Paper short abstract:

This paper illuminates the internal dynamics of an agrarian dispute of ejidal property within the zoques community of the Chapultenango municipality in Chiapas, Mexico.

Paper long abstract:

Keywords: agrarian conflics, zoques, interethnic conflicts

This paper illuminates the internal dynamics of an agrarian dispute of ejidal property within the zoques community of the Chapultenango municipality in Chiapas, Mexico. We argue that government land policies and its burocratization deleteriously affected indigenous communities by essentializing them as "harmonious" and "ecological" citizens, the effect of which underscores a paternalistic (i.e. el buen salvaje) and racist approach to policymaking. We begin by examining the process and politics of illegal land redistribution of the impoverished zoques in Chapultenango during the 1940s. We then present how the eruption of the Chichonal volcano catalyzed the Chiapas Government to create a public policy called Reconstruction of the Chichonal Volcano Program (PRVC) which consisted in the relocation of some Chapultenango residents.This policy aimed to give assistance to the victims by providing housing accommodation and giving inhospitable lands to the zoque families in other municipalities nearby Chapultenango.However, this policy placed zoque families in a vulnerable situation in that it started a rivalry between the zoques and the locals. Although some zoques have settled in other villages, some of them returned to Chapultenango and demanded the whole territory for themselves. The place where there have been more conflicts is the cooperative farming of Esquipulas Guayabal. As a result, Zoques have gone to court three times and have not yet found resolution.