Neoliberalism and peasant women: the defense of the commons in southern Mexico

Abstract

Southern Mexico is currently at a crossroads, on one hand, there is a cultural and environmental wealth that supports non-hegemonic ways of life, through practices, relationships, knowledge and work carried out mainly by indigenous peoples, peasant families and, particularly by women. On the other hand, the demand for commodities in the global economy promotes investment from transnational companies under economic-productivity schemes without regard to social reproduction. These are contradictory perspectives regarding what means life, territory and the common, and in consequence, generates spatial reconfigurations, socio-environmental disputes and intensify tensions and inequalities. However, resistance and defense occur from the body as a territory to the land as a territory, in a swing of subtle and powerful strategies, where the work, organization and struggles carried out by women are key and illustrate the multiplicity of ways that make possible and guarantee the continuity of life. The objective of this article is to present the results of two studies in which we identify processes of adaptation, defense and / or resistance in the territories, mainly led by peasant women with whom we work in Chiapas and Oaxaca. Tensions and transformations are reviewed in the face of a 30-year panorama of neoliberalism in Mexico and its relation in the first case, with agri-food strategies; and in the second case, in terms of community conservation. The analysis is approached from the feminist approach of sustainability of life, to give an account of the integration and dialectic that the spheres of production and reproduction imply in the care and defense of life in common.