Lessons
Cherán is an example that it is possible to put a stop to looting and violence with alternative forms of government. In a few years Cherán has managed to have an autonomous government, has changed the concept of security by guaranteeing it within its territory, has strengthened the social fabric and has doubled school enrollment, in addition to betting on recovering the Purepecha memory (Calveiro, 2014: 209). As for the forest, through self-management processes, the community has managed to annually produce 1,600,000 plants for reforestation and has exceeded 3500 hectares reforested (Campos and Partida, 2015).
Cherán's experience can give us insights on the dynamics that exists between state power and protest, as well as the constraints on indigenous rights and democracy in contemporary Mexico. Since Cheran is only one of the nearly five hundred indigenous communities in the country, studying the development of its self-governance can provide context to the many interconnected geographies of indigenous populations in Mexico.
Unlike other contemporary movements, the pre-existence of communal organizational structures allows us to place Cherán within the classic conception of movements characterized by the presence of indigenous leadership, the affiliation of volunteer personnel, which gives rise to a structure built "from below", with resources from the direct beneficiaries and actions based on mass participation.
The movement's initial objective was to recover forest areas that were being devastated by illegal logging. However, the conservation of this natural resource depended on the community maintaining control of the territory beyond the movement. In this sense, the local council, with the support of extra-local networks, found the way to safeguard resources in the institutional legitimacy of the movement's organizational structure (through the use of law). This legitimacy contributed to orient the struggle towards the legal recognition of the self-determination of this people as a form of right that would not only allow them to choose their future in territorial terms, but also in relation to the economic, political and cultural life of the community.
The emergence of movements such as the one in Cherán is an example of the demand for the collective rights of indigenous peoples. Beyond the particularity of this case, its study sheds light on the characteristics that distinguish most of the popular movements -both in terms of their organizational characteristics and their identity elements and conceptualizations of the collective- that are placed on the stage of the dispute over natural resources and territories in Mexico.
Sources:
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Calveiro, P. (2014). Repensar y ampliar la democracia. El caso del Municipio Autónomo de Cherán K’eri. Argumentos,27(75), 193-212.
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Chihu, A. y López, A. (2007). La construcción de la identidad colectiva en Alberto Melucci. Polis, 3(1), 125-159. https://polismexico.izt.uam.mx/index.php/rp/article/view/318
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Composto, C. (2012). Acumulación por despojo y neoextractivismo en América Latina. Una reflexión crítica acercadel Estado y los movimientos socio-ambientales en el nuevo siglo. Astrolabio, 8, 323-352. https://revistas.unc.edu.ar/index.php/astrolabio/article/view/767/1031