Resource Mobilization Theory

The Resource Mobilization theory understands social movement as the rational behaviors of collective actors who seek to insert themselves into a political system, maintain themselves and extend their influence by mobilizing all kinds of resources, including, as the case may be, violence. More specifically, it states that mobilized subjects seek to penetrate a political system, rationally pursuing their objectives through organizations (formal and informal) that provide the resources available to them to achieve their ends.

Relevant Authors: John D. McCarthy and Mayer Zald.

In Cherán, we can identify social and political mobilization and the use of law as the main resources that led to the creation of a broader political project, which includes the recovery of social control of the territory and the recognition of the self-determination of indigenous people.

The day that started everything:
April 15, 2011

After years of outrages and ignored petitions to the government, Cherán's struggle erupted on the morning of April 15, 2011.

That morning a group of women confronted a group of loggers; they were later joined by men. The reason that triggered the women's reaction was that the loggers were cutting trees near the La Cofradía spring, a place of cultural significance which supplies water to the community (Ventura, 2012. Oscar Aragón (2013) narrates that the confrontation lasted for hours and left several people wounded by firearms. He also explains that, out of concern for possible retaliation, the community members chose to set up barricades and bonfires on the margins of the community as a means of surveillance and defense. These actions were accompanied by strong protests that ended up causing the municipal president and his collaborators to flee Cherán.

As a result of the events of the morning of April 15, a strong process of organization was triggered in Cherán. The bonfires, originally created to protect the entrances to the community, served to reactivate the neighborhood assemblies and the general assembly as decision-making spaces (Llanderal, 2012: 9). These assemblies elected four representatives, one from each neighborhood, to form a commission, known as the General Commission, with the objective of mediating the conflict with the authorities. Subsequently, sixteen more commissions were formed, in charge of covering the needs of the community (Ojeda, 2015). This new process of self-management, a product of necessity, filled the vacuum left by the municipal government and nurtured the idea of self-government.

THE THREE LEVELS OF THE DEVELOPMENT
OF CHERÁN'S MOVEMENT

Phase 4: Consolidation

Law and self-determination

In order to materialize their desire for self-determination, the community entered the legal arena. The first action it undertook in this regard was to request the Electoral Institute of Michoacán (IEM) the possibility of organizing an election following indigenous customs, which was already happening in other parts of the country. This request was submitted for review from several academic institutions. On September 9, 2011, the General Council of the IEM determined that it did not have the authority to resolve the petition (Ibarra and Castillo, 2014: 274), a resolution that led the community to rethink its strategy.

Insitutionalizing the claim for self-governance

Together with a team of five lawyers ─two belonging to the community, one of them part of the Honor and Justice Commission, and two lawyers from the city of Morelia─, the community agreed to continue via legal actions. Despite the complexity of such a trial, this allowed Cherán to move in parallel in the institutional arena and in that of political activism (Aragón, 2013). The legal team followed the strategy of filing a lawsuit for the protection of community political-electoral rights before the Regional Chamber of the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary (TEPJF) in Toluca. Said appeal was later brought to the Superior Chamber of the TEPJF, where it was ruled (Ibarra and Castillo, 2014). On November 2, 2011, the Superior Chamber of the TEPJF ruled in favor of the indigenous municipality of Cherán. This resolution recognized, for the first time in the history of the Mexican State, the right of an indigenous municipality to elect its authorities according to its uses and customs (Aragón, 2013: 37).

Phase 2-3: Gaining visibility
and developing the movement

In this second phase of the movement, the initial group of women who detained the group of illegal loggers made a call to the broader community after locking the loggers they captured inside the church, and ringing the building's bells to alert the population that something was going on.

To respond to the situation, the people of the community mobilized the simplest material resources, such as sticks, work tools, pyrotechnics, and anything that could be used as a weapon to engage in open confrontation with the loggers and the groups that provided them with protection.

The indigenous networks of solidarity and mutual support served as channels for the mobilization of this and other types of (intangible) resources, such as knowledge, attachment to the territory and the agreements made among the people of the community during meetings prior to the dawn.

