El consenso y la solidaridad étnica en la lucha indígena. El caso de Cherán

• In Event: ¿Radical Politics and/or Rule of Law in Mexico?

Abstract

This essay examines the indigenous community of Cherán, in Michoacán, which initiated and won an important legal case guaranteeing its right to self-government under the Mexican constitution. The case was motivated by the community’s need to protect itself against incursions by the drug trade, which had had disastrous effects on the local economy and had led to an increase in violence and insecurity. My focus in this article, however, is not on the effects of the narco-war as such, but rather on the process of creating political consensus and ethnic solidarity in a community known for centuries for its fractious internal divisions. In a historical analysis based on research into state and local archives and interviews with movement participants, I trace out the diverse factors that contributed to transforming the community’s “uprising” in April of 2011 against “narcotalamontes” into a cohesive indigenous social movement for participative democracy whose success has national repercussions.

Author

• Lorena Ojeda-Davila, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo