Grieving geographies, mourning waters: Life, death, and environmental gendered racialized struggles in Mexico

Abstract

Grieving geographies are spaces of complex collective loss due to multiple interconnected forms of violence. Engaging with critical race theory, feminist geography and anthropology, and political ecology, this paper explores the intersections of gender, race, and the environment in Mexico. Black and Indigenous women in the Coast of Oaxaca grieve for the lagoons that are dying in front of them due to governmental and neoliberal policies, but also for the loss of members of their communities due to violence. I argue that facing the slow death of their lagoons system, plus everyday forms of violence, Black and Indigenous women organize to defend life, livelihood, and the lagoons in their community. These women have created everyday practices of resistance and alternative economies based on care and solidarity. This article explores environmental racism in Latin America, specifically where mestizaje ideology was imposed, and the affective relationship between human and other-than-human beings.