Abstract

DURAND SMITH, Leticia; FIGUEROA DIAZ, Fernanda  and  GUZMAN CHAVEZ, Mauricio Genet. Political Ecology in Mexico: ¿Where are we and where are we heading to?. Estud. soc [online]. 2011, vol.19, n.37, pp.281-307. ISSN 0188-4557.

Theoretical identification of research approaches and academic formation with a political ecology perspective is becoming more frequent every time in Mexico. This upsurge of political ecology, as a discipline and theoretical framework, is quite encouraging for those who analyze environmental change from a social and political perspective. Notwithstanding, we consider that a thorough review of this discipline's development in Mexico is necessary in order to delimit its field of inquiry and to avoid its generalization and simplification. In this study we offer a synthetic account of the origin and evolution of political ecology and its main theoretical approaches. We also present a general historical review of research efforts devoted to analyze environmental change from a social perspective in Mexico; lastly, we discuss the traits that characterize Mexican political ecology, its main lines of research, and their relevance in Mexico's environmental scenario. Given the high diversity and quantity of Mexico's socio-environmental studies, this work should be considered a preliminary characterization and history of political ecology in Mexico that may be useful as a basis for a further and more complete analysis about this discipline development.

Keywords : political ecology; Mexico; environmentalism; development; natural resources.

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