Between Subsidies and Parks: The Impact of Agrarian and Conservation Policy on Smallholder Territories of Calakmul, Mexico

Abstract

Abundant carbon stocks and high biodiversity levels make Calakmul’s forests, in southeastern Mexico, a valuable environmental resource. These forests also constitute the territory of a number of smallholder communities largely characterized by high poverty levels and a persistent dependence on swidden agriculture. Promoting economic development in the region while preserving its ecological integrity has been an historical challenge, which has increasingly captured the attention of the Mexican government in recent decades. In this chapter, I review how state intervention in the form of farm subsidies and land-use restrictions has evolved in Calakmul and how it affects the organization of the region’s territories. I argue that state-driven territorial processes in Calakmul cannot be interpreted as the result of an explicit conflict over space or land as often happens in other southern contexts. They are instead the product of a more subtle exercise of state power deployed through a blend of coercion and penalization aimed at aligning the attitudes of community residents with development and conservation goals. Crucially, this policy mix is not by design, as agrarian and conservation state instruments behind it continue to be implemented largely independently in the region. Nonetheless, their effects still display high complementarity, with significant implications for both Calakmul’s society and its environment.