The social process of Atenco

The bells of the church of San Salvador Atenco, echoed the morning of 22 october 2001. For more than three hours rang, with the intention of calling people to gather in the main square to spread the news. With tears, anguish and despair they came to know the names of the people affected by the 19 expropriation decrees, in order to build the New Mexico City International Airport (NAICM). That day began one of the most important battles in the history of the descendants of the "warlike people" inhabiting the east of the State of Mexico.

Thus it began the story when the government of Vicente Fox issued 19 expropriating decrees to build the NAICM issued against 13 suburbs Cuautlalpan, San Bernardino, Boyeros, Huexotla, San Felipe Santa Cruz, Tocuila and Magdalena Panoaya, municipality of Texcoco, Francisco I. Madero, Santa Isabel Ixtapan, Nexquipayac, Acuexcomac San Francisco and San Salvador Atenco, municipality of Atenco and Chimalhuacán, municipality of the same name. The total area was expropriated 5 390 7600 171 hectares and houses should be relocated.

From this story and the meaning of government action, there was a response that triggered a complex and enveloping process in communities of Atenco, that eventually they realized shaping immersed social actor in collective action it boosted to establish itself as a social movement of importance in the country and worth studying.

Territorial defense

When the fighting began, participants were few, but started from the need to organize to try to convince people that it was possible to fight and especially to win this fight. That was how he gradually became involved more people, not only landowners, also housewives, professionals, youth, elders, traders and so on.

There was a motivation that united more than the same need, united community essence of their collective memory as the basis for the construction of its historical consciousness. They became a people with community structure, with history and vision. The machete that has distinguished this movement in the region of Atenco is a symbol of struggle and resistance pasaros awareness to building leadership from the collective, as a people. This movement began to spread, and the people of Atenco realized that not only they fought, there were many more, which led to a national and international movement fighting for the same thing. As now the new movement in defense of water, earth and life. The land is materialized representation of the territory; that is, what the actor defined as a project of "defense of the earth", is indeed the defense of the territory. So the statement that "the territory is produced from space and its representation, the earth is the result of an action that appropriates an abstraction of space and relationships produced in this process is analyzed lead to territoriality" (GIT 2001).

Capitalist globalization to impose their homologante Bulldozer market logic has weakened the borders, national states, regional authorities and social peculiarities, however, far from causing deterritorialization, it has used to support its expansion, and benefited large economic blocs (United States, Europe, Japan, India and China), strengthening a few nation states. That is why "internal territories considered at different scales (eg local, regional, national, etc.) remain in full force, with their distinct and specific logic, under the command of globalization, although it must be recognized that they are on certain by it, and consequently, have been profoundly transformed in modernity" (^{Gimenez, 1998}).

Similarly, the term territory "land, real or imagined that a people (ethnic group or nation) occupies or uses in any way, on which creates a sense of belonging, comparing with other space, organized according to the patterns of production differentiation (economic wealth), social (kinship origin) and sex / gender (sexual division of spaces) exercises jurisdiction" (Zambrano, 2001). Zambrano (2001) proposes to conceive "as a social construction affected by the dynamics of identity: there are territories that determine the identities, but these that contribute to configure historically".

It is considered the territory as the space where the social actor and collective action was built. From these elements it is analyzed considering the conflict as a disruptive factor in territorial structuring perception, motivated by the collective action of social actor of Atenco, in a context of power relations. Atenco is inconceivable without the link with its territory and ownership thereof for the auto territorial organization. In this sense, ^{Porto (2003)} warns us to consider more carefully the place or space in different local, regional, national levels, globally where a particular conflict occurs, where a particular social struggle is against against two or more of its social actors. In the end, the place is the same, consisting of those relations (fights) in a society under construction, thus becoming its spaces. Also, the society is itself the forming space, just as its territory, as well as a territory is constituted by the company in its own process weaving a set of social relations of power.

Social movements are the result of the subjectivity that constitutes the demonstrations, so they and the same construction of the subject represent a collective social process. ^{Almeyra (2002)} considers that the construction of the subject is not limited to the subjectivity of individuals, but collectively, because "the collective is the result of multiple private equity", which vary by 'gender, age, culture and ability, "but that converge in the construction of a "subject community that frames for individual buildings" with rhythms and characteristics.

