Indigenous organizations and territorial defense in the in the Northern Sierra de Puebla

Abstract

In this paper we analyze how the struggle for land, in the past as today, has been gaining relevance in the territories of the Totonac, Otomi, Tepehua, and Nahua peoples of the Northern Sierra de Puebla. After more than 50 years of maintaining their autonomy, the response from local governments has been on the one hand, the control of their native organizations and on the other the repression as a constant in the framework of a war of extermination of their culture, habitat -mainly access to water- common goods which has allowed them to resist and preserve a social economy in grassroots organizations and collectives that coexist with the development of neoliberal capitalism.Some organizations survived and today persist and are affected by killer projects. In the last eight years they have converged in various massive demonstrations in front of city halls, as well as marches and territorial assemblies. The indigenous peasant organization now faces 27 concessions on mining, and construction of 5 hydroelectric plants. As a result of the structural reforms the most productive areas have been privatized, thus inserting itself into the global project of intensive capital accumulation, affecting various regions of the American continent and particularly this area that is being devastated by transnational interests.