Presentation short abstract

Violent and alienating forms of labour offered by the avocado industry in Michoacán, Mexico, have been countered by Cherán’s community project to center socio-ecological reproduction and overall well-being.

Presentation long abstract

This paper engages with a territorial conflict from the perspective of labour. In the P’urhépecha Plateau in central Mexico, on the one hand, avocado production enjoys a monopoly of export to the U.S., which enables producers to render huge profits, while workers face insecure, violent conditions, in which both organized crime and multinational corporations play a decisive role.

At the heart of the Plateau, on the other, the community of Cherán has forbidden avocado plantations and developed a communal form of government to secure their social reproduction and keep organized crime and multinational corporations at bay. Such a system is rooted in intense community dialogue as a form of decision-making and rotative executive positions which discourage the formation of hierarchies and facilitate community learning and participation regarding public affairs. Through this, they have also restored the balance of their ecosystems: they have reforested their territory -previously ravaged by organized crime to make room for avocado plantations-, secured their water supply through the construction of a rainwater collection system and deployed a trash recycling facility.

Despite their efforts, Cherán still faces threats: geopolitical disputes increase the ruthlessness of organized crime, and financialization and climate change still endanger the health of their forests. With data coming from both the avocado agri-business and Cherán, this presentation focuses on the main tenets and complexities of this territorial conflict which, at the core, implies a re-conceptualization and re-organization of labour: from a way to contribute to capitalist production, to a way to secure social reproduction.