Subtle Tyranny

• Date: 01 September 2015
• Author: Nemer E. Narchi,Beatriz Canabal Cristiani
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X15585118
• Published date: 01 September 2015
• Subject Matter: Articles

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 204, Vol. 42 No. 5, September 2015, 90–108

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X15585118

© 2015 Latin American Perspectives

90

Subtle Tyranny

Divergent Constructions of Nature and the Erosion of

Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Xochimilco

by

Nemer E. Narchi and Beatriz Canabal Cristiani

Neoliberal reforms and social constructs that legitimate the full exploitation of

nature intersect with political power to produce an inherently violent social atmosphere

in which economic development is based on exclusion, submission, and dispossession of

rural and indigenous communities. Historical ecological study of Lake Xochimilco

reveals the way in which imposed constructs of nature that exclude traditional ecologi-

cal knowledge have transformed landscapes and livelihoods to the detriment of all the

inhabitants of Mexico City.

Las reformas neoliberales y las construcciones sociales que legitiman la explotación

plena de la naturaleza se cruzan con el poder político para crear un ambiente social inhe-

rentemente violento en el cual el desarrollo económico se basa en la exclusión, el someti-

miento y el despojo de las comunidades rurales e indígenas. El estudio histórico de la

ecología del Lago de Xochimilco revela la manera en que las construcciones de la naturaleza

impuestas que excluyen el conocimiento ecológico tradicional han transformado el paisaje

y los medios de subsistencia en detrimento de todos los habitantes de la Ciudad de México.

Keywords: Environmental Orientalism, Traditional ecological knowledge, Xochimilco,

Chinampa agriculture, Periurban agriculture

The ways in which different societies use nature depend on cultural adapta-

tions derived from the ways they perceive, imagine, and understand the natu-

ral world. While based in biophysical reality, nature becomes a system of

representations framed by political and economic forces that render it a subjec-

tive and ungeneralizable construct (Latour, 2002) whose components vary from

Nemer E. Narchi is an associated researcher with Centro de Estudios en Geografía Humana - El

Colegio de Michoacán. He developed this paper as a postdoctoral fellow at Mexico’s Universidad

Autónoma Metropolitana–Unidad Xochimilco, where he analyzed the relationships between

urbanization and ethnobiological knowledge erosion. His long-term research goal is a synthesis

of biocultural research and conservation. Beatriz G. Canabal Cristiani is an associate professor at

the UAM-X, where she teaches courses on the peasantry and rural-urban relations, and the author

of Rescate de Xochimilco (1991), Xochimilco: Una identidad recreada (1997), Los caminos de la montaña

(2001), and Agricultura urbana en México (2000). They are grateful to the people of Xochimilco for

providing them with empirical and historical information over the years. They thank Arli De

Luca-Brown, Toben Lafrancois, and Benjamin T. Wilder for helpful comments and Marjorie Bray,

George Leddy, and David Barkin for improving the manuscript with thoughtful recommenda-

tions. This work was supported by UAM’s Agua y Recursos Naturales en la Historia y Culturas

del Campo Mexicano Project and its postdoctoral fellowship program.

585118LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X15585118Latin American PerspectivesNarchi and Canabal / CONSTRUCTIONS OF NATURE AND TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE

research-article2015

Narchi and Canabal / CONSTRUCTIONS OF NATURE AND TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE 91

culture to culture (Cronon, 1996; Descola, 1996). The diversity of notions of

nature results in a wide range of strategies for assessing and exploiting the

materials that nature provides. Similarly to the way in which Orientalism (sensu

Said, 1978) became a way of exerting authority over North African and Asian

cultures by depicting them as inferior, the imposition of a single culture’s

notion of nature attempts to subdue others. The hegemonic representation of

nature is presented as unequivocal and objective knowledge by authorizing

particular ways of describing, teaching, and ruling over it.

Pálsson (1996) identifies three general epistemes regarding the use and

appreciation of nature: Orientalism, paternalism, and communalism.

Orientalism sees nature as a composite of elements over which there is legiti-

mate ownership and the right to its full exploitation and transformation.

Paternalism also claims some ownership over nature but differs in considering

that humans have a duty to preserve nature, at least partially. Finally, commu-

nalism promotes generalized reciprocity between humans and nature, of which

humans are part.

When societies come into conflict, their conceptions of nature collide as well.

The culture that emerges as dominant imposes, along with many other values,

its notions of nature on those subject to domination. This imposition is linked

to the introduction of particular extractive schemes. In this article we focus on

the imposition of environmental Orientalism on rural and indigenous societies.

Environmental Orientalism is pervasive throughout Mexico (see Toledo,

Garrido, and Barrera-Bassols in this issue) and highly visible throughout Latin

America, where mining (e.g., Gordon and Webber, 2008; Munarriz, 2008), water

management and hydroelectric power generation (e.g., Bartolomé, 1993), log-

ging (e.g., Southgate et al., 2000), and other mega-projects (see Grandia, 2013)

impose concepts of nature and the economy on indigenous and marginal pop-

ulations. Turner and colleagues (2008) have argued that the ideological clash

arising from differences in cultural uses of nature has psychological, physical,

and cultural consequences when local conceptions are not included in policy

making. Thus environmental Orientalism acts as a vector for social and envi-

ronmental violence.

Contemporary capitalism suggests that the sole purpose of societies should

be steady increase in the gross domestic product (Bauman, 2007). Gross domes-

tic product has been discursively constructed as the only objective measure

available for determining the health of the human community (Graeber, 2011).

In this scheme, the depletion of natural resources is seen as inevitable for eco-

nomic development and serves as the foundational argument for the imposi-

tion of environmental Orientalism. When a particular construction of nature is

imposed instead of being mediated, it destroys people’s social, cultural, and

environmental assets and reduces them to petty consumers.

Environmental Orientalism is inherently violent. It makes use of physical

violence to impose a particular notion of nature and dispossess societies of their

resources and traditional ecological knowledge (Toledo, 2013). The violence

becomes structural (sensu Galtung, 1969) when the values and interests of dom-

inant economic systems are imposed on the marginal societies and cultures of

the world (Shiva, 2002). Significant and sustained economic growth is illusory

because the fundamental premise of Orientalism, infinite economic growth,