Something that helps determine the identity or rather reinforces the identity of the population is that in communities such as members of the municipality of Atenco, a socially constructed before the conquest, social relations are characterized by component individual and collective, closely linked. Therefore, if an individual participates in one of the demonstrations, it is all understood in the community, which he attended on behalf of his family, so their participation is not only individual but also collective property.

Therefore the construction of the actors at the individual develops collective subjects, identified as movements through the constant action and conflict causes a qualitative leap in the construction of consciences. This is how through demonstrations are used to the "profound class consciousness", drawing from past mobilizations that find it "useful and collective". Contravene the hegemony of bourgeois politics by mobilizing resources and psychological resistance hidden, even with the culture of the ruling classes, to crack domination. Therefore, "to study the social protest movements and it produces" essentially "is the construction of the new subjectivity, construction and transformation of the subject through collective action" (^{Almeyra, 2002}).

Corporatism and effects in San Salvador Atenco

In Mexico he appeared corporatism perhaps because it was not a strong civil society with powers of representation and mobilization, as is now being demonstrated through the motions generated by the new reforms and the whole series of conflicts that have raised, so you say, citizens of all ages to demand justice and avoid the application of these new reforms, and now the company has joined in a single movement from the facts of the 43 student teachers Ayotzinapa where demands change. Since the sectors of society such determinants stimulate a new order in which citizenship is the engine that pulls other political actors toward change is generated. By experience and situation we are living, we must be a nation of citizens, organizations that do not depend on the state or business interests or the union.

Corporatism privileges of minorities are always imposed on the rights of the majority. An example where society can bring about change through demonstrations, was when President Vicente Fox backed down in the project to build the new airport in Mexico City, before the demonstrations with machetes group ejidatarios of San Salvador Atenco. The theme of the airport in the eastern region of the State of Mexico and particularly in the town of Atenco has another perception beyond the economic benefit, because for many it is a sociological and cultural issue where the preservation of their community identities are most important (^{Alcayaga, 2002}).

It is assumed that the Government understood or at least pretended to do so, it is easier to give in to pressure groups to govern for the benefit of the whole country. But the current government has recently approved the project, affecting the region of Atenco, which makes this movement becomes stronger and the more alive than ever. One of the main reasons for the origin of these movements in the region of Atenco is dispossession, since it is a daily reality that we suffer all: dispossession of land, water, air, biodiversity, our knowledge, the family and community heritage of the commons, our individual and collective rights, of our hopes and dreams. However, the population has not remained passive in this barbarism: increasing attempts to damage and theft have also grown resistance.

Another example is the national meeting and conferences in defense of land, water and life, where the headquarters is San Salvador Atenco, as they are actors who live in the flesh this situation, and calls for enhancing joint construction strategies and alliances between various forces to reverse the plunder and destruction of peasant life. The defense of territory and heritage against the imposition of megaprojects had not called so many Mexicans. People in the countryside and the city, men and women, young and old, indigenous and mestizo farmers and settlers, poor, middle class and even some affluent they also see their livelihoods threatened.

Seeing these recent demonstrations, it shows that democracy has not killed the corporatism in the country. Mexico still hostage to the political groups that for decades have received special privileges at the expense of poverty of the majority of Mexicans. In society are organizations that have different types of relationships with the institutions of government and with, these relationships can be dependent or independent political parties, when there is a dependency relationship between organizations and the state, the corporate relationship is, they do not no commitment or dependency between them, the relationship is democratic. Citizens' organizations, in order to be independent and not rely on the state, the members should become familiar and exercise democratic values, make a change in the political culture, not rely on state institutions, to survive, must strive for self-sufficiency which makes them stronger to have their own capital, must be honest with civil society, transparent, respond to social interests and not personal, government or party interests.

Collective identity

The events caused the social awakening of the expropriated communities, and consequently the formation of the social actor and the constitution of the social movement, for it was necessary to develop a simultaneous process of the formation of a greater identity of "us". To understand what individuals have in common and why they decide to act together, collective identity as "a process by which actors produce common cognitive structures that allow them to assess the environment and calculate the costs and benefits of action "their decisions are, on the one hand," the result of the negotiated interactions and relationships of influence "and the other" the fruit of emotional recognition. "here's how collective action is based not only" in the calculation of costs and benefits, and a collective identity is never entirely negotiable" (^{Melucci, 1999}).

