, SCC, as the company with the world’s largest
copper reserves, has important exploration projects in Latin America as part of its
global expansion and positioning strategy. The company supposes that in the coming
years, many of these projects will begin to operate.
5 Conclusion
The territorialization process begins when a social group appropriates determined

territory through power relations and modifying and generate different impacts. This
chapter argues for the relevance of evidencing the political and economic power
relations behind a transnational company’s territorialization process. The central
argument is that it is precisely from these historical power relations that the mining
corporation has managed to appropriate the territories in which it operates.
In the current discussions about the extractive model, multiple territorialities are
in dispute; that is, different ways of seeing, understanding, and relating to nature, the
commons, and humanity itself. The research carried out shows how the corporations’
extractive territoriality aims to extract minerals to be sold in the international market
and accumulate capital. Based on this extractive territoriality, the corporation has
continuously expanded its operations since the late nineteenth century to meet the
international demand for copper.
The historical approach allows us to analyze territorialization processes from
a long-term perspective. It shows how the company has historically imposed its
territoriality and dispose of local resources for its mining projects’ needs. Proof of
this was the pressure exerted to control Peru’s most important copper deposits at a
low price.
During the expansion process of its mines, smelters, and refineries, Grupo Mexico
has left behind tons of environmental liabilities, environmental pollution by heavy
metals, and overexploited aquifers. These environmental impacts have historically
been denounced by communities. Since its beginnings in the twentieth century, the
company has implemented a pattern of irrational use of resources, such as water, and
the abstention or abandonment of their environmental protection responsibilities and
duty to respect community rights. The company refuses to invest in environmental
remediation in sites that were no longer operating in Latin America. In 2009, Grupo
México paid a settlement of $1,400,000,000 dollars to achieve control of Asarco.
Considered the most significant environmental bankruptcy in the history of the United
States, the Asarco environmental fund involved 90 communities in 21 states where
the company operated at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Despite these known impacts, several of the company’s projects in Latin America
are found both in areas of environmental conservation and in indigenous territories.
This aggressive territorialization model generates opposition from the communities
that see their ways of life threatened. In fact, the SCC’s controversial performance
in southern Peru has resulted in opposition from communities where the company
intends to operate new projects in Latin America. The increase in demand for copper
in the coming decades may generate much more intensive exploitation of the territory
and aggravate the states’ water problems.
These protests for environmental justice and respect for rural territories invite us
to question if we are willing to continue polluting and depleting strategic resources to
benefit private corporations. Even though the detriment of many affected populations
in the Latin American continent. This interrogation is especially relevant in the actual
context of resource shortages and global environmental change. Perhaps the main
questions are: Who has the right to decide the territory’s destiny and its natural
resources? Furthermore, which territorialization models are more environmentally
and socially sustainable?
References
Acuña K (2018) Social movements against mining in the Arica and Parinacota region, Chile. In:
Ruiz G, Urbina G (ed) Acción colectiva, movimientos sociales, sociedad civil y participación.
Vol. II de Las ciencias sociales y la agenda nacional. Reflexiones y propuestas desde las Ciencias
Sociales. COMECSO, México
Alvear Urrutia J (1975) Chile, nuestro cobre y Chuquicamata. Editorial Lastra S.A., Santiago, Chile
Arciniega R (1986) Los mineros de la Southern Peru Copper Corporation, 1968–1981. Pontificia
Universidad Católica del Perú, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Lima, Perú
Balvín D (1995) Agua, minería y contaminación. El caso Southern Perú. Labor, Ilo, Perú
Bernaola D (2013) El caso del proyecto de exploración minera Chinchinga, Ayacucho. En: Quiñones
P, Bernaola D (eds) Los límites de la expansión minera en Peru. Asociación servicios educativos
rurales, SER, Lima, Perú
Berstein MD (1964) The Mexican mining industry 1890–1950. A study of the interaction of politics,
economics and technology. New York: State University of New York
Brugger JE (1977) Heavy metal pollution from spillage at ore smelters and mills. Environmental
Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, Industrial Environmental Research
Laboratory
Chiguala M (2016) Prácticas responsabilidad social empresa Quiruvilca. Universidad Nacional de
Trujillo, Perú, Departamento La Libertas
Coni-Zimmer M, Annegret F (2016) Claims for local justice in natural resource conflicts: lessons
from Peru’s mining sector. In: Pichler M, Staritz C, Küblböck K, Plank C, Raza W, Ruiz Peyré
F (eds) Fairness and justice in natural resource politics. Routledge, London
Díaz Palacios J (1988) El Perú y su medio ambiente. SPCC: Una compleja agresión ambiental en
el sur del país. Instituto de Desarrollo y Medio Ambiente, Lima
Dunlap A (2019) ‘Agro sí, mina NO! Tía Maria copper mine, state terrorism and social war by
every means in the Tambo Valley, Peru. Polit Geogr 71:10–25
Escobar A (2011) Encountering development: the making and unmaking of the third world, vol 1.
Princeton University Press, Princeton
Gámez M (2004) La minería y la metalurgia en el centro y norte mexicanos: La Compañía Metalúr-
gica Mexicana en procesos y espacios mineros. In: Contreras C, Gámez M (ed) Espacios y
procesos mineros. Fundición y minería en el centro y noreste de México durante el Porfiriato,
Plaza y Valdes, México
Grupo México (2018) Informe de Sustentabilidad. México
Gutiérrez-Viñuales A (2008) Chuquicamata: patrimonio industrial de la minería del cobre en
Chile. Apuntes. Revista de estudios sobre patrimonio cultural, 21(1)
Labor (2015) Contaminación por metales pesados Tóxicos producidos por las operaciones Minero
- Metalúrgicas de la SPCC. Ilo, Péru
Lora J (2015) Trasnacionales mineras y ecocidio en el Perú. Instituto de Ciencias. PUCP. Perú
Malpica C (1976) Los dueños del Perú. PEISA. Lima, Perú
Marcosson IF (1949) Metal magic: the story of the American Smelting & Refining Company. Farrar,
Straus, New York
MINEM (2017) Influencia de la mineralogía en la contaminación inorgánica de la cuenca del rio
moche. Ministerio de Energía y Mina, Peru
MINEM (2017) Registro concesiones mineras. Ministerio de Energía y Minas, Perú
NRGI (2020) Resource governance index. Natural Resources Governance Institute. https://resour
cegovernanceindex.org/. Accessed 11 May 2021
OCMAL (2015) Irrupción SPCC en territorio Aymara
O’Connor H (1937) The Guggenheims: the making of an American dynasty. Science and society
2(1)
OSAL (2011) Cronología del conflicto social. CLACSO, Perú
Pérez Jiménez S (2020) Procesos históricos de territorialización de la corporación minera trasna-

cional Grupo México (1889–2019). Doctoral Dissertation, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de
México.
Portocarrero S, Sanborn C (2007) Moviendo montañas: empresas, comunidades y ONG en las
industrias extractivas. Universidad del Pacífico, Perú
Rosario R (2014) Quiruvilca: Apuntes Histórico-Sociales y Económicos. http://minesmuki.blo
gspot.com/2014/07/quiruvilca-apuntes-historico-sociales-y.html. Accessed 11 May 2021
RPP News (2018) Conga ya no es un proyecto viable. Available in: https://rpp.pe/economia/eco
nomia/roque-benavides-minas-conga-ya-no-es-un-proyecto-viable-noticia-957211. Accessed 11
May 2021
Scurrah M (2013) Mining conflicts and institutional innovation in the Moquegua and Tacna regions
of Southern Peru. In: Congress of the Latin American studies association, Washington, DC, May
2013
Servindi (2016) Servicios de Comunicación Intercultural. https://www.servindi.org/print/56516
Sol Pérez Jiménez Postdoctoral researcher, Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales, UNAM, Ciudad
México, Mexico.
Sol Pérez has been dedicated to analyzing the extractive mining model’s social and environ-
mental implications. The Pan American Institute of Geography and History awarded her Master’s
research in ‘Geography on the Atlas of metal mining in Mexico’, where she systematized mining
conflicts. As part of her doctoral research on the mining company Grupo Mexico, she has analyzed
the company’s copper extraction projects worldwide. She is currently conducting post-doctoral
research on the importance of copper in the energy transition and its environmental implications.
Time and Territorial Variations of State
Response and Local Action in Three
Socio-Environmental Conflicts Over
Mining in Chile
Tamara Ortega-Uribe
Abstract This work analyses the territorial variation of state responses to socio-
environmental conflicts in mining areas as well as the territorialization processes
underlying those events over time. The analysis is based on three cases—Andacollo
(1965), El Arrayán (1987) and Quintero-Puchuncaví (2011)—in distinct moments
of Chilean environmental institution development. This work was conducted from
a socio-historical perspective and was based on historical documental analysis in
addition to interviews with key actors. The findings not only show the continuity
of spatial strategies from the state in response to such events, mostly related to the
geographical inequity and vertical structure characteristic of the Chilean political
system but also identify changes in territorialization processes during the conflict in
accordance with new delimitations and scales.
Keywords Territorial Alterations · Socio-Environmental Conflicts · State Power ·

Mining
1 Introduction
Despite a satisfactory marking on the Resource Governance Index for mining

(Natural Resource Governance Institute 2017), socio-environmental conflicts in
Chile have risen exponentially, revealing the harsh reality of places being labeled by
national legislation as ‘environmental pollution-saturated zones’, more commonly
called ‘sacrifice zones’. These subnational territories are subjected to given defini-
tions by the national development model over time and express the heterogeneous
modes in which the state operates in different places (Tapia 2009).
There exist in Chile numerous cases of conflicts associated with mineral extrac-
tion and processing with differing responses from the state. This work anal-
yses the territorial variation of state responses to socio-environmental conflicts in
mining areas as well as the territorialization processes underlying those events. We
T. Ortega-Uribe (B)
Politics Department, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
e-mail: tortegau@ucsc.edu
158 T. Ortega-Uribe
analyze three highly relevant socio-environmental conflicts—Andacollo, El Arrayán,

and Quintero-Puchuncaví—which correspond, respectively, to distinct moments of
Chilean environmental institutional development: 1965, 1987 and 2011 .
The analysis builds upon the understanding that territory is socially produced
and is also an instrument of domination (Lefebvre 2013), in which the state exerts
its control through both horizontal and vertical spatial strategies (Ferguson & Gupta
2002). Territory also expresses a judicial political notion that deploys certain types of
power, such as formation of discourses, individual power, and mechanisms for terri-
torial domination (Foucault 2007). Thus, we analyze the national strategies and local
responses, which evince the power relations that determine spatiality and territoriality
in each case.
The cases were chosen in terms of their different levels of social vulnerability1 as
well as the high levels of pollution involved in all of them. Two cases (Andacollo and
El Arrayán) were selected for being only scarcely studied. This work was conducted
from a socio-historical perspective and was based on historical documental analysis in
addition to interviews with key actors. The main documentary sources used were local
periodicals, publications by mining associations, legislative minutes, presidential
addresses, government documents, and other secondary sources that helped identify
both the response from the state and the territorial dynamics in play.
In our conclusions, we highlight the permanence of certain spatial strategies from
the state in response to such events, mostly related to the geographical inequity
and vertical structure characteristic of the Chilean political system. We also iden-
tify changes in territorialization processes during the conflict in accordance with
new delimitations and scales. Furthermore, this comparative analysis of subnational
territories reveals the need for local actors and social movements to design diverse
strategies aimed at decentralizing decision-making, power and territorial control.
2 Background. The Development of Environmental

Institutions in Chile
The founding element of Chilean environmental policy is the constitutional right to

live in a healthy environment, which was established by an authoritarian government
in 1980 (Decreto Supremo 1150 1980). After that, environmental issues were gradu-
ally incorporated into diverse aspects of public policy. Law 19.300 ‘Bases generales
de medio ambiente’ [general environmental guidelines] was enacted in 1994. Regu-
lations for environmental impact assessment were first established in 1997, becoming
the main instrument regarding environmental management for the productive sector.
Thenceforth, any investment project would be subjected to a mandatory assessment,
1 Fuenzalida y Quiroz (2012) has defined a social vulnerability index used to observe the terri-
torial distribution of environmental conflict. The index integrates variables such as poverty level,
unemployment rate, subsidy dependence of homes, etc. Andacollo has a high vulnerability level,
followed by Quintero-Puchuncaví and El Arrayán, in descending order.
Time and Territorial Variations of State Response … 159
thus becoming the turning point for both the debate and politics of environmental
public policy (Stein y Tommasi 2006). For the execution of this law, the Nacional
Environmental Commission (Comisión Nacional del Medio Ambiente, CONAMA)
was created along with its regional commissions (Comisiones regionales de medio
ambiente, COREMA). In addition, the ‘pollution-saturated and latent zones’ (zonas
saturadas y latentes de contaminación) were formally established in order to desig-
nate areas in which pollutants are present in amounts surpassing the environmental
quality standards.2
The development of environmental policy through the democratic transition was
marked by an interest from different political sectors to maintain consensus and
continuity of the dictatorship’s economic model. Thus, the materialization of envi-
ronmental policy during 1990s was carried out cautiously so as to not interfere with
political and economic stability. This caution was also due to the general tension
throughout Latin America during the 1980s, resulting from the reorganization of
global trade (coming out of the economic crisis of the preceding decade), the preva-
lence of authoritarian regimes in the region, and the emerging debate on transnational
environmental regulation.3 Eventually, the environmental element became part of
the political-institutional framework, though not without policies, institutions and
limitations to social participation still defined by the legacy of the dictatorship,
thus prevailed economic orthodoxy as well as elitist and exclusionary procedures
(Carruthers 2001).
Currently, Chilean environmental institutions are based on the 2010 reforms,
which involved the creation of the Ministry of the Environment (Ministerio del
Medio Ambiente), the Environmental Assessment Service (Servicio de Evaluación
Ambiental), and the Environmental Superintendence (Superintendencia de Medio
Ambiente), in charge of the regulation, management, and oversight of all environ-
mental matters (Ley 20.417 2010). These were followed by the establishment of
Environmental Tribunals (Tribunales ambientales) to decide on matters of environ-
mental conflicts and environmental justice (Ley 20.600 2012). Notwithstanding the
importance of these reforms, their implementation has been fraught with increasing
conflicts, socio-environmental emergencies and mistrust from civil society.
Significantly, one productive sector involved in major environmental impacts is
mining. This sector is responsible for diverse impacts of which tailings deposits are
arguably the most voluminous,4 as they constitute 80% of the solid waste produced
in the beneficiation process of sulfide minerals. According to López (2003), for 1
ton of copper produced, 28 tons of tailings are generated, often deposited in rivers,
oceans, or close to settlements. Another major impact from mining is air pollution
2 The process of establishing environmental quality standards in Chile, however, has been slow-
paced and lax, as compared with international standards. After all, where there are no regulated
standards, there are no pollutants.
3 The international locus of discussion regarding environmental regulation is best exemplified by
the decennial Earth Summits sponsored by the United Nations since 1972.
4 For definitions of tailings, see ver Ginocchio y Santibáñez (2009) and López (2003).
160 T. Ortega-Uribe
caused by copper smelting, which releases sulfur, arsenic and heavy metals into the
atmosphere (Durán 1990).
Being a historically important economic sector, mining in Chile has had to inte-
grate environmental concerns into its operations as a response to pressures from
social actors while satisfying the demands of the international market.5 According
to Folchi (2010), environmental regulation in mining had first to overcome the lack
of techno-scientific knowledge and deal with the flaws of state regulation. Handling
of mining-related environmental impacts began in a reactive mode in response to
a controversial event: the 1965 disaster in the village El Cobre.6 This event led
to the enactment of ‘Regulation 86’ (Reglamento N° 86) on tailing dam construc-
tion and operation in 1970. After that, visibility of such environmental problems
gradually increased along with organized efforts to exert pressure on the political,
judicial and media spheres, notably illustrated by the incidents of Andacollo in 1965
and El Arrayán in 1987 and the more prolonged cases of Chañaral7 and Quintero-
Puchuncaví. Following the 1990s, environmental conflicts caused by mining have
increased in spatial extent as well as in their visibility in the media (INDH 2015).
3 Socio-Environmental Conflicts in Three Moments

of Environmental Institutional Development
3.1 Andacollo, 1965: Reviving the Beginnings of the Current

Conflict8
The Andacollo commune is located in the Coquimbo Region. In 1970, its population
rose to 9,002 people (INE 1970); today, its population is 11,044, 14.8% of which lives
in poverty (Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional 2017). The main economic activity is
5 While mining as a whole contributes to 9.9% of national GDP, copper mining makes up 8.9% of
that measure and represented 49.6% of the country’s exports in 2017. Chile produces 27.2% of the
world’s copper (Comisión Chilena del Cobre 2017).
6 The 28 March 1965 earthquake in La Ligua, region of Valparaíso, caused the tailings dam of
El Soldado mine to collapse. The village of El Cobre, mostly inhabited by mineworkers and their
families, was buried in the debris (El Mercurio 1965).
7 Chañaral is one of the most prolonged and controversial cases in Chile. Since the 1960s, the
Andes Copper Mining Company had been depositing tailings in the Salado River, which drains into
Chañaral Bay, causing the bay to eventually silt up. This transformed the coastal geomorphology,
damaging the port, beaches, archaeological sites, and marine resources. By 1987, the Salado River
was receiving 250,000 tons of mineral waste per day from El Salvador mine operated by CODELCO
Chile. In 1989, a Supreme Court ruling prohibited the marine disposal of mine tailings through the
Salado River. Since then, different decontamination and restoration efforts have been conducted in
the area, though severe contamination and environmental conflict persist (Minería Chilena 1989;
Atacama, el diario de la Tercera Región, 1987a, b, c).
8 This conflict persists to the present day in new aspects. However, in this study, we focus
on the events that took place in 1965 under a completely different institutional and political context.
small- and medium-scale mining, which is also the main source of pollution in the
area. In 1965, well before the adoption of environmental protection policies,9 there
existed 30 copper processing plants within the urban area, which in time produced
tailing deposits throughout the city (Toro 2017).
After the 1965 incident in El Cobre, the mayor and locals expressed their concerns
about the possibility of tailings dam landslides to occur near inhabited areas (El
Día de La Serena 1965a). It was also feared that the tailings dam located in the
Andacollo ravine, which held waste produced in the Punta del Cobre plant, owned by
the Empresa Nacional de Minería (ENAMI), could fail from future rainfall. Although
the Ministry of Mining asked the Andacollo Mining Association to take appropriate
measures to prevent a landslide, once the Chamber of Deputies had ordered the
Ministries of Health and Mining to send technicians (Oficios 369 y 374 1965; Cámara
de Diputados 1965), it was never clear what measures the companies were to take.
Furthermore, these actions were belated and reactive to the events in El Cobre, since
eight years earlier, the mayor of Andacollo municipality had already petitioned,
unsuccessfully, the transfer of those copper plants to other sectors. This time, he was
asking the Ministry of Mining to suspend the plant as a public risk (El Día de La
Serena 1965a; Oficios 52 y 58 1965) (Fig. 1).
The state response consisted mostly in improvised measures: ENAMI began works
to prevent the accumulation of tailings in the riverbed of the ravine; the National
Health Service, through its Department for Industrial Safety, applied sanctions for
dumping tailings in ravines; and agents from the State Mining Service held meetings
with members of the Andacollo Mining Association (El Día de La Serena 1965b). The
State Mining Service ordered mining executives to put an end to the accumulation
of mining waste in the ravines of Andacollo, but this applied to only seven of the 30
plants within Andacollo (El Día de La Serena 1965b). Significantly, even the State
Mine Service acknowledged the shortcomings of the state in dealing with this sort
of conflict, by noting the lack of clarity on the correct procedures to close down a
plant if it did not comply with government orders (Oficio 1241 1965). The company
executives, however, did comply by redirecting the disposal of tailings and proposing
to ENAMI to set up a plant designed to recover minerals from mining waste, which
would prevent loss of profit.
By the end of the year, the neglect of the State Mining Service to these subnational
problems became obvious, as is illustrated by a technical report from the Department
for Industrial Hygiene and Safety on mining regions. The report informed that 21
tailing deposits upstream of Andacollo lacked retaining walls, which posed a risk to
houses in those sectors. This prompted action from the Ministries of Public Health
and Mining, but the latter omitted any effective measures under the argument that
these would involve enormous costs and that it was not feasible for the companies
to collectively resolve the situation (Oficio 3152 1965). Ultimately the Ministry of
Mining did not have the legal authority to apply concrete solutions.
9At the time, the relevant regulation was encoded in Law 3,133 (enacted in 1916) on the
neutralization of industrial waste (Ley 3.133 1916).
162 T. Ortega-Uribe
Fig. 1 Andacollo. Tailings close to the city. Map by Soledad Huerta Miranda, Consultora
Territoriales, Chile
At that time, three dimensions came together in this mining area: an absence of
socio-environmental organizations; the strong influence mining companies exerted
in local decision-making; and the prioritization by the state of forms of economic
development that contributed to the national budget. These dimensions resulted in the
neutralization of the conflict and, while the first two have since changed significantly,
the third has allowed the problem to persist. Today, Andacollo is a territory in conflict,
with over 90 tailings deposits, a large part of them within the urban area (Toro 2017),
mainly belonging to the large-scale Canadian mining companies Teck Carmen de
Andacollo (C.D.A.) and Dayton. The conflict has continued since 1995 between
companies, CONAMA y COREMA, non-governmental organizations, and territorial
organizations (INDH 2015). The most significant environmental problems involve
the dispersal of suspended particles from mine works adjacent to populated areas. In
2009, an expanse of 60 km2 in Andacollo was declared a ‘saturated zone’ due to the
high concentrations of PM10 particulates (Decreto Supremo 8 2009). In 2016, the
World Health Organization identified Andacollo among the 20 most polluted cities
in Latin America (Seguel 2019). Despite a 2014 Environmental Decontamination
Plan in accordance with the new environmental regulations (Decreto 59 2014), the
conflict persists as local population and organizations increase their involvement.
3.2 El Arrayán, 1987: Property and Appropriation

of Territory
In 1987, it was feared that Spring meltwater combined with the rise of the San Fran-
cisco River in Santiago, Metropolitan Region, could cause a failure, and subsequent
landslide, of a tailings dam located on the San Francisco River, a tributary of the
Mapocho. The dam belonged to Disputada de Las Condes mining company, then
property of Exxon Minerals, Inc.10 These conditions could increase the water flow
of both rivers while the possible dam failure posed a grave threat to neighboring
communities. This situation was a cause of great concern among the public opinion
in general, and specifically among the inhabitants of El Arrayán. El Arrayán is a
precordilleran sector in the city of Santiago, within Las Condes Commune and had
a population of 24,258 (INE 1982). El Arrayán is a small area that in the 1980s was
just starting to be populated by affluent landowners; then, and still now, the area was
known for a high-income population as well as Las Condes Commune. However,
it was the people living on lower land, closer to the Mapocho river, who would be
more severely affected by a flood or landslide.
This happened in a period, starting in the early 1980s, during which environ-
mental and other green organizations, often linked to the academic sector and other
high-income social groups, began to emerge (Carruthers 2001). The people of El
Arrayán came together and on 13 November 1987 filed a recourse for protection
against the General Board of Water Management (Dirección General de Aguas)
and the Disputada de Las Condes mining company. The attorney of the case was
precisely a resident of El Arrayán, Fernando Dougnac, who is a well-known and
award-winning lawyer within environmentalism in Chile. He and other residents of
the Chilean high social class chose to turn the conflict toward the judicial system as
a way to divert potential pollution to other sectors (El Mercurio 1987a).
In contrast to what took place in Andacollo, the state responded by conducting
a preemptive evacuation of low-income families living near the Mapocho river;
car traffic was prohibited in the surrounding areas; and all mining activities were
suspended. Also, concrete pipes were installed in order to divert possible overflows
from the tailings dam (El Mercurio 1987b). This operation was authorized by the
minister of Public Works, brigadier general Bruno Siebert, who nonetheless assured
that in case of a landslide, it would be contained by the Mapocho River and not affect
any inhabited areas (El Mercurio 1987b).
The problem triggered the involvement of diverse sectors holding opposing views.
From the side of the mining company, it was held that the dam could withstand a
high-magnitude earthquake (El Mercurio 1987c); they even affirmed that the works
at El Arrayán had always been part of the mine-closure plan (Minería Chilena 1993).
However, it is not possible to verify it because in a workshop a year prior to the emer-
gency, the same company was among those seeking to keep tailings dam projects
10 Disputada de Las Condes had been acquired by Exxon Minerals (a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil)
from ENAMI in 1978 under the Foreign Investment Statute (Decreto Ley 600 1974) enacted by the
dictatorship in 1974, which offered generous terms to foreign investment (Ibáñez 2002).
164 T. Ortega-Uribe
undisclosed (Minería Chilena 1986). On the other hand, scientists from University
of Chile declared regarding the hazard of the dam, stating the catastrophic conse-
quences: a spillage of one thousand cubic meters per second that in the course of
15 min would empty the whole dam (El Mercurio 1987d). Ultimately, it proved
impossible to settle a consensus between different agents about the extent of the
dangers posed by the tailings dam.
Despite the controversy, the company moved its tailings deposits from the San
Francisco catchment, which allowed the river to recover its natural course, thus elim-
inating the risks and the dispute. The legal path followed in this conflict succeeded,
as did the organization from a small influential sector within Santiago. Then as now,
these lands held a high economic value just as their inhabitants hold powerful social
capital. Indeed, the Disputada de Las Condes Company conceded that it had to reach
an agreement with the people of El Arrayán, who owned vast tracts of precordilleran
land. In addition, the state was criticized by the mining sector for its failure in matters
of oversight, reduced funding and insufficient personnel from the National Geolog-
ical and Mining Service (SERNAGEOMIN) (Minería Chilena 1986). At the time no
formal environmental institutions had yet been established, and government agen-
cies operated uncoordinatedly in enforcing laws and regulations directly or indirectly
related to this sort of problems.11
3.3 Quintero-Puchuncaví, 2011: A Tale of Territorial

Sacrifice12
The territory formed by the Quintero and Puchuncaví communes in the Valparaíso
Region has a long-lived experience with pollution. Currently, it is one of 27
‘pollution-saturated or -latent zones’ in Chile, declared as pollution saturated zone
twice in 1994 and 2015 (Decreto 346 1994; Decreto 10 2015). The combined popu-
lation of both communes is 50,469 (BCN 2017). The percentage of the population
living in poverty in both communes is above the national level, and only 6.6% of
the population works in the industrial sector (INDH 2018), which reflects the low
employment generated by the companies operating in the area. In 1964, ENAMI
erected the Ventanas copper smelting plant (operated by CODELCO since 2005).
Thenceforth, the territory has taken shape in response to the increasing number of
companies and industrial facilities, which now constitute the Ventanas Industrial
11 At that time, the only applicable laws in these matters were: the 1916 Law 3,133 and regulation on
neutralization of industrial waste, under the care of the Water Management Board of the Ministry of
Public Works; the 1986 Regulation 86, on the construction and operation of tailings dams, enforced
by SERNAGEOMIN; Law Decree 725, which established the Sanitary Code of 1968, under the
care of the Ministry of Public Health; and Law Decree 3557, which established provisions for the
protection of farming, and empowered the president to stop companies from operating.
12 The history of pollution in this territory persists today. Here, however, we focus
on the environmental emergency that took place in 2011, due to its high public connotations and it
being a turning point in territorial dynamics.
Complex (Complejo Industrial de Ventanas): nearly 17 companies devoted to fuel

