The Social Science Library » Unlikely Alliances: Encounters between State Science, Nature Spirits, and Indigenous Industrial Forestry in Mexico, 1926-2008

Unlikely Alliances: Encounters between State Science, Nature Spirits, and Indigenous Industrial Forestry in Mexico, 1926-2008

Author(s)	Mathews, Andrew S.
Abstract	Indigenous community leaders and conservationists in Oaxaca, Mexico, believe that deforestation causes streams to dry up and threatens rainfall, authorizing popular mobilizations against industrial logging. This belief was produced by a combination of indigenous beliefs in nature spirits and early twentieth century state sponsored desiccation theory, which was brought to the Valley of Mexico in the 1920s. Desiccation theory acquires political significance because it allows rural people to build political and epistemic alliances that bypass industrial forestry institutions and find sympathetic urban audiences and environmentalist allies, undermining state claims to reason and scientific authority. These alliances require the skillful translation and mistranslation of local environmental concerns by activists and conservationists, who link the concerns of urban audiences with those of rural people. Popular beliefs about climate and forests in Mexico structure the authority and credibility of the state and will powerfully affect efforts to protect forests to mitigate climate change.
IssueNo	1
Pages	75-101
Article	Access to Article
Source	Cultural Anthropology
VolumeNo	50
PubDate	2009
ISBN_ISSN
Browse Path(s)	Anthropology —-Social/Cultural Anthropology ——–Ecology and Resource Conservation

Unlikely Alliances: Encounters between State Science, Nature Spirits, and Indigenous Industrial Forestry in Mexico, 1926-2008