Social movements are an agent producer of meanings. Inside each actor or collective subject, an intense dynamic of negotiation on ways to control and possible allies, among other things live. Recognizing this, it implies conceiving collective mobilization phenomenon not as a finished, closed, monolithic or homogeneous but, on the contrary, as a complex heterogeneous process, rich and to be explained sociologically.

Scott, Benford and Snow (2006) states that: history, social structures and cultural conditions determine the interpretive work of actors of social movements. The way these "realities" condition the interpretive work depends, however, on how these actors perceive history, social structures and cultural conditioning. Certain patterns of collective action emerge or not, because the objective conditions make them possible or nullify, but because the followers of the movement perceive these "objective" conditions allow or prevent these patterns of action. In short, to understand the appearance of certain forms of collective action, analysts should pay attention to the inter-definition of "reality" formulated by actors (Scott, Benford and Snow, 2006). A key component in the process of construction of any collective action lies in which individuals interpret from the set of experiences. Therefore, it is from the sedimentation of experiences and meanings that individuals redefine social reality. The experience and individually and collectively resignified played a central role in the establishment and maintenance of Atenco struggle against airport.

In the analysis of why collective action helps us input from Barrington (1996) studying the motivations that cause subordinates, who have an enormous capacity to endure suffering, in situations of tort and social injustice rebel, and ask under what conditions and why at one time humans left to stand ?, responds by saying that they do by assessing believe that you are entitled to something and considering feelings of moral outrage, decide to act to defend them, breaking the bonds of obedience because the authority has violated the "social contract" (not explicit between dominant and subordinate). And to wake up from anesthesia that in the process of growth and emancipation three processes in turn are discerned: the individual human personality must overcome forms of dependency; the level of social organization, giving rise to new forms of solidarity and cooperation networks; and the level of cultural norms and shared perspectives to overcome the idea that the current state of affairs is permanent and inevitable.

Grievances for social actor were multiple and systematic, a decree was issued without recognizing the right of consulting the people, it was intended to pay a minimum amount per square meter ($7.20 pesos per plot temporary and $25 pesos per plot irrigation) among many actions and utterances of the federal and state governments. However, the most significant grievance was that the draft decree was intended Airport disappear socially -through comunitaria- structure, built on long time in the history of Atenco, which dates back to prime time "senior grandfather" Nezahualcoyotl. That is, for the social actor's decree not only involved building runways, but the disappearance of the land and territory, the disappearance of entire communities, the church, the Pantheon, the hills, which at the bottom it meant the loss of history, identity, traditions and culture. All this upset the general rules of social life in Atenco and motivated collective action to defend.

The questions of how and why there was collective action in Atenco are essential for analytical understanding of the phenomenon under study. To unravel the social actor, it must not be seen as a unit without contradictions, but rather identify in their internal power, conflict and ties of solidarity relations and changes them in the process. Some authors like (^{Tilly et al., 1999}), among others, school resource mobilization and current structures of mobilization, help explain how organizational bases of social actor, community based on their social form, allowed unify and use resources not only for mobilization but also to set up collective identity. The theory of mobilizing structures ^{McAdam (1999)} referred to "collective both formal and informal channels, through which people can move and engage in collective action". To do this, the study of the repertoires of action-the means used to disseminate the demands- and (formal and informal) organizational forms becomes indispensable. But also, establish power relationships, conflict and solidarity that developed with other actors, as well as tactics and strategies for achieving your goals.

This dynamic and emergent process, collective action was strengthened by the organizational definition of all community members struggling with the constitution of the People's Front in Defense of the Land as a core management (strategic and tactical) of action (with different codes), organizational (resources and structures), cohesion (in the construction of collective identity), representation (in demand and against other players) and potentiation (the whole network ), which in turn was setting his form of struggle. That was how the community family, everyday life, and their cultural dimension is reproduced and defined the structure of the movement. Social, political, economic and cultural conditions of a society which enable the construction of social movements. Are the movements that produced the leaders and not leaders movements.

Collective action is driven by organizations and leaders, and these as operators, which are reserved for strategic decisions on how to fight, how to organization, structure, design and speech. So I look at the militants as individual cells that make up the social actors, along which subjectivity and power relations but also as the core leading to social groups and movements. The movements are not homogeneous but there are transverse lines that cross them and give them strength and cohesion. This is how, social movement, a system of social relations are understood as diversity has a range of social, actors and forms of action. The social movement has its organic expression Atenco with the Peoples' Front in Defense of the Land, as a catalyst for greater organizational efforts.