supplying and storage, thermoelectric power production, cement production, stock-
piling and shipping copper concentrates, copper smelting and refining, and chem-
ical industrial waste disposal, among other activities (Ramírez 2019). The levels of
pollution here have even altered traditional economic activities (farming, fishing and
tourism) as well as the general quality of life of the inhabitants. The National Insti-
tute for Human Rights states that a case of environmental injustice and human rights
violations prevails in this area and has, thus, declared it a ‘sacrifice zone’ (INDH
2011, 2014) (Fig. 2).
In the year 2011, three cases of heavy metal poisoning occurred in two separate
schools, requiring those who had been poisoned to be evacuated and transferred to
local or regional health centers. Two of these health emergencies occurred in La Greda
school in Puchuncaví, where a total of 54 underage students and 19 adults suffered
from the poisoning (El Mostrador 2011); while in Quintero, 25 underage students and
one teacher at Escuela Alonso required treatment for the poisoning (Bio Bio Chile
2011). These events took place one month after the Valparaíso Regional Health
Secretary (Secretaría Regional Ministerial de Salud) had confirmed the presence of
heavy metals (mercury, cadmium, lead, copper) and arsenic in soil and dust samples
from 14 schools in Puchuncaví alone (TERRAM 2018).
The national government response was to relocate La Greda less than two kilo-
meters north (it was originally 500 m away from the industrial facilities), a decision
which was strongly criticized by locals because the outreach of pollution is much
wider than two kilometers (Correa 2013). The decision was also contradictory to the
entrepreneurial perspective, which recommended not to move population or indus-
tries, but to build a sustainable industrial neighborhood (Cámara de Diputados 2011).
The Chamber of Deputies set up an investigatory commission, to determine the role
of the state-owned company CODELCO in these events. The commission assigned
direct responsibility to the Ventanas smelting plant owned by CODELCO as well as
direct and indirect responsibility to different state entities (for their roles in planning
and oversight), state-owned companies, ministries, and regional and local govern-
ments. The commission also found that the changes made to the Valparaíso Intercom-
munal Regulatory Plan, approved by regional authorities, had allowed the expansion
of the industrial zone and, thus, shortening the distance between it and housing zones.
Furthermore, the commission highlighted in coordination between local government
decisions and central entities as, for example, in granting or renewing municipal
permits to companies who had not complied with Ministry of Health requirements
or the discrepancies between the Undersecretariat for Fisheries and the Merchant
Marine, the Navy, and the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic with
respect to the character of coastal space (Cámara de Diputados 2011).
After the commission had assigned liabilities and recommendations, the newly
established Ministry of the Environment took several measures to handle the situa-
tion: it enacted new regulatory decrees for industrial emissions, thermoelectric plants
and PM2.5 particles, in addition to an emissions standard for copper plant and arsenic
sources (Decreto 13 2011; Decreto Supremo 12 2011); it introduced new emission
control technologies; it increased its oversight powers through the Environmental
166
Fig. 2 The Sacrifice Zone Quintero-Puchuncaví. Map by Soledad Huerta Miranda, Consultora Territoriales, Chile
T. Ortega-Uribe
Superintendence and signed a Clean Production Accord with the companies that
operated in the area (Cámara de Diputados 2011). The accord, however, did not
consider the participation of the local population nor their proposals. Over time,
different measures have been implemented gradually, but without totally reaching
neither the commission’s recommendations nor the claims of the population (Vivanco
2019). Indeed, as for the local community, the definition of regulations has not been
enough to counter the magnitude of the polluting agents. They have realized that the
mere design and compliance of flexible regulations do not guarantee that the quality
of the air, soil, and seas is adequate for the local population.
That same year, the influence exerted by the entrepreneurial sector on state deci-
sions against diverse sectors of civil society became evident. The Campiche thermo-
electric plant, part of the Ventanas complex, required changes to the Intercommunal
Regulatory Plan in order to operate. The procedure to amend regulatory plans is
established in the law for urban planning and constructions, which requires the inter-
vention of the regional government and council, municipalities and the Regional
Housing Secretary (Secretaría Regional Ministerial de Vivienda). However, in this
case, the changes were affected by lobbying through the US embassy and by coor-
dination between the Ministry of Housing on behalf of the regional environmental
council (COREMA), the Ministries of the Interior, Energy, and Environment; and
through back-channel communications with the Comptroller General’s office. Ulti-
mately, the changes were executed through an executive decree, which amended
the Intercommunal Regulatory Plan in order to accommodate the Campiche project,
thus freeing the company from the illegal situation in which it was (Figueroa 2011;
INDH 2014). The possibility to discretionally bring about such changes reveals that
regulations are not a fully effective mechanism for environmental protection, not to
mention these are generally lax, unrelated to international standards and avoided by
the entrepreneurial-related powers when necessary.
In Quintero-Puchuncaví, environmental damage and social inequality have
shaped territorial dynamics. Its inhabitants have undergone transformations in their
economic activities because it is not possible to develop agriculture, fishing and
tourism as in the past (TERRA 2018). The number of actors driving territorial
strategies has grown over time. Since the 1990s, locals have come together to form
different organizations focused on environmental and health issues. These organi-
zations turned out later in new environmental organizations that have helped shape
territorialization processes based on the conflict between different agents and scales.
As a result of this conflict, socio-spatial relationships have been affected due
to permanent disputes between neighbors over pollution problems and different
perceptions about the companies in the territory (Almarza y Carrasco 2019). In other
words, there is a dispute between local communities about the dichotomy economic
growth–environment protection. For instance, after the poisoning events of 2011,
the Committee for the Defense of La Greda claimed the creation of public policies
for facilitating the coexistence between companies and the community, instead of
the closure of companies because it would cause loss of employment (Cámara de
Diputado 2011). Conversely, other organizations have made proposals that include
the closure of some companies, among other different petitions (Ortega 2019).
168 T. Ortega-Uribe
Certainly, the practices of resistance have been increasing and varying over time.
Social organizations, along with environmental organizations and local fishermen
initiated a permanent dispute with state entities and private companies settled in this
territory. One of the most important of these organizations is called Agrupación de
Mujeres de Zona de Sacrificio en Resistencia, Quintero-Puchuncaví. The members
of this group have taken upon themselves to defend the rights of their families and
through the years have achieved to pressure their adversaries and establish socio-
political relations with other territories at the national and international levels.
All these agents have carried out different strategies. On one hand, they have tried
to dialogue and work with the representatives of governmental institutions, claiming
the fair implementation of environmental and health policies in response to compa-
nies operating without environmental impact assessment in the territory (TERRA
2018). They also complain about the lack of territorial planning that allows pollu-
tant in some territories to reach excessive and disproportionate concentration levels.
There is even a document signed by 108 organizations (at local, regional, national and
international level) with specific proposals to address the environmental crisis of the
territory (Petition of social organizations of Quintero and Puchuncaví to the authori-
ties) (Ortega 2019). On the other hand, when dialogue has failed, they have increased
social mobilization. In this case, some of these local organizations have built broad
networks with social and environmental organizations from other regions in Chile
and overseas. It has established a coordination of socio-environmental organizations
called Fuerza Socioambiental en Defensa de los Territorios (Socio-environmental
Force in Defense of the Territories), which works through horizontal participation
and micro and macro levels. It also has coordinated with NGOs at the national and
international levels. Recently, these networks have allowed local activists to partic-
ipate in supranational instances, such as the United Nations, the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights, and the COP25 in order to expose their situation
(Almarza y Carrasco 2019) (Fig. 3).
4 Discussion. Time Variations, Territorialities

and Resistances Toward Dispossession
In the preface to The New Imperialism, David Harvey (2003) points out his interest
in analyzing how the ties between territories and capitalistic logics of power work.
These logics of power took form in the neoliberal model in different countries of the
world since the 1970s. In the Southern Cone of Latin America, this process arose in
the 1980s as a result of the collapse of the military dictatorships. As part of these
new power dynamics, global and local territorialities also changed. Territory, as a
result of socio-relational processes, acquires different connotations according to the
conflict dynamics in the production of local and global space.
In this sense, and following Ferguson and Gupta (2002), the spacialization of
the state had developed in the twentieth century in a vertical form that encompassed
Fig. 3 Location of study cases in Chile. Map by Soledad Huerta Miranda, Consultora Territoriales,
Chile
170 T. Ortega-Uribe
local territories with certain legitimacy, and, thus, naturalized its authority. That form
changed in the twentieth century, as the decentralization of the state gave way to
transnational governmentality (Ferguson and Gupta 2002). This shift materialized in
novel territorial arrangements, characterized by different power relations, discursive
formations of identity and space, and new bureaucratic practices for domination
and control. These changes in territorial arrangements presented herein allow us to
understand territorial variations over time.
During Chile’s period of the developmental state, the prevailing discursive forma-
tion on the subnational territory of Andacollo was based on the role of mining within
the national economic interest. The state aimed its strategies toward the highest
national productivity, without addressing potential environmental and social risks
associated with such productivity at the local level. Territorial dynamics were carried
out by agents directly linked to economic development (business associations, unions,
mayors, and agents of government ministries), without the participation of the popu-
lation. Therefore, disputes over the control of the territory focused on mineral extrac-
tion and the appropriation of their profits. The key points of state domination at that
time involved verticality and encompassment sensu Ferguson and Gupta (2002),
unveiling state control and vertical authority that subordinated the local territory to
the national economy.
In the case of El Arrayán, inhabitants initiated a process of territorial appropriation
based on the right to property (which the authoritarian government affirmed in the
constitution), and on a sort of neoliberal governance between society and company,
fostered by authoritarian domination. The context was characterized by an incipient
environmental movement and growing demonstrations against the dictatorship. Here,
locals used legal–institutional and media strategies, which allowed them to exercise
their power and dominance over the territory, to directly establish agreements with
the company and to confront a state that was already showing signs of losing its
political control nationwide, as the authoritarian period was drawing to a close.
Certainly, given that the state is not the only entity that exercises power in a territory
and that the reproduction of relations of production is not the only function of power
(Foucault 2007), the key points of control of the territory in El Arrayán were based
on influential individuals of the high social class and, thus, in a wealthy territory
located in the capital city of the country within a highly centralized state.
Regarding the contemporary case, Quintero-Puchuncaví, territorial formation is
centered on sacrifice. Sacrifice zones are areas that concentrate environmentally
aggressive practices, where low-income populations reside (Acselrad 2004 in Dos
Santos, Ferreira & da Silva 2013). Indeed, Quintero and Puchuncaví have been spaces
designated for the production of national income, while environmental damage and
social inequality configure their territorial and transnational dynamics. The identity
processes of the inhabitants have included the experience of being disregarded. They
have had to transform their socio-spatial relationships and their economic activi-
ties. They have organized new local institutions in defense of their rights, such as
new practices of organization and new meanings about community engagement, a
process in which the role of women has been central. All these experiences have
brought forth new cultural understandings of the problem of pollution within the
communities, where they now challenge both government authority and companies.
At the same time, they have initiated conflicts challenging discourses on the promise
of development. The territory is produced as a space of production and accumulation
while fragmenting and reducing the space for life (Lefebvre 2013).
The mechanisms of territorial control in this case are different than in earlier
periods, since the authoritarian project was strengthened by the democratic transi-
tion, building a neoliberal government based on the incestuous relationship between
the state and business interests (Carruthers 2001). As in other similar cases with high
industrial concentration in Latin America, in Quintero and Puchuncaví, the business-
state relationship results in territorial grabbing and political capture (Acselrad 2013;
Dos Santos Ferreira & da Silva 2013; Garibay et al 2014). This may take the form of
direct monetary contributions from companies to municipal governments in mining
areas (Arrellano & Albert 2017), or the entrepreneurial influence in state agencies, for
the approval of investment projects (as was the case of the Campiche Thermoelectric
Plant). As a result, there is a dynamic of entrepreneurial dominance over the terri-
tory, market sovereignty, and state acquiescence. In addition, political capture has
even affected the inhabitants of the territory, mainly by co-opting local leaders and
organizations through direct benefits or projects that create a relationship of depen-
dency, resulting in ‘a culture of subordination and silence’ (Almarza & Carrasco
2019, p.37), the ultimate effect of which is the obscuring or denying the extent of
pollution and other environmental damage.
On the other hand, some aspects retain continuity over time. First of all, construc-
tion of the territorial space is carried out disregarding those who inhabit these terri-
tories. The deep national and regional centralization of Chile has systematically
reduced the possibilities of local populations to influence the social production of
their own space, in spite of the increase of local organizations over time. In addition,
even though openness to social participation was affirmed in environmental policies
since the 1990s, environmental institutions actually work to dismiss local interests
on a regular basis (Carruthers 2001; Fuenzalida M & Quiroz R 2012). Hence, these
facts evince the problem of decentralization of decision-making from national to
subnational powers in Chile and also shore up new research topics about the concept
of the local from open, diffuse, interconnected and globalized perspectives.
Another aspect that persists is the weakness of the state in some aspects of its
domination, reflected in its lack of authority to control companies; the inconsistency
and incoordination between government agencies and the lack of financial resources
in specific areas of government. Nevertheless, the latter aspect seems to be disguising
the tendency of the state to minimize the environmental problem and designs terri-
tories specifically doomed to accumulation and pollution. This situation has turned
slightly different since 1980 due to a mixture between state power and entrepreneurial
power, which seems to undermine the autonomy of the state, but in reality, it is a
shift toward deregulation typical of neoliberal governmentality. As a consequence,
territorial inequality has persisted in the spacialization of the state, which results in
there being first- and second-class territories experiencing environmental impacts
and solutions in disparate ways.
172 T. Ortega-Uribe
In the end, the course toward dispossession results in the construction of sacrificed
territories, which at the same time actively resist accepting this territoriality. A direct
confrontation emerges between the productive matrix and its political capture, on
the one hand, and the engaged communities, on the other hand, who openly call into
question the discourse of progress used to legitimize state authority and naturalize
environmental emergencies, a discourse known in Latin America as location black-
mail (chantaje de localización) (Acselrad 2013). These struggles open new starting
points for understanding territories in dispute. Given that the territory is a space of
control and exercise of power, current environmental problems, much more complex
than in the past, have established new angles to face the contemporary scenario of
dispossession of territorial rights. Therefore, recent processes are resulting in new
territorialities, which focus on defense of their rights and also on deeper control of
the inhabited space.
5 Conclusions
The territorial alterations observed in these cases illustrate a continuum of ecological

risk and technical–political strategies unfolded by different actors. Ecological risk
acquired more relevance through public awareness about environmental damage,
and the role of the companies on those impacts since the 1980s. However, the slow
development of environmental issues in Chile is observed in the belated development
of environmental policy and organizations. The case analyses reveal how the state
has addressed local phenomena depending on geographical location (centralization)
and environmental institutionality over time. Based on these cases, it is possible to
observe the verticality of the national state in Andacollo, while the authoritarian
government allowed El Arrayán community to establish a co-governance with the
company in order to solve the problem. In contrast, the Quintero-Puchuncaví commu-
nity has increasingly carried out practices of resistance and mobilization that chal-
lenge governmental authority, but it yet is not enough to avoid the political capture
of the state by the entrepreneurial sector. Hence, the construction of space is based
on power relationships, practices of state domination, disputes and resistance .
The analysis of the past brings out the complexity of the present. The current
spacialization of the state confronts practices of resistance to dispossession after a
long history of injustice that affects small and poor territories developing into sacrifice
zones. Nevertheless, within sacrifice zones emerging territorial resistances push and
blur the framework on which state exercises neoliberal domination. In particular,
for the contemporary case, environmental organizations have established a direct
dialogue with (and against) the national state and even resorting to supranational
entities. They are developing innovative and horizontal socio-political participation
organizations, in contrast to past organizations. Therefore, territoriality has evolved
toward more diffuse and horizontal forms, where locals create networks within and
outside state institutions. They work with governmental agencies at the local, regional
and national levels, but at the same time they establish alliances with environmental
and social organizations from different scales. This change has set off the creation of
new identity processes based on the production of territory in situations of political
resistance as an active counterpart in domination systems.
Finally, those changes in local territoriality also show an interesting shift regarding
the state. While it shows continuity in its vertical centralization, at the same time, it has
lost a certain grade of power in the shift toward post-authoritarian neoliberal gover-
nance. Additionally, the local claims for more and stronger state involvement, and
the corporate-political capture makes it relevant to inquire about sovereignty, which
seems to run through a pendulous process between transnational markets, states
(national-subnational), and territorial communities. Certainly, the questions raised
by Ferguson and Gupta at the beginning of the century (where national governments
lose authority vis-à-vis subnational and supranational governments) remain perti-
nent today with the territorial turn and multilevel governance (Svampa 2014; Eaton
2017). Hence, considering recent interrogations about paradigms of neoliberalism
(Gago 2014), and the new strategies of local agents for territorial appropriation,
we should create new inquiries that may allow to rethink classic points of view
about the local and scale, in order to contribute to decentralized subnational terri-
torialities and post-neoliberal political strategies. Similarly, land planning should
be rethought, in order to include communities, go beyond political–administrative
borders and consider ecological variables (basins, ports, valleys, landscape, climate)
as well as to seek environmental justice instead of sacrifice. Hopefully, today’s sites
of crisis and destruction (dispossession) will be the key points of their recovery and
transformation toward social control of space.
Acknowledgements Acknowledgments are due to those who participated as informants for this
research: Marta Aravena Schiaffino and Valeria Carrasco Carreño from Agrupación de Mujeres de
Zona de Sacrificio en Resistencia Quintero-Puchuncaví; and Marcos Ortega Palma, a laborer in
Lo Barnechea in 1987. This research was partially funded through FONDECYT project number
1130156 and the Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund (SYLFF) from Fundación
Tokio in conjunction with University of Chile.
References
Acselrad H (2013) Desigualdade ambiental, economia e política. Astrolabio Nueva Época 11:105–
123
Almarza M, Carrasco V (2019) Mujeres de Zona de Sacrificio en Resistencia. Nuestra historia y
caminos recorridos. En Ortega T (ed) Feminismo popular y territorios en resistencia: La lucha de
las mujeres en la zona de sacrificio Quintero-Puchuncaví. Fundación Emerge, Fundación Heinrich
Böll Stiftung, Santiago, pp 28–52
Arrellano A, Albert C (2017) Caja negra bajo sospecha: las millonarias donaciones de mineras
a municipios. https://ciperchile.cl/2017/09/20/caja-negra-bajo-sospecha-las-millonarias-donaci
ones-de-mineras-a-municipios/. Accessed 23 May 2020
Atacama. El Diario de la Tercera Región (1987a) Caso de relaves es conocido en Europa. 23
septiembre, Copiapó
174 T. Ortega-Uribe
Atacama. El Diario de la Tercera Región (1987b) Tranque de relave provoca inquietud en calle Viel.
25 septiembre, Copiapó
Atacama. El Diario de la Tercera Región (1987c) Relaves casi dañan antena repetidora. 28
septiembre, Copiapó
Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional (2017) Reportes Estadísticos Comunales. https://reportescomu
nales.bcn.cl/2017/index.php/P%C3%A1gina_principal. Accessed 7 May 2020
Bio Bio Chile (2011) Al menos 25 estudiantes de 4 colegios de Quintero resultaron afectados
por nube tóxica. 31 de agosto.https://www.biobiochile.cl/noticias/2011/08/31/evacuan-colegio-
en-quintero-por-nube-toxica-que-causo-malestares-fisicos-a-menores.shtml. Accesed Feb 2020
Cámara de Diputados (1965) Sesión 43. 13 de mayo. Santiago
Cámara de Diputados de Chile (2011) Informe de la Comisión de Recursos Naturales, Bienes
Nacionales y Medio Ambiente recaído en el mandato otorgado por la sala a fin de analizar,
indagar, investigar y determinar la participación de la empresa estatal CODELCO y empresas
asociadas, en la contaminación ambiental en la zona de Puchuncaví y Quintero
Carruthers D (2001) Environmental politics in Chile: legacies of dictatorship and democracy. Third
World Q 22(3):43–358. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436590120061642
Comisión Chilena del Cobre (2017) Anuario de estadísticas del cobre y otros minerales 1998–2017
Correa P (2013) Inauguración de nueva Escuela de La Greda: expertos califican medida como
insuficiente. Radio Universidad de Chile. 30 de septiembre. https://radio.uchile.cl/2013/09/
30/inauguracion-de-nueva-escuela-de-la-greda-expertos-califican-medida-como-insuficiente/.
Accesed Feb 2020
Decreto Ley 600 (1974) Estatuto de la Inversión Extranjera. Santiago. Ministerio de Economía,
Fomento y Reconstrucción
Decreto 13 (2011) Establece normas de emisión para centrales termoeléctricas. Santiago. Ministerio
del Medio Ambiente
Decreto Supremo 1150 (1980) Constitución política de la República de Chile Santiago. Ministerio
del Interior
Decreto 346 (1994) Declara zona saturada por anhídrido sulfuroso y material particulado al área
circundante al complejo industrial ventanas, V región. Santiago. Ministerio de Agricultura
Decreto Supremo 8 (2009) Establece plan de descontaminación atmosférica para la localidad de
Andacollo y sectores aledaños. Santiago. Ministerio Secretaría General de la Presidencia
Decreto Supremo 12 (2011) Establece norma primaria de calidad ambiental para material
particulado fino respirable MP 2, 5.Santiago. Ministerio de Medio Ambiente
Decreto 59 (2014) Establece plan de descontaminación atmosférica para la localidad de Andacollo
y sectores aledaños. Santiago. Ministerio del Medio Ambiente
Decreto 10 (2015) Declara zona saturada por material particulado fino respirable MP2,5 , como
concentración anual y latente como concentración diaria, y zona latente por material particulado
respirable MP10 , como concentración anual, a las comunas de Concón, Quintero y Puchuncaví.
Santiago. Ministerio del Medio Ambiente
Dos Santos C, Ferreira C, da Silva C (2013) Rio Grande (RS): Uma Zona de Sacrificio. Revista de
Educaçáo, Ciências e Matemática. 3(3):91–104
Durán H (1990) Impacto ambiental de la actividad minera en Chile: balance preliminar. Revista
Ambiente y Desarrollo. 6(1):65–76
Eaton K (2017) Territory and ideology in Latin America: policy conflicts between national and
subnational governments. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198800576.
001.0001
El Mostrador (2011) Escuela La Greda será clausurada tras confirmarse presencia de arsénico y
plomo en los niños. 29 de julio. https://www.elmostrador.cl/noticias/pais/2011/07/29/escuela-la-
greda-cerrara-definitivamente-tras-confirmarse-presencia-de-arsenico-y-plomo-en-los-ninos/.
Accesed Feb 2020
El Mercurio (1965) Santiago, 29 de marzo
El Mercurio (1987a) Santiago, 8 de noviembre
El Mercurio (1987b) Evacuadas familias residentes en peligro. Santiago, 15 de diciembre
El Mercurio (1987c) Santiago, 18 de diciembre

El Mercurio (1987d) Santiago, 21 de diciembre
El Día de La Serena (1965a). Los relaves amenazan a Andacollo. 10 de abril
El Día de la Serena (1965b). 4 de mayo
Ferguson J, Gupta A (2002) Spatializing states: toward an ethnography of neoliberal governmen-
tality. Am Ethnol 29(4):981–1002
Figueroa J (2011) Las gestiones conjuntas de los gobiernos de Chile y EE.UU. para salvar a
termoeléctrica de AES Gener. https://ciperchile.cl/2011/03/01/las-gestiones-conjuntas-de-los-
gobiernos-de-chile-y-ee-uu-para-salvar-a-termoelectrica-de-aes-gener/. Accessed 23 July 2020
Folchi M (2010) La gestación de la política ambiental minera antes de la ‘revolución ambiental de los
noventa’. In Aliste E, Urquiza A (comps.) Medio ambiente y sociedad. Conceptos, metodologías
y experiencias. RIL Editores. Santiago
Foucault M (2007) Questions on geography. In: Crampton J, Elden S (eds) Space, knowledge and
power: Foucault and geography. Ashgate, Aldershot, pp 173–182
Fuenzalida M, Quiroz R (2012) La dimensión espacial de los conflictos ambientales en Chile. Polis
3. http://journals.openedition.org/polis/3682. Accessed 10 May 2020
Gago, V (2014) La razón neoliberal: economías barrocas y pragmática popular. Tinta Limón, Buenos
Aires
Garibay C, Boni A et al (2014) Corporación minera, colusión gubernamental y desposesión
campesina. El caso de Goldcorp. Inc. en Mazapil, Zacatecas. Desacatos 44:113–142. http://
scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1607-050X2014000100009. Accessed 1 Apr
2020
Ginocchio R, y Santibáñez C, (2009) Fitoestabilización de depósitos de relaves: una tecnología
basada en el uso de plantas distinta de la forestación. Revista Ambiente Forestal Universidad De
Chile 4(7):13–21
Harvey D (2003) The new imperialism. Oxford University Press, New York
INE (1970) Censo nacional de población y vivienda. Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas. Memoria
Chilena, Biblioteca Nacional de Chile. Santiago
INE (1982) Censo nacional de población y vivienda. Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas. Memoria
Chile, Biblioteca Nacional de Chile, Santiago
Ibáñez C (2002) Minera Disputada de Las Condes: El despojo a un país de sus riquezas básicas.
Fundación TERRAM, Serie Análisis de Políticas Públicas 14
Instituto Nacional de Derechos Humanos (2011) Situación de los derechos humanos en Chile.
Informe anual. https://www.indh.cl/
Insituto Nacional de Derechos Humanos (2015). Mapa de conflictos socioambientales en Chile.
Versión digital. http://bibliotecadigital.indh.cl
Lefebvre H (2013) La producción del espacio. Capitán Swing, Madrid
Ley 20.417, crea el Ministerio, El Servicio de Evaluación Ambiental y la Superintendencia del
Medio Ambiente (2010) Santiago. Ministerio Secretaría General de la Presidencia
Ley 20.600, crea los Tribunales Ambientales, Ministerio del Medio Ambiente (2012) Santiago.
Ministerio del Medio Ambiente
Ley 3.133 Neutralización de Residuos Industriales (1916) Santiago. Ministerio de Obras Públicas.
López P (2003) La minería y su pasivo ambiental. Fundación TERRAM, Serie Análisis de Políticas
Públicas 24
Minería Chilena (1986) Relaves: inquietudes y dudas remecen legislación “superada”. Santiago, 60
enero/febrero
Minería Chilena (1989) Santiago, 99 agosto
Minería Chilena (1993) Santiago, 144 junio
176 T. Ortega-Uribe
Natural Resource Governance Institute (2017) Índice de la gobernanza de los recursos

naturales. https://resourcegovernance.org/analysis-tools/publications/indice-de-la-gobernanza-
de-los-recursos-naturales-2017. Accessed 10 Apr 2020
Oficios 369 y 374 (1965) Santiago. Ministerio de Minería
Oficio 1241 (1965) Santiago. Ministerio de Minería
Oficio 3152 (1965) Santiago. Servicio de Minas del Estado. Ministerio de Minería
Oficios 52 y 58 (1965) Santiago. Ministerio de Minería
Ortega T (ed) (2019) Feminismo popular y territorios en resistencia: La lucha de las mujeres en la
zona de sacrificio Quintero-Puchuncaví. Fundación Emerge, Fundación Heinrich Böll Stiftung,
Santiago
Ramírez H (2019) Contexto territorial y problemática ambiental de la zona Quintero y Puchuncaví,
una zona de sacrificio. En Ortega T (ed) Feminismo popular y territorios en resistencia: La lucha
de las mujeres en la zona de sacrificio Quintero-Puchuncaví. Fundación Emerge, Fundación
Heinrich Böll Stiftung, Santiago, pp 12–27
Seguel A (2019) Andacollo saturado: La contaminación de la mega minería en el norte chico de
Chile. Radio del Mar, 18 de octubre. https://www.radiodelmar.cl/2019/10/andacollo-saturado-la-
contaminacion-de-la-mega-mineria-en-el-norte-chico-de-chile/. Accesed 30 Apr 2020
Svampa M, Viale E (2014) Maldesarrollo. La Argentina del extractivismo y el despojo. Katz
Editores, Buenos Aires
Stein E, Tommasi M (2006) The politics of policies. Política Y Gobierno 13(2):393–416
Tapia L (2009) La coyuntura de la autonomía relativa del estado. Muela del diablo editores, La Paz
TERRAM (2018) La negligente realidad de la bahía de Quintero. Publicaciones Fundación
TERRAM. 31, Santiago
Toro D (2017) Propuestas para la regulación jurídica de pasivos ambientales mineros: casos de
relaves de Chañaral y Andacollo. Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Tesis para optar al grado de
magíster en derecho ambiental
Vivanco E (2019) Recomendaciones de primera comisión investigadora Puchuncaví-Quintero 2011.
Asesoría Técnica Parlamentaria. Biblioteca Congreso Nacional
Zenteno A (2013) La dura lucha contra los relaves que está dando sus frutos. El Día, 22 de
septiembre. http://www.diarioeldia.cl/region/dura-lucha-contra-relaves-que-esta-dando-sus-fru
tos?fbclid=IwAR3j3r4qpznk5LtmXcQnohw7rhNJL2E5_a_fugZTK-n-gCZ0QGJHwhIBBuU.
Accessed 30 Jun 2020
Tamara Ortega-Uribe PhD candidate, Politics Department, University of California, Santa Cruz,
USA.
Tamara Ortega Uribe is a sociologist with a Master’s degree in History, and is currently a
Ph.D. student in Politics. Her work focuses on socio-environmental conflicts in Latin America,
and glocal environmental politics. She is a member of the Research Cluster on Critical Cultural
Political Economy of Extractivism at UCSC.
The Communication of Territoriality
in a Mining Conflict
Andrew Boni Noguez and Michael K. McCall
Abstract In this chapter we analyse the role played by maps in communicating and
deploying territoriality in the context of a mining conflict. The analysis follows the
recent conflict and social movement against mining in Wirikuta, an area in northern
Mexico considered sacred land by the Huichol (wixarika) indigenous people. We
base our analysis on Robert Sack’s definition of territoriality as ‘an attempt by an
individual or group to affect, influence, or control people, phenomena, and relation-
ships, by delimiting and asserting control over a geographic area’ and specifically on
how this attempt is communicated, cartographically and otherwise. A central element
of this communication is the ‘official’ and pre-existing map of the Wirikuta natural
protected area, established some 15 years prior to the beginning of the conflict.
Actors on both sides of the conflict built their arguments on this map to promote
their interests—to enforce their territoriality. Thus, two conflicting territorialities are
based on a single agreed-upon cartographic representation of the disputed land. This
is in contrast to other land conflicts, where so-called ‘counter-maps’ are produced by
actors on either side of the conflict as a tool to challenge or question the legitimacy of
the other’s map and claims on the land. This case illustrates both the advantages and
disadvantages of the use of a single ‘authoritative’ map whose legitimacy is mutually
acknowledged by opposing parties in a land conflict.
Keywords Mexico · Wirikuta · Territoriality · Mining · Maps · Counter-maps ·

Indigenous land claims
A. Boni Noguez (B)

