Struggles in defense of life within the context of dispossession and capitalist violence in Mexico: a closer look through the lens of the production of the common

Abstract

ABSTRACT Indigenous and peasant communities in Latin America face an extractivist offensive characterized by multiple processes of dispossession and violence. These processes pose an existential threat to the territorial resources and means of existence that ensure sustenance and facilitate reproduction of life for both humans and non-humans. In this text, I provide a brief overview of the emergence of the Mexican indigenous movement in the 1990s and the recent proliferation of indigenous and peasant struggles focused on the defense of life. Deploying the central concepts of ‘production of the common’ and ‘entramados comunitarios’, I analyze the dynamics of community organization and struggle in response to the onslaught and consequences of extractivism.