Abstract

HERNANDEZ RAMIREZ, María del Rosario  and  GUZMAN CHAVEZ, Mauricio Genet. Agricultural Land and Irrigation Water: Access and Management Historical Transformations in Mexquitic, San Luis Potosí. Región y sociedad [online]. 2025, vol.37, e1958.  Epub Feb 15, 2026. ISSN 2448-4849.  https://doi.org/10.22198/rys2025/37/1958.

Objective: Analyzing the management of agricultural land and irrigation water historical transformations in the La Parada-Justino-Bocas river basin and their social impacts at north of Mexquitic, San Luis Potosí. Methodology: Ethnographic work, bibliographic review, and archive consultation with a political ecology approach for the processual analysis. Results: Four key periods that affected the access and management of resources were examined: 1) the Tlaxcalan founding of Mexquitic and the dispossession of communal resources by hacendados to maximize their corporate interests (1591-1900); 2) the haciendas La Parada and San José del Corte dismantling for agrarian distribution (1900-1929); 3) the ejidal agricultural bonanza with resources overexploitation for commercialization (1930-1976); 4) the worsening drought in parallel with neoliberal reforms with uncertain impacts (1977-2023). Value: The analysis explains the settlement and the use of resources in a place in the Potosino plateau. Limitations: The study generalizes and synthesizes more complex historical periods. Conclusions: Persistence of unequal power relations. Local and external family elites have monopolized and overexploited resources and subordinate people throughout different historical periods.

Keywords : haciendas; hydraulic works; agrarianism; climate change; rurality; overexploitation; Mexquitic, San Luis Potosí.

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