Collective Rural Women Access, Use, and Control Over Communal Land in Mexico: A Post-capitalist Feminist Political Ecology Approach

Jozelin María Soto-Alarcón,Diana Xóchitl González-Gómez

doi:10.3389/fsufs.2021.695344

Jozelin María Soto-Alarcón, Diana Xóchitl González-Gómez

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2021.695344

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Abstract

Rural women's access to land is fundamental for their individual and household well-being, equity, and empowerment. In Mexico, the agrarian reform of 1992 and customary gendered rights shaped land use, access, and control. Rural women's access to collective land is relevant since social property—ejidoandagrarian communities—represents 52% of the national territory. As an expression of the collective organization, commons were also performed to use and control communal land and biophysical resources collectively. This paper examines the collective peasant women's bargaining process to access, use, and control communal land. The post-capitalist feminist political ecology approach allowed us to distinguish and analyze gendered strategies employed by a cooperative led by women at different levels—household, community, and government—to access and use communal land and biophysical resources by the process of commons—commoning. Rural women's collective efforts are located in Hidalgo, central Mexico. Firstly, the Agrarian Reform modifications related to gender equality issues are investigated, followed by examining rural women's socioeconomic conditions. The case study permitted us to identify and analyze critical factors that enhanced long-term agreements to control communal land beyond the Agrarian Law scope by the commoning examination. The collective rural women's strategies to use communal land improved well-being based on gendered peasant knowledge, organization, and stakeholder support. Nevertheless, the strategies increased women's burden and reinforced the existing gendered norms such as female altruism. Furthermore, the need to discuss the bargaining process over communal land concerning a diversity of commons is argued: knowledge, social, and biophysical, in which gender and care are critical variables.

Highlights

The agrarian change bolstered by neoliberal agendas opened the land to market through private and individual land tenure as a vehicle to counteract rural poverty and increase the small farming productivity since 1990 (Deere and León, 2001a; Bruce et al, 2006; Razavi, 2007; Byerlee et al, 2009)
The collective production of natural medicine led women to negotiate their access to communal land, the Las Manzanas community is not within the scope of the Agrarian Law by not having ejidos and agrarian communities
This article has shown the bargaining process performed by peasant women to access and control biophysical resources such as communal land and medicinal plants by the collectivization of caring responsibilities employing the Post feminist political ecology (FPE) approach, which sheds light into the gendering access to natural resources and land

Summary

Introduction

The agrarian change bolstered by neoliberal agendas opened the land to market through private and individual land tenure as a vehicle to counteract rural poverty and increase the small farming productivity since 1990 (Deere and León, 2001a; Bruce et al, 2006; Razavi, 2007; Byerlee et al, 2009). The reform involved opening up the customary system to privatize collective land (Razavi, 2003; Federici, 2011; Caffentzis and Federici, 2014). Some Latin American agrarian reforms addressed gender issues in this shift, the unequal women’s access to land persists (Deere and León, 2001a, 2004). The neoliberal shift failed to capture gender inequalities to access land and use natural resources in statutory and customary systems by focusing on rural household productivity and disregarding situated gender dynamics to use collective land that was fundamental to the well-being of households (Razavi, 2007)

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