Grief as a Method: Human and Non-Human Loss and Alternative Forms of Time in Mexico

This talk is free and open to the public with a virtual option.*

This presentation examines the ecocide of a lagoon that began to die from pollution and lack of oxygen after it was disconnected from the Pacific Ocean by a failed government eco-tourism project. I will explore how environmental racism is experienced in the context of Mexico and what are the emotional implications of racism. 

Additionally, I propose understanding grief as a catalyst for social mobilization and as an anticapitalist practice where there is an alternative conception of time. In this sense, I argue that facing the slow death of their lagoon system, plus everyday forms of emotional, racialized, and ecological violence, Black and Indigenous women organize to defend life, livelihood, and the lagoon in their community. These women have created everyday practices of resistance and alternative economies based on care and solidarity. 

Black and Indigenous women in two different communities create alternative cartographies through the methodology of body maps. Through these embodied cartographies, women map the intimate relationship between the Chacahua-Pastoría lagoons – which are at risk of dying- and their own racialized bodies. I propose a decolonial lecture on how Black and Indigenous women, through mapping, reflect the struggle for life and the defense of their land and water while decolonizing geographical, spatial, and temporal notions of territory and nation.

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