Recuerdos de la tierra que se secó. Un debate sobre la migración ambiental desde Chalcatzingo

Resumen

The notion of environmental migration remains in the middle of a debate: those who consider ecological problems to be the origin of certain migratory flows are confronted with those who believe that even if this is unquestionable, it does not supercede other economic and cultural factors. This article aims to shift the focus of the debate, from the search for a definition of environmental migrants, towards the search for a method that incorporates the environmental in the analysis of migrations. In order to achieve this, it proposes to adopt a spatial approach, allowing for the observation of a wide range of interactions, both material and symbolic, that are woven between a society and its space. To put this approach into practice the author takes the case of Chalcatzingo, a town in central Mexico, in which three important elements from environmental migration studies come together: agriculture, environmental degradation, and emigration. In order to analyze the role of the environment among the expulsion factors, a history of the territoriality of the town is developed, in which the “memories of the land” are intertwined with the agricultural history of the country and the migratory flow in the region.