The territorial dispossession by mega-mining and contract farming in Zacatecas, Mexico

Abstract

The article aims to study land management to boost mining megaprojects and contract farming in Zacatecas, which generates rootless accumulation and destroys natural and human life. This is also a relevant study on development in Zacatecas as it takes into consideration the new spaces for capital accumulation (food, minerals and water) that destroy the territories in Latin America and, by extension, in Mexico. The guiding question tackles main projects plundering natural commons that have been implemented by the extractive capital in Zacatecas and how the government influences in implementing these projects. The hypothesis states that the territorial dispossession caused by extractive megaprojects in mining and contract farming under the control of corporate capital during the neoliberal management in Zacatecas focused on the looting of natural commons, exploitation of cheap labor and transfer of economic surplus, human and environmental degradation. The preliminary results indicate that the state of Zacatecas has become a social embedding area where corporate capital deprives communities of natural and human wealth and overexploits cheap labor.