División de Ingenierías, Universidad de Guanajuato, Guanajuato, Mexico
M. K. McCall
Morelia, Mexico
178 A. Boni Noguez and M. K. McCall
1 Introduction
The objective of this chapter is to analyse the role played by cartographic representa-
tion as a form of communicating and legitimizing territorial claims in the context of
a territorial conflict. We address this through a case analysis of a recent conflict over
a proposed mining project in the Wirikuta indigenous region of northern Mexico.
In his work on human territoriality, Robert Sack defines territoriality as ‘an attempt
by an individual or group to affect, influence, or control people, phenomena, and rela-
tionships, by delimiting and asserting control over a geographic area’ (Sack 1986,
p.19; see also Elden 2010; Sandoval López et al. 2017). These areal or ‘spatial
strategies’, he continues, all have in common three defining attributes: (1) territo-
riality involves ‘classification by area’; (2) territoriality must be communicated in
order for it to be deployed; and (3) to be effective, territoriality must involve some
sort of attempt to control access to an area and/or its contents. A land conflict can thus
be understood as a struggle to impose control over a certain area by means of spatial
strategies of control, that is, by the formation of territories, or territorialization.
In our analysis, we address the role of cartographic representation as a key
modality for the various conflictive actors to communicate their interpretations and
demands on territoriality. We focus our analysis on public, published (authorita-
tive) forms of cartographic representation (maps) which were highly significant
in the narratives and argumentative discourses throughout the conflict. As in any
language, communication through maps can only be achieved through an agreed-
upon code: what items can be mapped, who is entitled to contribute to the map
and how can the items be represented (on a map or by other means) (Harley 1992;
McCall 2021; Rambaldi 2005; Rundstrom 1995). This involves not only the insti-
tutional and cultural ‘rules’ by which cartographic representation is carried out but
also the technical capabilities and limitations involved in their production. The rules
form a common language through which communication about the geography of the
place can continue between those involved in the conflict.
2 The Huichol and Their Ceremonial Territoriality
The Huichol, known also as wixaritari, are an indigenous group settled in western
Mexico. Most of the Huichol (45,000 by a recent official estimation; INEGI 2009)
live in dispersed communities in the highlands of the states of Nayarit and Jalisco,
half of whom are settled within a 4,000 km2 area (Rojas 1993). Especially within
this area, the Huichol maintain traditional economic, social and cultural ways of life,
which is not to say they exist in isolation from the non-indigenous sectors of society.
The Huichol territory, however, extends far beyond these lands. Five cardinal
points define the Huichol ceremonial territory or kiekari: Teekata represents the
centre, while Xapawiyeme, Tatei Haramara, Hauxamanaka and Wirikuta lie beyond
their habitual territory (Fig. 1). These sites represent the foundational elements of
The Communication of Territoriality in a Mining Conflict 179
Fig. 1 Wirikuta, the Huichol homeland and the five cardinal points of the Huichol ceremonial
territory (sources: Liffman (2005) and INEGI (2009))
the Huichol people—each family group, community and the Huichol as a whole
trace their lineages back to these sites linking other intermediate landmarks that are
the embodiments of their collective ancestors (Liffman 2005). These connections
are ritually reaffirmed and literally retraced by means of ceremonial pilgrimages
to the five cardinal points, or rather sites that constitute the primordial elements of
Huichol cosmovision. The kiekari thus not only involves the material (natural and
cultural) elements of the landscape but also the spiritual and communal connections
established through them. It is this connectedness with and through the holistic
landscape, rather than well-defined borders that best captures the essence of the
kiekari as a territorial construction.
Huichol ontology relates to the holistic connectedness of elements of nature and
human culture, of visible and invisible forces, material and immaterial categories, and
‘natural facts’ and spiritual beliefs. The implications for geographical territoriality
include ‘geosymbols’ in the landscape and the significance of cardinal points or
places, highly symbolic landscapes and especially sacred mountains, water springs
or caves for which language and terminology form an integral framing. Common to
many peoples are regular pilgrimages associated with symbolic landscapes and with
sacred ceremonies. These ontologies belong to indigenous peoples and also to any
community long-settled in a particular landscape. There are relevant explorations into
Native American cosmovisions by, e.g., Barabas (2014) in Oaxaca, the classic study
of Basso’s (1996) Wisdom Sits in Places with Apache peoples, Pearce and Louis’s
(2008) ‘depth of place’ in Hawaii, and Wartmann (2016) in Bolivian Amazonia.
Wirikuta, the most distant of the Huichol cardinal points (more than 400 km to
the east) holds a particular significance as the place where the sun rose for the first
time bringing balance and order to the world (Gutiérrez 2002; Liffman 2011). Every
year during the dry season, groups from each of the Huichol communities set out on
pilgrimages to Wirikuta. The pilgrimage is a complex ritual involving penance and
communion with the ancestors. After performing a series of propitiatory rituals at
sacred sites along the way, the pilgrimage culminates on the dry plain of Wirikuta
with the ascent of Reunari mountain and the harvesting and consumption of the
peyote cactus.
In a modern cadastral worldview external to that of the Huichol, Wirikuta lies
mostly within Catorce municipality, Reunari mountain is called Cerro Quemado,
and the best-known settlement there is the old mining town of Real de Catorce
(Fig. 2). Real de Catorce was founded around 1772, soon after rich silver veins
were discovered by Spanish explorers. Following the usual boom and bust cycles of
Fig. 2 The scene of the conflict

mining, the town was nearly depopulated in the mid-twentieth century but has re-
emerged as a popular alternative tourist destination leveraging the colonial mining
history and the proximity of indigenous cultures and landscapes including peyote.
Although some mining persisted into the 1990s, it was by then an intermittent and
rather small-scale operation, until it was announced that the old underground silver
mine of Santa Ana was to be reactivated as the La Luz mining project by the Canadian
mining company, First Majestic Silver.
3 The Conflict of Wirikuta
Soon after news of the proposed new mining project broke out, members of the
Huichol communities and their non-indigenous allies assembled and made a public
denunciation in September 2010 (see Table 1 for a timeline of the conflict). That first
public statement (Autoridades Tradicionales y Agrarias del Pueblo Wixárika 2010)
called for the cancellation of all mining concessions within Wirikuta. This opposition
was aimed mainly at the La Luz mining project, which was a plan to reactivate an
underground silver mine last open in the early 1990s. The La Luz project is located
only two kilometres from Real de Catorce and five-and-a-half kilometres from Cerro
Quemado, though not in the dry plains where the peyote harvest and other ceremonial
practices take place as part of the pilgrimage.
The movement organized itself under the name of Frente en Defensa de Wirikuta
(FDW, Front for the Defence of Wirikuta), the core of which was made up of leading
members of Huichol communities, assisted by numerous non-indigenous individuals
and groups, local, national and even international. Soon the movement gained traction
and grew by attracting the sympathies of non-Huichol and non-indigenous sectors
of Mexican society. Ultimately, opposition to the mine carried the day through a
judicial injunction issued in early 2012 (Enciso 2012) which effectively suspended
all mining operations in the area; the decision still stands. The conflict carried on for
a few more years due to local support for the mine (mainly owing to a strong mining
Table 1 Timeline of the conflict over Wirikuta

Date Event
1994 Wirikuta ANP is first established
2000 Wirikuta ANP boundaries are redefined to their current form
September 2010 The ‘Pronouncement in defense of Wirikuta’ is put out against First
Majestic’s mining project in Wirikuta
February 2012 Judge rules a (still standing) provisional suspension of all mining
activities in Wirikuta
May 2012 The ‘National Mining Reserve’ is decreed
October–November 2012 Project to ‘upgrade’ the Wirikuta ANP to biosphere reserve status
and federal jurisdiction
tradition among many local households), the company’s reluctance to withdraw the
project and the knowledge of other exploration projects in the area (which have since
been cancelled). For more detailed accounts and analysis of the conflict, see Boni
et al. (2015), Gámez (2015) and Guzmán and Kindle (2016).
In contrast to other contemporary anti-mining movements in Mexico which were
characterized by violent confrontations (from road blockades to murder), the conflict
over Wirikuta stands out for its relative tranquillity, high media visibility and the legal
actions taken by the involved parties. It is these last aspects that made cartographic
representation a primary focus of attention.
The conflict over Wirikuta was not only a conflict over boundaries (though, as
will be shown, delimitation played a key role). It was the essential cosmological,
holistic nature of the land itself that was in dispute. It was not a conflict of how
the landscape’s elements were arranged, or where the borders were drawn, but what
these elements are. The defenders of Wirikuta described its cultural and religious
importance, thus:
Our prayers in Wirikuta are to sustain the lives of all the living creatures of the planet, to keep
our ancient Wixárika culture from vanishing, to renew the keys of knowledge and the candles
of life that give meaning to our Wixárika identity (Autoridades Tradicionales y Agrarias del
Pueblo Wixárika 2010).
its immanent connection with nature:

[…] its hills, its semi-desert plain, its trails and landscapes, the soil where the peyote grows,
the peyote itself, every rock, every water spring, every tree, every plant and every creature
that inhabits it—it is all part of its sacredness’ (FDW 2012a)
and the relevance of Wirikuta for Huichol survival as a culture:

Wirikuta is […] the fundamental base of our communal familial life. […] Without Wirikuta
we die as a people (CRWDW 2013).
These and many more descriptions are expressed in the Huichols’ own terms and
categories.1 They served to deliver to civil society and policy-makers, and ultimately
to the judicial system, the essence of what Wirikuta is. In the terms of Sack’s territo-
rial framework, such a description and characterization correspond to the attribute of
‘classification by area’. Furthermore, the physical-symbolic place(s) to which these
classifications refer, must by necessity, be communicated clearly to outsiders. There-
fore, throughout the conflict, the spatial definition of the disputed area was based on
a specific pre-existing cartographic representation—a map, namely that defined in
the Wirikuta Área Natural Protegida (ANP).
1 Such references to indigenous cosmologies of earth beings and an intimacy with a living Earth
is a recurring theme in similar confrontations, and has been examined by De la Cadena (2015) and
Escobar (2016).
4 The Authoritative ‘Official Map’
The area, officially named as ‘Área Natural Protegida Sitio Sagrado Natural de
Wirikuta y la Ruta Histórico Cultural del Pueblo Wixárika’, was established by
the San Luis Potosí state government in 1994 after members of Huichol commu-
nities in alliance with environmental NGOs mobilized to block a project to expand
the main road running through Wirikuta (Otegui 2003). The boundaries (Fig. 3)
were re-defined by state decree in 2000 and its zoning scheme was delineated in the
2008 Management Plan (Medellín 2008). It was this updated map that was used to
demarcate Wirikuta during the conflict.
In essence, this map involves spatial delimitation—that is setting the boundaries—
and classification—that is the rules for use and access to resources within each sub-
division defined in the area’s zoning scheme. A brief outline of the Wirikuta ANP as
a cartographic representation is given in the following sections.
4.1 The Boundaries
The original 1994 boundaries were established hastily, sacrificing precision in favour
of expedience, presumably in order to prevent the road expansion that had originally
triggered the establishment of the ANP. As per the decree (Poder Ejecutivo del
Estado de San Luis Potosí 1994) a seven-sided 737 km2 polygon defined a general
‘intermediate area’, with nine small ‘core zones’ (ranging from 142 to 2217 m2 )
surrounding the most culturally significant sites, some within and others beyond the
perimeter of the intermediate area.
The imprecisions of the 1994 boundaries were corrected in a decree in 2000
(Poder Ejecutivo del estado de San Luis Potosí 2000) which defined a 171-vertex
polygon with UTM coordinates that expanded the original boundaries to cover 1402
km2 . Although the criteria by which these boundaries were set remained undisclosed,
the cartographic rigour with which they are described allowed for an unambiguous
definition of the area’s extent.
4.2 Internal Sub-Divisions: The Zoning Scheme
In accordance with Mexican environmental law (SEMARNAT 2000), the decree only
establishes the main boundaries of the ANP, leaving the internal zoning scheme to be
defined as part of the area’s Management Plan (Medellín 2008). The main ‘core zone’
within the area, i.e. the most restrictive one, covers the wooded (and best-preserved)
summit of the Catorce mountain range. The area occupied by the Cerro Quemado, the
culminating place of the Huichol pilgrimage comprises a small polygon also classed
Fig. 3 The Wirikuta ANP zoning, and current and proposed boundaries (sources: Medellín (2008)
and CONANP (2012a))
as a core zone. The rest of the area is zoned as a ‘buffer zone’, which is further sub-
zoned according to different forms of sustainable ecosystem management: ‘tradi-
tional use’, ‘sustainable use of natural resources’ and ‘agro-ecological use’. Two
more types of sub-zones were defined: Restoration and Special Use. Restoration
sub-zones are areas that have been disturbed by past activities, including mining.
The Special Use sub-zones are, very significantly, areas where mining is declared
permissible.
The methods and criteria that were involved in defining the area’s zoning scheme
are detailed in the Management Plan. Giving legitimacy to the zoning scheme, the
authors of the Management Plan state that the methodology used to define the zoning
scheme combined technical criteria and local participation. They highlight that the
criteria of ‘state of conservation, biodiversity, vulnerability, current and potential
land uses, marginalization index, population density, and environmental liabilities’
were all used to define sub-zones (Medellín 2008, p.210).
5 Wielding the Official Map
Diverse modes of communication were involved in constructing a public represen-

tation of the ‘space’ of Wirikuta. This wide-ranging communication strategy by
the FDW proved successful in broadening support from non-indigenous and urban
sections of Mexican civil society (Liffman 2012), and ultimately this contributed to
their success (Boni et al. 2015). Written statements, proclamations and open letters
to the Mexican President and other government officials described and justified in
the most detailed manner the foundational cosmological nature of Wirikuta and to
make the case for opposition to the mining project. The movement also had a very
vocal performative aspect, characterized not only by public protests but also highly
organized events like a public ritual enactment in Cerro Quemado (Ferrer 2012) and
a massive Huichol-themed rock festival in Mexico City that brought elements of
Huichol culture to the general public (Caballero 2012). Visual content, published on
the FDW website, and further spread through diverse electronic media, was highly
diverse, an important part of which was the maps.
Virtually all the cartographic representations were based on the ANP map, easily
reproduced (as in Fig. 3) with the geographic coordinates used to define it. The
ever-present bounding polygon of the Wirikuta ANP was the cartographic backdrop
for diverse arguments against the mine, including the mine’s proximity to the most
sacred site of Cerro Quemado, the almost total coverage of the Wirikuta ANP by
the mining claims and the presence of depleted aquifers in the area (Autoridades
Tradicionales y Agrarias del Pueblo Wixárika 2010; FDW 2012b).
Thus, the official boundaries of Wirikuta became the reference for all cartographic
representations of Wirikuta. In the first public pronouncement, it was claimed that the
mining project ‘violated what was established in the Wirikuta Natural Protected Area
(ANP) management plan and covers almost 70% of the mine concession’ (Autori-
dades Tradicionales y Agrarias del Pueblo Wixárika 2010). In an open letter to the
Mexican President, one of three demands was to ‘cancel mining concessions in the
Wirikuta Natural Protected Area’ (Carta al presidente Calderón 2011).
The advantages of citing the Wirikuta ANP instead of the place Wirikuta itself
went beyond only having visually clear and objectively set boundaries. Perhaps most
evidently it offered the legally sanctioned territorial designation of a natural protected
area established under Mexican environmental laws and regulations. This made it
impossible to question the validity of its boundaries and its very existence.
This also offered scientifically sanctioned support for a technical assessment of
threats and impacts. Thus, thanks to cartographically proficient allies, from the start it
was established that First Majestic’s 22 mining concessions within Wirikuta covered
no less than 6,326 ha (Autoridades Tradicionales y Agrarias del Pueblo Wixárika
2010).
Furthermore, the very category of an ANP, a ‘natural protected area’, helped
support the characterization of Wirikuta as not only a culturally but also an ecolog-
ically significant and singular site, worthy of preservation. This was exemplified in
the various declarations that Wirikuta’s biodiversity is one of its inherent traits.
Wirikuta is the zone with the highest biodiversity in the Chihuahua desert, for which reason
this sacred territory is considered among those of highest biodiversity in the world
[…]
Considering the region’s physiographic and biological characteristics, this zone’s ecosystem
is extremely fragile, the balance of which would be disrupted by the alterations caused by
mining (CRWDW 2013).
What is more, this allowed for the establishment of an interdependent link between
the natural and the sacred:
Territory [in an indigenous conception] integrates all elements of life in their full natural and
spiritual diversity: the land with its diversity of soils, ecosystems and forests, the diversity of
animals and plants, rivers, lagoons and estuaries. Natural ecosystems are considered by the
indigenous peoples as the habitat of their deities, who are the protectors of life’s diversity
and who keep the balance and integrity of the forests, rivers, lagoons, and the fertility of
the soil, which allow plants and animals to reproduce (Autoridades Tradicionales, Civiles y
Agrarias del Pueblo Wixárika 2012).
In this narrative of Wirikuta as a ‘bio-cultural’ whole, the natural cannot be

explained without the sacred, nor the other way around. Huichol imaginaries, narra-
tives and discourses seamlessly connect culture and nature in the ‘depth of place’
(Pearce and Louis 2008; c.f. Barabbas 2014, Basso 1996, Wartmann 2016).
Mapping the ANP provided another though less palpable advantage. It allowed
the true (and perhaps shifting) boundaries of what is, by the Huichol communities,
actually regarded as ‘Wirikuta’ to be kept secure and secret to outsiders. This perhaps
explains why there were no visible efforts to delineate and formalize a self-defined
traditional territory.2
2 In New Zealand, Maori communities developed GIS functionalities so that their confidential and
sacred geographies of places and sites (GIS layers) could remain invisible or with controlled access
(Harmsworth 1998).
This official map also acted as shielding of sorts for the Frente, because the image
that the map represents is only that of a protected area and not the ‘real’ Wirikuta.
Although the limits of the ANP are precisely defined, they might only be a fuzzy
approximation of the ‘true’ boundaries that are known only to those initiated in the
ritual pilgrimage. The map is official enough for use in judicial proceedings and for
supporting scientific arguments, but it is not detailed enough to disclose the actual
location of specific sacred sites within the area. The official map thus served as a
proxy for the ‘real’ Wirikuta, which remained unmapped (cf. Harmsworth 1998, and
others).
The overarching advantage of this ‘official’ map was arguably its acceptability
by all actors. In social communication terms, the map acted as a boundary object
(Harvey and Chrisman 1998). In contrast to land conflicts where ‘counter maps’ are
a weapon in struggles for land rights, in the conflict over Wirikuta, there was no
dispute over the validity of the map. This resulted in it being used also as a tool both
by the mine’s proponents and by its opponents.
6 An Offer of Land
The anti-mining actors were not the only ones to take advantage of the official map
of Wirikuta. The initial response from First Majestic and other mine supporters
was to affirm that the mining company had full legal rights to initiate operations in
Wirikuta since it was located within the so-called ‘Special Use sub-zones’ that allow
mining inside an ANP. This type of zoning unit is defined in Mexican environmental
law as ‘generally small areas which contain natural resources that are essential to
social development, and that must be exploited without disturbing the ecosystem
or substantially modifying the landscape, nor causing irreversible environmental
impacts on the natural elements that conform them’ (SEMARNAT 2000 art. 49).
Special Use sub-zones are used extensively in zoning schemes across Mexico to
render mining and other industrial activities permissible within natural protected
areas. The irony is that the official map used in the case against mining in Wirikuta
also contained the very arguments to support mining.
As noted, the opponents of mining in Wirikuta did not abandon the common
platform that was constituted by the official map. Instead, they highlighted the omis-
sions in Mexican environmental law regarding the use of underground resources. The
zoning and sub-zoning units defined in the relevant legislation (SEMARNAT 2000)
are described only in terms of use and access to the surface. The FDW and its allies
argued that First Majestic’s project involved mining well beyond the permissible
sub-zones through its underground workings. This argument was strongly supported
by the unitary ‘nature-culture’ cosmovisions of Wirikuta cited above (‘every rock,
every water spring, …’).
On 24 May 2012, the Federal Government wielded one more spatial strategy
to defuse the opponents’ demands and ease the way for First Majestic. In a well-
publicized event, the Federal Government announced the establishment of a ‘National
Mining Reserve’ of 45,000 hectares in Wirikuta. The term mining reserve in the
Mexican Mining Code (Ley Minera art. 12 bis) refers to land that is not available
to be claimed as a commercial mining concession; in practical terms, it is a mining
claim that the state keeps for itself. As the Secretary of the Interior declared, this
National Mining Reserve was to be ‘an area free of mineral exploitation, in which
no more mining concessions could ever be issued’ (Poiré 2012). Most significantly,
the newly established National Mining Reserve included a 761-hectare block ceded
by First Majestic in an area adjacent to the Cerro Quemado, arguably the single-
most-important sacred site within Wirikuta. This was rejected by the FDW, who
argued that the concessions allowing First Majestic’s operations to move forward
remained untouched and therefore did nothing in regard to the environmental impacts
expected from the mining operation. Indeed, excluding the 761 hectares ceded by
First Majestic, the bulk of the National Mining Reserve consisted of lands unclaimed
by First Majestic or any other mining company (and therefore of no apparent mining
potential). Moreover, the Frente argued the Mining Reserve was made solely in a
mining rights framework, not in a cultural and environmental rights framework:
‘These lands have been reserved in recognition of the current mining law and not
in recognition of the rights we claim’ (FDW 2012b). The acceptance of the Mining
Reserve ran against the fundamental holistic nature of Wirikuta as an indivisible
entity (Fig. 4).
The National Mining Reserve was established by the Federal Government in
2012, and it can be interpreted as an attempt to show support for the Frente’s cause
while not interfering with the mine project. This attempt did not deliver the govern-
ment’s expectations of allowing the mining project to move forward and it ended up
appearing more like a disingenuous effort to gain bona fides regarding indigenous
peoples’ rights. The National Mining Reserve however serves to illustrate the extent
to which cartographic representation was involved in the deployment of territoriality
in the conflict. By this time, the mining project had already been provisionally halted
by a federal judge (Enciso 2012), and the federal (presidential) administration was
entering its final six months. However, one more attempt to allow mining in Wirikuta
was going to be deployed by the Federal Government.
Fig. 4 The National Mining Reserve and claims (with data from FDW (2012b))
7 A Final Attempt to Mine Wirikuta
One final strategy deployed by the Federal Government, made in direct response to
one of the movement’s central demands, was to re-establish the Wirikuta ANP under
federal, rather than state, jurisdiction. The draft for the decree (CONANP 2012a)
that would establish this new ANP was made public in late October 2012. Under the
proposed ANP the boundaries of the current ANP would be expanded (from 1402
to 1915 km2 ) and all mining activities (including First Majestic’s project) would be
prohibited throughout, doing away with the Special Use sub-zones.
The approval of this proposal would have implied the establishment of a new
‘official’ map, and thus a new, different base for territoriality—a different spatial
strategy to control space. However, it did not yield the desired results. When the
technical study (CONANP 2012b) made in support of the proposed decree surfaced
soon after, the zoning scheme therein maintained two of the three Special Use sub-
zones of the current ANP (including the sub-zone corresponding to First Majestic’s
project). This uncertainty, coupled with the fact that no thorough consultation was
made in the design of the new ANP, led to its rejection by the Frente and their allies
(FDW 2012c).
This was the last attempt by the Federal Government to aid First Majestic in
pursuing its mining project in Wirikuta. Ultimately, the provisional judicial order
emitted earlier that year, 2012, (Enciso 2012), prohibiting all mining activities in
Wirikuta, was maintained. To this day, it still bars mining throughout Wirikuta—that
is throughout the Wirikuta ANP.
8 Final Remarks
The contestations over Wirikuta are essentially a territorial conflict, like many in
which indigenous and rural communities oppose the encroachment of mining or
otherwise extractive projects upon their territory. In this sense, it adds to the ongoing
global push to stop, reform or at least question the current ever-expanding trend of
resource extraction and land transformations.
More specifically, this case resonates strongly with other conflicts and social
movements in Latin America that seek to restore or establish cultural and territorial
rights of indigenous groups by treating territories and landscapes as the realms of
earth beings (De la Cadena 2010); thus in some sense the conflict is ontological.
The arguments over who owns the land, or what ought, or ought not, to be done
within its boundaries hinges on what this land is. The indigenous claims are based
on an ontology of human-land, or culture-nature, relationships—depth of place and
ethnophysiography. The claims of the miners and their allies are based on a ‘modern’
ontology of the identification and classification of space.
At another, more concrete, level the conflict can be seen as a dispute centred on
an agreed-upon cartographic representation of the land. At this level, the ontological
differences give way to the more practical—and modern—aspects of the dispute:
law, cadastres, property rights, mining claims, zoning schemes on the one hand,
and on another, the tactical alliances made among disparate groups of actors and
the skilful use of contemporary social media. We have shown that accepting this
commonly approved map brought both advantages and disadvantages to both sides
of the conflict. Specifically, the ANP map allowed the Frente to withhold the true,
extensive and fuzzy boundaries of the ‘real’ Wirikuta while having a technically and
legally sanctioned delimitation of an area called Wirikuta. On the other side, this very
map made unambiguous the legal authorization for First Majestic to carry on with
its mining project. Alternatively, the absence or rejection of the mutually accepted
map by any actor in the conflict would have made the conflict dissolve into a dispute
over the representation.
Finally, however, the ontological dimension of the conflict resurfaced and might
have played a part in the judge’s decision to forestall mining in Wirikuta. Was it the
Frente’s claim that Wirikuta is ‘something more than what the map was showing’ that
outweighed First Majestic’s legally sanctioned rights? Although the decision did not
reach the level of granting legal rights to earth beings themselves, as in other regions
of Latin America, the conflict over Wirikuta might signal a shift in that direction.
The use of maps in the conflict over Wirikuta highlights the centrality of Sack’s
three attributes of territoriality as spatial strategies. The first, classification by area,
was at the centre of the conflict both at the ontological level (what Wirikuta is) and the
practical dimensions (how the land is classified according to the agreed-upon spatial
representation as an ANP). The second attribute, communication of territoriality, was
achieved by both sides of the conflict by visual/cartographic, verbal, and performative
forms of representation. The third attribute, enforcement of territoriality, can be seen
to have been attained by the Frente in winning the legal fight over Wirikuta. However,
the conditions for this had been set from the outset with the use of the authoritative
‘official’ ANP map mutually accepted by both sides in the conflict as the legitimate
representation of Wirikuta.
References
Autoridades Tradicionales y Agrarias del Pueblo Wixárika (2010) ‘Pronunciamiento en defensa

de Wirikuta’ (public statement). http://frenteendefensadewirikuta.org/wirikuta/?page_id=27.
Accessed 23 Sep 2010
Barabas AM (2014) La territorialidad indígena en el México contemporáneo. Chungara, Revista
De Antropología Chilena 46(3):437–452
Basso KH (1996) Wisdom sits in places: landscape and language among the Western Apache.
University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque NM
Boni A, Garibay C, McCall MK (2015) Sustainable mining, indigenous rights and conservation:
conflict and discourse in Wirikuta/Catorce, San Luis Potosi, Mexico. GeoJournal 80:759–780.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-014-9593-3
Caballero J (2012) En defensa de Wirikuta, 60 mil cantaron en el Foro Sol. La Jornada, p 34. 27 de
mayo de 2012
Carta al presidente Calderón (2011) (open letter signed by representatives of Huichol communities).
http://frenteendefensadewirikuta.org/wirikuta/?p=1757. Accessed 23 Oct 2011
CONANP (Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas) (2012a) Proyecto de decreto: Reserva
de la Biósfera Wirikuta. (Draft decree: 22 October 2012). www.conanp.gob.mx/contenido/pdf/
proyecto_Decreto_RB_Wirikuta_22oct2012.pdf. Accessed 14 March 2014
CONANP (Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas) (2012b) Estudio previo justificativo
para el establecimiento del área natural protegida Reserva de la Biósfera “Wirikuta” en el estado
de San Luis Potosí.Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas, Mexico City. www.con
anp.gob.mx/anp/consulta/EPJ%20Wirikuta_%2012oct%20polign%20194%20mil%20csi.pdf
CRWDW (Consejo Regional Wixárika por la Defensa de Wirikuta) (2013) ‘Segunda carta urgente
al presidente de México, los pueblos y gobiernos del mundo’ (public letter to the President of
the Republic). Accessed http://frenteendefensadewirikuta.org/wirikuta/?p=3665. Accessed 8 Feb
2013
De la Cadena M (2010) Indigenous cosmopolitics in the Andes: conceptual reflections beyond
‘politics.’ Cult Anthropol 25(2):334–370
De la Cadena M (2015) Earth beings: ecologies of practice across Andean worlds. Duke University
Press, Durham NC
Elden S (2010) Land, terrain, territory. Prog Hum Geogr 34(6):799–817
Enciso A (2012) Ordenan a mineras suspender actividades en la zona sagrada huichol de Wirikuta.
La Jornada, p 41. Accessed 28 Feb 2012
Escobar A (2016) Thinking-feeling with the Earth: territorial struggles and the ontological dimen-
sion of the epistemologies of the South. AIBR. Revista De Antropología Iberoamericana
11(1):11–32
Ferrer M (2012) Cientos de wixaritari hablaron toda la madrugada con sus dioses en el cerro. La
Jornada, 8 de febrero de 2012, p. 42.
FDW (Frente en Defensa de Wirikuta) (2012a) Consideraciones acerca de las Convenciones sobre
la Protección del Patrimonio Cultural y Natural, y la de Salvaguarda del Patrimonio Cultural
Inmaterial de la UNESCO (public statement). http://frenteendefensadewirikuta.org/wirikuta/?p=
2582. Accessed 20 March 2012
FDW (Frente en Defensa de Wirikuta) (2012b) La creación de la Reserva Minera Nacional no
resuelve el problema de las concesiones mineras y agroindustriales en Wirikuta (web post).
http://frenteendefensadewirikuta.org/wirikuta/?p=3228
FDW (Frente en Defensa de Wirikuta) (2012c) Posicionamiento sobre el estudio técnico justificativo
para la creación de la reserva de la biósfera de Wirikuta y su proyecto de decreto (online document).
http://frenteendefensadewirikuta.org/wirikuta/?p=3530. Accessed 3 Nov 2012
Gámez M (ed) (2015) Minería y capital transnacional sobre un territorio en riesgo. Análisis inter-
disciplinario sobre el sitio sagrado natural de Wirikuta. El Colegio de San Luis, San Luis
Potosí
Gutiérrez A (2002) La peregrinación a Wirikuta: El gran rito de paso de los huicholes. Instituto
Nacional de Antropología e Historia y Universidad de Guadalajara, Cd, de México y Guadalajara
Guzmán M, Kindle O (2016) Cosmopolítica versus etnonacionalismo. Conflictos en torno a usos
rituales del espacio en Wirikuta. Relaciones Estudios de Historia y Sociedad. 152:217–265. http://
www.revistarelaciones.com/index.php/relaciones/article/view/REHS15208
Harley JB (1992) Reconstructing the map. In: Barnes TJ, Duncan JS (eds) (1992) Writing worlds:
Discourse, text and metaphor in the representation of landscape. Routledge, London, pp 231–247
Harmsworth G (1998) Indigenous values and GIS: a method and a framework. Indigenous Knowl
Dev Monitor 6(3):3–7. http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/research/social/ikdmpap.asp
Harvey F, Chrisman N (1998) Boundary objects and the social construction of GIS technology.
Environ Plan A 30(9):1683–1694
INEGI (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía) (2009) Perfil sociodemográfico de la
población que habla lengua indígena. Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía, Aguas-
calientes
Liffman P (2005) Fuegos, guías y raíces: Estructuras cosmológicas y procesos históricos en la
territorialidad huichol. Relaciones 101:53–79
Liffman P (2011) Huichol territory and the Mexican nation: indigenous ritual, land conflict, and
sovereignty claims. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AR
Liffman P (2012) Wirikuta: minas, indígenas y medios masivos’ (entrada de blog) en Con-ciencia
(blog). http://blogs.eluniversal.com.mx/weblogs_detalle16846.html. Accessed 7 Aug 2012
McCall MK (2021) Participatory mapping and PGIS: secerning facts and values, representation and
representativity. IJEPR Int J E-Planning Res 10(3):105–123
Medellin P (ed) (2008) Plan de manejo. Área natural protegida sitio sagrado natural “Huiricuta y
la ruta histórico-cultural del pueblo huichol”. Gobierno del Estado de San Luis Potosí, San Luis
Potosí
Otegui M (2003) Wirikuta: The Wixarika/Huichol sacred natural site in the Chihuahuan Desert,
San Luis Potosi, Mexico. In: Harmon D (ed) The full value of parks: from economics to the
intangible. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham MD, pp 295–310
Pearce MW, Louis RP (2008) Mapping indigenous depth of place. Am Indian Cult Res J 32(3):107–
126
Poder Ejecutivo del estado de San Luis Potosí (1994) Decreto administrativo que declara sitio de
patrimonio histórico, cultural y zona de conservación ecológica del grupo étnico Wirrarika, los
lugares sagrados y la ruta histórico cultural ubicados en los municipios e Villa de Ramos, Charcas
y Catorce del Estado. Periódico official. Accessed 22 Sep 1994
Poder Ejecutivo del estado de San Luis Potosí (2000) Decreto. Periódico official. Accessed 22 Sep
1994
Poiré A (2012) Palabras del secretario de gobernación durante el evento de preservación y
protección de los sitios sagrados del pueblo [sic] de Wirikuta’ (speech transcript). http://www.
presidencia.gob.mx/2012/05/palabras-del-secretario-de-gobernacion-durante-el-evento-de-pre
servacion-y-proteccion-de-los-sitios-sagrados-del-pueblo-de-wirikuta/. Accessed 24 May 2012
Rambaldi G (2005) Who owns the map legend? URISA J 17(1):5–13. http://www.urisa.org/Jou
rnal/JrnlContents17-1.htm
Rojas B (1993) Los huicholes en la historia. Centro de Estudios Mexicanos y Centroamericanos/El
Colegio de Michoacán/Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Cd. de México
Rundstrom RA (1995) GIS, indigenous peoples and epistemological diversity. Cartography & GIS
22(1):45–57
Sack R (1986) Human territoriality. Cambridge University Press, London
Sandoval López MF, Robertsdotter A, Paredes M (2017) Space, power, and locality: the
contemporary use of Territorio in Latin American geography. J Lat Am Geogr 16(1):43–67
SEMARNAT (Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales) (2000) Reglamento de la Ley
General del Equilibrio Ecológico y la Protección al Ambiente en materia de áreas naturales
protegidas. Diario Oficial de la Federación. Accessed 30 Nov 2000
Wartmann F (2016) From space to place in the Bolivian Amazon: exploring and representing
folk landscape categories with ethnographic and GIS approaches. Claudia Wartmann Natürlich,
Oberengstringen, CH

Guanajuato, Mexico.

