1st Edition

Communities Surviving Migration Village Governance, Environment and Cultural Survival in Indigenous Mexico

    240 Pages
    by Routledge

    240 Pages 35 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Out-migration might decrease the pressure of population on the environment, but what happens to the communities that manage the local environment when they are weakened by the absence of their members? In an era where community-based natural resource management has emerged as a key hope for sustainable development, this is a crucial question.



    Building on over a decade of empirical work conducted in Oaxaca, Mexico, Communities Surviving Migration identifies how out-migration can impact rural communities in strongholds of biocultural diversity. It reflects on the possibilities of community self-governance and survival in the likely future of limited additional migration and steady – but low – rural populations, and what different scenarios imply for environmental governance and biodiversity conservation. In this way, the book adds a critical cultural component to the understanding of migration-environment linkages, specifically with respect to environmental change in migrant-sending regions.



    Responding to the call for more detailed analyses and reporting on migration and environmental change, especially in contexts where rural communities, livelihoods and biodiversity are interconnected, this volume will be of interest to students and scholars of environmental migration, development studies, population geography, and Latin American studies.

    List of Figures



    List of Tables



    List of Contributors



    Acknowledgements



    Glossary of Terms





    SECTION I: SETTING THE SCENE





    Chapter 1 - Communities Surviving Migration? The Migration-Community-Environment Nexus



    James P. Robson, Dan Klooster, and Jorge Hernández-Díaz





    Chapter 2 - Population, Territory, and Governance in Rural Oaxaca



    Jorge Hernández-Díaz and James P. Robson





    Chapter 3 - Migration Dynamics and Migrant Organising in Rural Oaxaca



    Jorge Hernández-Díaz and James P. Robson





    SECTION II: EMPIRICAL CASE STUDIES





    Chapter 4 - Avatars of Community: The Zapotec Migrants of Zoogocho Micro-region



    Jorge Hernández-Díaz





    Chapter 5 - Santa María Tindú: The Tip of a Melting Iceberg



    Dan Klooster





    Chapter 6 - Children of the Wind: Migration and Change in Santa María Yavesia



    Mario Fernando Ramos Morales and James P. Robson





    Chapter 7 - More Space and More Constraint: Migration and Environment in Santa Cruz Tepetotutla



    Dan Klooster





    Chapter 8 - Migration, Community, and Land Use in San Juan Evangelista Analco



    Fermín Sosa Pérez and James P. Robson





    Chapter 9 - Adaptive Governance or Cultural Transformation? The Monetization of Usos y Costumbres in Santiago Comaltepec



    James P. Robson





    SECTION III: SYNTHESIS AND CONCLUSIONS





    Chapter 10 - The Changing Landscapes of Indigenous Oaxaca



    James P. Robson and Dan Klooster





    Chapter 11 - Migrant Organising, Village Governance, and the Ephemeral Nature of Translocality



    Jorge Hernández-Díaz and James P. Robson





    Chapter 12 - Communities Shaping Migration: The Migration-Community-Environment NexusDan Klooster, James P. Robson, and Jorge Hernández-Díaz



    Index



     

    Biography

    James P. Robson is Assistant Professor (Human Dimensions of Sustainability) at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada.



    Dan Klooster is Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Redlands, USA.





    Jorge Hernández-Díaz is Research Professor at the Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca (UABJO), Mexico.