‘Until the land title is in my hands, the land is not sold!’: land, violence, and Indigenous survivance in Michoacán, Mexico

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, we use a settler capitalism framework that centers racialized gender violence in the pueblo of San Miguel Nocutzepo. We tell a story about how neoliberal policy in Mexico permitted the privatization of formerly collectively held Indigenous ejido land, which resulted in selloffs to outsiders who invested in avocado production and ended up being controlled by organized crime. Specifically, we point to the intersections between the regional agricultural recomposition and the social fabric of life in Nocutzepo as we attribute the land repurposing that the avocado-producing region of Michoacán has undergone with the encroachment of settler capitalism and organized crime. We also, however, highlight narratives of survivance in Nocutzepo that shed light on the various ways people faced violence to protect their family, pueblo, and land. Finally, we focus on a mothers-led struggle for youth and community empowerment and well-being or buen vivir that lobbied for a new Indigenous bilingual intercultural school in Nocutzepo to respond to the decline of subsistence agriculture. Our findings caution that while not all Indigenous struggles result in collective victories, everyday practices of resistance form an essential basis of survival.