Presentation short abstract

This presentation offers a critical reading of agroecology. The analysis articulates Latin American discourse, Mexican policies, and the local case of Hopelchén, where the perspectives of young Mayans show more diverse futures than those assumed by agroecology.

Presentation long abstract

Based on a framework of studies on the temporalities of the future, this presentation proposes a critical reading of agroecology; a narrative that offers hope in the face of a present-future in crisis, based on the transformation of the global agri-food system into a local one led by peasant and indigenous peoples and communities and their ancestral knowledge, mainly from Latin America. The reading is developed from three overlapping dimensions: the narrative-discursive dimension of Latin American agroecology, Mexican national policy—intertwined with global policy—and the local dimension of the municipality of Hopelchén in southeastern Mexico. From this last dimension, the views and perspectives of rural Mayan youth reveal the coexistence of temporalities that shape the imaginaries of the future of contemporary rural actors, beyond the representations that the epochal narrative of agroecology presents about these groups. This research contributes a critical anthropological-social perspective to agroecology, as well as to studies on the anthropology of the future and political ecology.