The Rise, Fall, and Reconfiguration of the Mexican Ejido*

Abstract

ABSTRACT. After the Mexican Revolution of 1910 the Mexican federal government created a communal resource‐holding institution, the ejido, to redress long‐standing land‐tenure inequality. Between the 1930s and the late 1970s, the period of active redistribution of federalized and previously private resources, half of Mexico's entire area was transferred to the ejido sector. Local ejidos became the driving political and economic force at the municipio level for agrarian reform, redistributing local power and affirming the national stamp of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, the dominant national party of the twentieth century. Although the 1992–1993 reforms to Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution prohibited any future expansion of communal lands and allowed privatization of communal resources, few widespread privatization schemes have taken hold in the vast majority of ejidos. In this article I provide examples of this new communal framework and its implications, with illustrations based on fieldwork in the states of Guanajuato and Sonora.

• ejido
• Guanajuato
• Mexico
• privatization
• Sonora

* This work was generously funded by an Institute for International Education Fulbright‐García Robles Fellowship, a National Security Education Program Fellowship, Stetson University, and a Jackson Fellowship release block from Colorado College. I wish to thank guest editors and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful guidance and suggestions. For special attention to detail in the revision process, I thank Ann Devoll Perramond.

1 Dr. Perramond is an assistant professor of Southwest studies and environmental science at Colorado College, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80903.

2. In Mexico, municipios are second‐level political divisions. They serve as township administrative structures.

3. Lamentably, few data are available for municipio‐level analysis.

4. The practice of condueñazgo is deeply rooted in Mexico, yet it is one of the most misunderstood forms of land tenure. Neither private nor communal, this co‐ownership of lands and resources, which is not necessarily based on kinship, represents a midpoint on the landownership continuum that is difficult for most scholars to recognize. See Kourí 2004 for an excellent historiography of condueños in Papantla, Mexico.

* This work was generously funded by an Institute for International Education Fulbright‐García Robles Fellowship, a National Security Education Program Fellowship, Stetson University, and a Jackson Fellowship release block from Colorado College. I wish to thank guest editors and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful guidance and suggestions. For special attention to detail in the revision process, I thank Ann Devoll Perramond.

1 Dr. Perramond is an assistant professor of Southwest studies and environmental science at Colorado College, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80903.

2. In Mexico, municipios are second‐level political divisions. They serve as township administrative structures.

3. Lamentably, few data are available for municipio‐level analysis.

4. The practice of condueñazgo is deeply rooted in Mexico, yet it is one of the most misunderstood forms of land tenure. Neither private nor communal, this co‐ownership of lands and resources, which is not necessarily based on kinship, represents a midpoint on the landownership continuum that is difficult for most scholars to recognize. See Kourí 2004 for an excellent historiography of condueños in Papantla, Mexico.

Notes

* This work was generously funded by an Institute for International Education Fulbright‐García Robles Fellowship, a National Security Education Program Fellowship, Stetson University, and a Jackson Fellowship release block from Colorado College. I wish to thank guest editors and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful guidance and suggestions. For special attention to detail in the revision process, I thank Ann Devoll Perramond.

1 Dr. Perramond is an assistant professor of Southwest studies and environmental science at Colorado College, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80903.

2. In Mexico, municipios are second‐level political divisions. They serve as township administrative structures.

3. Lamentably, few data are available for municipio‐level analysis.

4. The practice of condueñazgo is deeply rooted in Mexico, yet it is one of the most misunderstood forms of land tenure. Neither private nor communal, this co‐ownership of lands and resources, which is not necessarily based on kinship, represents a midpoint on the landownership continuum that is difficult for most scholars to recognize. See Kourí 2004 for an excellent historiography of condueños in Papantla, Mexico.