Chronicle of a Dispossession Foretold

• Published date: 01 September 2015
• Author: María Veronica Ibarra García,Circe Badillo Salas
• Date: 01 September 2015
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X15589112
• Subject Matter: Articles

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 204, Vol. 42 No. 5, September 2015, 83–89

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X15589112

© 2015 Latin American Perspectives

83

Chronicle of a Dispossession Foretold

Tourist Development on Mexico’s Pacific Coast

by

María Veronica Ibarra García and Circe Badillo Salas

Translated by

Carlos Pérez

The production of a tourist space on the Bahía de Banderas, on Mexico’s Pacific coast,

has required converting the land, the river, and the bay into private property, dispossess-

ing the citizenry of its access to them and interfering with the right of free transit. The

production of this unequal and exclusive space demonstrates the absence of democracy in

spatial production and the defenselessness of the citizenry in the face of the neoliberal

project.

La producción del espacio turístico de Bahía de Banderas, en la costa del Pacífico mexi-

cano, require convertir en propiedad privada el suelo, el río y las playas, lo cual implicó

despojar a la ciudadanía de su acceso al río, al mar y al derecho del libre tránsito. Tal produc-

ción de un espacio desigual y de exclusión social evidencia el alto déficit de democracia en la

producción espacial, así como la indefensión de la ciudadanía que conlleva el neoliberalismo.

Keywords: Tourism, Privatization, Exclusion, Defenselessness

The development and consolidation of the capitalist system in its neoliberal

phase unleashed a process that, although not new, has gained renewed rele-

vance. Although the Marxist concept of primitive capital accumulation is con-

cerned with dispossession, it was not until the neoliberal phase of capitalist

development that this process became relevant for explaining the spatial trans-

formations in Latin America. The production and reproduction of capital

demand the acquisition of resources such as water, land, forests, and minerals,

among other things. In the case of Mexico, a large proportion of these resources

was under the usufruct of the ejidos and communities, according to Article 27

of the Constitution of 1917, and therefore the transfer of these resources to capi-

tal has been a long process for the state. This article analyzes the dispossession

of the Jarretaderas ejido to produce land and water for the development of the

tourist industry on the Bahía de Banderas on the Pacific coast. This gradual

process incorporated various aspects of the social fabric—the juridical-political,

María Veronica Ibarra García teaches in the Open University and Distance Education Program of

the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Circe Badillo Salas is a doctoral student in geog-

raphy at the UNAM. Carlos Pérez teaches Chicano and Latin American studies at California State

University, Fresno.

589112LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X15589112LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVESIbarra and Badillo / TOURISM ON MEXICO’S PACIFIC COAST

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