Migration and Gender: The Case of a Farming Ejido in Calakmul, Mexico

As one of Mexico’s last agricultural frontiers, southern Mexico’s rural farming municipality of Calakmul has long been marked by rural in-migration. In the last few years this process has given place to an explosive growth of primarily male labor out-migration, particularly to the United States. The authors trace the outlines of the migration process from the perspective of one rural Calakmul community, to explore effects of men’s transnational migration on the household and community status of the women remaining behind. Analysis is based on quantitative data collected in 2004 from 25 households, and on in-depth qualitative interviews in 2005 with women whose husbands engage in transnational migration. The authors find preliminary evidence for changes in gender roles and responsibilities, as these adjust to accommodate men’s absences. The evidence for women’s increased participation in household decision-making is much less clear. This, combined with the words of the women, suggests that gender ideology is defended even as gender responsibilities flex. Women’s spatial mobility also appears to improve, but this must be weighed against greater gains in migrating men’s mobility, as well as some women’s unhappiness with the lack of livelihood improvements

The Slow Displacement of Smallholder Farming Families: Land, Hunger, and Labor Migration in Nicaragua and Guatemala

Smallholders worldwide continue to experience processes of displacement from their lands under neoliberal political-economic governance. This displacement is often experienced as “slow”, driven by decades of agricultural policies and land governance regimes that favor input-intensive agricultural and natural resource extraction and export projects at the expense of traditional agrarian practices, markets, and producers. Smallholders struggle to remain viable in the face of these forces, yet they often experience hunger. To persist on the land, often on small parcels, families supplement and finance farm production with family members engaging in labor migration, a form of displacement. Outcomes, however, are uneven and reflect differences in migration processes as well as national and local political economic processes around land. To demonstrate “slow displacement”, we assess the prolonged confluence of land access, hunger, and labor migration that undermine smallholder viability in two separate research sites in Nicaragua and Guatemala. We draw on evidence from in-depth interviews and focus groups carried out from 2013 to 2015, together with a survey of 317 households, to demonstrate how smallholders use international labor migration to address persistent hunger, with the two cases illuminating the centrality of underlying land distribution questions in labor migration from rural spaces of Central America. We argue that smallholder farming family migration has a dual nature: migration is at once evidence of displacement, as well as a strategy for families to prolong remaining on the land in order to produce food

Conservation conflict hotspots : mapping impacts, risk perception and tolerance for sustainable conservation management

LL received a grant of excellence for foreigners from the Secretariat of External Relations of the Mexican Government; SC would like to thank the University of Sherbrooke for a Continuous Education Grant, BS was granted a travel grant from Newton Links (RLTG9-LATAM-358429460) and a fieldwork grant (FID-784) by El Colegio de la Frontera Sur and RW received funding from the Scottish Funding Council (Global Challenges Research Fund 2017-18 and 2018-19).Global processes manifesting as activities in local places have led to an increase in documented conservation conflicts. Conservation conflicts are sometimes labelled human-wildlife conflict, focusing only on the direct negative impact of species (usually wildlife) on humans or vice versa. However, many authors now recognize that conservation conflicts arise between people with diverse views, when one party acts against the interests of another. They are thus human-human conflicts and not merely an impact on or from conservation. Conflict is not always directly correlated with impact because perceptions of risk, levels of tolerance and conservation values influence human responses. This review aims to define the concept of ‘conservation conflict hotspots’ and explore its practical applications in conservation. We propose that the interaction of impact, risk perception, level of tolerance in a context of conservation values can be mapped at a local scale, with spatial visualization assisting the prediction, understanding and management of such hotspots. The term conservation value incorporates measures of indigeneity, endemicity and demography along with emotional or cultural attachment to species or places. The umbrella terms of risk perception and tolerance capture many of the aspects of attitude, values and individual demographics that can influence people’s actions, enabling contextualization of relevant social factors at local scales. Spatially mapped layers enable us to plan and target conservation efforts towards human as well as ecological factors. The concept of ‘conservation conflict hotspot’ emphasizes the need for transdisciplinary research to understand underlying drivers of conflict and for dialogical and peace-building approaches to facilitate trust and cooperation amongst actors. We can thus address conflicts and achieve sustainable outcomes.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Factors affecting feelings of justice in biodiversity conflicts : towards fairer jaguar management in Calakmul, Mexico

