Networked, rooted and territorial: green grabbing and resistance in Chiapas

Abstract

Land grabbing has been characterized by large-scale commercial land deals or green grabs of large conservation tracts. In Chiapas, Mexico, green grabs employ a networked strategy across state, corporate and civil society lines to evict peasant and indigenous communities, and facilitate entry of extractive industries, plantations and industrial ‘ecotourism’. The resistance is rooted in place(s) and in a coalition of civil society organizations and autonomous communities. Network illustrations and field reports show that several environmental organizations occupy pivotal positions in grabbing and/or resistance networks, with large powerful groups linked to state and corporate interests. The experience in Agua Azul, a key node in a planned tourism megaproject, illustrates the deployment of networked and dispersed power to unmake and remake territories across scales. Small purchased plots form nodes in far-flung circuits of ecotourism and archeological sites. The substantial resistance is likewise rhizomatic in character, reaching across archipelagos of forest and farming communities and distant allies, to reconstitute autonomous territories. Ongoing land struggles play out in networked spaces, with entire territories, and many lives, at stake. Emerging coalitions of human rights, indigenous, religious and environmental groups promise an expanding resistance to evictions and territorial green grabs in Chiapas and elsewhere.