These forms of community support can be considered as functional resources for collective action, but also as mobilization structures in themselves that act as informal community networks that underlay the forms of fear implemented by the loggers and their allies –– organized crime and the municipal and state police.

The early morning of the confrontation (on April 15, 2011) constituted an initial political opportunity to re-emerge local organizational structures that –– based on kinship, territoriality, productive activities, collective identity –– promoted the circulation of resources (material and immaterial) essential for this first action. This would be only a sample of the broad repertoire of collective actions that would arise in the medium and long term of Cherán's social movement.

The channels and resources mobilized during the visibility phase did not go beyond the community level. The confrontations that the Cherán community had maintained with neighboring communities over boundary issues, invasion of pastures or forests, sale or illegal exploitation of land, among others, did not allow the community organizational structures to rely on formal and informal extra-community associative resources.

Elections and political parties

The beginning of the new stage of self-management in Cherán coincided with the beginning of the state electoral period to renew municipal presidents and governor. By then, the Purepecha population's discontent with both the government and the political parties had grown. The community members justified their discontent for two reasons. The first was the multiple omissions of the government in the face of the looting of the forests. The second was the divisions created by the political parties within the community (Ventura, 2012: 163-164). Thus, the slogan of not allowing the reentry of political parties into the community and the municipality became so strong that it ended up guiding the actions for the electoral period.

Phase 1: Catalizer

The collective action to stop the looting of the forest and cartel violence began on April 14, 2011, when a group of ~15 women and their children blocked the passage near the town's Temple of Calvary where the loggers used to come down loaded with wood from the mountains.

These women and their families confronted and held some of the loggers captive in the Temple. Shortly after, they rand the church bells to invite the inhabitants of the community to gather, triggering a process of awareness and a period of transition between micro to miso level of organizing.

Sources:

Aragón, O., 2013. “El derecho en insurrección. el uso contrahegemónico del derecho en el movimiento purépecha de Cherán”. Revista de Estudios y Pesquisas sobre as Américas, vol. 7(2), pp. 33-69.
Calveiro, P., 2014. “Repensar y ampliar la democracia. El caso del municipio autónomo de Cherán K’eri”. Argumentos, vol. 27(25), pp. 193-212.
Campo, A., y G. Partida, 2015. “Cumple Cherán cuatro años de autogobierno, sin partidos”. La Jornada (abril). Available at: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2015/04/20/estados/029n1est
España-Boquera, M., y O. Champo-Jiménez, 2016. “Proceso de deforestación en el municipio de Cherán, Michoacán, México (2006- 2012)”. Madera y Bosques, vol. 22(1), pp. 141-153.
Ibarra, M., y J. Castillo, 2014. “Las elecciones de Cherán: usos y costumbres excluyentes”. Revista Mexicana de Derecho Electoral, 5, pp. 263-283. UNAM-Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas.
Llanderal, M., 2012. Editorial. Expresiones: Órgano oficial de difusión del Instituto Electoral del Michoacán, 15, pp. 9-10.
Notimex, 2012. “El Consejo Mayor del Gobierno comunal de Cherán toma posesión”. Expansión, domingo 5 de febrero de 2012. Available at: http://expansion.mx/nacional/2012/02/05/el-consejo-mayor-del-gobierno-comunal-de-cheran-toma-posesion?internal_source=PLAYLIST
Ojeda, L., 2015. “Cherán: el poder del consenso y las políticas comunitarias”. Política Común, vol. 7., Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/pc.12322227.0007.007
Sedesol, 2013. Cherán. Unidad de microrregiones. Available at: http://www.microrregiones.gob.mx/zap/datGenerales.aspx?entra=zap&ent=16&mun=024
Ventura, P., 2012. “Proceso de autonomía en Cherán. Movilizar el derecho”. Espiral. Estudios sobre Estado y Sociedad, vol. XIX(55), pp. 157-176.

Resource Mobilization Theory

The day that started everything: April 15, 2011

THE THREE LEVELS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHERÁN'S MOVEMENT

Phase 4: Consolidation

The day that started everything:
April 15, 2011

THE THREE LEVELS OF THE DEVELOPMENT
OF CHERÁN'S MOVEMENT