Funding was provided by Mitacs through a Globalink Research Award to MLL, BS and SC, a José-Sarukhan Excellence Award given by the Centro del Cambio Global y Sustentabilidad del Sureste to MLL, an Excellence Award from the Quebec Center for Biodiversity Science to MLL, and a grant from the Université de Sherbrooke to SC.Conservation focuses on environmental objectives, but neglecting social concerns can lead to feelings of injustice among some actors and thus jeopardise conservation aims. Through a case study on a biodiversity conflict around jaguar management in Southern Mexico, we explored actors' feelings of injustice and their associated determinants. We employed a framework distinguishing four dimensions of justice: recognition, ecological, distributive and procedural. By conducting and analysing 235 interviews with farmers and ranchers, we investigated what drive their feeling of injustice, namely their perceptions of the injustice itself, individual characteristics and interactions with their environment. The participants selected 10 statements representing criteria characterizing their feeling of justice toward jaguar management, which they compared using pair-wise comparisons. A pioneering statistical analysis, BTLLasso, revealed that self-interest assumptions were not upheld; feelings of injustice were only weakly influenced by experience of depredation. Feelings of injustice were influenced mainly by factors related to actors' intra-and inter-group relationships (e.g. perception of collective responsibility, perceived coherence in the group to which they identified). This nuanced understanding of how people build their perception of justice can inform fairer and more effective conservation approaches. Whilst details will be context specific, it emerged that building relationships and enabling debate over ecological responsibilities are important and conservation efforts should go beyond merely offering financial compensation. We conclude that perception of justice is a neglected but important aspect to include in integrative approaches to managing biodiversity conflicts, and that novel mixed methods can advance both conceptual and applied understanding in this area.PostprintPeer reviewe

Distribución espacio-temporal de las actividades extractivas en los bosques del ejido Caoba, Quintana Roo

Este trabajo tiene como objetivo analizar la distribución espacio-temporal de las actividades extractivas del bosque en un ejido del sur de la península de Yucatán, con el fin de evaluar su impacto potencial sobre la conservación de los recursos naturales. Se eligieron como actividades extractivas la recolecta de leña, la extracción de chicle, la extracción de madera y la cacería. Además, se incluyó a la milpa debido a que su práctica está íntimamente relacionada con la dinámica del bosque y con otras de las actividades evaluadas. Se entrevistaron a 32 ejidatarios con un cuestionario estructurado para obtener información referente a las actividades extractivas en el ejido. Posteriormente, con ayuda de un gps, se ubicaron espacialmente los sitios donde se desarrollan. Se calculó un índice de perturbación para cada actividad para elaborar un mapa de sensibilidad basado en la suma espacial de los índices de perturbación. La actividad con mayor índice de perturbación fue la milpa, debido a su desarrollo a lo largo de todo el año y frecuencia de visita de los campesinos a sus parcelas. Además, coincide espacialmente con la recolección de leña y en muchos casos con la cacería. Por el contrario la extracción de chicle fue la actividad con el menor índice de perturbación, puesto que se desarrolla una sola vez al año y durante la época menos crítica para la fauna en la región

Dinámica en el uso del suelo en tres ejidos cercanos a la ciudad de Chetumal, Quintana Roo

El cambio de uso de suelo ha provocado la degradación y transformación de muchos ecosistemas en todo el mundo. Por esto es importante conocer las causas que provocan los cambios y su futura dirección. El objetivo de este estudio es conocer la magnitud y dirección de los cambios en tres ejidos al norte de Chetumal y analizar las causas y tendencias. Para ello se clasificó la zona del estudio en imágenes Landsat ETM de 1990 y 2000, se entrevistaron 81 ejidatarios y se analizaron archivos del Registro Agrario Nacional. Los resultados revelan la importancia de la cercanía con la ciudad de Chetumal, proporciona fuentes de trabajo y mercado para productos agrícolas, lo que facilita el flujo de capital. Además, la cercanía a la capital del estado facilita el acceso a apoyos y subsidios gubernamentales, pero a la vez se presta para el establecimiento de una “ganadería recreativa” y de estatus de gente que vive en Chetumal. Se encontró una cantidad importante de vegetación secundaria mayor de cinco años, como consecuencia de los Programas Nacionales de Desmonte. Estas áreas deforestadas en los años ochenta ya no se cultivaron en los últimos años, lo que provocó una recuperación de 0.6% anual de la selva, rebasando así la transformación de la misma para actividades agropecuarias

