Tx’otx’ and la defensa del territorio: articulating Mam territory as an Indigenous cross-border nation

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines the way the Maya-Mam, an Indigenous people divided by the Guatemala–Mexico border, define territory in relation to and across state borders. As state borders geographically, socially, culturally, and politically divide the pueblo Mam, state maps bolster these divisions and state subjugation by promoting a nation-state framework that circumscribes the Mam within its borders. However, the Mam are problematizing state depictions of spatiality: they denaturalize state borders by articulating alternative ontologies of territory. This study shows that in their everyday lives, Mam councils, activists, and individuals aim to promote broader cross-border Mam unification to better defend territory from potential harm. They use a dual-prong approach for articulating territory: through the development of narratives that draw upon a more holistic understanding of territory’s ‘nature’ and by making counter-maps that incorporate Mam understanding of territory. I argue that these Indigenous efforts weave together a resistance to and refusal of state frames.