Abstract

PATINO, María del Carmen Ventura. We want the land! Dispossessions and resistance on the Nahua coast of Michoacán: the case of the community of Santa María Ostula. Estudios Socioterritoriales [online]. 2020, vol.27, pp.23-23. ISSN 1853-4392.  http://dx.doi.org/10.37838/unicen/est.27-039.

The analysis of the current agrarian conflict between the indigenous people of Santa María Ostula and the small, mestizos owners in La Placita allows us to elucidate the processes that community members have implemented over time to defend their communal lands. The agrarian dimension is the starting point of understanding: 1) the complexity of disputes among diverse actors and interests, in order to appropriate and exploit the highly-coveted natural resources belonging to the Nahuas on the Michoacán coast; and 2) distinct forms of dispossession that began in Colonial times and continue today. These dimensions are examined in light of the processes that David Harvey calls ‘accumulation by dispossession’. Tourism and mining projects, plus illegal economies, accompanied by public security policies of the “counterinsurgency” type, are just some of the challenges that members of the community of Santa María Ostula -in the state of Michoacán, Mexico- face today.

Keywords : Territory; Violence; Resistance; Securitization.

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