Participatory Mapping: Supporting
Community Identity Through a Focus
on Territory. An Indigenous Tupiniquim
Community in Espírito Santo, Brazil
Maria Elisa Tosi Roquette and Michael K. McCall
Abstract This chapter investigates the trajectory and impacts of territorial conflicts
emerging from an attempt to establish a steel industry in the indigenous Tupiniquim
community of Chapada do Á, Anchieta municipality, Espírito Santo state, as a part
of Brazil’s late twentieth century strategy of capitalist development. This conflict
with a powerful external actor stimulated resistance built on identity and territori-
ality in the community. In the face of the possible total loss of their territory, the
Chapada do Á community self-identified as indigenous and they remained resistant
to being relocated. The history of the community has seen a slow process of exter-
nally powered deterritorialization, both in terms of the dislocation or alienation from
land and in cultural erosion and denigration. Beyond that, there has been a recent
shorter period of reterritorialization, which we can term as auto-reterritorialization,
because the awakened realization of territory is a form of resistance by the community
as they re-value and re-activate their indigenous Tupiniquim identity. This chapter
illustrates how a participatory approach to local spatial and historical knowledge,
focused through participatory mapping, can reveal territorialization processes. In
this case, the collaborative processes of mapping the territory led the local commu-
nity actors together with the researchers, to revisit the customary practices, histories
and local memories.
Keywords Brazil · Espírito Santo · Participatory mapping · Narrative histories ·

Territorial conflicts · Indigenous identity · Self-determination
M. E. Tosi Roquette (B)

Vitória, Espírito Santo, Brazil
M. K. McCall
Morelia, Mexico
196 M. E. Tosi Roquette and M. K. McCall
1 Introduction—Identity and Territory in Chapada
This chapter interrogates the claims and feelings of a traditional community about the
appropriation of territory, their responses to loss of territory (deterritorialization),
and efforts to regain it, or auto-reterritorialization. The specific case is a small
community in coastal Espírito Santo state, Brazil, who self-identify as Tupiniquim
indigenous people. In the period 2007–2013, people in Anchieta municipality were
facing concerted attempts by political corporative forces to insert a large-scale steel
plant. The mega project would result not only in social and environmental disruption
related to the construction and operations of a massive industrial structure with its
associated pollution and social stresses, but the corporation responsible was also
trying to purchase the traditional lands of the community and relocate the people.
Two communities in Anchieta, Chapada do Á and Monteiro, have been living
for centuries in the area targeted for the steel industry complex. Both communities
were socially and culturally as well as geographically close (Fig. 1). Though distinct
groups, they have many members related by family, and prior to the land negotia-
tions by the steel plant, they belonged to a single neighbourhood association. The
focus here is on Chapada do Á community where 80 families live communally on
traditionally occupied lands, identifying themselves as indigenous descendants of
the Tupiniquim ethnic group (Mattos 2009, 2012). Most of the findings here come
Fig. 1 Anchieta Municipality, Espírito Santo state, Brazil: Communities of Chapada do Á and
Monteiro. Source Google Earth (2015, 2020)
Participatory Mapping: Supporting Community Identity … 197
from participatory research surveys carried out collaboratively between 2012 and
2014 in Chapada do Á (Tosi Roquette 2015; see also Mattos 2012).
With the threat of the imposition of the steel mill as the context, we investigate three
issues concerning the meaning, nature, and value of territory and territorialization
for the indigenous community of Chapada do Á. These issues are
1. Interpretation of the local perception and understanding of territory and
territoriality as felt by the community.
We work with the two essential material and cultural dimensions of territory:
territory as space, the locus of control/power/appropriation; territory as place,
the locus of (cultural) identity and practice. They can be summarized as territory-
space-control and territory-place-identity. This is a grounded approach, in
a category of practice known as a ‘common sense conception of territory’
(Haesbaert and Mason-Deese 2020).
2. The manifest drivers of the processes of deterritorialization. Deterritorialization
is the decoupling of social groups from their physical environment. It normally
involves geographical and material loss of territory and ‘de-localization’, and
therefore is strongly entwined with institutional and legal and property deter-
ritorialization. Along with this, the original communities experience a loss of
autochthonous ‘natural’ relations between their culture and their social and
geographic territories. Deterritorialization transforms the quotidian relations
between the places where people live and their cultural activities, experiences
and identities as local inhabitants (Haesbaert 2001, 2007; Raffestin 1997, 2012).
In the history of this community, deterritorialization had been experienced over
centuries and was accelerated in the social-cultural conflicts and spatial impacts
that developed with the threat of construction of an industrial plant.
3. The social, institutional and political processes of community resistance and
resilience contained in the processes of reclamation of their territory. This we call
reterritorialization or, more appositely, auto-reterritorialization. In the present
case, this process followed from the re-stimulation of community self-identity.
Reterritorialization is the restructuring of a place or territory that has experi-
enced deterritorialization. Most conceptual literature sees ‘reterritorialization’
as the processes by which a hegemonic, oppressive power replaces the prior
autochthonous cultural footprint with its own (Raffestin 1997, 2012).
In Chapada do Á however, as in other resilient communities, the reterritorial-
ization is a result of the renaissance of local, indigenous cultural and political
processes of resistance against the seemingly inevitable history of deterritorial-
ization (Ruiz et al. 2020). Therefore, we consider it as auto-reterritorialization.
The methodological approach employed was based on participatory research,
mainly through participatory mapping and interactive dialogue about life histories
and folk memory. We argue that the participatory mapping approach contributed
significantly to understanding the nature, value and importance of territory for the
community, along with the formation of the processes of deterritorialization and
reterritorialization (ACT Brazil 2008; Colectivo Miradas Críticas del Territorio desde
el Feminismo 2017; Habegger and Mancila 2005; Kelly et al. 2017; Sletto et al. 2013,
2020).
In the next section, a brief history of the community is presented, followed by a
view of the community´s territorial identity in Sect. 3. In Sect. 4, the methodology of
our study is explained in more detail and the results of this exercise are expounded
in Sect. 5, followed by conclusions.
2 The Contextual History of Chapada Do Á
2.1 Historical Foundation and Struggles for Indigenous

Territory in Anchieta from the XVI Century
The aldeia (village) of Iriritiba in the current municipality of Anchieta was founded
in 1569 by Father José de Anchieta.1 At the time of the arrival of the Jesuits from
Portugal, Iriritiba (or Reriritiba) was a very significant population centre of about
12,000 indigenous people, making this aldeia the largest and most populous on the
coast (Fig. 2; Saint Hilaire 1833 in: Mattos 2016). In 1755 the Portuguese Crown
enacted two laws which theoretically improved the lot of the Indians, an edict to end
all racial discrimination and the Law of Liberties which freed the persons, goods
and commerce of Indians, such that the aldeias would become Portuguese towns
(Bethell 1995). However, despite the guarantees of collective land and community
life, the promises were quickly discarded and the continuing lack of freedom, arbi-
trary treatments, and land alienations generated conflicts in this period including a
notable uprising in 1742 (Mattos 2009).
In 1757, by means of the Diretório dos Indios, the Indians were assigned the
condition of vassals in relation to the Crown, the Jesuits were expelled, miscegenation
and the adoption of Portuguese surnames were encouraged, and Indian agriculture
was further integrated into the colonial market system (Bethell 1995; Mattos 2009).
In this context, villages became vilas (towns) and the name of Aldeia de Iriritiba
was changed to Vila Nova de Benavente. In the context of the Diretório de Indios,
the indigenous people continued to suffer the plunder of their lands (initially by
the Portuguese and their descendants with native peoples, and later by Italian and
German colonizers) which they reported to the Crown, though without response or
relief. They were also recruited to fight other indigenous people as well as English
and French invaders and were thus relocated from their homeland. At the beginning
of the nineteenth century, several indigenous ethnicities, including Puri, Tupiniquim,
Goitacá and Botocudo people, still lived in the Vila Nova de Benavente (Bentivoglio
and Bourguignon 2019; Mattos 2009, 2012).
1The indigenous village of Iriritiba was named after the eponymous river which means ‘oyster bed’
(Mattos 2009).
Fig. 2 Map of Iriritiba village in the early 1600 s AHU.CARTm.007.D.1050. Source Mattos (2009)
The social and political events over the centuries since the European occupation
led to a cultural dynamic, or as Bentivoglio and Bourguignon (2019) put it, ‘identity
binaries’ were created in response to the need to establish alliances to maintain
group interests, especially with respect to territoriality in the sense of claiming and
maintaining their lands.
[...] between Tupis and non-Tupis (NOTE: the latter are also pejoratively called tapuias by
the Tupis and by the colonialists), between villagers and non-villagers, between civilized
(the residents of the aldeias or villages) and non-civilized (the inhabitants of the sertão),
between catechized and unbaptized, between ‘gentles’ and barbarians […] (Bentivoglio and
Bourguignon 2019) (our translation).
These binary distinctions persist into the present as a reminder of the cultural
connections with territory and territoriality, as illustrated by this assessment by a
current resident, one of the elders of Chapada do Á who identified their community
as ‘gentle’ indigenous people:
The barbarian Indians and the civilised lived here for a long time. When the barbarian Indians
left, the gentle Indians stayed behind and that is us. Those who were baptized stayed and the
other bárbaros left. (Mattos 2012) (our translation).
This is a manifestation of the cultural deterritorialization whereby the prior

cultural identity connections between people and their land were eroded and
weakened by external colonial pressures (Haesbaert 2001; Raffestin 1997).
2.2 Modern Anchieta—Growth Pole or Existential Threat

of Deterritorialization?
Anchieta was for many years one of the most significant municipalities in the state
of Espírito Santo and indeed in Brazil for its wealth in terms of GDP per capita. This
was due to the considerable revenue from industrial projects, an iron ore pelletizing
plant and Ubu Port for exporting the pellets, both belonging to Samarco Mineração
SA, and a Petrobras gas treatment plant (UTG Sul) (IBGE 2010; IJSN 2011).
In 2007, the Espírito Santo state government decreed the expropriation of 2500 ha
in the municipality to be public land for the development of an industrial pole,
including a large steel plant and the Anchieta Service Centre (Barbosa 2010). This
corresponded to around 6% of the total municipality area. In 2007, the Brazilian
enterprise, Vale SA, and a Chinese company, Baosteel, established a joint venture
for the implementation of the Companhia Siderúrgica Vitória (CSV), a steel plate
plant with an annual production capacity of 10 million tons of steel. Eventually,
the steel project was not implemented due to the recognition of severe associated
environmental threats, especially the limited water availability and potential impacts
on water resources and the predicted high concentrations of suspended particulates
in the air that would result from the plant´s operation (Alvaregna 2010). The financial
crisis of 2008 and a reduction in Chinese economic activities also contributed to the
cancellation of the project at that time (Zanotelli 2019). However, in 2009, the project
was renamed Companhia Siderúrgica Ubu (CSU) with 100% Brazilian capital (Vale
S.A) and the planned production capacity was halved to 5 million tons (CEPEMAR
2009). Abandonment of this modified form of the project was announced in 2013, but
even the threat of its implementation caused fundamental changes in the territorial
perception and behaviour of the local residents (Fig. 3).
In July 2010, a plebiscite was held in Chapada by the Permanent Defence Forum
of Anchieta with the purpose of exploring the views of the residents concerning
the potential sale of their land to the CSV/CSU steel plant and the threat of forced
relocation which might follow failure to sell up voluntarily. Out of 128 respondents,
only nine declared themselves in favour of land sales and only six families eventually
sold their properties to the CSU (Mattos 2012; Ramos and Ataíde 2013). The threat
Fig. 3 Timeline of recent events in Anchieta. Source Bodart and Marchiori (2011), Ramos and
Ataíde (2013)
of forced relocation, which would mean the complete removal of residents from
Chapada do Á territory, engendered a process of mobilization and resistance, in which
one of the central elements was the community´s exercise in self-identification as
indigenous. Chapada do Á is, to the best of our knowledge, the only community in the
area that has self-identified as indigenous. The process of ethnic self-definition began
at the end of 2010 and in February 2011 the Chapada do Á community communicated
to FUNAI (Fundação Nacional do Índio)2 that they self-identified as indigenous
people of the Tupiniquim ethnic group. In March 2011, the residents organized a
celebration of indigenous self-recognition with people of the same ethnicity from
Aracruz, Espírito Santo. A few days before this celebration, a team from FUNAI
came to the community to carry out a study with the purpose of determining whether
to classify the community as indigenous or not (Bodart and Marchiori 2011). Until
today Chapada do Á community doesn’t have the formal recognition of its territory
as indigenous land. We note that these auto-reterritorialization processes were, and
continue to be, supported by various external social and academic actors, which
Ferreira (2017) has termed encuentro de saberes (meeting of knowledges).
By the early 2010s, the community of Chapada do Á had clearly chosen to struggle
to remain in their historical territory and not to sell up and relocate. This motivated the
participatory research project in Chapada do Á about people’s perceptions and inter-
pretation of territory and territorialization using community participatory mapping
and discussion workshops (Tosi Roquette 2015). Whereas the Chapada do Á commu-
nity remained determined to stay on their territory, the majority of members of the
neighbouring Monteiro community negotiated the abandonment of their territory by
agreeing to sell their lands to the steel plant developers. Eventually, the members of
the Monteiro community chose to leave their territory, sold their properties, and in
2014 they were relocated to a new site, whilst those of Chapada do Á stayed put.
Meanwhile in actuality, the complete cancellation of the steel project was announced
at the beginning of 2013. The Monteiro story would be a different trajectory to inves-
tigate, but it is not included in this account because that community had by then
relocated and did not take part in the participatory research and mapping project.
3 Identity and Social Territory in Contemporary Chapada

do Á
At present eighty families (approximately 270 people) reside in Chapada do Á

community, living communally on 10.6 hectares of traditionally occupied lands. The
original entitlement to land was distributed amongst the heirs of the first common
ancestor and the lands were subsequently shared out among the children of each
2FUNAI is the official indigenist organ of the Brazilian State, created by Law No. 5,371, of
December 5, 1967, linked to the Ministry of Justice and Public Security. It is the coordinator
and main executor of the Federal Government’s indigenous policy, See: www.gov.br/funai/pt-br/
acesso-a-informacao/Institucional.
generation (Mattos 2009, 2012). Virtually all the inhabitants are descended from a
single family clan called Victor and self-identify as indigenous descendants of the
Tupiniquim ethnic group. One may ask, what happened to the indigenous occupants
of this area who belonged to other ethnic groups? Indigenous people’s lands were
appropriated over the centuries and they were continually being expelled from their
lands, so that today there are in fact few indigenous remaining. Moreover, there was,
and is, a lack of self-identification because in the past native people commonly had
to change their names, losing part of their indigenous self-identity and culture along
with their recorded history, some of which is only found in archives in Portugal.
These are all manifestations of the pervasive effects of deterritorialization.
Up to about four decades ago, according to the interviews and discussions, the
subsistence practices of the Tupiniquim people included manioc (cassava) flour
production—there are still flour mills in the community—and artisanal production
of mats and baskets. Maize, upland rice, beans and manioc were planted on small
subsistence peasant farm lands in roça systems (slash and burn or shifting cultivation).
Collecting and gathering activities are still carried out for artisanal livelihoods and
small-scale marketing, including the extraction of embira tree fibres (Daphnopsis
or Xylopia) for making nets, pink pepper and bulrushes (cattail, Typha latifolia).
There is also river fishing, crab collection, and some small plantations and backyard
livestock. The houses of the community were traditionally made of straw and mud
(Tosi Roquette 2015).
Most of the financial income nowadays however comes from salaries and pensions
for residents who are government employees, mainly in the municipality of Anchieta.
At the time when the participatory mapping was being conducted and the steel plant
was still expected to be installed, many residents were employed by contractors
and service providers in the municipality (Mattos 2012). However, in 2015 after the
Fundão dam collapsed in Mariana, in the state of Minas Gerais,3 the mining company
Samarco Mineração SA which had been responsible for the dam halted its activities
in Anchieta, which resulted in the dismissal of many employees and a 75% decrease
in municipal income.4
The arrival of the industries in recent decades increased Anchieta’s population
because of incoming workers in construction and associated service, and had led
to a range of problems, from environmental and infrastructure to social conflicts
(Alvarenga 2010; Mattos 2016) and in particular to the territorial contestation which
is the focus here. The threat from the steel plant was just the most recent in a series of
land purchases or appropriations of native peoples´ territory by government agencies
and private capital. Zanotelli (2019) estimates that an area of 42–45 km2 in the
municipality is the property of external corporations, Samarco Mineração, Vale S.A.,
and others, and he argues that a considerable proportion of this property consists of
3 This infamous dam collapse released 43 million m3 of iron ore tailings into the Doce River system,
causing severe social and environmental impacts (do Carmo et al. 2017),
4 https://www.agazeta.com.br/economia/anchieta-perde-74-do-pib-sem-a-operacao-da-samarco-
1218.
cattle ranching and eucalyptus plantations,5 meaning there are corporate interests in
land investments besides their industrial developments.
4 Participatory Approaches and Participatory

Mapping—Methodology
The participatory mapping activities were aimed at an analysis of the community

processes around territory in Chapada do Á. This corresponds with two of the three
research objectives identified in Sect. 1: firstly, to interpret the local perception of
territory as it is felt by the community; secondly, to assist in assessing possible
impacts and conflicts which could result from the threat of the industrial plant,
that is, the processes of deterritorialization. It is significant that the inclusion of
the third research objective—‘to investigate processes of resistance, resilience and
reclamation of territory (reterritorialization)’—was an (unforeseen) outcome from
the participatory mapping and interactions with the community. The renaissance of
people’s territorial identity emerged during the mutual learning in the participatory
research itself; it came directly out of mapping with the people as findings shared
by community members. Processes of resistance and reclaiming indigenous identity,
however, were already on course when the mapping research began.
4.1 Preparation
Before the mapping exercises began, there were collective discussions on the ethical
issues of good practice in participatory research as a methodological approach. Ques-
tions about why?, how? and for whom? were raised and the local participants were
encouraged to discuss their motivation to engage in this process and share their
reasons—‘why they would want to produce a map?’ (Chambers 2006; McCall and
Álvarez Larrain 2020; Rambaldi et al. 2006). Interviews were conducted with key
informants for a better understanding of their perceptions of territory and territori-
ality. This entailed conversations on how they felt about the possibility of the loss of
their traditional land (deterritorialization), and how they responded to it, which led
on to discussions about their knowledge of the social and spatial conflicts that had
already been created just by the threat of the steel plant in Anchieta.
In 2012 in the beginning of this process, a mental mapping exercise had been
carried out with some inhabitants by a committed local researcher, Sônia Missagia
Mattos, which supplied much prior understanding of the territory. The features people
5 The Companhia Siderúrgica Belgo-Mineira required charcoal for its pig iron furnaces ever since the
1930s. The eucalyptus plantations for charcoal resulted in the creation of Arcelor Mittal BioFlorestas
in 1957. http://bioflorestas.arcelormittal.com.br/arquivos/florestas_02_anexo_148.pdf.
Fig. 4 Mental map prepared by some residents of Chapada do Á Community, 2012. Source Mattos
(2012)
placed on the mental maps are presented in Fig. 4. They showed the contemporary
geography, such as the distribution of residences at the bottom center of the image
and the lagoons where people used to bathe (but which are now within the properties
of Samarco Mineração SA) at its upper right side, and other memory content such
as the places where they used to ‘rest the people who passed away’,6 and children
showing the routes they took to where they played. It is notable that the mental
maps are not static (c.f. Del Casino and Hanna 2006). Thus, they permitted people
to remember years later that the limits of what they called their ‘traditional territory’
were beyond the boundaries of their current area.
4.2 The Steps
For the subsequent mapping processes, we followed methodological steps outlined

in participatory mapping manuals (ACT Brazil 2008; Chapin and Threlkeld 2001;
Iconoclasistas 2016; IFAD 2009; McCall and Álvarez Larrain 2020; Tobias 2009).
A series of activities and workshops were carried out to gather systematic social
and spatial information especially with key informants and older residents. Steps
consisted of selecting the features to be mapped; choosing the appropriate partici-
patory mapping tools,; the mapping itself (in the field),; analysing the preliminary
results, followed by collaboratively correcting, and the final elaboration of the map.
The characteristics and features selected by the community to be mapped were
cultural and spatial (territorial) issues, such as the previous limits of the territory
of Chapada do Á, traditional land uses, and memories of places and practices based
on collective memories (Fig. 4).
6In the past, when there were no roads, people had to carry the coffins from their community to the
cemetery of a neighbouring town.
Fig. 5 a Capturing GPS coordinates on fishing spots along the Benevente river, b Validating
information amongst participants. Source Tosi Roquette
Modern cartographic tools are needed to communicate spatial information with

the state and its agents. Orthophoto prints at different scales were used as a primary
tool to promote initial contacts and understanding of the territory in a bi-dimensional
format (a 2D map) by Chapada do Á residents. Transparent sheets were laid over
the orthophotos for participants to draw over them with colour markers to demarcate
the spatial extent of the territory, areas of communal use and land use changes.
In addition to the photo images, coordinates of significant places and zones were
collected using GPS during transect walks (recorridos) and boat trips on the water
bodies (Fig. 5a). All the information was transformed with GIS software and later
collectively validated with the participants (Fig. 5b). Seven workshops, besides the
interviews and recorridos, were carried out with local residents. Altogether about 32
people participated in the mapping process (Tosi Roquette 2015).
Judging by the questioning during the participatory orthophoto exercise, most
participants had little or no previous experience of mapping and not much contact
with standard maps before. So the participatory mapping approach here was probably
their first collective effort in interrogating their territory from a map perspective.
The participatory exercise was carried out with two orthophotos. Initially, Fig. 6a
(core residential area, with a smaller areal coverage) was used to show the limited core
residential area of the Chapada do Á community. However, it was found necessary
to also work with a second orthophoto with a bigger areal coverage (Fig. 6b, the
extensive territory), so as to ‘stretch’ the image for the participants to see their
residential area within the broader spatial extent of their traditional territory.
Fig. 6 a Core residential area of Chapada do Á, b Extensive territory of Chapada do Á. Source

Tosi Roquette (2015)
5 The Community’s Concepts of Territory Developed

Through Participatory Mapping
In this section, we interrogate the participatory mapping along with other participa-
tory exchanges in order to interpret the understanding of the local people concerning
the nature and components of territory, as they—the community—feel it.
5.1 Territorial Understanding: Identity and Limits
During interviews prior to the participatory mapping process, residents shared their
worries about leaving their territory. This enabled a better understanding of what
makes the Chapada do Á territory what it is—its territoriality. Among the argu-
ments were (a) the vitality of social relations and people’s concerns about becoming
alienated from them; (b) the quality of life in the territory, because there is plenty of
space for children to play and there is access to nature (what is left of it, as main-
tained in gardens and lots); (c) the sense of security that comes from connection
with a territory—things as simple as knowing where the water supply comes from;
(d) the sense of belonging passed down through generations and (e) ultimately, the
identity that is related to the territory and which summarizes all of the meanings: ‘If
we decide to sell, it will end … our identity will not be the same, right?’ (JA, f, 56a.,
23/01/2014).
An initial finding from the participatory orthophoto mapping was that decades ago
the territory had been used in a much more communal way and over a much larger area
than just the specific residential land. Most of the local spatial knowledge that people
mapped onto the orthophoto map (Fig. 7) concerned land use for specific crops and
a forest area where they planted non-permanent crops. However, many more items
Fig. 7 Traditional land use in Chapada do Á in recent times. Source Tosi Roquette (2015)
important for cultural and historical memory were identified whilst preparing the
legend (Tosi Roquette 2015; cf. Rambaldi 2005). For example, the Chapada do Á
community used to gather and use many natural materials in their daily livelihood
activities, such as clay, vines for baskets, tucum straw to make fishing lines and
grasses for mattresses, collected from particular sites in their territory. Marking the
map also reminded participants of the traditional celebrations and their sites, like
the Folia de Reis (Three Kings Day masquerade) and the cantigas de roda (‘round
songs’ in English), and how people used to come together to collaboratively build
houses.
The map drawing and marking with orthophotos encouraged many lively collec-
tive discussions about the former boundaries of the community’s territory. As the
participatory mapping process took place, the remembered territorial limits were
being re-shaped by the participants’ discussions. Furthermore, the territorial limits
were re-defined and expanded in peoples’ memories as they talked among themselves
during the lengthy recorridos (group walks) whilst the coordinates of the territory
were being marked by GPS. In this process, the memories of the older residents were
important to clarify some former characteristics of territory that recent generations
did not know. For instance, the territorial limits identified by the photomapping partic-
ipants were in part established by the water bodies in the region, and many external
interventions over the years had modified the course of local rivers, including the
Araputanga, which local people used for transportation.
He [referring to another resident, EB] is pointing out the area from the time he arrived here,
but we were born here ... he came here only yesterday and we were born here, we were born
and raised here, isn’t it? (JB, m, 75a., 02/22/2014).
[…] Let them talk because they were born here. (JA, f, 56a., 02/22/2014).
That’s what I’m talking about. You have to let them see it first .... But one thing I’m sure
about, is these channels here, look. Araputanga, these things are not here. (EB, m, 57a.,
02/22/2014).
Yes, because … Araputanga, they are saying, but Araputanga is not that anymore. Araputanga
—this river was dredged a few years ago.” (JA, f, 56a., 02/22/2014).
Mattos (2009) has argued that the existence of historical landmarks, toponyms and
other cultural connections dating back to the XVI and XVII centuries are justification
that the aldeados (villagers) should be awarded the rights to the land and its use.
Ferreira (2017) has surveyed initiatives in Espírito Santo where similar processes of
territorial resistance are reinforced along with the identity recognition of indigenous
people, including the Tupiniquim, Guarani and Botocudos, and the Quilombolas
(Afro-Brazilians), mainly in the north of the state.
Nevertheless, a profound element of indecision caused by identity issues was
observed during the mapping and delimiting of the territory. The community actors
found difficulties in identifying what ‘category’ of territory was being mapped—
whether the territory was considered to be the Chapada do Á community, or Chapada
do Á indigenous territory. The ‘community land’ was understood to be the area
covered by the properties of residents and households descended from the same
family clan, whereas the ‘indigenous territory’ was understood as that community
land plus the areas of communal use. These communal use areas could overlap with
those of other communities because the Tupiniquim identity is employed also by
other indigenous descendants. This is significant in trying to translate indigenous
or traditional visions of spatial claims. One component is that the ‘claimed’ or ‘felt
space’ is always a moving target; it is not immutable, unlike modern western concepts
of owned space as ‘property’. The indigenous ‘felt space’ is a process in transition
(O’Connor and Kroefges 2008; Preci 2020). But the indigenous identity was always,
explicitly or implicitly, extant in Chapada de Á in the elders’ conversations and the
communal memory.
5.2 Deterritorialization: Alienation and Appropriation
Historically, deterritorialization is manifested in three related processes: (a) the geog-

raphy of material alienation, invasions, land-grabbing and loss of property; (b) the
loss of institutional authority and control, including that of customary law and (c)
cultural appropriation and alienation and diminution of identity, as in the renaming
of toponyms.
All three dimensions became visible in the participatory mapping actions. An
initial recognition from the participatory research was that social and cultural
processes of deterritorialization in the community are not new; they have been going
on for decades and even centuries. The proposed construction of the industrial plant
within, and thus appropriating, Tupiniquim traditional territory, is just the most recent
manifestation of this.
The geographical and institutional deterritorialization occurred over the whole
time period, especially in the twentieth century, as land was expropriated or
‘purchased’ and became private property, initially by individual outsider owners
and later by companies for eucalyptus plantations for charcoal, the Petrobras gas
treatment unit and the Samarco pelletizing plant. Participatory mapping workshops
brought this out. As an example, a participant informed us that part of the native
territory was donated by the state to a community of nuns in 1955,7 and after that
some properties in the territory were sold on to other individual owners and from
them to commercial companies, although it is not always clear how this happened.
That’s right, some time ago it was native land […] For example, we used to breed animals
here, look. There, the nuns requested land from the state, they sold [...] from there, then they
already passed it on to another private owner. (JB, m, 75a., 02/22/2014).
But before, it was the community who used it, they were the oldest users, … their parents ...
It always belonged to the community (JA, f, 56a., 02/22/2014).
Tools of cultural deterritorialization were also highlighted by the collaborative

research. For example, participants stated that in the context of the steel plant project
they were continually pressured by visits of a social worker and a psychologist
7 Personal communication, Sonia Missagia Mattos, 2020.