Discriminación de jóvenes indígenas vendedores ambulantes en espacios públicos de San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, México

"El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la discriminación de jóvenes indígenas vendedores ambulantes en espacios públicos. A partir de una triangulación de métodos cualitativos y cuantitativos y de una revisión de datos censales de 2010, se analizan las experiencias de discriminación. Como resultado, se confirma que la discriminación, el acoso, la segregación de los espacios públicos y la extorsión por la condición étnica conducen a la marginalidad indígena en la ciudad. Entre las implicaciones se tiene que el Estado supone como problema a los jóvenes indígenas vendedores ambulantes y formula políticas de uso del espacio público para justificar su retiro. En el estudio, se involucran diferentes técnicas de análisis de información y a diferentes actores para tener una visión más amplia del fenómeno. Entre las conclusiones, destaca que los jóvenes indígenas vendedores ambulantes relacionan el trabajo con la adquisición de sentido de responsabilidad, así como el Estado no garantiza bienestar social.

The Punta Allen cooperative as an emblematic example of a sustainable small-scale fishery in the Mexican Caribbean

Abstract We present an institutional ethnography and historical case study of the Vigía Chico fishing cooperative, located in the community of Punta Allen within the Biosphere Reserve of Sian Ka’an, México. The top producer of spiny lobster (Panulirus argus) in the state of Quintana Roo for over 30 years, this cooperative has been claimed as an example of a sustainable artisanal fishery. To better understand and assess this success story, we performed an in-depth study of multiple factors to analyze their influence on the cooperative’s success. The indicators selected were level and form of social organization, resilience to socio-environmental perturbations, changes in fishing gear, and the fishing concession as avenue to cementing institutional success. We conducted ethnographic fieldwork over five months, complemented by an in-depth analysis of the cooperative assembly’s minutes. We found that the knowledge the cooperative acquired of the functioning of Mexican public policies was a factor in their success. Cooperative leaders were able to translate that knowledge in ways that benefitted the cooperative, enabling them to build a set of policy-responsive operational rules that could be effectively applied to artisanal fisheries more broadly. The isolated conditions of the area and the presence of natural perturbations such as hurricanes forced the community to increase their willingness to cooperate, and improved their capacity to respond as a group to perturbations. These successes in turn demonstrated the value of cooperative approaches to achieve individual and collective livelihood goals, within and beyond fishing. Such approaches have been further enhanced by the incorporation of academic knowledge and scientific techniques. We conclude that Punta Allen is a successful example of a community that has managed to creatively engage public policy instruments and translate them into effective local practices, enabling organizational persistence despite repeated changes in policies governing fisheries in Mexico.</jats:p

A socioenvironmental approach to contribute to the sustainability of oil palm smallholders

Mexico is the second largest importer of palm oil in the Americas. For more than 20 years, oil palm cultivation has been promoted by local and national governments as a strategy to reduce imports and as a tool for agricultural development, particularly among smallholders who own over 53% of the plantations. The state of Campeche holds the second largest plantation area in the country. Smallholders face a difficult situation since public fund has stopped the support to the oil palm plantations, and the umbrella organization that represented them has declared bankruptcy, leaving debts and mortgages among its members, at a time when the plantations have reached the end of their productive cycle. Therefore, smallholders need to find ways to adapt to the changing circumstances reconfiguring their socio-ecosystem. This study identifies the economic, social, environmental, and agronomic constraints faced by smallholders and explores ways to overcome them, in order to find a path for oil palm plantations towards a sustainable future. We used a non-probabilistic sampling approach and conducted 43 surveys and semi-structured interviews with authorities and oil palm producers in seven rural communities. Additionally, we conducted three focus groups using a participatory modeling methodology to develop a conceptual model of the oil palm socio-ecological system, which was later validated. The study found that smallholders are willing to continue oil palm production despite constraints in production and poor resource management by the umbrella organization. To overcome these challenges, smallholders suggest reconfiguring the role of the umbrella organization as a representative and not an intermediary for the resources received. Smallholders also perceive interactions with industrial societies as an opportunity for mutually beneficial relationships. These findings suggest a need for a change in the interaction of smallholders with other actors in the production chain, where they transition from being only suppliers to becoming key actors in the production of the state while improving local conditions and bringing them closer to achieving their sustainability goals