The Cuerpo-Territorio of Displacement: A Decolonial Feminist Geopolitics of Re-Existencia

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article we examine the root causes and consequences of forced displacement in Guerrero, Mexico. Drawing upon Latin American and Caribbean decolonial feminist thought, we use ‘cuerpo-territorio’ (body-territory) as a lens for understanding multiscalar violence in the region. This centres the experiences of women and children, key figures both in the (re)production of embodied, communal, and territorial ties and in the phenomenon of forced displacement. Their testimonials complicate understandings of internal migration in Mexico and asylum-seeking in the US, disrupting typical re/victimising narratives while acknowledging the interconnected, intimate-global violences these women and youth often face. In connection with ‘cuerpo-territorio’, we incorporate the decolonial concept of ‘re-existencia’ (re-existence) to show how those suffering displacement actively transform possibilities for being-in-the-world. In conversation with feminist geographic work on oppositional resistance, resilience, and re-working, we explain ‘re-existencia’ as solidarity practices that move beyond mere survival. Instead, these practices draw on longstanding indigenous ways of being to infuse new life into territories dispossessed through violence. This article aims to deepen dialogue with feminist geographic literatures outside of the Anglo-centric canon, and calls for greater attention to Latin American and Caribbean decolonial epistemologies in analyses of displacement in the Americas.