working for the CSU and their contentious attempts to convince the elderly residents
to sell the properties: ‘Suddenly they [the elders] decided the children could not
say anything’ (JA, f, 56a. 23/01/2014). Even the Mayor at that time was telling
the residents it was necessary for them to leave, and the media collaborated by
oversimplifying the story and saying the project was being received harmoniously
through dialogue with the company and ignoring the resistance actions emanating
from Chapada do Á (Bodart and Madalena 2012).
5.3 Reterritorialization—Social and Institutional Processes

of Resistance, Resilience and Reclaiming Territory
In the Chapada do Á context, reterritorialization constitutes the social, institu-

tional and political processes of community resistance and resilience towards the
reclamation, or the auto-reterritorialization, of their territory.
The participatory mapping showed that some residents, though not all, want to
‘reterritorialize’; notwithstanding that this would constitute a reduced geographical
space compared with their traditional territory and would necessitate giving up many
traditional activities, customs and local communal resources that now lie outside the
former native territory, to which the community no longer has access (Tosi Roquette
2015; Fig. 8). During the participatory mapping, residents repeatedly said the territory
in which they live today is not that of the old days. Children now play and live within
a geographically limited notion like ‘the yard’ or ‘the plot’, rather than the former
extent of Chapada do Á.
Figure 8 shows the official boundaries of the locality, the limits of the indigenous
territory, the water bodies, crab and fishing locations, old buildings such as quitungos
(traditional flour mills), and the current residential area.
The participatory mapping processes can be seen as an active element in the
process by which the community was realizing and materializing the revived desire
for reclaiming the land, as the people renewed their identity associated with their
territory which was now under pressure. According to Bodart and Marchiori (2011),
the process of self-recognition as an indigenous group was driven by their acknowl-
edgment of their identity in their resistance in the face of the threatened eviction from
the traditional territory. The people’s memory, especially derived from the narratives
of elders about their indigenous ancestry, was reaffirmed as their patrimony.
The land is a land that we have as a greater good, right? ... for a long time. It is an inheritance
from a long time. [...] We are already almost in the seventh generation, so, I mean, this
territory, this land, is very important. That is why we are fighting. We will fight and we will
continue here, we do not want to leave (JA, f, 56a., 21/02/2014).
In this sense, the (re)-awakening of the Tupiniquim indigenous identity is a

moment of resistance against deterritorialization as well as a potential force for
reterritorialization (Haesbaert 2001, 2007).
Fig. 8 Territorial recognition: Indigenous territory and significant features identified by participa-
tory mapping, Chapada do Á, 2015. Source Tosi Roquette (2015)
The strong consciousness of indigenous identity in the present does not mean
that this identity is a modern phenomenon that did not exist in the past; it has not
been ´invented´, it has been revived. This is shown emotionally in the memories and
talk of the members, especially the elders, as well as in Anchieta’s history itself.
Before recent events in the context of the planned steel mill, there was less reason
or necessity for actively expressing this identity, but in past moments, it existed at
depth. The re-affirmation of the indigenous identity of Chapada do Á is a response to
marginalization and the inequities resulting from the land appropriation actions, and
is thus ultimately linked to globalization processes. Its revival is clearly related to
resistance to the latest phase of deterritorialization (c.f. López Sandoval et al. 2017;
Raffestin 2012).
Mapping can be a vital and dynamic part of resistance and reterritorialization
processes, because these subversive or counter-maps present alternative meanings
of territory from the various perspectives within the community (Álvarez Larrain
and McCall 2019; Sletto et al. 2020). The participatory mapping practices in this
particular case supported people in learning about their own territory, by exchanging
knowledge within and between generations. It enabled people to share traditional
knowledge about resources such as medicinal plants or water courses, the occupa-
tion and management of land, the territorial limits and toponyms holding specific
meanings, even if some knowledge was not mapped. This re-awakened in individ-
uals, and at the community level, the sense of their shared common territory and their
common identity.
6 Discussion—Participatory Mapping, Identity

and Territoriality
6.1 Participatory Mapping and Representation
Observations from the participatory mapping exercise open up the problematic of

participation; that is, the lack of participation of some people who are also residents.
This may be very significant in terms of territorial identity and delineation in the
future. It is necessary to understand who in the entity is called ‘community’, because
upon this depends who is/are selected to ‘represent’ the inhabitants in the mapping
and territorializing processes (McCall 2021; Rambaldi et al. 2006). We observed a
predominance of certain groups during the mapping activities; there was a shortage of
young people and a surplus of older participants. There appears to be a lack of interest
in the sustainability of the traditional territory amongst some younger residents.
Women were more numerous at the workshops; they showed more variation
in age than the men who were predominantly between 50 and 60 years old. The
women participated more actively than men; however, the presence of men may
have contributed sometimes to the underrepresentation of gender differences in the
priorities and values assigned to places and resources (c.f. Catacutan et al. 2014;
UNESCO 2009). There were also differences in the participation levels between
Catholic and Evangelical Protestant folk; however, possibly this was due to the
scheduling (Tosi Roquette 2015).
Older people had more difficulties in drawing territorial features on the
orthophotos, even though it was they who had the greater knowledge of the char-
acteristics and uses of the territory in the past. Therefore often the elders, mostly
men, assumed the role of narrators, whilst the younger people physically marked the
maps.
6.2 Motivations for Participation
From the meetings and open-ended discussions, we can propose three main motiva-
tions people showed for engaging in the participatory mapping process. Firstly, the
importance of showing the locally determined community territory of Chapada do
Á as something cultural and authentic that is beyond the legalistic territorial limits,
although in this, there is a cultural terminological issue of marginalization to be over-
come. ‘Indigenous territory’ can carry an aura of primitiveness, whether of the people
or the places, and in whatever language. Many indigenous people were reluctant to
use this term for their geographical space because they felt a stigma associated with
it (Mattos 2016).
Secondly, the imperative to show the extent of their territorial claims in a carto-
graphic language comprehensible by the State (Girardi 2012; McCall 2016; Orlove
1993; Sletto et al. 2020). People recognized this form of presentation as essential to
their struggle to maintain their territory, especially because at that time, they were
living under the shadow of territorial conflicts over the industrial plant.
Thirdly, in addition to presenting their territorial geography to the government,
the participatory mapping created a ‘memorial record’ of their land so that it would
‘not fall into oblivion’. The mapping provided the opportunity and means to transmit
historical spatial knowledge to new generations. This is significant in traditional
communities where spatial knowledge is usually transmitted orally and tends to
be lost over generations, in parallel with the loss of geographical territory, ethno-
knowledge and cultural identity (Álvarez Larrain and McCall 2019; Duin et al. 2014;
Heckenberger 2009; Tobias 2009).
In addition to this knowledge being recorded, which we will use as a tool in our favour... it
is also a record for the younger people. […] It is important for our history, right?, so as not
to fall into oblivion. So long as we know that this is our territory, where today there is new
construction ... it is not only where there is new construction, it is beyond that. (MB, f, 22a.,
21/02/2014).
6.3 Meanings of ‘Territory’ for the Local Indigenous

Community
Historically, the territory was used in a communal way by people from Chapada
do Á in symbolic and functional ways, without the need to identify clear spatial
limits or fix the boundaries, because these were given by traditional land use. The
outcome of the participatory mapping process suggests that territory is understood
by Chapada do Á as the space of the maintenance and reproduction of life, social
relations, memory and history, linking the past and present along generations within
their extended clan tree. This partially explains the contestations in expressing the
spatial limits of the Chapada do Á territory—whether it is the land holdings of the
descendants of the original family clan or it is the greater space as used by all the
indigenous population for traditional activities.
Working with an etic cartographic product, even one as clear as a photographic
image (the contemporary orthophoto of the Chapada do Á community), generated
uncertainties for the participants. This reflected their understanding and perceptions
of the territory and the changes over time. Older participants in the participatory
mapping felt that the orthophoto image was like ‘freezing in time’ the reality of the
spaces. This could set up a false comprehension of the statics/dynamics of the spatial
information, as if the territory had always been like that. Other participants worried
whether other people’s interpretations of the orthophotos would provide ‘truthful’
information about the territory. These worries from the people reflect concerns about
how external authorities design ‘development’ projects in such regions, especially
how they misinterpret (mistakenly or deliberately) the lands that are actually used or
felt by the local community, as being ‘empty spaces’ (terra nullius) in the landscape
(Álvarez Larrain and McCall 2019; Duin et al. 2014; Girardi 2012; Harley 1992).
Similarly, this can render the traditional communities with their territorialities and
ways of living invisible to the outside (Ferreira 2017).
The terrain is the same, I say, but the situation has changed. If you continue to do as you
do here, this way they will win anyway. Because, consider the situation here with all the
live pasture. But […] in the past it was not grass. It was pure vargedo [forest] [...] there’s
nothing right. Because this is our knowledge, this was not grass, this was all cattails, it was
tajebebuia wood [...] and the rest was cattails. Because pasture didn’t exist here, pasture
didn’t exist at all. (JB, m, 75a., 02/22/2014).
The unhappiness and alienation read in such declarations demonstrate an existen-

tially grounded concern. These traditional communities feel a vital need to maintain
biodiversity and the forest so as to reproduce their livelihoods and cultural activities.
6.4 Processes of Deterritorialization and Reterritorialization
The mapping process, including the stories retold by older inhabitants, shows that
people from Chapada do Á had enjoyed a large communal territory in the pre- and
early colonial times. After that, the social and cultural processes of deterritorialization
in colonial times continued for centuries as indigenous peoples lost their territories.
This transformation was activated and legitimized by the transfer of ‘legal’ land
ownership from natives to individual outsiders or companies, a process that has been
exacerbated in recent decades.
However, we see that indigenous history and identity always survived in the
community of Chapada do Á and were passed across generations through oral histo-
ries and cultural activities. This indigenous identity was more fully mobilized when
the community faced a new possibility of existential deterritorialization in the current
century. In the face of the potential loss of the totality of their remaining territory,
the community mobilized its resistance processes, which can be termed as territorial
reawakening and identity reclamation. A core manifestation of this was the declared
self-determination as Tupiniquim indigenous people. The territory attains a higher
sense of being shared by people when the community consciously affirms its iden-
tity. The resistance centred in Chapada do Á in opposing the construction of the steel
plant was itself a form of territorial re-organization, because the vast majority of the
inhabitants decided not to relocate, but to remain in their territory. By doing so, they
avoided not only the material spatial loss, but also the profound social changes that
would be inevitable. The resistance process strengthened the capacity of the residents
to struggle and eventually to succeed in staying in their lands.
7 Conclusions. Mapping by/for People
People understand that what is presented in the orthophotos and official authoritative
maps as the spatial limits do not represent ‘the real’ territory and its territoriality for
them. This auto-reflective process fostered people’s recognition that the formulation
in which their territory is usually presented in spatial images opens the threat that
their territory could be stripped of its communal memory. The toponyms, symbolic
meanings and accumulated knowledge of traditional land use could be stolen by
outsiders and their agents during the modernization developments. It is clear that
the understanding and meanings of territory of local people go beyond the physical
landscape (McCall 2016). A motivation for recording this story of Chapada do Á’s
struggle is that, despite the continued presence of this indigenous aldeia in Anchieta
which has at least partially overcome cultural deterritorialization, there is still a lack
of attention and valorization for histories of ethnic territorial identity.
Mapping has become essential as part of resistance, as it gives the emic mean-
ings to ‘territory’ from the perspective of the community. The mapping exercises in
Chapada do Á resulted in a rejuvenated local perspective. As the participants in the
mapping exercises were (re-)learning about and ‘knowing’ the territorial changes
in their land, they identified those changes as being ‘wrong’, meaning unwanted
and undesirable and deleterious. The participatory mapping processes therefore can
be understood to be reviving reterritorialization and reclaiming of land because the
participants can (re)present their territory and their own spatial knowledge in order
to protect it and to claim more legitimacy for their own decisions on its organization.
The participatory mapping processes, by setting up dialogues to (re-)think about
(re-)making or (re-)building what had been the indigenous territory of Chapada
do Á, provided a foundation for the community to reconstitute their control and
management and to reclaim ownership of their territory.
References
ACT Brazil (2008) Methodology of collaborative cultural mapping. Amazon Conservation Team,
Brasilia. http://www.equipe.org.br/publicacoes_dentro.php?tipoid=1
Alvarenga AC (2010) Reflexões sobre as conseqüências da implantação de grandes empreendi-
mentos no município de Anchieta, ES. Dissertação Mestrado em Arquitetura e Urbanismo, UFES
Vitória
Álvarez Larrain A, McCall MK (2019) Participatory mapping and participatory GIS (PGIS) for
archaeological and cultural landscapes studies: a review. J Archaeol Theory Method 26(2):643–
678. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-018-9385-z
Barbosa IBM (2010) O lugar no contexto das redes globais: o polo industrial e de serviços de
Anchieta, ES – uma paisagem em transformação. Tese (Doutorado em Arquitetura e Urbanismo),
FAUUSP São Paulo
Bentivoglio J, Bourguignon LN (2019) O antigo estado de coisas: apontamentos para a história dos
povos indígenas no sul da província do Espírito Santo. História Revista 24(1). https://doi.org/10.
5216/hr.v24i1.46582
Bethell L (ed) (1995) The Cambridge history of Latin America, vol 10. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge
Bodart C. das Neves, Madalena CP (2012) O papel do discurso na legitimação de grandes projetos
industriais: os jornais locais e a Companhia Siderúrgica de Ubú/ES. Anais III Simpósio Nacional
Discu
Bodart C, das Neves, Marchiori C. da Ramos, (2011) Memória, identidade e resistência: o
desenvolvimento econômico como ameaça. Revista Interdisciplinar De Cultura 20(1):76–86
Catacutan D, McGaw E, Llanza MA (eds) (2014) In equal measure: a user guide to gender analysis
in agroforestry. Philippines. World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Nairobi. http://www.worlda
groforestry.org/sites/default/files/In%20equal%20measure_reduced.pdf
CEPEMAR (2009) Relatório de impacto ambiental da Companhia Siderúrgica de Ubu (CSU).
Vitória, ES. https://iema.es.gov.br/Media/iema/Downloads/RIMAS/RIMAS_2009/2017.04.06%
20-%20RIMA_UBU.pdf
Chambers R (2006) Participatory mapping and geographic information systems: whose map? Who
is empowered and who disempowered? Who gains and who loses? Electr J Inform Syst Dev
Countries 25(2):1–11
Chapin M, Threlkeld B (2001) Indigenous landscapes: a study in ethnocartography. Environmental
Law Institute, Center for the Support of Native Lands, Washington DC. http://www.elistore.org/
reports_detail.asp?ID=10805&topic=International
Colectivo Miradas Críticas del Territorio desde el Feminismo (2017) Mapeando el cuerpo-territorio:
guía metodológica para mujeres que defienden sus territorios. Colectivo Miradas Críticas del
Territorio, Quito
de Saint Hilaire A (1833) Voyages dans l’intérieur du Brésil. Gide, Paris. (IN: Mattos, 2016)
Del Casino VJ, Hanna SP (2006) Beyond the ‘binaries’: a methodological intervention for
interrogating maps as representational practices. ACME 4(1):34–56
do Carmo FF, Kamino LHY, Junior RT, de Campos IC, Silvino G, de Castro KJ da SX, Mauro
ML, Rodrigues NUA, Miranda MP de S, Pinto CEF (2017) Fundão tailings dam failures: the
environment tragedy of the largest technological disaster of Brazilian mining in global context.
Perspect Ecol Conserv 15(3):145–151.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pecon.2017.06.002
Duin RS, Toinaike K, Alupki T, Opoya A (2014) Participatory mapping: engaged archaeology
with the indigenous people of the Upper Maroni Basin, Northern Amazonia. Revista Amazônica
6(2):333–357
Ferreira SRB (2017) Conflitos territoriais e a explicitação de matrizes de racionalidade divergentes:
projetos desenvolvimentistas e a emergência de r-existências dos povos e comunidades tradi-
cionais no Espírito Santo. In: Cruz VC, Oliveira D (eds) Geografia e giro descolonial: experiências,
idéias e horizontes de renovação do pensamento crítico. Letra Capital, Rio de Janeiro
Girardi G (2012) Mapas alternativos e educação geográfica. Rev. Percursos 13(2):39–51
Habegger S, Mancila I (2005) La cartografía social como estrategia para diagnosticar nuestro
territorio. In: Celada B, Habegger S (eds) Interpretando a Freire. Haciendo camino desde la
colectividad. Seminario de Paulo Freire. Colectivo Sur Ediciones, Málaga, pp 29–36. http://are
aciega.net/index.php?/plain/Cartografias/car_tac/el-poder-de-la-cartografia-social
Haesbaert R (2001) Le mythe de la déterritorialisation. Géographie Et Cultures 40:53–75
Haesbaert R (2007) Identidades territoriais: entre a multiterritorialidade e a reclusão territorial (ou:
do hibridismo cultural à essencialização das identidades). In: Araujo FGB, Haesbaert R (eds).
Identidades e territórios: Questões e olhares contemporâneos. ACCESS, Rio de Janeiro
Harley JB (1992) Rereading the maps of the Columbian encounter. Ann Assoc Am Geogr 82(3):522–
542
Heckenberger MJ (2009) Mapping indigenous histories: collaboration, cultural heritage, and
conservation in the Amazon. Collab Anthropol 2:9–32
IBGE—Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (2010) Censo demográfico 2010. IBGE |
censo 2010 | sobre
Iconoclasistas (2016) Manual of collective mapping. Critical cartographic resources for territorial
processes of collaborative creation. Iconoclasistas, Buenos Aires. http://www.iconoclasistas.net/
IFAD (2009) Good practices in participatory mapping. International Fund for Agricultural Develop-
ment, Rome. https://www.ifad.org/documents/10180/d1383979-4976-4c8e-ba5d-53419e37cbcc
IJSN—Instituto Jones Dos Santos Neves (2011) Implantação de projetos de grande porte no Espírito
Santo: análise do quadro socioeconômico e territorial na fronteira de expansão metropolitana sul
capixaba. IJSN, Vitória, ES. 41. 78f
Kelly J, Herlihy P, Tappan T, Hilburn A, Fahrenbruch M (2017) From cognitive maps to transparent
static web maps: tools for indigenous territorial control in La Muskitia, Honduras. Cartographica
52(1):1–19
López Sandoval MF, Robertsdotter A, Paredes M (2017) Space, power, and locality: the
contemporary use of territorio in Latin American geography. J Lat Am Geogr 16:43–67
Mattos SM (2009) A aldeia de Iriritiba: a atual cidade de Anchieta no Espírito Santo. Habitus 7:5–44
Mattos SM (2012) Comunidade Tupiniquim da Chapada do Á: um estudo. FUNAI (Fundação
Nacional do Índio), Brasilia
Mattos SM (2016) Resistência e ação política: os índios “mansos” da Aldeia de Iriritiba, Anchieta,
ES—Brasil. Paper presented at 30ª Reunião Brasileira de Antropologia, João Pessoa, 2016
McCall MK (2016) Beyond ‘landscape’ in REDD+: The imperative for ‘territory.’ World Dev
85:58–72
McCall MK (2021) Participatory mapping and PGIS: Secerning facts and values, representation
and representativity. IJEPR Int J E-Planning Res 10(3):105–123
McCall MK, Álvarez Larrain A (2020) Mapeando con la gente: Buenas prácticas en cartografía
participativa - lineamientos y aplicación. CIGA-UNAM, Morelia
O’Connor L, Kroefges PC (2008) The land remembers: landscape terms and place names in Lowland
Chontal of Oaxaca, Mexico. Lang Sci 30:291–315
Orlove B (1993) The ethnography of maps: the cultural and social contexts of cartographic
representation in Peru. Cartographica 30(1):29–46
Preci A (2020) Fixing the territory, a turning point: The paradoxes of the Wichí maps of the Argentine
Chaco. The Canadian Geographer/le Géographe Canadien 64(1):20–31. https://doi.org/10.1111/
cag.12595
Raffestin C (1997) Le rôle des sciences et des techniques dans les processus de territorialisation.
Revue Européenne Des Sciences Sociales 35(108):93–106
Raffestin C (2012) Space, territory, and territoriality. Environment and Planning—D 30(1):121–141
Rambaldi G (2005) Who owns the map legend? URISA J 17(1):5–13
Rambaldi G, Kwaku Kyem PA, McCall MK, Weiner D (2006) Participatory Spatial information
management and communication in developing countries. Electr J Inform Syst Dev Countries
25(1):1–9
Ramos MHR, Ataide SG (2013) Luta pela preservação ambiental: dilemas e contradições. Revista
Katálysis (florianópolis) 16(2):186–195
Ruiz GAQ, Kotilainen J, Salo M (2020) Reterritorialization practices and strategies of campesinos
in the urban frontier of Bogotá, Colombia. Land Use Policy 99:31
Sletto BI, Bryan J, Torrado M, Hale C, Barry D (2013) Territorialidad, mapeo participativo y política
sobre los recursos naturales: la experiencia de América Latina. Cuadernos De Geografía - Revista
Colombiana De Geografía 22(2):193–209
Sletto B, Bryan J, Wagner A, Hale C (eds) (2020) Radical cartographies: participatory mapmaking
Tobias TN (ed) (2009) Living proof: the essential data-collection guide for indigenous use-and-
occupancy map surveys. Aboriginal Mapping Network, North Vancouver. http://nativemaps.org/
node/3684
Tosi Roquette ME (2015) Mapeamento participativo em um contexto de conflito territorial: a exper-
iência com a população indígena da Chapada do Á, Anchieta, ES, Brasil. Dissertação Mestrado
em Geografia—UFES, Vitória
UNESCO (2009) Building critical awareness of cultural mapping. A workshop facilitation guide.
UNESCO, Paris. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0019/001903/190314e.pdf
Zanotelli CL (2019) O complexo industrial de Anchieta no litoral sul do Espírito Santo e os
latifúndios empresariais. In: Portuguez AP, Junior AO, Miyazaki VK (eds) Olhares da geografia
Brasileira: dinâmicas ambientais e questões sociais na atualidade. Barlavento, Ituiutaba, MG
Maria Elisa Tosi Roquette Independent researcher, Vitória, Espiritu Santo, Brazil.
Maria Elisa Tosi Roquette has a Master’s in Geography and graduated in Biological Sciences at
the Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, with experience in social and environmental projects
and development. Her research focus is in socio-territorial and environmental conflicts and terri-
torial identity, in the development of qualitative methodologies and analysis, and participatory
approaches, such as participatory mapping.

Territorialization and Resignification
of Residual Space. Experiences
from Bogotá, Colombia
Nataly A. Díaz Cruz
Abstract In Bogotá, Colombia, several areas such as vacant lots, abandoned build-
ings, inactive facade walls, and the zones under bridges do not have a clear form
or function in the urban landscape but imply a discontinuity in the spatial orga-
nization of the city. These spaces are the unsightly afterthoughts of urbanization;
therefore, they constitute residual spaces associated with topophobia. It means that
they generate disagreeable emotions that make most people shy away from them.
However, these spaces are suitable scenarios for territorialization by other citizens,
through practices like graffiti, street vending, informal settlement, practicing urban
sports, among others. These spatial practices transform the residual spaces from
second-hand, wasted, superfluous, even banal, and non-relevant areas (Nogué 2011)
to landscapes full of symbolic value for those who use them. Most of the spatial
practices performed in Bogotá’s residual spaces have historically been considered
illegal by city planning institutions. Nevertheless, Bogotá citizens produce a differ-
ential space (Lefebvre 1991) (i.e., their own revolutionary space inside the official
one), by constant and diverse non-official activities through their claims on these
spaces. To some extent, these transgressions constitute acts of territorialization exer-
cised by those who seek a place within the city. Lefebvre (1991) states that the
intertwining of three categories favors the production of space. These are represen-
tations of space, related to the imagined form by the ‘experts’; spatial practices,
which involve those activities and perceptions that determine the function of space;
and representational space, centered in users’ affectional experiences that give struc-
ture to space. Following the relational place perspective of Lefebvre’s spatial triad
(Pierce and Martin 2015), this article goes beyond this threefold analysis to discuss
territorialization practices of residual spaces in Bogotá and their transformation into
landscapes (Díaz Cruz 2015).
Keywords Colombia · Bogotá · Urbanization · Reappropriation · Residual space ·

Production of space
N. A. Díaz Cruz (B)

Departamento de Geografía, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia
e-mail: naadiazcr@unal.edu.co
220 N. A. Díaz Cruz
1 Residual Spaces as Counterspaces in the City
Dominant planning tendencies shape global urban infrastructure, often disregarding

the aspirations of groups of citizens. Nevertheless, individuals counter, both directly
and tacitly, the official bias for homogenizing space—under the principles of the
capitalist system—by appropriating it through spatial practices that establish their
aspirations. With regards to Bogotá (Colombia), some city dwellers over the last
two decades have appropriated a distinctive kind of urban space known as ‘residual
space’ (Borja 2005; Curzio 2008; García et al. 2011; Nogué 2011; Díaz Cruz 2015).
Broadly, residual spaces are leftovers from an urban planning process. They
constitute, to some extent, unresolved elements of planning in surrounding areas
and include the intersections of roads, areas under overpasses or high voltage lines,
abandoned buildings, inactive facade walls, vacant lots, among others. Many of these
spaces lack a defined form or have a hostile structure that does not allow sympathetic
social interactions. Consequently, they lose their function within the city and become
scraps with no official importance in the urban grid. In Bogotá since 2000, residual
spaces have spread throughout the city due to demolitions carried out for expanding
streets in favor of the Bus Rapid Transit System (Transmilenio) as well as the aggres-
sive construction of related infrastructure (Fig. 1) (Díaz Cruz 2015). These landscape
changes have brought not just visual transformation, but also social conflicts to the
urban environment.
Fig. 1 Inactive facade and vacant area at the access to a Transmilenio station on NQS Avenue,
Bogotá. Source Author
Territorialization and Resignification of Residual Space … 221
Understanding the peculiarity of the residual space and the way it has both been
produced and territorialized requires thinking about this spatial phenomenon from
a Lefebvrian approach (Lefebvre 1991). Thus, it would be possible to establish the
significance of this kind of space, not just in the city landscape but also in the
linkages and the practices it generates in citizens. Since according to Pierce and
Martin (2015, p.1290), ‘space in a Lefebvrian approach highlights the spatiality of
the forces of capitalism and the hypercomplexity of the interactions between various
facets of (socio) spatial production’.
2 Intertwining Lefebvre’s Triad Under a Relational Place

Perspective in Residual Space
According to Lefebvre, space is a product of the simultaneous interaction of three

aspects: form, function, and structure (p.147). I trace the relationship of the different
triads Lefebvre mentioned in The production of space (1991) by disaggregating each
of the aspects of ‘the form-function-structure triumvirate’ (1987, p.7) to allocate them
to a specific component of space (Table 1) to try understand social space better.1
The first aspect, form, condenses the abstract space designed by the planners and
stakeholders according to their ideologies. Given this, it is related to the represen-
tation of space or the conceived space centered on the mental (perceptual) dimen-
sion materialized into a geometric and visual format, such as architectural plans,
infrastructure, paths, or the dimensions of the conceived space.
The second aspect, function, consists of spatial practices that favor social rela-
tions. It reveals the fluxes and movements practiced by people in their daily space,
as well as the ‘daily practices and perceptions of individuals, such as the workers,
within and secreting the spaces of production and specific forms of labor with the
modes of being and moving in the built sites making up the city’ (Pierce and Martin
2015, p.1292).
The third aspect, structure, results from the relation between form and function
(Lefebvre 1991, p.148), that is, between ideology and social relations. Therefore, the
Table 1 Relation between the different triads that compose social space
Social space
Component Representation of space Spatial practices Representational space
Type Conceived Perceived Lived
Quality Imagined Practiced Experienced
Aspect Form Function Structure
1It is a risk, because as Lefebvre stated about form-function-structure, ‘we cannot separate them,
but nor can we merge them; we cannot reduce them to each other, but nor can we isolate them’
(Lefebvre 2002: 161).
“structure” is not merely physical but also contains a social dimension that is mani-
fested in the representational or lived space, wherein given place names, symbols, and
the emotions associated with them, reflect users’ experiences. Inhabitants appropriate
the public realm (conceived space) by symbols and speech, created and reproduced in
lived space, giving rise to a dialectical contradiction. As a result, it is in this space—
representational—that the private realm asserts itself, albeit more or less vigorously,
and always in a conflictual way, against the public one (Lefebvre 1991, p.362).
To properly apply this threefold analysis of social space to residual space, it is
necessary to understand how it has occurred throughout the city. So, the history of
the formation of residual spaces in Bogota reveals that most of them are related to the
construction or the expansion of massive, not always public, city mobility infrastruc-
ture. On the one hand, these spaces appear as residues of the urban civil works. On the
other hand, infrastructure works create hostile transformations of the social spatial
conditions, pushing inhabitants to move from one neighborhood to another, close
their stores or offices, and finally sell or abandon their properties because nobody
rents them. Furthermore, once the infrastructure works are completed, much of the
changed landscape presents a form that does not consider people’s interaction in
public space, nor the strengthening of such links within it.
Thus, from a threefold analysis and an understanding that ‘the primary analytic of
(social) space would start with capitalist production and consumption’ (Pierce and
Martin 2015, p.1292), it is evident that the form in the residual space of Bogota has
prioritized exchange-value over social-value. The reduction of funding for quality
public spaces, and the profit obtained by selling the resultant empty areas to private
investors, have been more important than the social value of any psychological
welfare generated by the aesthetic of the city landscape or the preservation of the
social fabric at the local neighborhood level. Similarly, the infrastructure for the
Bus Rapid Transport System in Bogotá is neither inclusive nor easily accessible, as
the entryways are narrow and they mostly require stairs which are difficult to use.
The biking paths and sidewalks are also unsafe because they are at pedestrian level
(without grade separation), and the overall design is often aggressive (Fig. 1).
The second analytic category is the perceived spatial production or the spatial
practices which are manifest in various functions of residual spaces. They can be
classified as (1) informal labor activities that include ambulant sellers, recycling,
bicycle repair shops, and related activities; (2) communicative acts such as graffitiing
or informational and advertising posters; (3) non-legal practices such as littering,
robbing, or drug dealing; and (4) spontaneous leisure activities like soccer games,
and, planned cultural activities such as local fairs or guided city tours. The perception
of the residual spaces by citizens who are not involved in performing any of these
spatial practices depends on which of the four functions is present in the space at a
given moment.
Finally, the representational or lived (social) space in residual spaces features the
emotional responses people experience in them according to their form (representa-
tion of space) or function (spatial practices), as well as people’s assumptions about
what they can and cannot do in those spaces. These responses vary from topophobia
(Relph 1976), repulsive experiences (dislike, fear, and so on) of places, to topophilia
(Tuan 1974), the pleasant experiences of places. While the former includes all the
negative emotional responses people have toward places, spaces, and landscapes, the
later can even generate positive affective bonds between human beings and envi-
ronments (Relph 19762 ). Thus, some users of residual space usually feel frightened
by the possibility of danger, the darkness or the spatial voids brought about by the
structures, causing many to walk faster through these spaces. Concurrently, certain
residual spaces with colorful murals that allude to local identity promote a sense of
ownership in many citizens, encouraging them to value them.
In residual spaces, form, function, and structure intertwine because these three
aspects are always produced together in every space. ‘Once this threefold analysis
has been completed however, a residue invariably remains which seems to call for a
deeper analysis.’ (Lefebvre 1991, p.148). Thus, to better understand the complexity
of the residual spaces in the light of Lefebvre’s triad, it is wise to apply ‘a relational
place-oriented approach which emphasises the many roughly simultaneous, but not
absolutely congruent, place-bundles which constitute a space’ (Pierce and Martin
2015, p.1291). According to this approach, more than explaining each component
of any space, it is possible to identify competing place-frames that, although they
each describe the essence of space independently, are more accurately understood as
a whole.
Each residual space is different from the others, making it difficult to establish a
unique place-frame for all of them. Anyway, it is possible to state that stakeholders in
Bogotá see them as empty areas awaiting urban development, mainly derived from
the aggressive transformation of the social environment and the spaces constructed
by infrastructure works. Meanwhile, many citizens, especially women, have the idea
of these spaces as insecure places that should be avoided because of their state of
abandonment, or the ‘kind of people’ who use them. At the same time, for some
other citizens and most street artists, these residual spaces are spots for communi-
cation because of their easy exposure to the public and the lack of adequate policy
regulation about their use. Indeed, residual spaces can be all these things simulta-
neously: areas awaiting urban development, possibly unsafe, and suitable for graffiti
or advertisements.
3 Making Homogenized Space Differential Through

Counterpractices
The dominant mode of space production, both political and economic, is carried
out with the State’s intervention favoring the private realm which tends to homoge-
nize, fragment, and hierarchize socioeconomic differences in a city. Such a mode of
proceeding creates an abstract space that excludes several ways of making space by
imposing the ‘consistent’ ideologies (form) and arrangements of those who control
2< PLACENESS, PLACE, PLACELESSNESS > in the official website of Edward Relph, accessed
April 27, 2020, https://www.placeness.com/topophobia/.
spatial planning, while retaining significant spatial segregation and ghettoization.

