Abstract
Tetreault and Gómez Fuentes analyze the struggle against the Zapotillo Dam in the Highlands of Jalisco. They seek to explain the formation of a collective agency of resistance in a local and regional context characterized by Catholic conservatism, high levels of migration to the USA, and highly concentrated private ownership of land and water resources. After contextualizing the Zapotillo Dam project in a brief review of historical and contemporary dam-building policies and trends in Mexico, and after critically analyzing the logic behind this particular project, the authors center their investigation on the formation of organized resistance in Temacapulín, the largest of the three towns threatened by flooding. Regional culture, leadership types, and state mediation are examined in order to explain the formation and evolution of popular organized resistance and networking, which has so far prevented the Dam from being completed and filled.
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Notes
- 1.
The Highlands of Jalisco has been officially delimited as the region including eight municipalities which make up the North Highlands Region (Encarnación de Díaz, Lagos de Moreno , Ojuelos de Jalisco, San Diego de Alejandría, San Juan de los Lagos, Teocaltiche, Unión de San Antonio y Villa Hidalgo ) and the twelve that compose the South Highlands Region (Acatic, Arandas, Cañadas de Obregón , Jalostotitlán, Jesús María, Mexticacán, San Julián, San Miguel el Alto, Tepatitlán de Morelos , Valle de Guadalupe , Yahualica de González Gallo y San Ignacio Cerro Gordo). A more general regionalization centered on cultural and historical factors defines the Highlands of Jalisco as “the triangle formed by Lagos de Moreno —currently the most important economic center in the region—, San Juan de Los Lagos—the second most important ecclesiastical center in the country, with respect to the number of pilgrims who visit each year—, and Tepatitlán de Morelos —the southern point for delimiting the Highlands culture, not only geographically, but also with respect cultural traditions and politics” (Camarena Luhrs et al. 2003: 151).
- 2.
Of the 20 municipalities included in the official delimitation of the Highlands región, 17 have a migration index that is high or very high, according to CONAPO (2012).
- 3.
CEAS was created in May of 2001 and renamed Comisión Estatal de Agua de Jalisco (CEA) in 2006, although in practice it has not abandoned sanitation.
- 4.
In June of 2011, CONAGUA finally elaborated a modified MIA for the Zapotillo project corresponding to a height of 105 m. This MIA seeks to minimize the environmental impacts of the Zapotillo Dam by signalling that the projected surface area of the reservoir “only represents 0.19% […] of the same regional environmental system” (CONAGUA 2011: 2), besides asserting that the region’s current productive activities use natural resources in such a way as to “externalize costs to society” and that this situation, which is “aggravated by irregular settlements, tends to accelerate environmental deterioration because of its excessive demand for materials and energy.” Thus, from CONAGUA’s perspective, the dam’s reservoir has the added attraction of putting an end to the ecologically destructive activities of the displaced population.
- 5.
León has a population of almost 1.6 million people. The Palote Dam provides 4.7% of the water consumed in the city; the rest comes from underground sources, most importantly the Valle de León aquifer (SAPAL 2009), which has a deficit of 177.7 hm3/yr (CONAGUA 2015), equal to almost 50% more than the volume of water promised by the Zapotillo Dam. About 80% of the water extracted from the Valle de León is used for irrigation , 17% for public-urban consumption, and 2% for industry (Peña Ramírez 2012: 126).
- 6.
Authors’ calculation based on information presented by Ochoa Garcia et al. (2015: 60).
- 7.
COLOCA is comprised of the following organizations: Congreso Ciudadano de Jalisco , IMDEC , the Union of Public Employees of SIAPA (which is the Spanish acronym for the MAG’s Inter-municipal Potable Water and Sewer System), Fundación Cuenca Lerma-Chapala-Santiago, Asociación Jalisciense de Apoyo a Grupos Indígenas, MAPDER Jalisco, and researchers from the University of Guadalajara , Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente (ITESO) and Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS) Occidente.
- 8.
This figure is an estimate that includes, not just the population threatened with displacement (including absent sons and daughters), but also the communities that would be directly affected by extracting water from the micro-region.
- 9.
In early 1927, there were armed uprisings in most towns in the Highlands of Jalisco , led by Catholics who refused to accept “Calles’ Law,” whose purpose was to reduce the size of the Church’s landholdings and restrict its participation in political affairs and public education. Although there were no uprisings in Temacapulín, Cañadas, or other nearby towns, this had nothing to do with these being less religious. Rather, as Frajoza (2013: 166) explains, it had to do with the peculiar configuration of political power in a micro-region unofficially known as “La Caxcana,” comprised of the municipalities in Jalisco to the east of the Verde River , where local political and economic power was concentrated in families related to each other and to the president of Mexico at that time, Plutarco Elías Calles. This situation translated into coordinated support of the federal agenda among the municipal governments of La Caxcana.
- 10.
Interview recorded on August 24, 2014.
- 11.
- 12.
An exception is Don Pancho, one of the leaders of the resistance movement, who has a small parcel of land , much smaller than a hectare, where he plants chilli.
- 13.
The information presented in this paragraph comes mostly from an interview carried out on March 26, 2016, with Don Luis Rodríguez, an experienced sharecropper in Temacapulín, and it has been triangulated with information collected through interviews with other local farmers .
- 14.
This information was provided by the participants in a focal group, made up of six members of the community, who reflected on the resistance movement in Temacapulín with the first author of this chapter, on March 24, 2016.
- 15.
This section reproduces and elaborates on elements of analysis originally presented in Gómez Fuentes (2014).
- 16.
Interview recorded on August 24, 2014.
- 17.
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Tetreault, D., Gómez Fuentes, A.C. (2018). Political Class Formation in Opposition to the Zapotillo Dam. In: Tetreault, D., McCulligh, C., Lucio, C. (eds) Social Environmental Conflicts in Mexico. Environmental Politics and Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73945-8_4
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