Solar power, land control, and Indigenous resistance in Yucatán, Mexico

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6454544
AutoresItzell Torres (0000-0003-0825-1501, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, autor de correspondencia)
Año2025
Volumen20
Número4
Páginas1407-1420
Fecha de publicación2025-07-01
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSustainability Science (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1862-4057 • E-ISSN: 1862-4065
EditorialSpringer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1007/s11625-025-01718-3
OpenAlexW4412177546
IdiomaES
Citas recibidas3
Referencias citadas51

This article examines the suspension of the Yucatán Solar PV park, a project awarded through Mexico’s first long-term power auction, situating it within the broader context of the country’s energy reform and its implications for Indigenous territories. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and informed by political ecology and critical agrarian studies, the study analyzes how legal instruments, spatial tools, and discursive practices are deployed to render Maya territory investable for solar development. Central to the analysis are the dynamics of land acquisition, which reveal the land's profound social, cultural, and ecological significance for Maya communities, including the location of a sacred site. These dynamics exemplify green grabbing as an initial phase in the contested processes of land control. The article outlines the mechanisms of legitimation through which actors seek to consolidate authority over land, as well as the counter-processes of resistance, legal action, and competing territorial claims that ultimately led to the project’s suspension. The study considers the wider implications of the suspension for the social fabric and ecological integrity of surrounding communities, offering critical insights into the contested politics of land control and territorial transformation under green capitalism, and how grassroots resistance can disrupt these trajectories

Agroforestry · Biology · Geography · Indigenous · Landscape ecology · Resistance (ecology · Sustainable development · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Energy and Environment Impacts · Water Governance and Infrastructure · Ecology

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