Consequently, abstract space (mostly related to conceived space) becomes the domi-
nant space ‘imposed by the State upon its ‘subjects’ (…) being, in fact, inherently
violent’ (Lefebvre 1991, p.387).
Within the production process of most residual spaces in Bogota, we may identify
several expressions of violence brought on by the ‘organizers’ of urban space. These
expressions include: displacing dwellers from the neighborhoods in which their fami-
lies grew up, due to planned demolitions; destroying the social fabric of local commu-
nities built over generations; informing, instead of consulting, citizens about planning
modifications in areas used for daily activities; diminishing the quality of the urban
landscape in pedestrian areas; establishing the rules for whom, and for what purposes,
the newly generated ‘public space’ can be used; and setting aside vacant lots for real
estate developments, rather than for green space, in a city with an effective green
area deficit of 70% (Bogotá cómo vamos 2017).
Certainly, ‘abstract space is a tool of power’ (Lefebvre 1991, p.391) that intends
to swallow the representational space, but its demands are not fixed. In fact, despite
the global homogenizing trend of space, the social space is a scenario of contra-
dictions3 that can ‘express’ conflicts between socio-political interests and forces
(Lefebvre 1991, p.365), as well as reinforce inequality across various divides (Pierce
and Martin 2015). Thus, dwellers can claim and appropriate them through their
subjective experiences and daily practices. By doing that, people indeed highlight
differences within space and create a new kind, a differential space (Lefebvre 1991,
p.52).
Accordingly, the appropriated residual space in Bogota embodies a differential
space as a counter space that manifests externalities, and in many cases, houses
both citizens and practices that are spatially excluded and peripheral to the dominant
homogenized-fragmented-hierarchical space. The above-mentioned expressions of
spatial violence in the production process of the residual space do not imply that
all related urban developments are negative. However, they reveal the undeniable
contradictions between dwellers’ interests and forces of capitalism, which, in turn,
also establish a contradiction between dominant space and appropriated space.
We can identify two phases in the production of residual spaces in Bogota: one
concerns the process of making the dominant space by building the urban devel-
opment infrastructure, and the other involves the appropriation process that turns
homogenized4 space into differential space. In both phases, the differences and hence
the exclusion take on pre-eminent roles. In the first, differences usually endure in
the form of externalities focused on buying and demolishing properties along either
side of the massive urban transport development routes, even against popular oppo-
sition. All this has the intention of making broader avenues for a transport system
that generates a high private surplus from over-priced tickets (Ojeda 2020), and of
3 Contradictions in Lefebvrian terms that can be understood as ‘competing place frames’ from the
relational place perspective of Pierce and Martin (2015).
4 Although I use only the word homogenised, hereafter I always refer to the complex homogenised-
fragmented-hierarchical space.
defragmenting space to create opportunities for gentrification through private urban

renovation while displacing the traditional dwellers and merchants.
In the second phase, the differences arise as conscious and non-conscious resis-
tances against the abstract space. Thus, although the residual spaces look like voids
and remain outside the urban dynamic and its productive structures, like ‘terrain
vagues’ (Solà-Morales 1995, p.120), their eventual appropriation by citizens rein-
corporates these spaces into the urban system. Most of the appropriation practices
have the characteristics of being informal, and even non-legal, practices of activi-
ties and expression. Occasionally public and private institutions organize and finance
initiatives such as markets, fairs, and graffiti interventions in Bogotá’s residual spaces.
Nevertheless, people who usually territorialize these spaces are outside of the insti-
tutional realm, at a low socioeconomic level, and do not have formal jobs. Therefore,
residual spaces highlight class exclusion in the city’s built space and, consequently,
a lack of spatial justice.
The pathways of appropriation of residual space lead to a spatial multidimen-
sionality that is ‘transposed onto the level of urban morphology’ (Lefebvre 1991,
p.373). Appropriation does not just build space but also transforms the urban land-
scape, revealing political power conflicts visually expressed as layers that constitute
a palimpsest on the territory. A single instant in a residual space can encompass
multiple temporalities that demonstrate space as an unfinished social construction in
permanent change (Massey 2005; Stokoe and Wallwork 2003).
For example, by observing some inactive facade walls,5 it is possible to go back
in time and identify the scope of the original building to which they had belonged.
In Fig. 1, some structural samples are visible, probably belonging to a bedroom in
the past. Also, there are traces of old advertising posters, and at the same time, some
new ones, and several graffiti resulting from present-moment practices. Moreover,
the façade of the adjoining property foreshadows a possible future condition as it has
its windows and a door. In Fig. 2, kids play soccer on debris in a vacant area at the
corner of a street intersection with considerable vehicular traffic. Debris talks about
the past. They are the ruins of a demolished property, while the children’s game is
in the present time of the instant in which the observer took the picture. During the
time that the children were playing, that vacant lot became a soccer field.
In both residual spaces (Figs. 1 and 2), the spatial practices attest to appropriation
of space through action. Children owned the residual space when they were playing
on it (Fig. 2). They exercised control over that area, and to that extent, they territori-
alized it, transforming its character from private to public. The same happens to the
inactive façade wall that was conceived only as a barrier between inside and outside.
The painted symbols on the wall are signatures of a determined graffiti writer who,
by leaving his tag, territorialized that specific residual space. In sum, both of the
described activities are counter practices that create a differential space by opposing
the forms and power structures of the abstract and homogenized—fragmented—hier-
archical space. Through these contested practices people claim and assert their ‘right
5 Díaz Cruz (2015) categorizes the residual spaces of Bogotá in four: inactive facade walls or culatas
in Spanish, vacant or remnant lots, zones under bridges, and abandoned or unused properties.
Fig. 2 Children playing soccer in a remnant area on 10th Avenue and 22nd South Street, Bogotá.
Source Author
to the city’ (Lefebvre 1996), in opposition to the ‘disappearance of many character-

istics of city life—such as—(…) security, social contact, the facility of child-rearing,
diversity of relationships’ (Jane Jacobs, as cited by Lefebvre 1991, p.364), among
others.
4 Territorialization Practices in the Residual Space
The territorialization practices in residual space replace the vagueness with signif-
icances, transforming it into a landscape. However, most of these practices are
ephemeral because they constantly compete for power with the dominant economic
and political forces that operate in the homogenized space. The transitoriness is
evident, for example, in the determination of the city government to erase territorial
markers like graffiti in order to keep a ‘clean’ landscape. That illustrates the tensions
over domination of space because, even when it supposedly had an aesthetic intention,
the clean-up programe also had the aim of muting or silencing differential voices in
space. Ultimately, there is both an economic force that defends private property from
public practices that could diminish the value of the private goods, and a political
power that ‘aspires to control space in its entirety’ (Lefebvre 1991, p.388).
It is a similar situation regarding the apparent incorporation of residual spaces
as new public spaces. Although the State refers to its continual efforts to revitalize
these zones, most of them are not open to unrestricted use by citizens since they
remain fenced, dirty, or without street furniture. Therefore, in opposition to the
dominant institutional discourse, many citizens define these zones as grasslands,

brownfields, pigsties, or shithouses (sic), among other expressions. Nevertheless,
citizens also recognize that these spaces can develop into contestations of exclusion
and marginalization.
Thus, the contradictions between homogenized and differential spaces are mani-
fested both visually and discursively. In fact, within the territorialization process,
the residual space turns ‘into the space of speech, expressiveness, and power, and—
already at this level—of latent violence and revolt (…) The space of speech envelops
the space of bodies and develops by means of traces, of writings, of prescriptions
and inscriptions (Lefebvre 1991, p.403).’ Therefore, the residual become a territorial
space, a historically specific political form of (produced) space (Brenner and Elden
2009, p.363) in contestation with the statist and institutional abstract space.
The practices that territorialize the residual spaces in Bogotá generate affective
and dynamic experiences in those who actively take part in them. Similarly, they
foster an emotional experience in those who participate only as observers of the
process and the results.
Among the multiple territorialization practices in the residual space, some of the
most significant are described in what follows.
4.1 Graffiti
Despite the historical opposition and even institutional persecution over graffiti prac-
tices (Alcaldía de Bogotá 2013), they constitute one of the most significant markers
of space in Bogota’s urban landscape. Graffiti are easy to find in almost all residual
space categories, thanks to their versatility. Street artists and writers claim that these
zones grant a means of expression to those who do not have an officially sanctioned
opportunity to be seen or heard publicly. Thus, graffitiing is ‘a practice that has given
young people the possibility of using the wall to speak, communicate, and make
themselves visible in the city’ (Díaz Cruz 2015, p.118).
Traditionally, graffiti in Bogota have had a sociopolitical intent. Through graffiti,
people have used appropriate spaces abandoned by the State or by private owners to
demonstrate the disregard of many stakeholders toward the city. In recent decades,
this appropriation has also taken the form of an appeal to local identities or values.
Graffiti purposes in the city may depend on the sources of funding for the practice.
Because the government has financed mural-making in some residual spaces, espe-
cially on the inactive facade walls that remain after the transport infrastructure, it
is making the decisions—up to a point—over what kind of symbols are permissible.
As graffiti have an irreverent component, many graffiti writers consider that the main
political function of their initiatives is to be a critical commentary on statal errors.
Furthermore, based on exclusion and the normalized function of serving capitalist
economic interests, the most cost-effective option for the State is not to intervene in
the facades along the transport system lines. Instead, the State places this function
onto the property owners, because according to Articles 21, 239, 246 and 272 in the
Bogotá Land Use Plan (Alcaldía de Bogotá. District Decree 619 of 2000 (2004)), the
facades are private property, albeit they belong to the public space. That contradic-
tory policy implies that the government is not directly responsible for the surfaces,
although the owners depend on state entities for interventions. Amidst the legal
confusion left by the law, the graffiti appropriate spaces that seem to have no impor-
tance for the city institutions, notwithstanding that the quality of a city landscape
has a role the wellbeing of its citizens.
Graffiti in Bogota have contributed to the design of the inactive facades in terms
of their visual character, livening up the street, and creating an urban landscape
that developers on many occasions, subsequently destroy. Therefore, even though
some types of graffiti ‘writing’ generate displeasure and feelings of fear, the graphic
interventions in Bogotá mostly have favored a topophilia toward residual spaces.
Besides supplying an aesthetic function, graffiti gave rise to the territorialization
of residual spaces in Bogotá ‘since the most appropriated spaces are those occu-
pied by symbols’ (Lefebvre 1991, p.366). With graffiti, individuals and associations
demarcate their spatial control and make residual spaces counter-spaces for commu-
nicating and denouncing, and keeping memories alive. Some graffiti in the city’s
residual spaces have gained such significance that they become collective memory
places functioning as landmarks for social movements for remembrance days and
demonstrations.
4.2 Informal Vending
The occupation of residual spaces as workplaces reflects the shocking economic

disparities in Bogotá’s society. Informal work in the capital constitutes the only
economic survival option of more than 40 percent of the working-age population
(DANE 2020). Thus, non-formal sales of products and services occur throughout the
city, including in residual spaces, especially in remnant lots and in the high pedestrian
traffic zones under bridges (Fig. 3).
Territorialization by street vendors occurs not without tensions between different
social actors. Gaining the control of specific public areas and maintaining spatial
market power creates a sense of ownership that leads some vendors to defend their
appropriated space even by using violence. Therefore, these territorial spaces usually
involve power conflicts, including fights between vendors who would like to occupy
a space already taken, or between vendors and the State.
While some citizens are grateful that the residual spaces revitalized by the vendors
become safer to walk through, others relate the presence of informal vendors with
the unregulated occupation of public space and favorable conditions for theft due
to the obstruction of pedestrian mobility (Díaz Cruz 2015).
Fig. 3 Informal vendors and graffiti in a mixed residual space on NQS Avenue, Bogotá. Source
Author
4.3 Homelessness Related Activities
Zones under bridges, in tunnels, and some other areas with little pedestrian flow are
occupied by street dwellers for recycling activities, sleeping, or using drugs. Some
people also use these residual spaces as toilets and for depositing rubble and littering.
To many Bogota citizens, the presence of the homeless and their practices gener-
ates an aversion toward the spaces they occupy (topophobia). For this reason, people
consider those areas to be just for ‘passing through and not for spending time in’.
Territorialization by the homeless can obscure some violent practices of the police
because they are socially legitimated by citizens expressing opinions like, ‘the Mayor
should take the homeless out of here’ (Díaz Cruz 2015, p.161). Those opinions deny
the right that street dwellers also have—as citizens—to inhabit the city, and they hide
the legitimization of practices such as the so-called ‘social cleansing’.
4.4 Cultural and Leisure Activities
Communities and institutions plan cultural activities, but leisure is more spontaneous.
Usually, cultural activities in residual spaces have the character of family-oriented
fairs with music, handicrafts, and marketing in open and more structured areas. There
are also some initiatives to transform the landscape, such as planting urban gardens
in vacant zones. Leisure activities are the only practice of territorialization performed
by children. These include soccer encounters, skateboarding, and hanging out after
lunch, and they occur in almost any vacant or remnant lot, even at the Bus Rapid
Transit intersections.
Cultural activities and the provision of street and leisure furniture are the initiatives
best-received by citizens for activating residual spaces, but they are the least likely to
be organized by State institutions because of their lack of financial resources (Díaz
Cruz 2015, p.133).
4.5 Occupations of Space
Occupancy or ‘occupying’ is one of the most vigorous counter practices of territori-

alization in residual spaces because it is often linked to citizens’ complaints against
various public policies regarding the destruction of the built landscape. People also
confront the State, both legally and non-legally, because of its financial abandonment
of the social and cultural projects that were originally intended for many of the aban-
doned buildings in the city. Posters, graffiti, and legal actions like lawsuits are tools in
several processes to demonstrate citizens’ disagreement with official determinations
and their intention of stopping the development of projects that exclude collective
interests.
Occupations in residual spaces have many facets and they occur both in vacant
lots and in abandoned buildings. On the one hand, citizens use most of the lots
as temporary parking, as extensions of workshop areas for crafts or bike repair, or
for temporary settlement of street dwellers. Some people occupy the abandoned
buildings where they used to live or work, such as the hospital complex San Juan
de Dios, which used to serve low-income people with government funding until its
sudden closure due to state negligence. Because the closing left not only patients,
but also employees, with no place to go, some families of medical personnel have
occupied the hospital for two decades. Doctors and nurses living there have tried
to keep providing assistance while taking care of the medical equipment and the
facilities, despite a legal judgment against them.
5 Territorialization as a Synonym of Resignification
Stating that a space is residual can lead to the assumption that it has a second-hand
character that makes it irrelevant in the urban configuration. Consequently, residual
spaces could be considered as urban infrastructure ruins with no possibility of being
an active part of a city. Nevertheless, as Lefebvre states (2016, p.141), ‘each residual
element contains something precious and essential’, and through territorialization
practices, residual spaces can become landscapes full of symbolic value for those
who produce them. Interaction gives significance to residual spaces, turning them
into counter-spaces and resignifying the urban ‘ruins’ to be looked at a second time.
Therefore, territorialization practices in residual spaces are counter-practices that

constitute mechanisms for both the production of differential space and the social
construction of the territory. Thereby they have the possibility of transforming what
Lefebvre called the ‘phallic’ condition of the abstract space into a ‘uterine’ condi-
tion. That means, building a space less obliging to dominant economic interests,
more conciliatory in terms of its collective uses and appropriation, and socially
produced through inclusive practices, experiences, and symbols. In sum, a space
more centered on subjects than on objects, where the participation of social minori-
ties such as children, women, or elders is more viable because it (the uterus) may
contain everyone.
Practices of territorialization in residual spaces highlight a lack of rights to the
city, understood as spatial justice (Soja 2010), while having the potential to trans-
form the urban aesthetic by means of citizen interactions, into a safer, happier, and
healthier way to live in the city. Such transformation requires more commitments
from the stakeholders and developers to include people’s initiatives of public space
appropriation. ‘The challenge is colossal since there is a tendency for ‘green areas’—
trees or squares that are anything more than intersections, town parks, and similar to
die out (…) because their consumption is non-productive because all they produce
is a pleasure. So, they attract no investment’ (Lefebvre 1991, p.359).
To improve the transition of residual space toward a more uterine and better lived
space, it is crucial to resolve the contradiction ‘between a consumption of space which
produces surplus value and one which produces only enjoyment—and is therefore
seen as ‘unproductive’ (Lefebvre 1991, p.359–360). In other words, it is urgent to
find a balance between capitalist space builders and community landscape producers,
which would indeed allow territorialization by the city dwellers.
References
Alcaldía de Bogotá (2004) District Decree 190. https://www.alcaldiabogota.gov.co/sisjur/normas/

Norma1.jsp?i=13935
Alcaldía de Bogotá (2013) Regulatory decree 75. “By which the artistic and responsible practice of
graffiti in the city is promoted and other provisions are issued”. https://www.culturarecreaciony
deporte.gov.co/sites/default/files/decreto_075_de_2013_0.pdf. Accessed 16 Feb 2020
Bogotá cómo vamos (2017) Informe de Calidad de Vida en Bogotá 2017—Así avanza la
ciudad. https://bogotacomovamos.org/informe-de-calidad-de-vida-en-bogota-2017-asi-avanza-
la-ciudad/ Accessed 20 Feb 2020
Borja J (2005) La ciudad actual. El desafío del espacio público. Revista anual de pensamiento.
Hacia la ciudadanía del siglo XXI. El valor de la palabra. Hitzaren balioa 5:25- 44. http://www.
bideo.info/buesa/imagenes/valordelapalabra5.pdf
Brenner N, Elden S (2009) Henri Lefebvre on state, space, territory. Int Political Sociol 3:353–377
Curzio C (2008) El origen y las características de los fragmentos urbano públicos residuales.
Cuadernos Geográficos 42:53–82. http://www.ugr.es/~cuadgeo/docs/articulos/042/042-003.pdf
DANE (2020) Boletín técnico. Medición de empleo informal y seguridad social. https://www.dane.
gov.co/files/investigaciones/boletines/ech/ech_informalidad/bol_ech_informalidad_dic19_
feb20.pdf. Accessed 24 March 2020
de Solà-Morales I (1995) Terrain vague. In: Davidson CC (ed) Anyplace. MIT Press, Cambridge,
MA, p 118–123
Díaz Cruz NA (2015) Análisis del paisaje residual en Bogotá. Ejes de Transmilenio: Avenidas
El Dorado, Fernando Mazuera, Caracas y Norte Quito Sur. Master’s Dissertation, Universidad
Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá
García A, Fernández V, Zambrana L (2011) Luces y sombras de los espacios públicos del Aljarafe
sevillano. Documentos de Arquitectura y Patrimonio 3(4):120–127. https://idus.us.es/handle/
11441/12133
Lefebvre H (1991) The production of space. English translation by Nicholson-Smith, Donald.
Blackwell, Oxford
Lefebvre H (1996) Writing on cities. Blackwell, Oxford
Lefebvre H (2002) Critique of everyday life, vol II. Foundations for a sociology of the everyday.
Verso, London
Lefebvre H (2016) Metaphilosophy. Verso, London
Massey D (2005) La filosofía y la política de la espacialidad. Algunas consideraciones. In: Arfuch
L (ed) Pensar este tiempo: espacios, afectos pertenencias, Paidós, Buenos Aires, pp 103–127
Nogué J (2011) Otros mundos, otras geografías. Los paisajes residuales. Revista da Anpege. 7(1):3–
10. http://anpege.org.br/revista/ojs-2.4.6/index.php/anpege08/article/view/174
Ojeda D (2020) La tarifa de Transmilenio se ubica entre las más altas de Latinoamérica. El
Espectador Newspaper. https://www.elespectador.com/noticias/bogota/la-tarifa-de-transmilenio-
se-ubica-entre-las-mas-altas-de-latinoamerica-articulo-907575. Accessed 28 March 2020
Pierce J, Martin D (2015) Placing Lefebvre. Antipode 47(5):1279–1299
Relph E (1976) The phenomenological foundations of geography. University of Toronto, Depart-
ment of Geography, Discussion Paper 21. https://www.academia.edu/7183675/The_Phenomeno
logical_Foundations_of_Geography
Soja EW (2010) Seeking spatial justice. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis
Stokoe E, Wallwork J (2003) Space invaders: the moral-spatial order in neighbor dispute discourse.
Br J Soc Psychol 42:551–569
Tuan Y-F (1974) Topophilia: a study of environmental perception, attitudes, and values. Prentice-
Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
Nataly A. Díaz Cruz Independent researcher, Department of Geography, Universidad Nacional

de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia.
Nataly Díaz Cruz has a Bachelor’s degree in chemistry and Master’s degree in geography. She
is an educator and socio-environmental researcher specialising in cultural landscape and territorial
environmental management. She is also a columnist and broadcaster in independent media. She is
a member of the ESTEPA (Espacio, Tecnología y Participación) at UNAL, Bogotá. Her Master’s
thesis on residual landscapes received attention from academia and citizen urban policy collectives
in Bogotá.
Building and ‘De-indianising’ a Nation.
The Kuna and Guaymí People
and the Formation of the Panamanian
State
Ana Sofía Solano Acuña and David Díaz Baiges
Abstract In this chapter we survey the diverse political and ideological strategies
put forth by the state and elites in order to take over areas of the ‘national territory’
thought of as ‘empty’ and ‘wild’, tear apart ethno-territories and cultural universes,
and manage indigenous people and their resources under the veil of a consolidating a
‘national state’. We examine the experiences in the eastern and western frontiers of
Panama during its transition from the Colombian period into republican life after
1903. Each case study illustrates the social construction of the indigenous societies
(Kuna and Guaymí) targeted by these strategies. We consider that although the colo-
nial enterprise was one, each territory strongly determined the specific modes of
state encroachment, construction of the cultural other, and the discourses deployed
to bring these social bodies within the national project. The documental corpus
used in our study comprises press articles, official documents, and the writings of
intellectuals and Catholic missionaries. In the eastern frontier the role of Catholic
missions was key, as they were tasked with converting the indigenous population into
‘citizens’ useful to the homeland; to culturally ‘de-indianize’ (desindianizar) their
ways of life and settlement; to wield political and economic power over the lands
bordering Colombia; and to re-signify the ethnic territory. In the western frontier
de-indianization must be understood differently, as it involved many central-western
villages administratively losing the category of ‘indigenous’, giving way to the emer-
gence and consolidation of a new socio-racial category, which not only reaffirmed
the low-class status of the indigenous, but also obliterated any recognisable historical
roots of prior categories.
Keywords De-indianisation · Nation · Frontier · Cultural territory
A. S. Solano Acuña (B)

Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad Nacional, Heredia, Costa Rica
e-mail: ana.solano.acuna@una.ac.cr
D. Díaz Baiges
Universidad Nacional, Heredia, Costa Rica
234 A. S. Solano Acuña and D. Díaz Baiges
1 Introduction
This chapter examines the context in the eastern and western borderlands of present-
day Panama, specifically in terms of the experiences of the Kuna and Guaymí peoples
as they faced land and population management policies during the Colombian period
and into the first years of Panama’s independence in 1903.1 This study seeks to
understand the nation as a discursive construction, whose narrative process involves
an ambivalent alternation between projects to homogenise and to differentiate (Díaz
Baiges 2018).
Colonisation policy in Colombia between 1820 and 1870 sought to attract foreign
settlers by granting land to populate the borderlands and maintain the road network
(Solano Acuña 2019). Incoming families were expected to settle in farming villages
in the borderlands for them to establish and run mid-size homesteads (Le Grand
1988).
An additional and determining aspect of the land policy in the Panamanian border-
lands during this period was the interventionist policy wielded by the Unites States
mainly aimed at controlling the canal lands, but also establishing monopolies on
resources such as guano, tagua nut and rubber (Sandner 1984). Particularly, in 1850
the Kuna territory was subject to a string of surveying expeditions (González Escobar
2003,2011; Santa-Teresa 1956) aimed chiefly to assess the possibilities for building
a canal through the Darién region. Similarly, the Guaymí, on the border with Costa
Rica, were threatened by re-settlement attempts by the U.S. As Solano Acuña (2019)
explains, this attempt involved the mobilisation of the black population south of
Chiriquí to work the coal fields needed to fuel ships as establish colonies along the
land route to Central America.
This ideal would later be picked up during the first administration of Belisario
Porras (1912–1918), by promoting European, mainly Spanish, migrants to settle
in farming colonies in Chiriquí, after having worked in building the canal. These
efforts did not materialise, but the idea yet again resumed as railway construction
further advanced into Chiriquí and Los Santos. Such penetrations into indigenous
territories came along with tax exempt grants of thousands of hectares of unused and
‘pardoned’2 land to foreign investors (Pizzurdo Gelós y Araúz 1996, p.32).
By the second half of the nineteenth century, the Chorographic Commission was
established. Its work was carried out in two phases. The first, under the leadership
of general Codazzi, consisted in the exploration of the provinces presently corre-
sponding to the departments of Boyacá, Santander, Norte de Santander, Antioquia,
Chocó, Nariño and Panamá. One of the main objectives of exploring Panama was
to determine the possibility of opening an interoceanic canal through the isthmus of
Darién.
1 On November 28, 1821, Panama joined Greater Colombia in what turned out to be a strained
relationship until it gained its independence on November 3, 1903. During that period this territory
went by various names: Departamento del Istmo (1821–1840), Estado Libre del Istmo (1840–
1841), Departamento de Panamá (1842–1855), Estado de Panamá (1855–1862), Estado Soberano
de Panamá (1863–1886), and Departamento de Panamá (1886–1903).
2 Tierras indultadas. This term refers to lands free of any restrictions to be granted.
Building and ‘De-indianising’ a Nation … 235
In 1870 the Kuna signed their first agreement with the government, by which
they accepted the authority of the Unites States of Colombia over these lands. This
pact hinged upon the government acknowledging the natives’ property rights of their
dwellings and crop fields, hunting and fishing rights in areas in the public domain
and offering protection against possible invasions (Zapata 1871). These agreements
also gave birth to the comarca Tulenega, a new territorial entity comprising 36 small
villages scattered between the bay of San Blas and the mouth of the Atrato River.
However the comarca was short lived since both parties soon breached the terms of
the agreement.
As of August 8, 1885, Colombian politics shifted towards conservatism by the so-
called Regeneración movement. This political swing gave way to the Concordat of
1887, in accordance with the new constitution. This resulted in new arrangements,
such as the Missions Convention (Convenio de Misiones) and the arrival of new
religious communities promoting missionary work (Solano Acuña 2019).
From October 17, 1899, to November 21, 1902, the Thousand Day War broke out
in Colombia. This conflict was won by the conservatives except in Panamá, where
liberal resistance prevailed in numbers and tactics. Resulting from the conflict was
nationwide economic devastation, hundreds of thousands of lives lost on both sides,
and an unstable and volatile political climate, all of which gave rise to the isthmus
seceding in November, 1903. During the conflict, liberalism adopted a populist and
paternalistic discourse towards the indigenous peoples, reaffirming the notion of the
natives as spiritually rich and industrious but in need of assistance from the state to
control poverty and exploitation (Langebaek-Rueda 2014).
Around the year 1912, the government led by Belisario Porras created legislation,
following the same path as its predecessors, meant for ‘civilizing’ the indigenous
peoples as a way of integrating them, secure the national space and the construction
of a nationality in which the indigenous would only have a place as part of the past
(Solano Acuña 2019). Hereafter both western and eastern lands would be subject to
ravages by foreign and domestic forces, as a logical effect of the construction of the
Interoceanic Canal.
2 Methodology
Our approach to the eastern and western areas was based on primary archival sources
and secondary sources, such as serial collections. More specifically, for the case of
the western frontier official documents and texts by indigenous writers found in the
Panama National Archive stand out as key sources. Regarding the latter, we located
dispatches from members and authorities of indigenous communities to agents of
the Catholic Church, the Panamanian or Colombian central governments, and to
other indigenous leaders in distant regions. In regard to frequency, the most plentiful
documents are letters, visit reports (from clergy, prefects and governors), dispute
records, tax reports, technical-administrative reports and appointments/dismissals of
public servants.
The analysis of the eastern frontier depended mainly on documents by mission-

aries: mission reports and magazines and other mission propaganda. Additionally
documents held in the archives of the Urabá Apostolic Prefecture (digitalised by
the Fundación Sancho el Sabio), proved very useful for the study of the missionary
project in this Colombian prefecture.
3 Indigenous Populations and Territories

