Reconfiguring indígenous territory and legislation in Mexico

Abstract

Indigenous territories and territorialities have been subjected to a continuous process of reconfiguration throughout Mexico’s history; a process that began with a series of juridical dispositions and ordinances in the Colonial Period that have continued right up to modern times. One recent example of this is the set of juridical modifications that was ratified in 1992; designed, once again, to disarticulate collective properties and encourage privatization and the concentration of lands in only a few hands. However, there are also international dispositions that attempt to create a legal framework which recognizes and protects the lands of indigenous peoples; including the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Convention #169, which was ratified by the Mexican government. At the national level, important referents exist to account for indigenous people’s ongoing resistance to eviction from their territories, and their struggle to gain recognition of a specific set of rights as culturally-specific collectivities, such as the so-called San Andrés Agreements. For indigenous peoples, territory constitutes the very material support of their communitarian way of life, as well as serving as a symbolic referent for their collective identity.