In 2006-2008, the Mexico Indigena research team has carried out participatory mapping in three communities, and property regime research in these communities as well as an additional three, in the Sierra Norte (Sierra Juárez) of the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca (see maps below).

Indigenous Zapotec residents trained in GPS use have produced data and sketch maps which reveal a fascinating, complex system of toponyms (place-names) and concepts of communal and individual property.

Most communities in the Sierra Juarez did not permit PROCEDE to survey and certify individual parcels, but many did accept the PROCEDE surveying of community perimeter boundaries.

Since the tumultuous period of political unrest in the summer and fall of 2006, Oaxaca has been in the news as a region where long-standing grievances among many indigenous communities are meshing with other movements in complex ways. Our work will illuminate neglected but important facets of these movements.

 


Besides being a center of indigenous cultural diversity, the Sierra Juárez is a critical region in ecological terms. Even the small study area includes a wide range of major vegetation types: dry tropical forest along the Rio Grande, humid pine-oak forest throughout much of Ixtlán (a place well known for its community-managed forestry enterprises), cloud forest in parts of Tiltepec, and tropical rain forest along the lower Rio Cajonos.

INDIGENOUS ZAPOTEC PEOPLE

ZAPOTEC OF THE SIERRA NORTE

ARCHAEOLOGY & ETHNOHISTORY

CONQUEST AND COLONIZATION

SAN JUAN YAGILA

IXTLÁN DE JUÁREZ

GUELATAO DE JUÁREZ

 

At the request of the communities, an additional component to the research is the inclusion of archaeological sites and remains unknown or little known in the academic world. México Indígena and its partners in the communities of the Sierra Juárez are helping to define and improve the new, small field of participatory archaeology. CLICK HERE FOR A SAMPLE PRELIMINARY SKETCH OF A SITE IN THE SIERRA JUÁREZ.

 

 

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