from the Colombian Period to Republican Life
In the early nineteenth century a series of ‘protectionist’ laws and decrees were
enacted in order to run different aspects of life within indigenous communities,
especially in regard to land tenure. The deployment of such legal instruments evinced
the failure to grant equal treatment to this population among the citizenship at large
(Solano Acuña 2019).
Pizzurdo Gelós (2011, p.78) explained that in 1824 with Law 30, called ‘Method
to civilise the wild Indians’, land was offered to the natives who accepted forms of
permanent settlement, became farmers and renounced their non-Christian customs.
Eight years later, from 1828 to 1859, there was an increase in the parcelling of
indigenous lands, the extinction of the indigenous councils and the consequent
proletarianisation of a large part of the native population (Pineda Camacho 2004).
In 1868 Law 19 of 12 October was enacted in Panama. Its main purpose was to
guarantee common lands to the indigenous communities. Other rulings were issued
alongside regarding this special administrative regime, while also recognising the
Catholic Church as overseer of government matters within the indigenous communi-
ties (Guzmán 2004, p.160). Two years later the Law of 4 June, concerning resettled
indigenous communities (reducciones de indios), gave rise to a formal Kuna terri-
tory. Laws 61 and 48, enacted in 1882, made possible for citizens to acquire land
plots (‘globos de tierra’), on proving their use for farming, which in the long term
promoted non-indigenous peasant immigration to indigenous lands (Le Grand 1988).
The 1886 Political Constitution of Colombia portrayed indigenous communities
as ‘savage’ or ‘half civilised’ and in need of guardianship by Catholic missions,
as they were legally considered ‘minors’. The Concordat of 1887 signed between
Colombia and the Vatican materialised these precepts through the establishment of
religious institutes dedicated to charity, mission and education, among others. The
resources provided by the State to the Church were also used in the dioceses, town
councils and seminaries. Article 12 of the Concordat established that:
In colleges and high schools, in schools and other educational institutions, public education
and instruction shall be organised and directed in conformity with the dogmas and morals of
the Catholic Religion. Religious education shall be obligatory in such centres, and the pious
practices of the Catholic Religion shall be observed there (Concordat 1887, p.2).
In terms of the two territories that occupy us in this work (the western border
and the eastern border of Panama) it will be possible to observe how the process of
independence from Colombia in 1903 was overcome. This idea of the consolidation
of the national border based on religious orders will be especially clear in the case
of the Kunas, but not for the Guaymí, whose model of incorporation into the nascent
national state was based on territorial rupture and the process of de-indianisation.
The importance of the Catholic Church in the process of colonisation and accul-
turation was reaffirmed in Law 103 of 1890, by which it was formally appointed
as the representative for the national government in the territories on the southern
border, and tasked to ‘resettle and evangelise the savages’ (reducir a los salvajes) as
well as establishing a first bastion of Colombianness facing possible invasions from
neighbouring countries (Restrepo 2006; Bushnell 2007). Fourteen years later, this
mechanism was recovered in the Political Constitution of Panama in 1904, whose
article 26 stated that the first steps to ‘Panamanise’ the indigenous communities
would hinge upon the establishment of Catholic missions. Similarly Law 59 of 1908
declared the need to develop a system of missions and schools as well as to regulate
the relations between indigenous and ‘civilised’ peoples.
Two years later, in Gaceta de Panamá (1906), Law 19 was published ‘Which
determines how the indigenous people of Coclé province should be governed’. This
law was especially important because it declared on the part of the state that there was
no indigenous population in the province of Coclé. This law effectively abolished the
indigenous cabildos and governorships, and initiated the creation of police stations
(Toabré, Pajonal, Tolé, Penonomé, Piedras Gordas, La Pintada, Marica, Cabuya, El
Valle de Antón, Tóza and Natá) and the foundation of schools (Toabré, Pajonal, Tolé,
Cañaveral, Penonomé, La Pintada and El Valle de Antón).
However, this idea of a ‘problem solved’ did not extend to all the territories with
indigenous population, so it was necessary to reiterate its incorporation in Law 56
of 28 December 1912 ‘On the civilisation of indigenous peoples’. This law was
directed mainly to those territories where state control was still deficient or unstable
and promoted the development of settlements in strategically selected places in order
to establish communication with these indigenous communities, organise political
forces to maintain order, and grant lands to colonists in those areas required by the
state (Solano Acuña 2019). The main call was to pacify, to attract to civilised life
the barbarian, semi-civilised and wild tribes existing in the country. Another direct
result of this law was the complete withdrawal of support for the Catholic Church
in its role to ‘civilise’ the indigenous communities, leaving that task exclusive to the
state.
By 1913 Law 20 ‘On uncultivated and pardoned lands’ was enacted. Its purpose
was to bring land tenure into order, apply taxes and stimulate foreign investment,
a much needed measure for the public treasure. Article 38 called on citizens and
companies devoted to the production of ‘useful items’ or services to file for grants
of necessary land for their enterprises. Article 39 reaffirmed the commitment of the
state to establish farming colonies making it possible to ‘set apart and demarcate
land plots no larger than one thousand hectares’ (Solano Acuña 2019, p.388). These
actions were further reiterated by the 25 March Decree 17, which laid down the
‘regulations for the allotment of land for the establishment of farming colonies in all
the Republic’, anticipating no fewer than ten thousand colonists. These benefits were
available to private citizens and colonist firms; lot management was to be undertaken
by the municipalities (Solano Acuña 2019, p.390).
4 The Kuna, the Missions, and the ‘New Citizens’
As already noted, on 3 November, 1903, Panama declared its independence from

the Colombian state. As that took place the Kuna, mostly concentrated in the San
Blas region, saw their territory split asunder, itself becoming a new border. In both
Bogotá and Panama City the vulnerabilities of the new frontier were recognised:
vast, unprotected and with an indigenous population likely to give access and even
assistance to enemy troops seeking to shift the borderline. This vulnerability, added to
the fear on both sides that the Kuna might favour the other, led the two governments
to implement policies seeking to bring them into ‘civilised’ life, to ‘nationalise’
them and turning them into constituents of use to the homeland. To achieve that, a
well-known strategy was put in practice: Catholic missions (see Fig. 1).
On the Colombian side the task of evangelising and ‘civilising’ the Kuna was at
first entrusted to the Claretian Missionaries, then in charge of the Apostolic Prefecture
of Chocó, established in 1908. In 1918, this responsibility was transferred to the
order of the Discalced Carmelites, who administered the Apostolic Prefecture of
Urabá (1918–1940). On the Panamanian side the first attempt to establish Catholic
missions among the Kuna was carried out by Jesuit Leonardo Gassó, who started a
mission on the island of Narganá (1907–1912). After the mission closed down and
after more than ten years of aggressive colonisation policies in the Kuna territory,
which culminated with the Tule Revolution of 1925, the Catholic Church was once
again appealed to assist in the effort. This resulted in the creation of the Apostolic
Vicariate of Darien in 1925, entrusted to the Claretian Missionaries (Misioneros
Claretianos 1939).
The practices implemented by the Discalced Carmelites in Gulf of Urabá region,
Colombia, as those by the Claretian Missionaries in the area of San Blas, were rather
similar in the sense that they focused on the education of children as an instrument
for change. Neophytes would first be taught the national language, Spanish, while
religious indoctrination of children was considered the first step towards ‘civilised’
life, followed by inculcation of an unconditional love to the homeland. Another
fundamental element was the teaching of arithmetic as well as training in trades and
‘modern’ farming techniques, devices expected to ease their future insertion into
capitalistic economy as wage earning workers. Thus instructed, neophytes were to
return to their homes to preach both the gospel and their new ‘civilised’ ways to their
relatives (Misioneros Claretianos 1939).
The main function of these practices, besides converting the Kuna into citizens
useful to the homeland, was to ‘de-indianise’ their cultural patterns of life and settle-
ment. They were expected to dress as ‘westerners’, abandon their ways of sustenance
by inserting themselves into a capitalistic economy under the terms defined by the
state, and raise typically Christian families, all of which would entail a fundamental
Building and ‘De-indianising’ a Nation …
239
Fig. 1 Kuna territory, first half of the twentieth century

change in their social organisation and patterns of settlement. Thus, the first act
performed upon those newly arrived to a school or boarding school was to remove
their traditional garments, since clothing was considered the identifying mark of the
natives’ ‘inferiority’ and ‘semi-savageness’.
As these practices were performed, missionaries would also facilitate state
encroachment in these remote regions. This would involve ‘taming’ the natives in
order to ease access to natural resources that, according to the Claretians, were being
seized by them. Thus the missionaries called for the colonisation of these lands,
for without the presence of colonists the Kuna territory would remain ‘savage’ and
‘primitive’.
To that end it was made necessary to establish towns and build chapels and
churches in which the cross and the national flag were the only visible symbols in
the land for its inhabitants to identify themselves with. The photographs published
by the Claretians in the San Blas region are a good example of how this spatial
re-arrangement was understood as a way to set ‘civilisation’ apart from ‘barbarity’.
The implementation of the missionary project among communities on both sides
of the border led to reduced mobility within these territories. In the long term this
resulted in the disruption of the Kuna ethnic territories, perhaps best illustrated by
the dissolution of the comarca Tulenega, which had been recognised in 1870.
Despite the efforts of both state and religious orders to culturally eradicate them,
the Kuna learned how to shift things to their advantage. Through diplomacy, carried
out by their leaders and most literate members, educated in western institutions, the
Kuna finally received the official territorial designation of comarca in 1953. This
materialised as a semi-autonomous political organisation which formally acknowl-
edged the unique aspects of the indigenous society. In the agreement, in exchange
for autonomy in cultural, economic and political aspects, the Kuna accepted state
involvement in matters regarding territorial sovereignty, security and natural resource
use (Martínez Mauri 2011).
5 from Indians to Cholos. Rupture and Continuity

in the Guaymí World
In this analysis we consider the greater indigenous realm of western Panama,

including Chiriquí, Bocas del Toro, Veraguas and the southwestern section of Coclé.
In the late nineteenth century the region was made up by a sizable number of
scattered kinship groups, interconnected by familial ties, culturally diverse and, in
varying degrees, contact with their ‘cultural others’. Within this region Bocas del
Toro remained the most remote area since the time of the Spaniards (see Fig. 2).
These areas in the far north of the Panamanian territory were represented as
dangerous places, lacking in civility and patriotism, rich in terms of exploitable
natural resources, vast in quantity and quality of land and with much greater cultural
relationship with Costa Rica than with the rest of Panama. It is because of this last
Building and ‘De-indianising’ a Nation …
Fig. 2 Guaymí territory, late nineteenth century

241
aspect that it was common during the period of union with Colombia, as well as
after the independence process, for brigades to be deployed to undermine riots and
possible rebellions (Cervera 1884), and for pages to be devoted to reflection on
the need to incorporate these territories and their populations as an indispensable
requirement for the consolidation of national unity. This is illustrated in a report
of 1886 addressed to the Civil and Military Chief of State and the President of the
Republic of Colombia, where the concern about the northern border is vehemently
exposed, especially for the province of Bocas del Toro. The report states that
[…] the inhabitants of this very important island have no ties of any kind, nor by tradition,
with the rest of Colombia; there our language is replaced by English and if they were ever
asked to which nation they would like to belong I am sure they would choose, if not the
United States of America, any other nation but Colombia (Secretario de Gobierno en el
Despacho de Fomento 1886).
A few years before (1852), Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera (1798–1878), a Colom-

bian military man, diplomat and statesman, described this geographical space as one
of the ‘dirtiest and most unhealthy places in the New Granada’; he also indicated
that the border with Costa Rica was a place of deep insecurity due to ‘the ambitious
pretensions born from the rivalry of the bordering peoples’ (De Mosquera 1852). In
stories and reflections similar to De Mosquera’s, the danger of establishing alliances
between its inhabitants and indigenous sectors from other parts of Central America
such as the Talamancan peoples and the inhabitants of the Miskito Coast, and also
with the English, was highlighted. These concerns were much more constant in 1805
and 1806, when attacks and looting of villages were documented in a collaborative
manner between Miskito and Guaymí Indians (Audiencia de Panamá 1805, 1806).
The inhabitants of western Panama were also represented as ‘semi-civilised and
barbarians’, with a population number that was scarce in relation to the immensity of
the territories and the wealth of natural resources, resources that were also of great
value (and urgency) for the construction of the Nation. In a report by the Prefect of
Coclé in 1888, we read his request for the construction of a school in the village of
Toabre, which would contribute to ‘improve the social condition of those inhabitants,
who are thus deprived of the principles of civilization and progress’ (Prefect of Coclé
1888).
Gradually, the representation of the Guaymí population was reaffirmed as scarce
in number, which hardly reached two thousand people, possessed a not very complex
social and military organisation, and was dedicated almost exclusively to agriculture
(Perez 1862, Prefect of Coclé 1888). There were constant comparisons with the
indigenous populations of eastern Panama, concluding at times that the Guaymí were
less and less indigenous, that they were heirs to a glorious but distant past, that they
were ‘mixed’ indigenous people, easy to integrate into the new productive systems,
and also the necessary labour for the development and expansion of production and
extraction projects in the region.
The result of implementing this representation of an eroded indigenous condi-
tion was the emergence of a peripheral Indian ‘other’, even poorer, individualised,
uprooted from the protection of his community and plundered from his past, thus the
cholo was born.
This representation, built from the spaces of power, was considered an effective
tool to make accessible lands that were protected by indigenous legislation. These
lands were frequently violated, but the traditional authorities (in the particular case
of rey, rei, cacique, governor) had a margin of demand protected by their status
as indigenous communities. For example, in 1881 King Juan Roble Montesuma
presented a written request for protection to President Rafael Núñez, as he denounced
the fact that the ‘white’ Candelarios Rosas, Fausto Coctre, Manuel María Camaños
and ten other people were settling among the indigenous families in Tolé; and that
they did not recognise his authority, so he requested the presence of twenty to forty
soldiers to come and help them defend their farms (Roble Montesuma 1881).
Six years later, Victor Espinoza (1887), Governor of the Indians of the province of
Coclé, addressed a memorial to the civil governor of the Department of Panama, with
the purpose of denouncing the treatment received by the Indians in his government.
In his own words, he ‘raises his weak voice to demand protection for the civic
life of these Indians, so that they would be allowed to have their own government,
which they considered a social necessity. Espinoza defines the population under his
administration as ‘semi-civilised Indians’ who had to live with strangers on their
land, and who over time claimed more and more land and rights.
Coexistence under these conditions became increasingly unsustainable for indige-
nous families, who were often violated by both civilians and the forces of law and
order. Regarding this situation, the Indian governor Venancio Agraje (1897) indi-
cated that ‘the men of the Army who seemed to come to our land charged with
hatred against us’. This situation was compounded by a series of taxes on metal
and labour, the provision of arms service, road maintenance, prohibition on the
use of non-Christian names, the obligation to embrace the Catholic faith and speak
Spanish, the duty to conform peoples and collaboration in the construction of public
infrastructure.
In this complex context, as they lost the possibility of claiming their former lands,
part of this population became labourers on the nascent haciendas, poor peddlers
of various products, while kinship groups were displaced to farther northern moun-
tainous areas. Thus, the composition of the historical territory was impacted at the
beginning of the last century, in part by an administrative definition that limited to a
series of features who was indigenous and who had ceased to be; and on the other
hand, by the territorial displacement that effectively occurred in a sustained manner
throughout the twentieth century as a result of the forms of violence that both the
state and the civilian population exerted upon these populations (see Fig. 3).
244
Fig. 3 Guaymí territory, first half of the twentieth century

A. S. Solano Acuña and D. Díaz Baiges
6 Conclusions
The nation state that was conceptualised from the Panamanian independence of 1903
carried on with the debate that was widely developed during the period of union with
Colombia regarding the integration of the lands adjacent to Costa Rica and those in
the Darién. Independent life thus inherited a series of representations on the territory,
natural resources, strategic location and populations, which promoted (and justified)
administrative, legal and economic mechanisms for a greater presence of the state in
these remote places.
The revision of the attention given to each of the new national borders allows us to
conclude that the civilising and integrating project adapted its intervention plan taking
into account the cultural characteristics of the communities, that is, that there was no
unitary project. In terms of the debate on the indigenous communities, independence
also brought no major break with what had been promoted in Colombia for the
attention of these sectors of the population. In other words, independent Panama
continued not only to apply some of the mechanisms, such as the introduction of
religious orders in the case of the Darién, but also to extend the imaginaries in the
new laws aimed at addressing the indigenous problem.
It is in the experience of the Guaymí people that there is a greater variety of
mechanisms for the integration of the indigenous population and the incorporation
of their territories. In this experience, the representation of the indigenous people by
the political, economic and intellectual elites not only justified their integration by
their ‘barbarism’ but also to create the conditions for the appearance of poor peasants
to farm the land for the new owners (companies, Colombian families, Panamanian
or European families).
References
Bushnell D (2007) Colombia Una nación a pesar de sí misma. Nuestra historia desde los tiempos
precolombinos hasta hoy. Planeta Colombiana, Bogota
Claretianos M (1939) Memoria del Vicariato Apostólico del Darién (República de Panamá).
Imprenta Acción Católica, Panama
De Mosquera, TC (1852) Memoria sobre la geografía, física y política de la Nueva Granada,
Imprenta SW. Benedict, New York
Díaz-Baiges D (2018) Convertir para Dios y transformar para la Patria. Doctoral thesis. Universidad
de Barcelona, Barcelona
González-Escobar LF (2003) Nación cuna, secesión y reintegración de Panamá. Una historia olvi-
dada. Paper presented at the “De país en país ‘polifonías caribeñas’ ” symposium. Universidad
de los Andes, Medellín. Accessed 4 March 2003
González-Escobar LF (2011) El Darién. Ocupación, poblamiento y transformación ambiental. Una
revisión histórica, parte I. Instituto Tecnológico Metropolitano, Medellín
Guzmán A (2004) Victoriano Lorenzo, epílogo de una confrontación político-social y proemio de
un devenir diplomático vergonzoso. In: Bonilla H, Montañez G (eds) Colombia y Panamá. La
metamorfosis de la nación en el siglo XX. Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogota
Langebaek-Rueda C, Robledo-Escobar N (2014) Utopías ajenas: evolucionismo, indios e indi-

genistas. Universidad de los Andes, Bogota
Le Grand C (1988) Colonización y protesta campesina en Colombia. Universidad Nacional de
Colombia, Bogota
Martínez-Mauri M (2011) La autonomía indígena en Panamá: la experiencia del pueblo kuna (siglos
XVI-XXI). Abya-Yala, Quito
Pérez F (1862) Jeografía física i politica del Estado de Panama, escrita de orden del gobierno jeneral,
Imprenta de la Nación, Bogota
Pineda Camacho R (2004) La política indigenista entre 1886 y 1991. Estados y Pueblos indígenas
en el siglo XX. Revista Credencial Historia no. 146. http://www.banrepcultural.org (Consultado
el 10/02/2011)
Pizzurdo Gelós, Patricia y Arauz, Celestino, Estudios sobre el Panamá Republicano (1903–1989)
(1996). Editorial Manfer, Bogota
Pizzurdo-Gelós P (2011) Memorias e imaginarios de raza e identidad e Panamá en los siglos XIX
y XX. Mariano Arosemana, Panamá
Restrepo N (2006) La iglesia católica y el estado colombiano, construcción conjunta de una
nacionalidad en el sur del país. Revista Tabula Rasa 5:151–165
Sandner G (1984) Estructuración espacio político-geográfica y la geopolítica en la Región Caribe.
Revista geográfica de América Central, 13–14:41–66
Santa-Teresa S (1956) Historia documentada de la iglesia en Urabá y el Darién: desde el
descubrimiento hasta nuestros días, vol 5. Empresa Nacional de Publicaciones, Bogota
Solano-Acuña AS (2019) Imágenes de la memoria y el poder. Los Guaymí del occidente de Panamá
en la conformación del Estado Nacional (1880–1925). Doctoral thesis, Universidad Pablo de
Olavide, Sevilla
Zapata F (1871) Memoria del Secretario de lo Interior i Relaciones Esteriores al congreso de
Colombia. Imprenta de Medardo Rivas, Bogota
Official Documentation
AGI, Audiencia de Panamá (1805–1806) Invasión de indios guamíes y mosquitos, PANAMA, 294
ANP, Período Colombiano (1881) Juan Roble Montesuma, indígena libre presenta queja al
Presidente de la República por el trato a los Guamí, Tomo 2700, Folio 74
ANP, Período Colombiano (1884) Carta de Dámaso Cervera a los Ciudadanos Diputados infor-
mando que en la Provincia de Chiriquí se han dado levantamientos de istmeños en asociación
con colombianos y otros extranjeros, Tomo 2776
ANP, Período Colombiano (1886) Informe al Secretario de Gobierno en el Despacho de Fomento,
para reconocimiento del señor Jefe Civil y Militar del Estado y de su excelencia el señor Presidente
la de República de Colombia sobre la desvinculación que tienen Bocas del Toro de Colombia,
Tomo 2805, Folio 132
ANP, Período Colombiano (1887) Panamá, Comunicación de Víctor Espinosa titulado Gobernador
de la provincia de Coclé en el que se queja de los atropellos de que son víctimas los indios, por
parte de algunas autoridades subalternas y por particulares, Documentación suelta
ANP, Período Colombiano (1888) Informe del Señor Prefecto de la Provincia de Coclé al Gober-
nador del Departamento de Panamá sobre administración gubernativa, judicial e instrucción
pública, Tomo 2666, Folio 43–49
ANP, Período Colombiano (1897) Carta del Gobernador de Indios de Penonomé Venancio Agraje,
Tomo 2965, Folio 128–12
Concordato celebrado entre la Santa Sede y la República de Colombia 1887
Gaceta de Panamá, Panamá-Panamá, Ley 19 por la cual se determina la manera como deben ser
gobernados los indígenas de la provincia de Coclé, 6 de noviembre de 1906
Gaceta de Panamá, Panamá-Panamá, Ley 56 sobre civilización de indígenas, 28 de diciembre de
1912
Ana Sofía Solano Acuña Associate researcher, Colegio de América, Universidad Pablo de
Olavide, Seville, Spain.
Ana Sofía Solano Acuña is a social anthropologist from Costa Rica. She has a Master’s degree
in History of Latin America-Indigenous Worlds and a Ph.D. in History and Humanistic Studies.
David Díaz Baiges Associate researcher, Instituto de Estudios Sociales en Población, Universidad
Nacional de Costa Rica, San José, Costa Rica.
David Díaz Baiges has a Ph.D. in Society and Culture: History, Anthropology, Arts and Patri-
mony with a specialisation in History of the Americas from the Universitat de Barcelona. He is
currently an associate researcher in the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica and a collaborating
professor at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.
‘They Destroy Everything:’ Racialising
Discourses, Environmental Conservation
Narratives, and Territorial Belonging
in Nicaragua’s Bosawas Biosphere
Reserve
Nora Sylvander
Abstract This chapter analyses racializing and environmental discourses in

producing belonging and displacement in Nicaragua’s indigenous territories from
the perspective of non-indigenous peasants. I suggest that these discourses work
to construct a seemingly homogeneous non-indigenous, or mestizo, category
that conceals crucial intragroup differences in power, spatialities, and environ-
mental behaviour. Hence, they authorize the removal of mestizo peasants through
the saneamiento territorial (‘territorial cleansing’) policy, while ignoring broader
political-economic drivers that territorialize space in indigenous territories. Although
envisioned as an emancipatory mechanism to improve indigenous territorial security,
saneamiento is unlikely to resolve territorial conflicts in the long term.
Keywords Environmental Conservation · Racialized Discourses · Nicaragua ·

Saneamiento Territorial · Territorial Conflicts
1 Introduction
This chapter focuses on the ways in which racializing and environmental conser-
vation narratives intersect and shape territorial legitimacy in Nicaragua’s Bosawas
Biosphere Reserve. It suggests that these discourses play a crucial role in config-
uring and reconfiguring territories, as they produce and reproduce criteria of
belonging that mask complex realities at the local level. It emphasizes particu-
larly how non-indigenous peasants, labelled as mestizos (‘mixed race’), become
envisioned as outsiders and as culprits for the increasing ‘inter-ethnic’ territo-
rial conflicts in Nicaragua’s indigenous territories, despite the long and convo-
luted political-economic and historical factors that explain their presence in these
territories.
A lot of analytical work has focussed on how indigenous people become
constructed as subjects through racializing and environmental conservation
N. Sylvander (B)
Department of Geography and Environment, The London School of Economics and Political
Science, London, UK
e-mail: n.sylvander@lse.ac.uk
250 N. Sylvander
discourses that affect indigenous territorial claims (e.g., Hale 2002; Mollett 2011;
Sundberg 2004; Ybarra 2017). Yet, few analysts have looked at the impacts of these
narratives on the ‘non-indigenous’ mestizo category that is still largely understood as
‘unmarked.’ In this chapter, drawing on literature in political ecology (conservation
narratives and territorialization) and cultural politics (neoliberal multiculturalism
and mestizaje), as well as my ethnographic fieldwork in Nicaragua, I suggest that
mestizo peasants residing in indigenous territories are not untouched by environ-
mental conservation and racializing discourses either. Instead, it is these discourses
that render them as ‘not-belonging’ to Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast, and lead to
their political and physical displacement through Nicaragua’s ‘saneamiento terri-
torial’ (‘territorial cleansing’) policy. Saneamiento has, in practice, come to mean
the eviction of mestizo peasants from indigenous territories, and it is justified by the
labelling of these peasants as (1) out of place, and (2) environmentally unsustainable,
creating a mestizo-indigenous binary.
The chapter suggests that environmental conservation and racializing discourses
do not act only as a mechanism of differentiation between the seemingly irreconcil-
able categories of ‘indigenous’ and ‘mestizo.’ Perhaps more importantly, they also
work as a tool of homogenization, establishing ‘mestizos’ as a black-boxed, seem-
ingly coherent group of people, which conceals crucial intragroup differences in
political-economic power, spatialities, and environmental behaviour. Consequently,
these discourses simultaneously create and uncreate differences, in territorializing
space. This division of people into separate, homogenous groups is a well-known
mechanism to render them more legible and amenable for state control and terri-
torialization (Hale 2002; Mollett 2014). The research finds that, although envi-
sioned as an emancipatory mechanism to improve indigenous territorial security,
saneamiento is based on problematic assumptions of ethnic and environmental iden-
tity and belonging. Thus, it is unlikely to resolve territorial conflicts in the long term;
instead, it may further exacerbate these conflicts.
The structure of this chapter is as follows. The following section provides back-
ground information that situates the analysis contextually. Thereafter, it highlights
the ways in which the construction of mestizos as a homogenous group justifies
the exclusion of mestizo peasants on Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast, while leaving
more powerful mestizo actors relatively intact. Finally, it discusses the role of envi-
ronmental conservation discourses in further reinforcing the indigenous-mestizo
dichotomy, showing that the envisioning of all mestizos as ‘unsustainable’ further
legitimizes the removal of mestizo peasants from indigenous territories, especially
because they double as conservation areas.
‘They Destroy Everything:’ Racialising Discourses … 251
2 Background
2.1 Territorial Conflicts in Nicaragua
Territorial conflicts between indigenous and non-indigenous people appear to be

increasing in Nicaragua’s indigenous territories, as elsewhere in Latin America. In
Nicaragua, these conflicts have taken a violent turn and have led to multiple deaths
on both sides (e.g., Galanova 2017; Lopez 2020). These conflicts have received a
reasonable amount of attention from academics and the media, as analysts are—
rightfully—concerned about the right of indigenous people to maintain and control
their territories.
These accounts generally blame mestizo peasants for the conflicts—they are said
to invade indigenous territories in search of land and ways to capitalize on the natural
resources located in these territories (e.g., Galanova 2017; Parker 2016). Mestizo
migrants are portrayed as relatively powerful actors, and they are said to invade land
under the auspices of Sandinista government officials to practice cattle ranching and
land speculation. Consequently, mestizo migration is effectively conceptualized as a
new instance of colonization of indigenous territories (Downs 2015; Herlihy 2016).
At the same time, mestizo migrants are also envisioned as destroyers of the envi-
ronment. This is true particularly in the areas that are rich in natural resources,
such as my research site, the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve. There, deforestation and
environmental degradation are to a large extent attributed to the ‘unsustainable’
practices of mestizos, particularly cattle ranching and shifting cultivation. These
management practices are then discursively contrasted to the benign, sustainable
methods of indigenous people (e.g., Parker 2016; Stocks et al. 2007). Consequently,
the colonization of indigenous territories is framed both as a human right and an
environmental conservation problem, and saneamiento is urgently called for. ‘They
[mestizos] destroy everything,’ as a development worker based in Managua told me.
I fully share the preoccupation related to the colonization of indigenous territories
in Nicaragua. Yet, what I find problematic about the predominant narrative blaming
mestizo migrants for the conflicts is how it renders these disputes apolitical—as
local clashes between two incompatible groups of people. It pays no attention to the
underlying political-economic drivers and histories of violent elite-led territorializa-
tion in indigenous territories in Nicaragua and beyond (e.g., Finley-Brook and Offen
2009). Nor does it critically scrutinize how racializing and environmental conserva-
tion discourses have played a role in territorial adjudication. In this chapter, then,
the focus is on the often-flawed assumptions that these narratives make about the
contemporary mestizo peasants residing at the agricultural frontier of Nicaragua.
252 N. Sylvander
2.2 Indigenous Territories in Nicaragua
The establishment and legalization of indigenous territories in Nicaragua have

received much attention from scholars (e.g., Baracco and González 2016; Finley-
Brook and Offen 2009). Thus, this chapter will only briefly outline the key stages of
the process.
Nicaragua was historically divided into the Caribbean and Pacific Coasts. While
the Pacific Coast was colonized by the Spanish, on the Caribbean Coast, British and
later North American influences were dominant. After the forceful incorporation of
the Caribbean Coast into Nicaragua in 1894, the Nicaraguan state became increas-
ingly interested in the area’s natural resources, many of which were located in areas
traditionally inhabited by indigenous people (Vilas 1989). Despite the Harrison-
Altamirano treaty, drafted in 1905, that gave indigenous communities basic rights to
their territories, those rights were continuously violated by the Nicaraguan state as
well as by foreign enclave industries (Mairena et al. 2014).
In 1987, the Caribbean Coast was legally recognized as autonomous, and Northern
and Southern Caribbean Autonomous Regions were established (Baracco and
González 2016). Yet, the Autonomy Statute’s implementing regulations did not come
into force until 2003, when the Communal Lands Law 445 was created (Mairena
et al. 2014). Law 445 specifies five steps to demarcate indigenous territories: (1)
presentation of the solicitation to demarcate and title communal territory; (2) conflict
resolution; (3) measurement and marking of community boundaries; (4) titling; and
(5) saneamiento. The implementation has been slow, however, and while almost
all indigenous territories have been titled, most are awaiting the completion of the
last stage of the process, saneamiento, or the removal of unlawful claimants (see
Finley-Brook and Offen 2009; Sylvander 2018).
2.3 Study Area and Methods
Bosawas was first established as a protected area in 1991 and further converted into a
Biosphere Reserve in 1997 (Staver et al. 2007). It consists of a core area of 7,441 ha
and a buffer zone of approximately 12,000 ha. There are altogether seven indigenous
territories in the reserve, mainly located within the core area. Mestizo settlements are
concentrated in the buffer zone, although there is evidence that core areas are also
being colonized (pers. comm., 2018).
This research focuses specifically on analysing the dynamics of territorial conflicts
in an indigenous Mayangna territory in Bosawas—Mayangna Sauni Bas. There,
territorial colonization is an urgent problem, and it is estimated that the number of
mestizos already supersedes the number of Mayangna inhabitants (Kräuter et al.,
n.d.).
The chapter is based on ethnographic fieldwork in the area between 2014 and
2018. I conducted semi-structured, in-depth, and focus group interviews and partic-
ipant observation with the Mayangna and mestizos residing in the area, as well as
interviews with conservation and development practitioners, government officials,
and academics familiar with the zone and territorial conflicts. Moreover, I had access
to census data collected by the German Cooperation Agency GIZ on mestizo settlers
in Mayangna Sauni Bas in 2007 and 2010. I also draw from my experiences as a
development worker in the area between 2012 and 2014.
3 Racialized Logics of Territorial Exclusion
3.1 Mestizaje and Neoliberal Multiculturalism

in Constructing Mestizos as Not-Belonging
This section draws on literature in mestizaje and neoliberal multiculturalism to

analyse how mestizos, as a collective, become conceptualized as outsiders in
Bosawas, based on their ethnicity as non-indigenous. It then contrasts these construc-
tions and narratives with the actual lived experiences of mestizo peasants, showing (1)
that many of them originate from the area where they are now labelled as migrants,
and (2) many of the actual peasant migrants were resettled in the area as a result of the
territorializing policies of the Nicaraguan state and thereafter abandoned. In partic-
ular, this section highlights the need to ‘unpack’ mestizo as a seemingly unracialized
and unmarked category (see de la Cadena 2005; Field 1998).
The dominant portrayal of mestizo settlers in Nicaragua’s indigenous territories
suggests that the settlers, due to their mestizo ethnicity, automatically come to occupy
positions of power and privilege—as mentioned above, they are envisioned as large-
scale cattle ranchers, or as having close ties to the government (Herlihy 2016; Parker
2016). While such actors are, of course, present in Nicaragua’s indigenous territories,
this research shows that, at the same time, these indigenous territories also host a
number of the very poorest peasants in Nicaragua.
Literature on mestizaje has suggested that the idea of ‘racial mixing’ had an
essential role in the nation-building projects in many countries of Latin America.
The aim was to construct a strong, mixed national identity free of colonial labels that
all citizens would adopt (Field 1998; Gould 1998). Obviously, this idea blatantly
violated indigenous rights by aiming to erase indigenous identities. As Gould (1998)
has suggested, mestizaje was never complete; it was faced with strong indigenous
resistance, which has led him to call it merely a myth.
Yet, less work has focussed on the impact of mestizaje on mestizo identities (but
see de la Cadena 2005; Field 1998). Generally, mestizaje aimed at producing an
unmarked, homogenous mestizo identity that became the dominant ethnicity in many
countries, including Nicaragua (Gould 1998; Vilas 1989). This mestizo is discursively
254 N. Sylvander
established as powerful (Gurdián 2004), something that can be observed in the narra-
tives surrounding land conflicts in Nicaragua, which often draw parallels to the earlier
histories of colonization of indigenous territories, as mentioned above. The domi-
nant discourse on mestizaje and the historical separation of the Pacific and Caribbean
coasts of Nicaragua furthermore frame the Pacific Coast as an area, where mestizaje
was close to complete, and the Caribbean Coast as a space that was largely out of the
reach of the project (Field 1998). Hence, in Nicaragua, there is a stark discursive divi-
sion between the ‘mestizo’ Pacific Coast and the ‘indigenous’ Caribbean Coast. This
framing has invisibilised indigenous identities on the Pacific Coast (Gould 1998). At
the same time, it leaves little space to understand the identity of those mestizos who
are incompatible with the powerful and privileged image of a mestizo belonging to
the Pacific Coast—that is, the mestizo peasants on the Caribbean Coast.
Paradoxically, the emergence of the so-called neoliberal multiculturalism did little
to visibilise these ‘unfitting’ mestizo identities. As Hale (2002) has suggested, neolib-
eral multiculturalism recognizes indigenous rights and identities to the extent that
they are compatible with the neoliberal goals of the state. At the same time, it works
to further highlight the separation of ‘indigenous’ from ‘mestizo.’ There is a lot of
literature analysing the adverse impacts of neoliberal multiculturalism on indige-
nous people, showing, e.g., that it works to further subsume them into the capitalist
political-economic structures, exacerbating intra- and intercommunity inequalities
(Hippert 2011; Mollett 2011).
I suggest that the mestizo identity also has not been outside of the racializing effects
of neoliberal multiculturalism. As ‘mestizo’ becomes ever more firmly separated from
its ‘indigenous’ counterpart to which it is contrasted, ‘mestizo’ as a category becomes
further consolidated. Consequently, it becomes increasingly difficult to scrutinize the
internal differences within this group. Again, as the colonization narrative rightfully
highlights the violations against indigenous territorial rights by ‘mestizos,’ it further
reinforces the imaginaries of disputes between ‘powerless, rooted’ indigenous and
‘powerful, migrant’ mestizos, which obscures the differentiated lived realities within
the ‘mestizo’ category. These narratives then, potently justify the efforts to terri-
torialize space in ways which exclude all non-indigenous claimants, e.g., through
saneamiento. In doing so, they mask the complex power structures, identities, and
overlapping claims to land.
Again, this is not to deny the violence and injustice inherent to the colonization
of indigenous territories. Rather, this is a call for more nuanced accounts of this
colonization and territorialization in indigenous spaces.
3.2 Experiences of Mestizo Settlers
3.2.1 The Internal Heterogeneity of the Mestizo Category
The experiences and lived realities of the mestizo peasants I interviewed in the
Bosawas area challenge the idea of an inherently powerful mestizo identity that
is reproduced by the media and, to some extent, academic literature. Many of my

interviewees were poor peasants, and they had been commonly subjected to the terri-
torialization efforts of the state and elites: they had often been displaced from, or
found it hard to make ends meet in, their area of origin, which is why they had acquired
land in the indigenous territories of Bosawas. The dual status of these lands—as part
of an indigenous territory and a reserve—means that all land sales are illegal, but they
nevertheless take place (see Finley-Brook and Offen 2009). Due to the precarious
status of land ownership and the inability to obtain official titles, land in the Bosawas
area is among the cheapest in Nicaragua, as the people I interviewed repeatedly told
me. This is an opportunity for unscrupulous land speculators to illegally capitalize
on indigenous land:
No, there are large investments here already… There are people with money inside. (A
mestizo leader)
At the same time, this can also be the only possibility for marginalized peasants to
acquire land. Many of them had heard about the availability of affordable land from
their contacts that had previously moved to the area. As one of the mestizo settlers
said: ‘My neighbour had come here before, and he told me about a [cheap] piece of
land.’ A development officer added:
So, the best way to buy cheap land is by going to Bosawas, because of the conditions... There
is no road… no productive structures… no water, no electricity, there’s nothing, so those are
the cheapest lands.
My fieldwork revealed these precarious conditions in which many peasants live.

As the quote above suggests, they lack access to basic services and infrastructure.
The living conditions stand in stark contrast to the idea of wealthy mestizo settlers—
the vast majority have dirt floors and no electricity (although small solar panels are
not rare). The settlements can only be reached by mule or foot, and the paths are
muddy and steep. Functioning schools are uncommon, and the closest healthcare
facilities are hours away. As the residents in one village told me, the children had
not attended classes in more than three years, because they had not received any
support from the Ministry of Education, and there were no teachers. While there
were schools in a few communities, many stated that they could not afford to send
their children to school. Therefore, feelings of resentment were commonplace: ‘The
institutions have abandoned us’ (a mestizo peasant). In addition to actual evictions
through saneamiento, mestizo peasants are thus subjected to territorialization in the
form of what Mollett (2014) calls ‘displacement in place,’ i.e., they receive little
support from the institutions of the government.
At the same time, physical displacement is not uncommon either. Saneamiento
has started in Bosawas, as the natural resources in the area are of interest to the state.
Hence, many pointed to the fact that they were living in constant fear of being evicted.
Saneamiento efforts are generally carried out by the ‘Ecological Battalion’ (Batallón
Ecológico, or BECO), an army unit, the purpose of which is, e.g., to protect natural
resources in Bosawas. A group of peasants who were currently waiting to see what
measures were to be taken to resolve the situation told me that they had abandoned
256 N. Sylvander
their village after BECO had come by and threatened them with evictions, burning
some of the settlements down. The fear of eviction has also led to further property
sales. As a mestizo leader told me:
…The first ones who were [here] left, they sold. Why? Because they were afraid of the
repression… that they will evict them…
At the same time, there are crucial differences in the ability of ‘mestizos’ to claim
space in the indigenous territories in Bosawas. Obviously, in addition to small-scale
peasants, there are actors with considerable political-economic power present in the
reserve. Thus, the research highlights the importance to account for these differ-
ences when analysing how indigenous space becomes territorialized and claimed by
mestizos.
A concrete way to look at these differentiated territorializing impacts is to analyse
the distribution of land holdings in the reserve, based on data collected by GIZ in 2010.
While the amount of land occupied by mestizos has increased in recent years, the
distribution still follows similar patterns: land ownership among mestizo claimants
is highly unequal (pers. obs., 2018). The 10% of the settlers with the most land
claimed almost 45% of all holdings of mestizos in Mayangna Sauni Bas in 2010,
whereas the bottom 50% only claimed 8%. This observation clearly shows that there
are crucial differences in how ‘mestizos’ come to possess the land, i.e., they are not
a homogeneous group. At the same time, some peasants merely take care of a land
plot for someone else (pers. obs., 2018). Hence, marginalized mestizo peasants are
used as a vehicle for the territorialization efforts of the landowning class.
What is important here is that, while arguably those with more land have a more
significant role in the colonization of indigenous territories, it is nevertheless the poor
peasants who are the most likely to become evicted through saneamiento (pers. obs.,
2018). Those with more land generally have more bargaining power—many of them
have connections to political and economic elites—and, thus, they are often able to
negotiate and maintain their landholdings. The poorest peasants, on the other hand,
are the easiest to evict. Similarly, while several mestizos have been brought to court
and sentenced for land sales in the Bosawas area, they have generally sold relatively
small pieces of land, whereas those possessing the most land are left intact.
3.2.2 Belonging on the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua
The migrant-as-culprit discourse also masks the differentiated places of origin of the
mestizo settlers in Mayangna Sauni Bas. The dominant narratives suggest that most
settlers originate from the Pacific Coast and that they have arrived in the Bosawas
area recently. Yet, the data from GIZ show that in 2010, most (75.5%) of the settlers
reported that they were from the same North Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region,
where Mayangna Sauni Bas is located—often from the closest municipality, Siuna
(55.7%). Similarly, a professor at a local university said: ‘[T]hey are not outsiders,
they’re people from here, and they know where the lands are.’ Yet, their ethnic
identity as mestizo renders them as discursively out of place on the Caribbean Coast.
It is important to consider that many settlers arrived in the area as a result of

territorializing policies of the Nicaraguan state. It is well known that racist and
colonial imaginaries have discursively rendered indigenous territories as national
lands in many parts of Latin America (Hale 2011). Nicaragua is not an exception,
and the state has a history of egregious violations of indigenous territorial rights
(Finley-Brook and Offen 2009; Vilas 1989). Bosawas, particularly due to its status
as a reserve, is still envisioned by the state and the settlers as national land, despite the
fact that the indigenous territories in the area have official titles: ‘The zone where [my
land] title is… patrimony of the state [because it is a reserve]’ (a mestizo peasant).
This framing also explains why the state has resettled a large number of peasants
and ex-combatants in the area through official resettlement projects (Vilas 1989).
As a result of export-oriented agriculture and the consolidation of agricultural land
on the Pacific Coast, many peasants became displaced from their lands during the
dictator Somoza era, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s. The Nicaraguan state
resettled them at the agricultural frontier, including the Bosawas area (Mendoza
and Kuhnekath 2005). Many of the settlers that I interviewed suggested that they
had arrived in the area after the 1980s civil war. At this point the state gave land
to ex-troops as an effort to appease them, paying little attention to the fact that
many of these lands were located within indigenous territories (Pineda 2006). As a
Nicaraguan professor told me: ‘Everything was resolved by giving [people] land.’
Yet, after these resettlement projects, the combatants were largely left on their own,
without access to basic services or infrastructure. As a result, many ended up selling
their land plots, which some say started the land sales on the Caribbean Coast (pers.
comm., 2018). Hence, mestizo peasants and troops have been used by both the state
and land speculators to advance their territorializing efforts.
Again, this is not to say that there are no new, powerful settlers arriving in the
area—there certainly are, as the violent outbursts and the large land plots consolidated
by certain actors show. Yet, what is problematic is that saneamiento, as a mechanism,
is unable to differentiate between types of ‘mestizo’ actors. Thus, it may indirectly
facilitate the territorialization efforts of the elites.
4 Environmental Logics of Territorial Exclusion
4.1 Environmental Conservation Narratives
I suggest that the indigenous/mestizo binary and the internal consolidation of a

‘mestizo identity’ are further reinforced by environmental conservation narratives
that pit ‘sustainable’ indigenous communities and ‘unsustainable’ non-indigenous
populations against each other. As mentioned, this distinction is prevalent in the
narratives written about territorial conflicts in Nicaragua; multiple accounts attest to
the perceived destruction that mestizo migrants cause in Bosawas (e.g., Parker 2016;
Stocks et al. 2007).
258 N. Sylvander
Therefore, the colonization of indigenous territories has become a conservation

issue. Environmental devastation is frequently cited as a justification to carry out
saneamiento, i.e., to evict mestizo settlers. In fact, this is the main reason why several
conservation organizations have incorporated saneamiento into their agenda, and the
process has started in areas of high conservation value, including Bosawas (see FCPF
2013; Martínez and Ramírez 2013). Moreover, in the cases where settlers have been
taken to court and sentenced, this has generally been done based on their alleged
participation in land conversion and deforestation. The fact that they have violated
indigenous territorial rights remains secondary (pers. obs., 2018; Sylvander 2021).
Environmental conservation discourses blaming local people for environmental
destruction have, for long, justified the territorializing efforts of the state in indige-
nous territories and in areas traditionally managed by local communities (Mollett and
Kepe 2018). Yet, with the neoliberalisation of environmental governance, the framing
of local people in these discourses has changed: now, local people are often incorpo-
rated in conservation efforts and their role in the sustainable management of natural
resources is emphasized (Dove 2006). Specifically, certain indigenous groups that
manage to perform an ‘authentic,’ sustainable indigenous identity become embraced
by these narratives. Moreover, there is a large body of literature focussing on the
exclusion of those indigenous groups that do not fit the ‘tribal slot’ from conserva-
tion schemes (Li 2000; Hippert 2011; Sundberg 2004; Ybarra 2017). I suggest that
similarly, these discourses tend to exclude other, ‘unmarked’ peasant groups, i.e., in
the context of Nicaragua, mestizos.
In so doing, this further works to naturalize the indigenous-mestizo boundary
through explaining the inherent (non-) sustainability of actors by their ethnic identity.
This territorializes space by further rendering mestizo peasants as outsiders and not-
belonging in areas that are rich in biodiversity, such as Bosawas. This framing acts as
a further justification for their eviction, reproducing earlier conservation paradigms
based on a human/environment dualism and the eviction of people from conservation
spaces (see Mollett and Kepe 2018).
In the next section, the aim is to complicate the straightforward correlation
between ethnicity and environmental behaviour. While scholars have exhaustively
done this in the context of indigenous identities, the differentiated environmental
motivations and practices among the ‘non-indigenous’ remain largely unpacked.
4.2 Experiences of Mestizo Settlers
Again, the experiences of the mestizo peasants interviewed in the research area
challenge the naturalized correlation between ethnic identity and environmental
behaviour prevalent in the narratives that frame the colonization of indigenous
territories as a question of gaining access to natural resources and environmental
destruction.
These narratives ignore the differentiated environmental impact of the settlers, as

well as the deeply rooted political-economic drivers of deforestation in the Bosawas
area. The experts and mestizo and indigenous community members that I interviewed
repeatedly pointed to how the extractivist practices of foreign enclave industries
and different Nicaraguan governments have played a key role in the degradation of
natural resources in the area (see, e.g., Finley-Brook and Offen 2009; Mendoza and
Kuhnekath 2005). I was told how corrupt state officials continue to grant logging
and mining concessions in the reserve and turn a blind eye to the timber trucks that
leave the area almost daily.
This is not to say that, e.g., cattle ranching practiced by some settlers is not an
important driver of deforestation in the Bosawas area. Inexpensive land and the
lack of presence of authorities make it relatively easy and affordable to establish
and maintain large pastures. That said, there are striking differences in how settlers
manage their land plots:
As you know, the colonos, land-grabbers, we don’t all act in the same way… Some want to
damage, others to contribute. Some of us are protecting the forest, others aren’t… (a mestizo
leader).
The mestizo peasants that I interviewed asserted that they were aware of the
importance of conserving forests, particularly along the rivers. Many of them had
bought the land parcel where they were living and proclaimed that they had not
converted further areas of forest into pasture:
Ever since we bought [the land] here, we have not cleared even one manzana [0.7 ha].
Socolas [clearings], we have maintained what was already there. The first [owner], I think
yes [cleared], because he bought all this here.
While some of them had many cows (e.g., one of the former political leaders
who had settled in the reserve), many only had a few or none. This is in line with
observations from the census data that show that in 2010, 58% of the settlers in
Mayangna Sauni Bas had no cows. The 10% with the most cows, on the other
hand, had in total 76% of all the cows. Unsurprisingly, cattle ownership was highly
correlated with the amount of land that these settlers possessed. This contradicts the
portrayal of all mestizo settlers as powerful cattle ranchers, as well as the idea of cattle
ranching as an inherent, integral part of a so-called ‘mestizo’ culture, as is reproduced
in academic literature and the media. Instead, cattle ownership is highly dependent
on economic resources.
Saneamiento has done little to target these large-scale cattle ranchers and
landowners. As they maintain close ties with the government—and often with indige-
nous leaders—they practically enjoy impunity, despite their higher territorial and
environmental impact in indigenous spaces. Hence, saneamiento, as it is currently
implemented, is unlikely to resolve the issues that lead to the appropriation of
indigenous territories and the conversion of forests into pasture.
260 N. Sylvander
5 Conclusions
This chapter has called for more nuanced understandings of ‘inter-ethnic’ conflicts
and the role of narratives in shaping belonging and territorial inclusion/exclusion in
the context of Nicaragua’s Bosawas Biosphere Reserve. This is important, as these
narratives mask the broader drivers of the colonization of indigenous territories in
the area. This colonization has taken a violent turn and is severely compromising not
only indigenous rights but also indigenous lives (Galanova 2017; Lopez 2020).
The chapter argues that the dominant understandings of ‘mestizo’ identity stem
from both racializing and environmental conservation discourses: these establish
an indigenous-mestizo binary, whereby mestizos, as a collective category, become
rendered as inherently environmentally unsustainable and out of place in biodi-
verse areas. As shown, this discourse pays little attention to the differentiated power,
origins, and environmental behaviours within the ‘mestizo’ category.
Consequently, these narratives work to territorialize space and facilitate state and
elite usurpation of indigenous territories and the natural resources located in them.
They attribute territorial conflicts in indigenous territories to marginalized mestizo
peasants—who have for long been used as a tool for territorialization by both the
Nicaraguan state and political-economic elites—justifying yet another instance of
their displacement through ‘saneamiento.’ By blaming a collective ‘mestizo’ subject,
colonization narratives conveniently conceal crucial power and spatial differences
within the assumed ‘mestizo’ category and divert attention from the state- and elite-led
‘mestizo’ extractivism and appropriation of space in indigenous territories. Mestizo
peasants are the easiest to remove, and their eviction gives the impression that some-
thing is being done to resolve the situation—even as their removal leaves the actual
territorializing drivers and actors intact. Therefore, saneamiento territorial, or the
eviction of mestizo peasants, as it is currently envisioned, is unlikely to address the
colonization of indigenous territories in the long term. This compromises its ability
to improve indigenous territorial security.
While the findings of this chapter are specific to the case of the Bosawas Biosphere
Reserve in Nicaragua, I suggest that they may have broader implications. I hope that
this chapter serves to open a conversation on the ‘non-indigenous’ identity, which
to date has remained largely black-boxed in the cultural politics/political ecology
literature. Unpacking this category helps move away from blaming migrants for
territorial conflicts and instead tease out the underlying dynamics of these disputes,
as they are driven by the territorial ambitions of the state and elites.
References
Baracco L, González M (2016) Introduction to special issue: 25 years of autonomy on Nicaragua’s

Caribbean Coast: cultural diversity and governance in indigenous regions of Latin America. Bull
Lat Am Res 35(3):289–290. https://doi.org/10.1111/blar.12474
De la Cadena M (2005) Are mestizos hybrids? the conceptual politics of Andean identities. J Lat
Am Stud 37(2):259–284. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022216X05009004
Dove MR (2006) Indigenous people and environmental politics. Annu Rev Anthropol 35:191–208.
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.35.081705.123235
Downs R (2015) Violent land invasions on Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast—“just like the
Spaniards”. Vice News. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ywjbpv/violent-land-invasions-on-
nicaraguas-atlantic-coast-just-like-the-spaniards. Dec 8
Field L (1998) Post-Sandinista ethnic identities in Western Nicaragua. Am Anthropol 100(2):431–
443. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1998.100.2.431
Finley-Brook M, Offen K (2009) Bounding the commons: land demarcation in northeastern
Nicaragua. Bull Lat Am Res 28(3):343–363. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1470-9856.2009.00302.x
Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (2013) Readiness Preparation Proposal (R-PP): Nicaragua. FCPF,
Managua
Galanova M (2017) Lush heartlands of Nicaragua’s Miskito people spark deadly land disputes.
Guard.https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/mar/01/lush-heartlands-of-nic
aragua-miskito-people-spark-deadly-land-disputes. Mar 1
Gould JL (1998) To die in this way: Nicaraguan Indians and the myth of mestizaje 1880–1965.
Duke University Press, Durham
Gurdián G (2004) Alamikangban: Tierra comunal y “fisonomías” en Nicaragua. In: Euraque DE,
Gould JL, Hale CR (eds) Memorias del mestizaje. Cultura política en Centroamérica de 1920 al
presente. Cirma, Guatemala, pp 465–509
Hale CR (2002) Does multiculturalism menace? governance, cultural rights and the politics of
identity in Guatemala. J Lat Am Stud 34(3):485–524. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022216X020
06521
Hale CR (2011) Resistencia para que? territory, autonomy and neoliberal entanglements in the
‘empty spaces’ of Central America. Econ Soc 40(2):184–210. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.
2011.548947
Herlihy LH (2016) The new colonization of Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast. NACLA. https://nacla.
org/news/2016/09/06/new-colonization-nicaragua%E2%80%99s-caribbean-coast. Sep 6
Hippert C (2011) The politics and practices of constructing development identities in rural Bolivia.
J Lat Am Caribb Anthropol 16(1):90–113. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1935-4940.2011.01126.x
Kräuter HJ, Somarriba D, Smith R, Galeano D Plan de manejo, conservación y desarrollo territorial
indígena de territorio Indígena de Mayangna Sauni Bas. Mayangna Sauni Bas, Managua
Li TM (2000) Articulating indigenous identity in Indonesia: resource politics and the tribal slot.
Comp Stud Soc Hist 42(1):149–179. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0010417500002632
Lopez I (2020) Armed men kill six indigenous Nicaraguans, kidnap 10 in nature reserve raid.
Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nicaragua-violence/armed-men-kill-six-indigenous-
nicaraguans-kidnap-10-in-nature-reserve-raid-idUSKBN1ZT2LX. Jan 30
Mairena AD, Del Cid V, Moreno BE, Mairena CE (eds) (2014) Demarcación y titulación de
territorios indígenas. La reivindicación de derechos ancestrales. CADPI, Bilwi
Martínez D, Ramírez R (2013) Sistematización de Prácticas Desarrolladas en el Saneamiento Terri-
torial de Mayangna Sauni Bas y Mayangna Sauni As. Programa GIZ-MASRENACE Componente
II 2009–2013. GIZ, Managua
Mendoza R, Kuhnekath K (2005) Conflictos en La Costa: Expresión de la transnacionalización de
conflictos societales en Centroamérica. Wani 41:10–26
Mollett S (2011) Racial narratives: Miskito and colono land struggles in the Honduran Mosquitia.
Cult Geogr 18:43–62. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474010384928
Mollett S (2014) A modern paradise: Garifuna land, labor, and displacement-in-place. Lat Am
Perspect 41(1):27–45. https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X13518756
Mollett S, Kepe T (2018) Introduction: Land rights, biodiversity conservation and justice–rethinking
parks and people. In: Mollett S, Kepe T (eds) Land rights, biodiversity conservation and justice-
rethinking parks and people. Routledge, Abingdon and New York, pp 1–13
Parker C (2016) Ecologist special report: the pillaging of Nicaragua’s Bosawás Biosphere
Reserve. Ecologist. https://theecologist.org/2016/oct/06/ecologist-special-report-pillaging-nic
araguas-bosawas-biosphere-reserve. Oct 6
262 N. Sylvander
Pineda BL (2006) Shipwrecked identities: navigating race on Nicaragua’s Mosquito Coast. Rutgers
University Press, New Brunswick
Staver AC, de Jong W, Kaimowitz D (2007) Nicaragua’s frontier: the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve.
In: de Jong W, Donovan W, Abe K (eds) Extreme conflict and tropical forests. Springer, Dordrecht,
pp 57–74
Stocks A, McMahan B, Taber P (2007) Indigenous, colonist, and government impacts on Nicaragua’s
Bosawas Reserve. Conserv Biol 21(6):1495–1505. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2007.007
93.x
Sundberg J (2004) Identities in the making: conservation, gender and race in the Maya Biosphere
Reserve, Guatemala. Gend Place Cult 11(1):43–66. https://doi.org/10.1080/096636904200018
8549
Sylvander N (2018) Saneamiento territorial in Nicaragua, and the prospects for resolving
indigenous-mestizo land conflicts. J Lat Am Geogr 17(1):166–194. https://doi.org/10.1353/lag.
2018.0007
Sylvander Nora (2021) ‘Territorial cleansing’ for whom? Indigenous rights, conservation, and state
territorialization in the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve, Nicaragua. Geoforum 121:23–32. https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.02.013
Vilas CM (1989) State, class, and ethnicity in Nicaragua: capitalist modernization and revolutionary
change on the Atlantic coast. Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder
Ybarra M (2017) Green wars: conservation and decolonization in the Maya forest. University of
California Press, Oakland
Nora Sylvander Fellow in Environment, Department of Geography and Environment, London

School of Economics, London, UK.
Nora Sylvander is a human-environment geographer interested in territorial conflicts, environ-
mental conservation and governance, and racialization in Latin America. Her research focuses
on territorial and natural resource disputes between indigenous communities and non-indigenous
migrants in Nicaragua. She also studies the political ecology of migration and market-based
conservation mechanisms in Ecuador.

2021 - CAP - Territorialising Space in Latin America - JMMV&SBG

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

2021 - CAP - Territorialising Space in Latin America - JMMV&SBG

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Latin American Studies Book Series

More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/15104

Brian Napoletano Tyanif Rico-Rodríguez

ISSN 2366-3421 ISSN 2366-343X (electronic)

Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico Michael K. McCall

Introduction: Framing the Spaces of Territorialisation in Latin

Historical Territorialization Process of the American Smelting

About the Editors

Michael K. McCall Senior researcher, Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía

Andrew Boni Noguez Associate professor, División de Ingenierías, Universidad de

Brian Napoletano Assistant researcher, Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía

and environmental proletariat to forge a hegemonic alternative to capital’s alienated

Tyanif Rico-Rodríguez Ph.D. candidate in Geography, Centro de Investigaciones en

Sara Barrasa-García Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental, Univer-

Adrián Ortega-Iturriaga Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental,

Andrew Boni Noguez, Michael K. McCall, Brian M. Napoletano,

Abstract This chapter introduces a collection of original geographical research on

Keywords Territory · Territoriality · Latin America

1 Origins of the Book

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 1

2 Vision and Setting

Territory is thus a concept essentially linked to influence over and in a tangible

chapter ‘ “They destroy everything”: Racialising discourses, environmental conserva-

4 Geographies of the Institutions and the Authors

Antonsich M (2010) Rethinking territory. Prog Hum Geogr 35(3):422–425. https://doi.org/10.1177/

Andrew Boni Noguez Associate professor, División de Ingenierías, Universidad de Guanajuato,

Michael K. McCall Senior researcher, Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental,

Brian M. Napoletano Assistant researcher, Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental,

mobilisation by the world and environmental proletariat to forge a hegemonic alternative to

Tyanif Rico-Rodríguez Ph.D. candidate in Geography, Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía

Michael K. McCall, Brian M. Napoletano, Andrew Boni Noguez,

Keywords Territory · Territorialisation · Space · Place · Land · Localness ·

M. K. McCall (B) · B. M. Napoletano · T. Rico-Rodríguez

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 9

Territory, territoriality and territorialisation are primary themes in spatial episte-

2 Preamble to Territory in Latin America

2.1 Academic Musings on Territory

‘understood as implicating and being implicated in ways of thinking, acting, and

2.2 Meanings of Territory in Latin America

In the various discourses on territory and territorialisation in Latin America, is the

2.2.1 Historical Framings, Palimpsests

2.2.2 Policy—Neoliberal Transformations and the Territorial Turn

2.2.3 Cultural Identity

3 Territory as a Geographical Area of, and with, Values

We begin with simpler statements recognising territories as partial and open to

Territory 1: Territory as essentially linked to influence by some human group or

3.1.1 Territory as Appropriation

3.1.2 Territory as Exclusion

A clamorous version of territoriality as exclusion with its expression in the nation

(Mexico), Bosawas (Nicaragua) or Urabá (Colombia). In Mexico, notwithstanding

3.1.3 Territory and Alienation

Apart from myriad activities being organised on a territorial basis, a significant

3.2.1 Sense of Place, Identity and Attachment

3.2.2 Community and Gregariousness

4 Nexus of Space and Place

4.1 Space and Place: Territory and Landscapes

There is an alternative conceptualisation, (or maybe just alternative nomenclature),

4.2 Urban Territories

Is there a need to distinguish urban territories? Is urban and peri-urban territory

5 Territorialisation: Territoriality Processes Imply Conflict

Territorialisation is about control, possession and authority, whether it is political,

5.1 Deterritorialisation and Reterritorialisation