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Paper short abstract

This research analyses diverse market arrangements as forms of resistance developed by mango producers to gain autonomy in response to the agro-export boom, in Oaxaca, Mexico, which has transformed local market channels into a competitive and complex system and created power asymmetries.

Paper long abstract

As the world’s leading mango exporter, Mexico accounts for 21% of global trade, with 99% of its exports directed toward the United States and Canada (FAO, 2024). The current mango production chain has developed a complex structure in which producers have had to develop a series of organisational, productive, and commercial strategies (Ordóñez-Trujillo et al., 2023). The unequal power relations behind this structure mean that producers have limited capacity to shape the terms on which they produce and trade (Henderson, 2019). Within this scenario, power asymmetries among producers have deepened through differentiated access to market integration. Therefore, this research analyses the everyday forms of resistance (Scott, 1985) that producers develop to gain Relative Autonomy (Henderson, 2017). Using qualitative methods, 45 semi-structured interviews were conducted in Oaxaca, Mexico, during the 2025 harvesting season, with mango producers and intermediaries. The findings illustrate how the emergence of intermediaries, particularly packinghouses, has transformed local market channels into a competitive and complex system by adding more people to transactions, reducing producers' incomes, and blurring the distinction between domestic and export market channels. Producers have built forms of resistance by manoeuvring to gain control over their production process and applying their agency in the selection of a market arrangement, defined as a unique combination of market channels that they select and manage to access. This means that there is a network of actors following the formal rules of the market, but also a network of people creating a variety of economic transactions to sustain their livelihoods.