Oil, property and fake maps: the persistence of illegibility in a Mexican ejido

• In Event: Agricultura, minería y extractivismo

Abstract

Since Mexico’s 1992 agrarian counter-reform, 96% of ejidos (communal farmland granted by the state) in Mexico have been “regularized”, meaning that ejidos have been divided into plots and ejidatarios (members of an ejido) have received individual titles for specific plots of land. This has made it easier for ejidatarios to sell their land or use it as collateral, while making ejidos more legible to the State. However, 4% of ejidos in Mexico have still not been “regularized” despite attempts to do so in the last 25 years. This paper focuses on one of these ejidos in the state of Veracruz where a vast web of abandoned state-owned oil infrastructure above and below ground and inaccurate or “fake” maps created by Pemex (the state-owned oil company) in collusion with a group of ejidatarios has complicated the process. Drawing from ethnographic research in the ejido from 2016-2018, I discuss the tensions and property disputes that have emerged as the government and a group of current ejidatarios seeks to obtain their individual property rights. At the center of these disputes is a flawed expropriation process carried out by Pemex in the 1970s in which it essentially bought parts of the ejido from one group of ejidatarios without the others’ knowledge based on inaccurate (and false) maps. By looking at current efforts to make the landscape legible, I analyze the ways in which past actions have ensured that communal property and illegibility (which benefits certain ejidatarios) persist in the ejido today.

Author

• Margaret Cruz, CUNY Graduate Center