Conflict is the relationship between two or more opposing the dispute a resource that both give value (Melucci, 2002) actors. It is in conflict where collective actors appear. The social fight is confrontation in a field of conflict between two or more parties, hence a relationship of power or symmetrically-asimétrica follows, whereby the players develop their tactics, to rotate on their behalf and / or weaken the adversary, focusing its strategy, so that in those conditions of social conflict will be successful in achieving its objectives. This confrontation takes place in a physical space, because "social movements are political, policy making, dispute the public space" ^{Almeyra (2004)}. This space is the surface material of the battlefield, or in a subjective space called "public space", which, according to ^{Habermas (1978}) is where the "public" decisions, teatralizándose himself political power through symbols of sovereignty, is subject to criticism and recriminations of "public opinion", and is acclaimed by asserting its supremacy: greatness, sovereignty, majesty, glory, dignity, honor.

The balance of power shows the potential strength equal or unequal two or more opponents (individuals, classes or nations) in confrontation, and this can only be measured accurately in the fight. The correlation of forces shows the temporary balance of that potential, as a result of an unequal situation as a baseline. ^{Harnecker (1988)} says that it refers to the comparison of the enemy forces and revolutionaries in a given development of the revolution or the political situation now. Joint clearly shown in brief periods, this shift force from a trigger or contingent situation, showing deep structural conflict that encourages, opening opportunities to be exploited by some, weaken or strengthen the parties.

The strategy for me refers to the ability to define how to proceed or the art of building a plan of attack and defense against an enemy, by confronting regardless of space, or land and favorable or unfavorable condition in which it develops. The tactic refers to each of the objectives and proposals into concrete and economic situations are used to achieve the strategy. Meanwhile Lenin in ^{Harnecker (1988)} conceived the strategy and tactics of a party "political conduct" referring to the nature, orientation and procedures of its political action in a specific political situation. Similarly, Lenin ^{Harnecker (1988)} that tactics must adapt to new situations, because each time a new political situation arises should be met with forms of organization and struggle appropriate to the new situation.

How to fight represents the method in which the structure of the group or movement condenses, forms of organization, codes of action, tactics and strategy, as elements that define the styles -únicas practices or combat Various Interests in pursuit of its objectives and projects as well as the characteristics of its members and leaders, which together express visibly collective identity reached by the social partners. The objectives are the demands, lines or axes that drive the action, due to grievances or social needs which are struggling actors. The political project or program refers to the set of objectives or program areas that systematize the purpose of the organizations or social movements in the short, medium and long term, and to give their political and ideological orientation.

Desocialization on impact forms of land ownership, political domination and culture and traditions of peoples, has created conditions for the re-articulation of social actors, able to take advantage of government mistakes. The farmers of San Salvador Atenco, who played a central role during the conflict, belonging to a community whose life is closely tied to the land, customs and ancestral beliefs. There is no doubt that the issue of building a new international airport for the metropolitan area was controversial, questionable and in which various institutions and actors involved. The Federal Government was unclear to the inhabitants of the region where this urban megaproject would be installed; technical arguments were reductive and hard to understand, as saying that the land is salty and unproductive for the construction of the airfield. Also it prevailed the idea that the earth is worthless and not sold.

It is important to reflect and evaluate these social movements have an important impact on the urban, social, political and economic, where an area and region can be more important than it seems, where federalism and democracy in Mexico considered proposals to reverse the sharp inequalities between the center and the regions, between rich cities and poor, between those inside the same access to excellent living conditions, comparable to any city in the world, and those who must endure shortages and deficiencies in access to basic goods and services

It is difficult to build new foundations for democratic governance, where citizen participation work as one of its mainstays. Reductionist positions: for or against little they can provide; academic studies can not simply solve the social conflict with organizational manuals or enroll in a single theory that recognizes the strength or weakness of a social group. Social movements as happened in Atenco are still valid, and the dialectical thesis in social sciences provide new elements of socio-political analysis, which are intertwined with the concepts and theories of modernity, democracy and social equality; that is, as social processes, social movements such as the "machetes" calls into question the conventional rationality of democracy and equality in our country.